Check out this flash mob, produced by the Houston Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank to help promote Houston Money Week. The “mob” is from Texas Southern University.
Flash Mob for Houston Money Week
Posted by Econ Illinois on April 9, 2012
http://econillinois.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/flash-mob-for-houston-money-week/
Week In Review 3/23/12: The Hunger Games and company earnings
While many sports fans are glued to their TVs for March Madness, Wall Street’s focus lately has been on company earnings, as we are in the midst of earnings season. For the most part, the overall tone on Wall Street has been positive with a large number of companies topping estimates. FedEx reported better-than-expected earnings and sales. The company, seen as a proxy for the health of the broader economy, said it expects its “solid performance” to continue. General Mills also reported sales of $4.1 billion this week, and earnings per share of 55 cents. The food producer cited its international acquisition of Yoplait as a source of growth.
Two additional companies to keep an eye on include Lions Gate Entertainment and McDonald’s. With its release of the The Hunger Games movie, Lions Gate continues to draw attention as investors bet the company will benefit from the opening. McDonald’s is also in the news as its long-standing CEO, Jim Skinner, plans to retire at the end of June, ending a seven-year run at the helm, and 41 years with the company. Many analysts question “why now?” Is it a coincidence the company recently announced its first earnings disappointment under Skinner’s reign?
For those new to investing, quarterly earnings may be unfamiliar. At the most basic level, a quarterly earnings report is similar to a student’s report card except it’s for publicly traded companies. These reports, usually filed in January, April, July, and October, let shareholders know how well the company has performed over the past three months. It is important to note that not all companies report during earnings season because the exact date of an earnings release depends on when the given company’s quarter ends. As such, it is not uncommon to find companies reporting earnings between earnings seasons.
Included in most quarterly reports are net income, earnings per share, earnings from continuing operations, and net sales. Most often, the key metrics – net income and earnings per share, are compared to the previous year’s numbers. Analysts and investors then gauge the financial health of the company and whether or not to invest. Expect to see a lot of movement in the shares of companies releasing their earnings reports as the market reacts to the new data. It is not unheard of to see shares jump 20% or more or to see them fall by this same amount. One question you might ask yourself is whether you feel a quarterly earnings report will accurately predict the company’s future.
To help keep track of when a particular company reports its earnings, be sure to check out the helpful earnings calendar on Yahoo Finance. Click here to access it.
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Posted by Econ Illinois on March 29, 2012
http://econillinois.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/week-in-review-32312-the-hunger-games-and-company-earnings/
Week In Review 3/2/12: DOW, Bernanke, YELP, ZNGA and Seuss
(Week in Review is provided weekly to teachers registered in The Stock Market Game, connecting curricular content to current events. Content of each issue is often of interest to any teacher of economics and personal finance.)
The end of February was a choppy time on Wall Street. Going into trading on March 2, the Dow was down two points from the previous week’s close, but it hit 13,000 on Feb 28 for the first time since May 2008. While the 13,000 level is not considered technically significant, it is a psychological milestone.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke also headed to Capitol Hill to give Congress his semi-annual report on the economy, and what he had to say wasn’t exactly rosy. The job market remains “far from normal,” household income is flat and access to credit remains too tight for many people, he said. Meanwhile, rising gas prices are likely to reduce consumer buying power and the housing market remains a drag.
In Europe, efforts continue to bring the continent’s debt crisis under control. At the end of a two-day meeting in Brussels, 25 of the 27 leaders in the European Union signed a so-called fiscal compact designed to prevent a future crisis by strengthening budget discipline. The fiscal pact includes a “balanced budget rule” that requires governments to keep deficits below 0.5% of gross domestic product. Those that break the rule will be subject to an “automatic correction mechanism,” which has yet to be defined. The goal is to prevent a future crisis and foster economic growth by ensuring that governments do not spend beyond their means and rack up unsustainable debts, said European Council president Herman Van Rompuy at a signing ceremony.
