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Throughout the week, there are incidents in the news that fall under the banner of “it hasn’t happened since 2007/2008”.
Yields on the 10-year Treasury briefly exceeded 4%, a level not seen since 2008. That movement helped push mortgage rates to their highest level, 6.7%, since — wait for it — July 2007. Across the pond, where UK bond markets crashed earlier this week, a London banker told the Financial Times: “At some point this morning I worried it was the beginning of the end. It wasn’t quite a Lehman moment. . But it turned out to be close.”
The timing of all these events is actually a little scary: today, September 29th, marks 14 years since stock markets around the world began the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression.
With all that gloom, it’s natural to wonder if history is about to repeat itself.
To be clear: the market fully recovered – although it took years. And in many ways, the ongoing economic and financial crisis around the world is not a repetition of the run-up to the Great Recession. It’s a completely different animal now.
But it is precisely those 2008 marks that are still powerful memories for many that, when things have turned bad in recent weeks, cause economists and analysts to panic.
Right now, the prevailing mood is fear. Economies hit by inflation and rising borrowing costs are vulnerable to economic shocks – whether those shocks come from a devastating storm, a superpower declaring war on a neighbor, or a radical unrestricted tax scheme. Or, heaven forbid, a resurgent pestilence.
That means there just aren’t many good places for investors to put their money. Stocks and bonds are both in bear territory, and many analysts say the market could remain volatile until inflation is brought under control (which, if we crash into a recession, could happen very soon). …not a great silver lining, I know.)
If there is a lesson to be learned from the Great Depression, it is not to panic. According to my colleague Jean Sahadi:
Let’s say you invested $10,000 in the S&P 500 in early 1981. That money will have grown to about $1.1 million by the end of March 2021. But had you only missed out on the five best trading days during those 40 years, it would have only been about $676,000.
In other words: Guys, hold on tight, and try to avoid looking at your 401(k) balance for the foreseeable future.
The stock fell on Thursday, skipping Wednesday’s big gains and plunging the Dow back into a bear market.
The S&P 500, one of the broadest measures of corporate America’s health, fell 2.1%, hitting a new low for the year. The Dow and the S&P 500 are once again not far from their lowest levels since November 2020.
Hekuwa way to wrap up the third quarter, eh? The stock market had indeed made a promising start to the quarter in July. But inflation, rate hikes, rising bond yields and fears of a recession returned with a vengeance in August and September.
Continuing a grand tradition of corporate rebranding nonsense, Johnson & Johnson is placing all of its consumer health products under a newly formed parent company.
Soon, Band-Aid, Tylenol, Benadryl and Johnson’s Baby Powder will all be sold under the umbrella brand identity “Kenview.”
It is pronounced “ken,” like a doll, “see.”
Here’s the deal: Johnson & Johnson, the owner of these labels, is in the process of splitting into two companies—one focused on medical devices and drugs, the other on consumer health products, reports my colleague Nathaniel Meyerson.
J&J is keeping its recognizable name for its large pharmaceutical business, but it needs something new for the smaller consumer arm.
The company said Wednesday that it landed on Kenview, a combination of “ken”, an English word for wisdom used primarily in Scotland, and “view”, a reference to sight.
“Kenview” is the winning nickname, which a small team at J&J, working with a naming agency, landed. The goal was to be memorable. And, importantly, to clear trademarks in more than 100 markets and “pass linguistic and cultural screening in 89 languages and dialects.”
The company also released a new Kenview logo – white letters against a green background, with the letter “K” resembling an edged heart.
what does this mean? Absolutely nothing, and that’s it.
Corporations are attracted to names that are neat. There is no possibility of negative connotation, as it is a made up word. This, as far as I can tell, doesn’t look like it could be a swear word in any other language. Kenview is ineffective. bloodless. This is the tofu of corporate branding.
“It’s really just a holding company behind all these other brands,” one expert told Nathaniel. “They want a name that will disappear into the background and the brands will stand out.”
(Mission accomplished. I’ve already forgotten the new name and I typed it 40 seconds ago.)
my two cents
The best review I can give of brand new is that it is forgettable. Other companies have failed to stick the famous (notorious?) landing with new names.
Netflix, back in 2011, quickly backtracked after trying to rebrand its DVD mailing service as “Quickster.” Recently, Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group merged in 2020 under the collective name “Stelantis”, which is still the company name, but I still think you should ask your doctor if your Have symptoms of seasonal depression.
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