Northeast Ohio Rally: From the low, the index of northeast Ohio stocks has rallied almost thirty percent. This index has moved very similarly to the Russell and other broad indices. It is good to see our companies participate in the rally, this has not always occurred in the past.
Bloomberg NE Ohio Index (One Year as of Friday)
MF Global: MF Global filed for bankruptcy today in what is said to be the 8th largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Evidently they had made big bets on European sovereign debt. The company is run by Jon Corzine, who is the former governor of New Jersey and Co-Chair of Goldman Sachs. As the chart below shows, equity investors in MF were dumping the stock in the days before this announcement. Interestingly, the company issued debt not long ago, and the ratings agencies considered it “investment quality.”
MF (One Year)
Factoid: According to CNBC, Las Vegas has the highest per capita shrimp consumption in the U.S. This is probably a misleading statistic. I would be willing to bet that the average Las Vegas resident does not eat more shrimp than people in other places. My guess would be the high shrimp consumption has more to do with Vegas’ extremely high tourism component and the fact that those tourists are all eating their meals in Casinos. If this is true, then Las Vegas should have high per capita readings in lots of other categories.
I find this interesting because I think people are often mislead by statistics without really understanding the way they are calculated. If you polled all the people who watched that piece on CNBC, I would bet most of them would say that Las Vegas residents tend to eat more shrimp that people in other cities, even though it probably is not the case. This is a pretty harmless statistic, but think about how many opinions are formed based upon statistics that are misleading if the listener/reader does not understand how they are calculated.
Market Today: The market was weak throughout the day and closed at its lows. Investors reacted to a headline out of the China that the country could not be a “savior” for Europe. The news from MF Global did not help the market, but it seems Europe continues to dominate investor sentiment. Despite finishing on a negative note today, October was a very strong month for the market. The S&P 500 and Russell 2000 finished up 11 percent and 15 percent, respectively.
Have a good day! Brent