To follow up last week’s Week in Review newsletter regarding IPOs, students are probably familiar with Yelp, the online reviewer of restaurants, salons, and other businesses. Yelp officially went public yesterday and raised $107.25 million while their $15/share price set their company valuation at nearly $900 million. Its shares start trading today on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “YELP.” See them ringing today’s opening bell on the NYSE here. In terms of The Stock Market Game program, students should be able to start trading Yelp in the next week.
Another company that has been in the news quite frequently as of late and of which your students are probably fans is Zynga (ZNGA). Its shares are on the move after the online game developer announced a new online platform, www.zynga.com, which will allow users to play Zynga’s games like FarmVille and Words With Friends on its site and reduce the company’s dependence on Facebook.
And finally, happy birthday to Dr. Seuss who would have been 108 years old today. What better way to celebrate his birthday than reading to a child. The NEA’s Read Across America campaign celebration’s theme this year is being green and showcases Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. The SIFMA Foundation also exposes SMG students to “green” investing through its project “Going Green” in the Teacher Support Center. This project introduces students to the concept of “environmentally responsible investing” through activities based on The Lorax. Students will examine how companies balance their need for raw material with their need to manage those same resources to insure future availability and supply. It is accessible in the “Projects” section of the Teacher Support Center.
Written by Elizabeth Reidel, Vice President, National Director, The Stock Market Game program, SIFMA Foundation.
Posted by Econ Illinois on March 5, 2012
http://econillinois.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/week-in-review-3212-dow-bernanke-yelp-znga-and-seuss/
Groupthink dynamics – in the classroom?
I happened upon Cindy Ivanac-Lillig’s January 13 blog titled “Groupthink and Economics.” I got to thinking about how we encourage teachers to use The Stock Market Game program as a way to engage students in grades 4-12 in group skills – cooperation and decision-making. In the Challenges – Economics Challenge and Illinois Personal Finance Challenge – teams of four high school students arrive at collaborative decisions/answers following rounds of individual tests. In our Economics Poster Contest, students in grades 1-8 individually draw an accurate depiction of an economic concept without any focused group collaboration.
Cindy poses the idea of using “electronic brainstorming” – such as is done in social media like blogs and on Facebook – to aid in learning about economics. What do you think? What works in your classroom? What works for you as an individual?
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Posted by Econ Illinois on February 28, 2012
http://econillinois.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/groupthink-dynamics-in-the-classroom/
Spending, Seven Swans-a-Swimming and Teaching
If you braved the crowds and participated in the Black Friday spending frenzy last week, perhaps you noticed it was a bit more crowded this year. According to ShopperTrak — the world’s largest provider of retail and mall foot-traffic counting services —Black Friday sales increased 6.6 percent over the same day last year. This represents $11.40 billion in retail purchases and the biggest dollar amount ever spent during the day. Retail foot-traffic rose accordingly, increasing by 5.1 percent over Black Friday 2010. But did they spend? The National Federation of Retailers (NFR) reports retailers have a reason to smile. Digging deep into their holiday budgets, the average holiday shopper spent $398.62 this past weekend, up from $365.34 last year. Total spending reached an estimated $52.4 billion up from $45 billion last year. As for Cyber Monday, which is the e-tailers version of Black Friday and the day that on-line retailers entice consumers to spend their holiday shopping dollars online, retailers have another reason to cheer. Americans spent more than $1.3 billion making it the biggest shopping day in history and an increase of 22% over last year, according to comScore, a marketing research company that tracks Internet data.
In keeping with the holiday theme, the PNC Christmas Price Index has arrived and we’re confident your students will enjoy the interactive site www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com. For the past 28 years, PNC Wealth Management has calculated the total cost of the items included in the popular Christmas tune “The Twelve Days of Christmas” if purchased at current prices. This year your students can hop aboard an interactive train journey through a “winter wonderland” setting. A sluggish economy coupled with weak demand has kept the PNC CPI to a moderate gain of 3.5 percent in the whimsical economic analysis. The total prices of the items hit their peak of $24,263.18 which is $823.80 more than last year. The price of the Seven Swans-a-Swimming, which typically provides the biggest swings from year to year in the PNC CPI, based on supply and demand, rose by 12.5 percent, almost double last year’s rise of 6.7 percent, to $6,300. That was the biggest dollar increase this year, up $700, a 12.5 percent boost.
