The Daily Biz

One of the keys to learning about business and the economy is saturation.  I listen to business podcasts every day, I monitor several business-themed websites, and I read the Wall Street Journal every time some kind soul leaves it in my work bathroom.

Rejoice!  Thanks to an article on about.com I found a wonderful resource on the website of the Federal Reserve’s New York branch:

This, my dear readers, is an economic indicators calendar.

This lays out a day-by-day collection of links to all kinds of great information such as consumer credit reports, construction starts, and price indexes.  I intend to monitor this site daily over the next several months to get a better feel for what makes the economy tick.  You should do the same!

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Logistics is a hot topic in business management circles right now.  Thanks to UPS it even has a theme song.

According to my BFF businessdictionary.com, logistics is

Planning, execution, and control of the procurement, movement, and stationing of personnel, material, and other resources to achieve the objectives of a campaign, plan, project, or strategy.

Logistics is an important topic because it directly impacts the timeliness, quality, and overall efficiency of any process.  It has been at the forefront of factory design for many years, but now many industries are investing in logistics as a way to increase their bottom line.

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Crude oil hit $103 a barrel today, according to this CNNMoney aritcle.  Political unrest in Libya is causing the price to soar.  There are a few interesting points in the article that I’d like to highlight:

1. This week oil reached $100 a barrel for the first time since the dreaded 2008.  In this New York Times article an Edward Jones investment strategist commented that “we would have to see higher oil prices stay around for longer to have much serious impact [on the market]”.  However, when gas prices rose back in 2008 consumer spending dropped a whopping 3.5% according to this Yahoo News article.
2. I am interested in how the impact of Libya’s upheaval is magnified in the price increases.  Oil jumped 11.3% between February 14 and today, yet Libya produces less than 2% of the world’s oil.  It seems like fear might be trumping observable global impact!

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I was reading an article about gold values (they topped $1400/ounce today) and I saw a reference to investors increasing their “long positions” on gold.  Huh?  What is a long position?   The answer (according to freedictionary.com) is extremely simple.  The long position is:

The ownership of a security or derivative, or the state of having bought one or the other.

That’s it.  Someone has the “long position” on a stock (or other security) if they own shares of that stock.  So basically, the “long position” is ownership.  You can contrast that with the “short position”, but I’m late for a movie* so you’ll have to piece that together on your own.

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*False

Employee assessment is a delicate, high-stakes science.  In some work environments(call centers, factories, production) defined metrics can provide a snapshot of employee performance over a period of time.  However, in most cases the numbers alone do not tell the story.  360-degree feedback has become more popular in recent decades for assessing employees.  According to businessdictionary.com, “360-degree feedback” is

Performance-appraisal data collected from ‘all around’ an employee- his or her peers, subordinates, supervisors, and sometimes, from internal and external customers.

So this provides a comprehensive portrait of an employee, which is great.  Of course, there are drawbacks- this assessment method is obviously vulnerable to politics and social games.  Metrics are still invaluable whenever possible.  That actually reminds me of a book I read a few months back:  Super Crunchers.  The author posited that numbers (more than human intuition) hold the key to predicting and analyzing performance of everything from stocks to employees to educational systems and sports teams.  But now we’re wandering far from the original topic.

In closing:  360-degree feedback provides a comprehensive human view of an employee.  It can be vulnerable to politics and scheming, and should be used in conjunction with metrics wherever possible.

Now you know!

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While perusing Marketwatch this morning, I saw a headline about how strong Nestle profits are “supporting the European bourses”?  Huh?  I’ve never heard of a “bourse”.  Is it a business?  Is it a mass of consumers?  Is it a special cricket move? 

The Free Dictionary provides several definitions of “bourse”.  The common thread is that a bourse is a

…common name for a securities exchange located in Europe.

So there we go.  According to the Federation of European Securities Exchanges, some of these “bourses” include the Athens Exchange, the Luxemborg Stock Exchange, the Deutsche Borse, and the NYSE Euronext.  The free Dictionary goes on to say that the word “bourse” originates from the French word for “purse”.  Indeed, the national stock market of France is the “Paris Bourse”.  So now you know!

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Topretirements.com recently published a list of their “Top Ten” worst states to retire in.  This list has been analyzed by multiple blogs (check out this great article over at Marketwatch). 

The list is very comprehensive- it folds in many important factors including tax laws, climate, and transportation services.  The original article looks ahead and predicts civil unrest in the worst states and communities as their older populations grow angry and disenfranchised due to rising costs and declining services. 

My main concern is not quite so dire.  One thing I did not see discussed in these articles is that retirees are something of a “boom market”.  Because of advances in health care, we have more and more elderly people every year.  States and communities should be proactive in marketing to this population.  If spun the right way, an elderly population could become a very profitable population.  It will require a combination of shrewd policy, forward-thinking tax laws, and strategic services.  Which states are up to the challenge?

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I grew up with Borders.  I remember visiting their stores when my family would travel out-of-town, and then I remember when the first Borders opened in the Kansas City area down in Overland Park.  My family made the 45-minute drive south once or twice a month to wander around the sprawling bookseller.  Over the next ten or twelve years I spent many an afternoon…

Woah, I didn’t see you standing there!  Enough with my memory lane- cut to the present!  As we reported recently, Borders is in some trouble.  This article at CNNMoney.com details a bankruptcy filing that surprised exactly no one.  Borders will close 200 stores (just under 1/3rd of its current locations) and reduce overall staff in the re-structuring. 

Some chains persist after such drastic cutbacks.  Reducing headcount, locations, and geographic breadth can be beneficial.  One example is the fast food chain “Rax” that I remember from my youth: they still exist, but in an extremely reduced form (franchise-only) and only in five states.

Other chains, such as Circuit City, can lose their brick and mortar presence entirely over the course of several downsizings.  Sometimes bankruptcy is an opportunity to regroup, and sometimes it is the beginning of the end.  One thing is for sure: in order to succeed, Borders will need to focus their e-book strategy- that’s a growing field (as we reported some time ago (and for some reason the page is missing so I can’t link to it)).

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A bill of lading (B/L) is a specialized form of receipt used in the shipping industry.  As businessdictionary.com puts it, a bill of lading is a

Document issued by a carrier, or its agent, to the shipper as a contract of carriage of goods. It is also a receipt for cargo accepted for transportation, and must be presented for taking delivery at the destination.

Businessdictionary.com goes on to list several key elements of a bill of lading, which include shipper and carrier names, shipping dates, and all manner of details about the cargo being shipped.  It is important to note that the term “bill of lading” hinges on the seldom-used word “lading”.  As part of a special two-for-one episode of the Daily Biz, businessdictionary.com defines “lading” as

1. Placement of cargo in its transporting vessel.

or

2. Cargo carried in a transportation vessel.

So lading is either a noun (the cargo being carried) or, more commonly, a verb (the act of placing cargo in a vessel for transport).  The more you know!

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