Word: stockings
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...annual west of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition in the fall of 1906, a British scientist named Francis Galton became interested in a weight-judging competition: 800 fairgoers (a diverse group that included butchers, farmers, clerks, housewives, townspeople, smart people, dumb people, average people) tried to guess what a particular ox would weigh after having been slaughtered and dressed. The correct answer was exactly 1,198 lbs. After the judges awarded their prize, Galton borrowed all the entry tickets, did some arithmetic to get the mean of the fairgoers' guesses and found that their collective estimate...
...investors wanting to invest directly in a single hedge fund must have $1 million worth of assets, and $200,000 in annual income. They were designed to hedge against market movements, and thus while they mostly hold the same assets as traditional vehicles - a mix of bonds, stocks, cash and property - they use much more aggressive investment strategies, like short selling, where an investor seeks to benefit from declining market prices; derivatives, where an investor uses instruments derived from the price of an underlying financial asset; and arbitrage, where an investor tries to exploit price differentials between markets. Flat stock...
...business world has changed dramatically since Fourtou got in the game 40 years ago. He says he has witnessed a massive increase in pressure from investors. "When I began my career, we didn't look at the stock price, or only from time to time. Today you can't help looking at it several times a day," he says. That current European chief executives have less job security than they used to "doesn't shock me--to the contrary. We've also had a very big increase in salaries in the last few years," says Fourtou, whose annual salary...
...Ahold, which was in need of a white knight following an accounting scandal last year, the new CEO, Anders Moberg, faced a storm of criticism over his guaranteed $1.68 million bonus for each of his first two years. That was on top of a $1.68 million salary and stock options as well as a hefty exit package. Moberg, a Swede who formerly ran Ikea, eventually agreed to take a lower salary and link his bonus to the firm's performance. At Germany's Bertelsmann, one of the first moves by Gunter Thielen when he took over in August...
...retaining a 20% stake in the venture. "He's not a screamer," says a company insider. "He's very pragmatic, although once he's decided on the path, he's very determined." Almost two years into his tenure, the firm is not yet profitable, but it is viable. Vivendi stock is about $26 after touching a low of around $9 in August 2002, and Merrill Lynch last month became the latest investment bank to upgrade the stock from neutral to buy. Thanks to Fourtou, says Merrill analyst Julien Roch, "Vivendi is now in the best shape it has been...