On the Myopic Hyperbole of Wall Street: Overblowing Small Changes

I suppose that after looking at something closely for a long period of time, virtually anyone would perceive a small change in it as huge. This is reflected in how people formulate graphs. In particular, typically only a small interval is shown, the perceptual impact of which is that small changes look big. For example, msnbc.com reported on June 8, 2011 that the price of oil “soared” on that day “almost $2 to near $101 a barrel.” My reaction in reading the report was that the word “soared” indicates a lack of perspective on Wall Street and the media.

To be sure, a graph showing the price of oil with the y-axis running from $98 to $102 would show what looks like a huge increase, while a y-axis extending from $0 to $150 would show a barely noticeable change on June 8^th.  The second graph would be more accurate in terms of the significance of the change.

The modest increase in price was momentary, caused by investors who had shorted oil and wanted to get out because of a bearish expectation. On June 8^th, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) talks broke down without an agreement to raise output after Saudi Arabia failed to convince the cartel to lift production. Iran, Libya, Iraq and other oil-producing states wanted to hold production targets while Saudi Arabia sought to raise them so the price of oil would stabilize at between $70 and $80 a barrel. Wise, long-term-oriented Saudi government officials understood that stability rather than short-term windfalls is in the long-term best economic interest of oil exporters—especially if oil is the sole export. According to The Wall Street Journal, "In the wake of the failure to reach agreement, people familiar with the matter said the Saudis are now likely to unilaterally increase their own production by up to one million barrels a day, which would put them well above their stated quota of eight million barrels a day." The Saudi assurance that it would supply the needs of the oil market regardless of OPEC left investors bearish after the meeting, and short-sellers were simply unloading. To report that the price of oil “soared” by $2 after the meeting is utterly misleading. By the end of trading for the day, oil was up just $1.65 (at $100.74).

Even by Wall Street’s own mantra wherein investors tend to do well in the stock market by holding a well-diversified position for a long time, over-dramatic renderings of short-term changes are counter-productive because they can seduce long-term investors to react. If newscasters on CNBC are announcing that the sky is falling today because oil went up $2, the temptation is to do something.  Anything.  Acting at all would be at odds with taking a long-term position in the market, tweeking it only to maintain a diversified portfolio.

I suspect that cause of the hyperbole is tunnel-vision, which is caused by zeroing in on something too closely and for too long. At the very least, it might be a bad idea for Wall Streeters to develop some hobbies that have nothing to do with work. Also, analysts might avoid the temptation to pay so much attention to the talking heads on CNBC. Furthermore, analysts might resist orienting graphs to overplay small changes by artificially restricting the interval on the y-axis. Lastly, Wall Streeters might resist the fun in using overly-dramatic jargon or loose-fitting (at best) analogies.

If the stock market is “crashing,” for example, we had better be talking about thousands rather than hundreds of points lost on the Dow. A plane going from 12,000 to 11,500 feet is not crashing; it is probably just making way for another plane. If a company is getting “killed,” it better be in liquidation without anything going to equity or bond holders. Better still, analysts would gain credibility if they stayed away from the military jargon completely; at the very least, using the vocabulary is an insult to the brave men and women who really have put their lives on the line.

In short, Wall Street could do with a dose of perspective. Such a change would be in line not only with credibility and reputational capital, but also how Wall Streeters fare in the market. As one person might say to another who has been dumped romantically, don’t over-analyze it!

Sources:

Summer Said, Hassan Hafidh, and Benoit Faucon, "New Cracks in Oil Cartel," The Wall Street Journal, June 9, 2011, p. A1.

“Oil Price Soars after OPEC Talks Yield No Agreement,” msnbc.com, June 8, 2011.

The Fiat 500: The American Taste for Convenience Revealed

One means of doing cross-cultural comparison is by contrasting consumer tastes; such proclivities tend to evince societal mores by which societies can be perceived to be distinctive. In the case of the E.U. and U.S., Fiat, a European auto company that controls Chrysler, an American company, is discovering some societal differences as it refashions the Fiat 500 for American customers.

