Archive for November, 2009

It’s the latest version of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

November 27th, 2009

This one is the sponsored by AOL and other Internet Providers
In this corner we have Wal-Mart, champion retailing giant on the planet, and here on my left is the young challenger, Amazon.com.

The online price war
The prize in this fight is the price war that is spreading through the enormous shopping areas of books, movies, toys and electronics.

‘Tis the coming Christmas season
The shopping competition began last month as a highly public back-and-forth over which company had the lowest prices on the most-anticipated new books and DVDs this autumn. By last week, it had spread to select video game consoles, mobile phones, even to the humble Easy-Bake Oven, a 45-year-old toy from Hasbro. A week ago, Wal-Mart dropped the price of the oven to $17, from $28. Later the same day, Amazon cut its price, which had also been $28, to $18 in response.

The Walmart strategy
According to Fiona Dias of GSI Commerce, which manages Web sites of large retailers, there is a bigger battle being fought. “The price-sniping by Wal-Mart is part of a greater strategic plan. They are just not going to cede their business to Amazon.” Wal-Mart and Amazon are very different companies. Wal-Mart, with $405 billion in sales last year, dominates by offering affordable prices in its 4,000 stores. Amazon has a puny $20 billion in sales, mostly from affluent urbanites. The fight is about the future. Rapid expansion by both companies, as well as major shifts in the high-tech landscape now makes direct confrontation inevitable.

Online shopping
With all the fuss going on, online shopping accounts for only around 4 percent of retail sales, but volumes are growing quickly. E-commerce did not suffer as deeply as regular retailing during the economic malaise, and it is recovering faster than in-store shopping. Amazon, based in Seattle, has harnessed all of these trends and is also behaving more like a traditional retailer. This autumn it expanded its white-labeling program, putting the Amazon brand on audio and video cables and other products, and introduced same-day shipping in seven cities.

The turn around
Amazon is expanding its slice of the retailing pie at an alarming rate. In the third quarter of this year, regular retail sales dipped by about 4 percent and e-commerce was flat. But Amazon’s sales shot up 24 percent, sending its shares soaring. More important, sales in Amazon’s electronics and general merchandise business, which competes directly with much of the selection in Wal-Mart stores, were up 44 percent. Wal-Mart does not break out Web sales, but it has been reported that its online business has revenue of several billion dollars.

The customer wins
The battle began with the companies cutting prices on books to below $9. The companies then began jousting over the prices of DVDs. Wal-Mart offered a $15 gift card with a purchase of the new video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Amazon matched. The customer will win in this fight.

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Have you been investing in the stock exchange for 100 years?

November 25th, 2009

How well have stocks done over 109 years?
2008 was a terrible year for investors in stocks. The markets fell so hard and so fast that investors started to doubt the fundamentals of economic theory, including all the accepted principles of long-term investments. Pundits wailed that it was the end of the era of stocks. Were they right? One of the findings by Nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two psychologists who won the Nobel Prize in 2002 is that people tend to leap to conclusions based on inadequate samples.

Tracking results from 1900
In the case of the stock market, the sample should be taken over as long a period as possible. Three British economists tracked share prices in 17 markets from the start of 1900 to date. The markets they covered constituted 90% of the global trade in stocks, in terms of market capitalization during the last 109 years, 1900 to 2008. The database has full information about every price of every share in all these 17 markets, as well as data on dividends. Using their data, the economists calculated the returns in each of the markets for each of the 109 years, and the returns of a “global index” in each of the 17 markets.

Crisis years
During the last 109 years, there were six shattering, protracted crises. Two of them were in the last decade. Two other crises were world wars. The data shows that the wars’ effect on equities was relatively small compared with the crises of pure economic origin. Moreover, when trouble arrives, different markets fall by different degrees. During the Great Depression from 1929 to 1931, the global index of the 17 markets fell by 54%. But the real drop in the U.S. market was far greater, 79%. More recently, we find the great technology crash of the new millennium. From 2000 to 2003, the global index of stocks fell by 44%, but Germany’s stock exchange fell by 65%.

The current crisis
In the current crisis, the global index of shares fell 54% in real terms. This time the stock market that suffered the most was Ireland’s, which fell 70%. The conclusion is that even when markets seem to be striding in tandem, there are actually great differences among them.

The 109 year picture
Seen over 109 years, the global index of shares generated returns of 5.2% a year, after adjusting for inflation. The previous reading, taken at the end of 2005, found that the global index of shares had returned 5.8% a year. We can generalize and say that over more than 100 years, stocks returned 5% to 6% a year. That’s very high compared with returns on government bonds, which in the last 100 years returned something under 2%.

Another lesson
Another lesson from these figures is that in the investment world, 10 years is not a long time. Even during the 19 years from 1990 to 2008, investors received real returns of 1.8%, which paid them no better than government bonds.

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Can you imagine world without checks?

November 24th, 2009

Say goodbye, checks may be on the way out.
According to various reports, bankers are busy working on an alternative plan, which is already controversial, and which may signal the end of the check-writing era. It is expected that bankers will be voting next month for the checkbook to be consigned to history. It all sounds pretty revolutionary. Anyone alive today and who keeps his money in the bank has been writing checks his whole life. The move is already being criticized by consumer groups, business lobbyists and groups representing the elderly before they even see what the alternative is. The fears that they are raising are sound: vulnerable people who have relied on their checkbook all their lives will be left confused. A new system will require re-education of the masses. Remember, the checking systems is global – all people on all countries use it.

Goodbye to checks?
Checks were first used in Britain 350 years ago. They are an expensive form of payment for banks, costing around £1 each to process, which is four times as much as electronic payments. At their peak in 1990, around 11 million checks were written every day in the UK. Latest figures show the number has dropped to around 3.8 million. Many people are already opting to pay by direct debit or bank transfer. A growing number of stores in the UK, including John Lewis and Tesco, have stopped accepting checks. Stores claim they are the most insecure form of payment and that abolishing them cuts queues at checkouts.

Still used
But checks are still widely used for making payments to local tradesmen and for utility bills. Government departments, such as Revenue, Customs, Income Tax and the Department for Work and Pensions, rely on checks to make millions of payments each year.

The seniors
Andrew Harrop, head of public policy at Age Concern and Help the Aged, said: ‘Many older people use checks and cash for all their transactions and are uncomfortable with alternative payment methods, such as credit or debit cards with PIN numbers. Sandra Quinn, a director of the Payments Council, said: ‘We are completely aware that elderly, disabled and disadvantaged people need alternatives to be in place. To prevent older people becoming financially excluded, any plans to end the use of checks must ensure there are alternative ways of paying which they understand and are happy using.’

When
The most likely date for checks to be phased out in the UK is 2018 meaning that the banks are anticipating a long lead-in time for such a dramatic change. This is going to mean major change that will affect every part of our lives. Checks are used between private people, as gifts, as payment and as deposits. Checks are used to instruct the bank to make a payment. Checks are used locally and internationally and there is even
The Geneva Convention of 1931 on the unification of the law relating to checks.

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