Word: stockely
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...best time, you might think, to sell shares in the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in Wall Street history. Especially not a financial IPO. Yet here we have credit-card giant Visa, now owned by its member banks, announcing plans to peddle up to 446 million shares of stock in late March for an expected take of between $15 billion and $19 billion...
Giant IPOS are usually a sign of good, or at least frothy, times. The current record haul for a U.S. IPO, $10.6 billion, was reaped by AT&T Wireless in April 2000--just after the great tech-stock bubble began to deflate but before anybody realized it. (The world-record holder is and apparently will remain the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, which raised $21.6 billion...
Many of the forces that initially sent the economy into a tailspin in 1929 and 1930 have been at work in the 2000s as well: a stock-market boom turned bust, a real estate boom turned bust, unprecedented levels of consumer debt. The reason they haven't metastasized 1930s-style is that this time around, the Federal Reserve has acted forcefully, whereas in 1930 it was a spectator at the national train wreck...
...action started in 2001 and 2002, with the Fed bringing interest rates close to zero as the stock market melted down. It continued last fall with the frantic efforts by the Fed and its counterparts in Europe to keep skittish banks lending to one another, and this year with more rate cuts from the Fed. These policies can't cure longer-run problems like the low savings rate and stagnant wages, and they'll probably have all sorts of unpleasant side effects (inflation, for one). But you don't have to work at Visa to think they're preferable...
...most important form of transport - "the lifeline of the nation" as it is often called - has undergone a remarkable turnaround. In its fiscal year ending March 2007, Indian Railways made more than $5 billion. Services are improving and rail bosses have announced plans to spend billions on new rolling stock, faster lines and new stations. Though it still gets government funding, IR is now India's second most profitable state-owned company. "Earlier we were dragging the economy down," says Sudhir Kumar, whose official title is officer on special duty to the Railway Minister, and who has helped oversee...