Word: quarters
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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RIMM is doing well enough that its revenue rose 25% in the last quarter to almost $3.5 billion. That means it is less than half Apple's size in terms of sales, but RIMM does not sell Macs or iPods. RIMM added 3.9 million handsets in that quarter...
China's economy expanded 6.1% on annualized basis in the first quarter, its slowest pace since 1998. Singapore's GDP contracted an astounding 19.7% in the same period - after shrinking 16.4% in the previous quarter. Hong Kong has yet to report first-quarter numbers, but its economic performance in the final quarter 2008 does not inspire confidence: GDP growth was minus 2.5%. In the same period, the South Korean economy contracted 5.6% while Japan, Asia's largest economy and the world's second biggest, shrank...
...months or so in advance, so what this disconnect is telling us is that economic recovery is just around the corner. Sure, we're seeing some green shoots particularly in China, where industrial production rose 8.3% year-on-year in March, retail sales surged 15.9% in the first quarter, and investment in fixed assets jumped 28.6% in March after rising 26.5% in February. But it's difficult to see how Asia can return to real growth with export demand dead in the U.S. and Europe - and no one expects a resurrection there anytime soon...
Mere months after the financial system almost collapsed, banks are making money again. One after the other, they've reported big profits for the first quarter: $4.2 billion at Bank of America, $3 billion at Wells Fargo, $2.4 billion at JPMorgan Chase, $1.8 billion at Goldman Sachs, even $1.6 billion at Citigroup - which lost $18.7 billion...
Some of these windfalls were the chimerical sums of weird accounting conventions. Citi, for example, booked $2.5 billion in gains - without which it would have booked a quarterly loss - because investor fears that it would go under decreased the market value of its liabilities. (Really, it's as perverse as that.) Loan losses are also still rising and could eventually swamp earnings again at many banks. But the first-quarter profits weren't entirely imaginary. As we look ahead, banks really are in a position to make money. "This is a great time to be in banking, you know," said...