For example, the pod of drink holders had to be enlarged to hold American-size “supersize” drinks. According to Fabio DiMuro, chief engineer of the 500, the in-car beverage concept is so foreign to Europeans that the workers didn’t understand his exhortations for more and bigger holders. The American taste for larger portions is known to restaurant owners and managers in the United States, but what does the preference say about the society and its people? Is it as simple as greed—a desire for more and to excess? Or is it simply a preference for convenience—filling up more so the next meal can be pushed back to make room for other activities? 

In terms of convenience, “Americans consider all-season tires a must,” whereas Europeans keep two sets (which must be changed with the advent of the snow season). Of course, this comparison over-generalizes, for we are talking about the Northern states in the E.U. and U.S. Even so, the northerners in America tend to be willing to sacrifice some traction in the snow for the convenience of not having to take the car to the garage to have the tires changed.

Furthermore, the fuel tank of the 500 was enlarged from 10.6 to 14.5 gallons “for longer distances typical in the U.S.”  The larger tank also enables American in-town drivers to drive more before having to fill up. The interstate highway system sports enough gas stations that the longer-distances rationale is perhaps specious; it probably comes from the European misconception of the U.S. being like one of the E.U.’s countries but with a larger territory. The U.S., an empire-level union of republics, is qualitatively as well as quantitatively distinct from a large state like Texas or France.

Returning to the matter of convenience, the comfort-factor may be a relevant difference. The U.S., having excelled in terms of material goods in the decades after World War II, may in the twenty-first century be more accustomed to comfort. Hence, the American 500 is to have an armrest added to the driver’s seat.

A stress on comfort may also explain why “lots more” insulation is needed in the American 500, “to keep it quiet enough for Americans.” This is a rather odd phrase, considering the growth of the car stereo industry in the 1970s and 1980s. Nevertheless, the notion of one’s car as a personal cocoon of sorts resonates. Might this be a manifestation of the individualism for which Americans are so well known? 

If one’s home is one’s castle, one’s car might be one’s bubble through which one passes through public space. Considering the “road rage” phenomenon and general impoliteness, the greater insulation might suggest that Americans are in general rather unfriendly when we are out and about. Hence there are “screening” devices such as fraternities and sororities, as well as country clubs and other private associations. The general American public may contain too many loud, pushing or boorish people to be palatable to the elite.

In general, James Healey’s article on the American Fiat 500 is not flattering to Americans, but perhaps Healey is pointing to indications of undesirable traits that we (for I am an American) should face about ourselves and our society. I for one have noticed that where strangers communicate without any purpose, such as in a store, politeness is the norm. However, as soon as a purpose is added, such as buying and selling a car, renting an apartment or room, or resolving a bill at a restaurant, presumptuous tends to raise its ugly head.

I don’t know if it is arrogance or a presumption that the worst is apt to be in others, but I would not disagree with a European assessment of American society in general as anti-social or antagonistic. It is perhaps no wonder that houses are castles and cars are insulated bubbles. Of course, I am over-generalizing, as the U.S. is composed of various cultures. Once flying from New York to Seattle, I was struck by the difference in how strangers treated each other; then I realized (aided by a few anti-New Yorker comments from Seattle airport employees) I had just flown over a continent! To render a continent as akin to a European state writ large is to miss the vital distinction between an empire and a kingdom politically and geographically.

Another possible source of my over-generalizing may be that modern society itself could be too much inclined to the road of most convenience.  Europeans may have their rankles as well, even as they differ from those of Americans. For example, the whole “peers/commoners” thing can be read as a matter of convenience by some at the expense of others. Such a matter of convenience is not apt to show up in an analysis of the Fiat 500. In general, we moderns may be too spoiled and too presumptuous when it comes to dealing with strangers. Humility, it seems, is out of fashion in modernity, at least in the public square. If so, my cultural critique goes well beyond the American shores. Although war and poverty are not to be wished for, it would be nice if greater human solidarity could be realized amid our lattes and 500s.

Source:

James Healey, “Fiat 500: Little Car Shoulders Huge Responsibility in U.S.,” USA Today, June 1, 2011, p. 5B.

