Stock Markets in the Globe

The Boston Globe has had a couple of interesting bits about stock markets recently, including this slideshow of “The Dow’s 15 Biggest Point Losses” and this editorial on indexes and markets you may not already know about “What’s More Alarming Than Tracking the Dow?  Seeing What the Insiders See”.

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The Bad, the Good, and the Weird

As we’re all well aware, there’s some pretty discouraging news about the economy out there.  Americans are worried about the state of our economy, as well as the global economy, as evidenced by this recent poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.  There are bits of good news scattered throughout, however, such as this [...]

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Another Great NYT graph

I’m a visual person, so I loved this representative graph of the current year’s heavy losses on Wall Street, via the New York Times.

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Do Firms Respond to Social Responsibility Rankings?

“How Firms Respond to Being Rated”, an HBS working paper, investigates whether companies respond when being ranked according to their corporate environmental policies and actions. In their preliminary findings, companies responded to a low ranking by improving their performance. From the abstract:
While many independent rating systems are designed primarily to help buyers overcome [...]

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Socially Responsible Investing Study

Business for Social Responsibility, a consulting and research non-profit focusing on helping foster corporate social responsibility, released a report on the financial market’s mainstream opinion of socially responsible investing.  The title of the report is “Environmental, Social and Governance: Moving to Mainstream Investing?” and you can download the full report here.  The current situation for [...]

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The Undefeated Dabbawala System

Much has been made in recent years of the Dabbawalas, the Indian lunch deliverymen who have a nearly impeccable record of delivering over 170,000 lunches in Mumbai daily. While traveling in Canada this past week, I had my first brush with dabbawalas as a documentary was airing on television, and then the next day [...]

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Featured Item of the Week

Come to the library and check out The Wall Street Journal’s special Small Business Report. Read about small businesses struggles with rising energy prices, the downfall of Cold Stone Creamery, and other articles helpful to the small business entrepreneur. You can also read it online at the Wall Street Journal’s Small Business section [...]

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LinkedIn Valued at $1 billion

LinkedIn, the popular online business networking tool, recently received another round of venture funding, led by Bain Capital, which valued it at $1 billion.  While this doesn’t make it the highest valued social networking site at present (Facebook holds this title, at $15 billion), the valuation does lead to some pretty high expectations.  The FT [...]

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Water is a Commodity?

This week, the cover of Businessweek asks “Is Water the New Oil?”  The idea of water as a commodity gave me pause, especially when I read this article about how the legendary Texas oil tycoon, T. Boone Pickens, has already put $100 million into the business.

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Buffett’s Million Dollar Bet

For the past few years, Warren Buffett has made an $1 mil. open bet to any takers that an S&P index fund could beat their selection of 10 hedge funds of their choosing, over a ten year period. What’s the catch? The hedge funds returns have to be discounted by the management fees, [...]

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