Practical Speculation

Approximately part the corporations have among one and 3 lords. the biggest corporation with no lords used to be insurer CGNU, No. thirteen at the FTSE. We additionally invented the earnings/lords (E/L) ratio—a degree of recognition alongside the strains of the price/earnings (P/E) ratio. A small or damaging numerator (earnings) and a excessive denominator (lords) may bring about a small or destructive ratio. for instance, HSBC made seventy five. five cents a proportion final yr and has 8 lords on board. as a result, it has an E/L ratio of zero. 09, placing it within the backside 3rd of the firms with either lords and earnings. Powergen plc, with one lord and $1 of profits in step with percentage, has it the top E/L ratio. Cable & instant misplaced ninety three cents a proportion final 12 months, and has 3 lords on board; hence, its ratio is unfavorable. We hypothesize that traders will need to keep away from businesses with small or adverse earnings/lords ratios. notwithstanding, our observations are in basic terms a primary step towards defining the industry implications of ossification as opposed to innovation. right checking out of this concept will require the research of a number of years of information unavailable in desktop databases. within the spirit of technological know-how, we are hoping that our efforts will shape the root for additional research. Summing all of it Up in Iambic Pentameter After quantifying the marketplace results of govt boasting, flashy headquarters structures, journal disguise tales, stadium offers, and large acquisitions, we finish that such circumstances of hubris can ship a company’s inventory plunging. We suspect that company golfing classes (Lucent), opulent places of work (RJR Nabisco), strikes to Florida (Scott Paper), intercourse scandals (General electrical, Bendix), and nied_c05. qxd 164 1/24/03 10:31 AM web page 164 sensible hypothesis govt pay exceeding $100 million a 12 months (General electrical, Apple, Siebel platforms, Oracle, Cisco) should be ecocnomic components for destiny hubris exams. The Greeks believed that the stately and portentous language of iambic pentameter, which corresponds to the emotional heights of human speech, complements the influence of tragedy. (An iamb is a vulnerable syllable through a robust syllable, and iambic pentameter includes 5 weak-strongs to a line, with many creative liberties taken. ) we are going to hence shut with a few heroic verses through Victor’s daughter, the manufacturer and author Galt Niederhoffer, whose coming-of-age novel American Thighs is written in iambic pentameter: Hubris is on everybody’s brain of overdue Humility appears like a reminiscence. it appears basically the day before today that Enron’s chairman, Kenneth Lay Did boast of feats unrivaled in a decade: “We’ve grown nine-fold to $40 billion And we’ll do it back earlier than too lengthy. ” A messenger from the Economist was once witness to his grandiosity Reporting at the New financial system He present in Enron the epitome. So frequently background repeats itself And so was once Cisco twinning over occasions concerning its staunch predecessors As relics of the outdated economic system Behold, no more than yr in the past, Cisco provided its personal grand prophecy Predicting 30 percentage to 50 even though such progress happens often in tragedy So reduced is the expansion of tech organizations now The media now calls them gotten smaller males.