Week in Numbers: Financial Turmoil! Sky Falling!
The Dow opened on January 2nd, 2008 at 13,261.82 and opened on July 1st, 2008 at 11,344.64 - for a spectacular fall of over 1,917 points. Don’t calculate the percentage, it’ll just make you throw up.
This week, a barrel of oil (NYMEX Sweet Crude) topped $145. A barrel of oil cost an average of $15.70 ten years ago (adjusted to 2007 dollars). I will be investing in a Flintstone-mobile. Here are the latest energy prices on Bloomberg. *sigh*
Can someone with better math, or better descriptive skills, explain why a 50% difference is only considered “slight?” We expected 40,000 fewer jobs in June, there are actually 62,000 fewer jobs… but it’s only slight. “Job losses in June were slightly worse than the 40,000 expected by economists surveyed…”
Starbucks to close 600 stores with 12,000 affected workers. Stockholders rejoice as SBUX jumped 4.6% and MBA professors sob as one of the most referenced marketing case studies gets a black eye. At least there’s always Southwest.
Royal Caribbean’s Project Genesis, a cruise ship yet to be named, will be the most expensive and largest cruise ship ever constructed and will cost a mere $1.24 billion dollars. It will carry 6,400 passengers, weight 220,000 gross registered tons, and displace more water than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. (it wasn’t announced this week, in fact it was announced over a year ago, but it was worth putting in this week just because!)
Have a great Fourth of July Weekend!
(I’m going to start doing Week in Numbers [WIN] every Friday afternoon, please let me know what you think!)
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Tags: Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, Stock Market, Week in Numbers
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There are 14 comments, add your thoughts now!
When you say that the ship “displace more water than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier” — sounds like an understatement to me. This new cruise ship displaces roughly TWICE the water of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier — now that’s a big ship. You won’t catch me on a boat with 6,000 other folks though — think of the lines and the endless waiting for anything you want to do. I’d much prefer a nice small ship with 10-20 cabins away from the crowds, or better yet rent a boat with 2-3 friends and sail myself — which we’ve done in places like Croatia, Belize, New Caledonia, and Tahiti. The *only* way to travel…
Man, that’s one big boat. Over 6k passengers. I wonder how many dollars worth of fuel it burns per minute.
Everyone likes to talk about stock for the long run, but between 1966-1981 they went nowhere. Sometimes they go down for long periods.
Quirky idea….I like it!
“Financial Turmoil! Sky Falling!”
You’re just figuring this out now?!
I likey!
It’s a WINner hee hee
I am so sick of all the doomsayers in the media, I never thought you would be one of the them. Starbucks is falling because they were opening more stores than there were new suckers willing to pay $4 for coffee with milk called a latte.
As for the market, there is always cleaning out periods of the markets every decade or so. As for the other economic indicators, they are invalid because they are quoted in a vacuum. This is a world economy and you have to compare it with other economies such as those in Europe and Asia. We have the lowest inflation and after Turkey we are the lowest tax payers in the Western world. The media loves to alarm Americans by saying either we are declining as a nation or that Asia is taking over. Baloney. There is a reason people are willing to chance coming over here in rickety “boats” made out of tires in shark infested waters-i’s because we are the land of opportunity with the highest living standard in the world. Do you see any of your readers running off to Asia for all the economic opportunity? Ask all the displaced Chinese who have no power, no voting rights and if they lose their job, it’s all over. Don;t even get me started with the French.-their inflation rate makes ours a bargain and the price of croissant-ooh la la!
Renee: I’m not really a doomsayer, just putting the week in numbers. My outlook is pretty long so these are just minor bumps, opportunities to buy if you will.
LOL! In times like these, I don’t know if I have the strength to look at the numbers! Maybe the best thing to do is to avert our eyes.
Or stick our heads in the sand? Naaahhhh….
All I know is I’ve lost 30 grand in the market. Not for the first time. After the big market die-off, the grass eventually grew back and I ended up with twice as much on-paper wealth as I started out with. Doesn’t do any good to panic: there’s not much we can do about it. Just pray we can hold onto our jobs and — my current project — start a sideline business that in theory could be expanded to full-time in the event of waits a layoff.
Best sideline bidness, IMHO: waiting on the obscenely wealthy who can afford to build Nimitz-class cruise ships and ride on them. Those folks will always be looking for someone to clean their McMansions and take care of Fifi while they’re out cruising.
Excellent idea on the weekly, week in numbers. And adding the cruise ship does make you wonder!
Beautiful! I love the Week in Numbers. I like the graphical look. I like the quirky explanations. I say, “Go for it!”
“…MBA professors sob as one of the most referenced marketing case studies gets a black eye.”
That is so funny and so true. I’d love to be in a classroom to hear “them” when SouthWest’s fuel contracts finally run out and have to increase prices. Then the only business left for professors to talk about is Wal-Mart.
saladdin
Then they have to start talking about the “has beens” like Microsoft and IBM.
That’s a large boat. I hope it doesn’t turn out to be the next titanic.
I really enjoy reading about numbers. You could also read some more about numbers and 4 day work weeks here:
http://marketprognosticator.blogspot.com/2008/07/utah-takes-plunge.html
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