To help students get the most from the Christmas Price Index, a project has been developed to support your teaching about saving and investing. The PNC Christmas Price Index project is available directly on the PNC CPI web site, www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com. Click “For Educators” along the bottom of the page. Students also have the ability to explore the index and examine how the prices of each item have changed since the index’s inception in 1984.
We’d like to hear if you incorporate the topic of Holiday spending in your December teaching.
Written by Elizabeth Reidel, Northeast Regional Director, SIFMA Foundation for Investor Education
Posted by Econ Illinois on December 2, 2011
http://econillinois.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/spending-seven-swans-a-swimming-and-teaching/
Week in Review 10/28/11
(Week in Review is sent weekly to teachers registered in The Stock Market Game, connecting curricular content to current events. Content of each issue is usually of interest to any teacher of economics and personal finance.)
It seems as though Wall Street received its Halloween sugar high a bit early this week as the markets surged on Thursday helping to put the S&P 500 on track for its largest-ever monthly gain since 1974. The rally was due in large part to news that European leaders finally mapped out a plan to help solve the debt crisis. The plan involves increasing the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) which many are referring to as the “bailout fund”, from $600 billion to $1.4 trillion and will be used to help create a “firewall” around the European Union’s troubled countries such as Greece, Space, and Italy. The plan also includes a 50 percent write-down on Greek government debt and agreements on plans to recapitalize the region’s banks – requiring them to hold more high-quality assets as a shield against potential losses. But much like a student who has eaten too much candy, the markets have turned sluggish today as economists are already raising questions about the effectiveness of the plan.
As your students get more involved with their Stock Market Game (SMG) trading, daily rankings are examined closely. In many SMG states, the rankings are based on a team’s performance against the S&P 500. And like your students watching their rankings, in the real markets, professionals track benchmarks to get a sense of how the market is performing.
A benchmark is an index, average, or other measure, whose movements serve as a standard, or basis of comparison, for evaluating the performance of the overall market. Investors use benchmarks as a gauge against which they set their market expectations, and judge the performance of individual securities, market industries and sectors, and the performance of different portfolios. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (the DJIA or the “Dow”) and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock Index (the S&P 500) both track the performance of large-cap stocks and are the most widely followed benchmarks of the U.S. stock market.
Your students are probably familiar with the Dow as its fluctuations are discussed daily on the news. But what does the Dow represent? It’s used as a sort of proxy for the overall health of the market and tracks the performance of 30 blue chip US stocks. Though it is called an average, it actually functions more like an index. The DJIA is quoted in points, not dollars. It’s computed by totaling the weighted prices of the 30 stocks and dividing by a number regularly adjusted for stock splits, spin-offs, and other changes in the stocks being tracked. Many analysts are critical of the Dow since it contains just 30 companies selected by the editors of The Wall Street Journal. Most feel the S&P 500, which tracks 500 major American companies, offers a more accurate gauge of the overall market.
For more information about the Dow and the S&P 500, be sure to visit Yahoo Finance. Select an index (left side of the page). To find the names of the companies that make up each index, click “Components” on the left side of the page. To find out whether the indices were up or down last week, last year, or five years ago, click “Basic Chart” on the left column. By clicking “Historical Prices”, students can also find out what the indices were on the day they were born. How many points have the indices increased since then? And if they invested $10.00 on that date in an S&P Index fund or a Dow Index Fund, how much would they have today?
Written by Elizabeth Reidel, SIFMA Foundation
Posted by Econ Illinois on October 28, 2011
http://econillinois.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/week-in-review-102811/