On the Unfairness of the Bonus System on Wall Street

Craig A. Dubow, Gannett’s former chief executive, had a short six-year tenure that was, by most accounts according to The New York Times, “a disaster.” David Carr reports: “Gannett’s stock price declined to about $10 a share from a high of $75 the day after [Dubow] took over; the number of employees at Gannett plummeted to 32,000 from about 52,000, resulting in a remarkable diminution in journalistic boots on the ground at the 82 newspapers the company owns. . . .  the company strip-mined its newspapers in search of earnings, leaving many communities with far less original, serious reporting. . . . Not only did Mr. Dubow retire under his own power because of health reasons, he got a mash note from Marjorie Magner, a member of Gannett’s board, who said without irony that ‘Craig championed our consumers and their ever-changing needs for news and information.’ But the board gave him far more than undeserved plaudits. Mr. Dubow walked out the door with just under $37.1 million in retirement, health and disability benefits. That comes on top of a combined $16 million in salary and bonuses in the last two years.”

Besides the inherent unfairness in an incompetent manager getting millions of dollars in compensation (for championing incompetence?), it is morally problematic when, as Carr puts it, “the consequences of bad decisions land on everyone except those who made them.” As already pointed out above, in the midst of Dubow’s “championing” (this word is so broad it has scarce any real meaning), “the number of employees at Gannett plummeted to 32,000 from about 52,000.” One could just as easily point to Bank of America’s downsizing of its labor force in the wake of Ken Lewis’ shopping spree at Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. Lewis really did exemplify the “walmart” mentality applied to banking: an almost-complete indifference to quality in a desire to be everything to everyone. The “exporting” of bad consequences while exuberant rewards are retained indicates that the corporate executive compensation system in the United States is fundamentally broken. The fixation on aligning an executive’s incentives with the financial enrichment of the stockholders has not functioned as anticipated.

For one thing, the vesting of stock, which is meant to orient an executive to the longer term financial interest of the stockholders, is typically bypassed as an executive gets the equivalent in cash (or stock) from his or her new employer. An executive can thus discount having to look out for the eventual downside in his or her decisions.

Moreover, the sheer amount of the compensation cannot be justified on the basis of a competitive upper echelons labor market (which functions more like an oligarchy). Indeed, the degree of fixation on the bonus system alone has resulted in larger payouts (as executives make decisions primarily from the standpoint of the impact on their bonus). David Carr points to the excess as mentioned in a USA Today editorial: “The bonus system has gone beyond a means of rewarding talent and is now Wall Street’s primary business. Institutions take huge gambles because the short-term returns are a rationale for their rich payouts. But even when the consequences of their risky behavior come back to haunt them, they still pay huge bonuses.” Carr’s overall point is that this hypertrophy allies to corporate America—not just Wall Street, though certainly it is salient there too.

When John Thain of Merrill Lynch gave lip-service to serving the stockholders, even his own subordinates knew he was more concerned with having to play second fiddle to Ken Lewis at Bank of America than with keeping Merrill’s stockholders from losing everything (as Lehman Brothers’ stockholders did). Even as Fleming got $29 per share as a buyout price from Lewis, Thain preferred a line of credit of billions from Goldman Sachs in exchange for a 10% ownership that would keep Thain on top. That was Thain’s driving motivation: to remain CEO. Meanwhile, the general public assumed that CEOs, including Thain, were motivated to act in their stockholder interests—that boards of directors insisted on this agency. However, where a CEO is focused on his or her bonus (Thain insisted on $40 million cash bonus even as Merrill was losing billions) and position (and thus future bonuses) and the CEO controls “his or her” board, the stockholders are in actuality left unknowingly fluttering in the wind—relying on a system of executive compensation that supposedly aligns the executives’ motivation with the financial interests of the stockholders. Much too much is being assumed here, yet assumptions, like habits, are difficult to break.

Source:

 David Carr, “Why Not Occupy Newsrooms?” The New York Times, October 24, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/business/media/why-not-occupy-newsrooms.html