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Bears continue to roar, and markets continue to decline!
This week S&P500, the Dow Jones Index and NASDAQ continued to drop. S&P500 dropped 26 points, Dow dropped 84 points and NASDAQ dropped 57 points, for the week ending August 3rd, 2007.
Experts believe that investors remain concerned over bad housing loans and banks issuing fewer loans. Investors are watching the banks to understand the size of this problem. Bear Sterns, a major bank, announced that it is having trouble with its loans to the home owners and could lose over $1 billion. This news caused the bank stocks and the markets to decline.
This month marks the beginning of earnings announcement season. A lot of companies will announce their quarterly financial results this month. These quarterly reports show how well (or poorly) these companies did in the past quarter and how the future looks for them. It is like your grade card. Procter and Gamble, which makes wide range of house hold and family care products, reported a big jump in profits because people bought more shavers, Tide washing detergent and Crest toothpaste. Procter and Gamble stock was flat (did not change much) for the week at $63 per share.
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Weaker job growth
Companies added fewer workers in July. The US Labor Department, which tracks the job situation in the US, said that in July, 92,000 jobs were added, which is down from the 126,000 jobs added in June.
US unemployment rate was 4.6%, up from 4.5% in June. Unemployment is measured by the number of people who want to work but can’t find a job. In US there are over 150 million people who want to work and around 7 million who cannot find a job. In other words, over 4 in every 100 people in US cannot find a job. In 1982-83, close to 1out of every 10 people in US could not find a job. There are countries where more than half the people who want a job cannot find one.
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UPS celebrates its 100-year anniversary!
United Parcel Service, commonly known as UPS, is celebrating its 100th birthday. UPS delivers shipments to our homes (remember the big brown truck that delivered your Christmas gift you got from your grand-parents?) It was started in 1907 by two teenagers in Seattle as a message delivery company. Claude Ryan, an 18 year-old, and his partner Jim Casey who was 19, opened the “American Messenger Company” with a $100 loan from a friend of Casey. Messages were delivered by their friends on foot and bicycles. Within six years, the company grew and bought its first delivery car, a Model T Ford, and re-named itself the “Merchants Parcel Delivery” and switched from messages to packages delivery. Six years later, the company grew further and renamed itself United Parcel Service. Today, it is a $47 billion company that delivers all over the world with its fleet of brown trucks, airplanes and brown uniformed workers.
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What is Currency?
Currency is money (Coins and/or paper) that is used as a medium to exchange or trade. The money is issued by the government of a country through its central or federal bank for use as a legal tender/agreement for the trade. Countries have their own currencies. For example, the currency of US is US dollar ($), for Britain, it is called British Pounds(£), Japanese currency is called Yen(¥), Canadian currency is Canadian Dollar, Chinese currency is Yuan and Indian Currency is Indian Rupees. Many European countries recently decided to use a common currency, called Euros(€). Euros are used in Italy, Germany, Spain, France, Netherlands, and Belgium, amongst others. When you travel to a foreign country, you will need the currency of that country. So if you go to Japan, you will have to use their currency, Yen, to buy things. How will you get Yens? Well, you will “exchange” your money in US currency, i.e., US dollars, into Japanese Yens. How many Yen will you get for each US dollar? To answer this question and more, we need to learn about foreign exchange rate. We will discuss it in the coming weeks.
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Your Favorite Stocks (For details click Volume 5)
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Company
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Company known for?
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If you bought one stock in Jan-07
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This week stock is?
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Your gain or loss?
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Mickey Mouse, Toys, Entertainment, and more.
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$34.20
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$33.90
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-$0.30
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Frosted Flakes, Rice-Krispies, and more.
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$49.89
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$52.58
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$2.69
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Fast food hamburgers, restaurants and more.
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$43.87
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$48.52
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$4.65
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Coming Soon!!
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How many Japanese Yen can you buy for a Dollar?
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How Oil Prices and the Gas Price per Gallon change?
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Weekly Stock Market Summary
Bears Market-Stocks Down!
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Jul 30-Aug 3, 2007
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Index
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Change
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Last
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DOW
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Down 84
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13,182
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S&P500
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Down 26
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1,451
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NASDAQ
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Down 57
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2,511
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What is Economy? The word economy means everything related to the production and use of goods and services in an area. On a daily basis we buy many things (products) that come from many businesses, such as, food, drinks, toys, cars, etc. When we buy or not buy such products it affects businesses, economy and all of us.
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What is a Stock? A stock is a share of a business. So when you buy a stock of a company, say, McDonald's, you become a McDonald's shareholder or part owner of the business.
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What is DOW? The Dow (also known as DJIA or Dow Jones Industrial Average) tracks 30 large US companies stocks and it is 100 years old. DOW going up is good news as it indicates that the companies are expected to do well in the future.
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What is S&P500? Standard & Poor's 500, is also called S&P500. It tracks 500 companies and how they are doing. It is over 50 years old and most widely used because it is a better way to track the stock market. It represents over 7 out of 10 US public companies.
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What is NASDAQ? NASDAQ stands for National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations system. It sounds complicated but it is a highly computerized stock market. It was started in 1971. It has over 3,200 companies that are leaders in technology, communication, media etc.
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What is a Business? Business offers goods and services to customers for money. Businesses create jobs for people who work to make goods and or provide services for other who need them.
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Who are the Workers? The people who work at the businesses are also called workers. Workers are paid money which they use to take care of their loved ones. When these workers are paid money they pay some money to the governments, called taxes, so that the government can provide the services to the communities where we live such as schools, police, fire station, parks, roads, and many more.
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What are Goods? Goods are things that you can see, such as toys, balls, dolls, candies, cereals, etc.
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What are Services? Services are things that are done for others for money, such as, barber gives you service of hair cutting, waiter serves you food at the restaurant, etc.
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We use information from multiple sources - various websites, company, stock exchanges, newspapers, library, journals, and books.
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