Wall Street Journal (May 13)
“Economist Burton Malkiel might have called the stock market ‘a random walk,’ but investors could at least use earnings guidance by companies as road signs. Now they are largely walking blind.” With on-again, off-again tariffs, “nobody knows what the economy will look like in a few months’ time.” Some companies are leaning heavily on assumptions. “Others, such as General Motors, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble, have lowered targets, while Volkswagen excluded tariffs from its outlook. United Airlines, creatively, offered one scenario for a stable environment and another for a recession.” Other companies have simply thrown in the towel. “Ford, Jeep-owner Stellantis, Delta Air Lines, and UPS took another route, scrapping their 2025 guidance altogether.”
Tags: Assumptions, Blind, Delta Air Lines, Earnings guidance, Economist, Economy, Ford, GM, Investors, Malkiel, Outlook, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Random walk, Recession, Scenario, Stable, Stellantis, Stock market, Targets, Tariffs, United Airlines, Volkswagen
WARC (August 27)
“Lockdowns have lasted longer than the 66 days research suggests it takes to form a new habit – so 2020 really will be an inflection point when we witness a paradigm shift.” COVID-19 has overturned our entrenched attitudes and assumptions, “halting much of what we have taken for granted, imposing new ways of living our lives and creating new boundaries.”
Tags: 2020, 66 days, Assumptions, COVID-19, Entrenched attitudes, Habit, Inflection point, Lockdowns, Overturned, Paradigm shift, Research
Financial Times (June 20)
“Which tribe of politicians can claim to be the party of business? Back in the tax-cutting, deregulating, privatizing days of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the question was simple to answer on each side of the Atlantic. But Donald Trump and Brexit have a way of scrambling well-worn assumptions.” Neither the Republican Party or, across the pond, the Conservative Party remain the clear home of business.
Tags: Assumptions, Atlantic, Brexit, Business, Conservative, Deregulating, Politicians, Privatizing, Reagan, Republicans, Tax-cutting, Thatcher, Trump
LA Times (December 17)
‘’Uber built its business by challenging regulators and entrenched assumptions about how best to assure public safety. It successfully evaded the strict local rules that the taxi industry faces on fares, licenses and driver background checks by arguing that smartphone-summoned rides were different from taxis and should be regulated under new state standards. It has also avoided a variety of mandates on employers by classifying its drivers as independent contractors, not employees.” But when it comes to testing driverless vehicles on California roads, the technology company should play be the rules.
Tags: ” Driverless vehicles, Assumptions, California, Contractors, Drivers, Employees, Employers, Fares, Licenses, Mandates, Public safety, Regulators, Rules, Smartphone, Taxi industry, Uber
Financial Times (May 23)
“India has a new prime minister; and each of Asia’s four most powerful nations is now led by a combative nationalist.” India’s Modi, Japan’s Abe, Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi make up the four “nationalist horsemen” who will transform Asia and perhaps the world. “The multilateralist assumptions of the postwar order are giving way to a return to great power competition. Nationalism is on the march, and nowhere more so than in the rising east.”
Tags: Abe, Asia, Assumptions, China, Combative, Competition, India, Japan, Modi, Multilateralist, Nationalist, Postwar order, Power, Prime minister, Putin, Russia, Xi
Financial News (December 24)
In 2013, some U.S. companies will benefit from changes to interest-rate pension liability assumptions, with the newly approved use of a 25-year rate average. This “will generally produce a higher rate, which will lead to a lower overall liability.” Some companies will now be legally able to reduce pension funding. “The catch is that this is a game of smoke and mirrors. The actual pension obligation hasn’t changed. And by putting less into their plans today, companies may end up facing a bigger bill in the future.”
Tags: Assumptions, Corporate pensions, Liabilities, Obligations, U.S.
Time (May 26)
Most of us are irrationally optimistic. “Neuroscience and social science suggest that we are more optimistic than realistic,” which is both good and bad. “Overly positive assumptions can lead to disastrous miscalculations….But the bias also protects and inspires us: it keeps us moving forward…. Without optimism, our ancestors might never have ventured far from their tribes and we might all be cave dwellers, still huddled together and dreaming of light and heat.”
Tags: Assumptions, Bias, Miscalculations, Neuroscience, Optimism
The Economist (October 14)
American states like California are facing crippling budget deficits. As if things aren’t bad enough, the Economist points to a massive $3 trillion hole: public-sector pensions. States have been underfunding pensions to police, fire fighters and other civil servants. Overly generous benefits and an unrealistic assumption of 8% asset growth have contributed to the staggering pension shortfall. “American states have promised their employees benefits they can’t afford.”
Tags: Assumptions, Benefits, Pensions, Shortfall, States
