MARKET SNAPSHOT
Mixed Earnings, Mixed Markets
- Another day of earnings (and mixed at that) came and went, leaving markets mostly flat but plenty confused. Healthcare sent a clear message to investors, though: stay far, far away. The sector fell over 2 percent thanks to Valeant Pharmaceuticals, which tanked 19 percent after short-seller Citron Research accused the company of fraudulently inflating its revenues, referring to the company as the “Pharmaceutical Enron.” Not a good luck for a biotech sector that’s been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons.
- Oil really took the whole trading down thing to heart, falling to a three-week low after dropping 2 percent on Wednesday. The main driver this time? No shocker here: the U.S. increased its oil production by 8 million barrels last week, more than double what analysts were expecting.
- We’re off to the RACE’s. Ferrari started trading on the NYSE yesterday under the totally random (not really) ticker RACE. The IPO weighed in at a hefty $9.8 billion valuation and opened trading at $52 per share. The luxury carmaker ended the day up 5.77 percent, not bad but well below its 17 percent peak right at the open.
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CORPORATE PRIMER
Blame It On The Money
A multitude of third quarter earnings were released yesterday, with mixed results across the board. General Motors (up 4 percent) and eBay (up 11 percent) beat both revenue and profit expectations, attributing their successes to strong vehicle sales and an increasing e-commerce marketplace, respectively. Coca-Cola and American Express weren’t looking as hot, and investors noticed. Shares for the companies fell between 1-3 percent after both stated that a stronger U.S. dollar and other exchange rate issues put them in a difficult spot. Both companies are trying to restore momentum—American Express through its partnership with Costco, and Coca-Cola through its expansion of non-soda products.
UPS Joins the Club
Scandals are everywhere—these days, you can’t even trust your neighborhood package delivery giant. UPS was fined $4.2 million for falsifying delivery claims that improperly charged customers and businesses with next-day delivery services when the packages were actually delivered late. Through false claims of adverse weather, UPS voided their obligation for next-day delivery while still overcharging their services to 17 states—and they shirked corporate responsibility by pleading innocent but accepting the charges.
ESPN Growing Old
The “Worldwide Leader in Sports” has announced plans to cut 4 percent of its workforce, or roughly 300 jobs. Despite being a revenue leader under the Disney umbrella (people still love their live sports), technology waits for nobody, even the most profitable cable channels. With consumers switching to alternative methods of digesting breaking sports news, like cell phones, laptops and social media, obsolescence continues to haunt the television landscape.
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TODAY IN TECH
Hard Drives, Hard Problems
Drastic times call for expensive measures. It’s been a busy year for M&A in the semiconductor industry as companies scramble to consolidate and cut costs in the face of increasing pricing pressures—a tough task for such a mature industry. It’s no surprise, then, that Western Digital, the market leader in disk drive manufacturing, has agreed to buy SanDisk for $19 billion. WD has suffered slowing growth as the world’s smartphones and data centers convert to flash memory, which happens to be SanDisk’s main product line (you can see WD’s train of thought here).
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OTHER STORIES
- Australia defers decision on Shell’s BG bid by a week
- YouTube’s Red subscription deal is an ultimatum
- Billionaire investor Carl Icahn to launch $150 million Super PAC
- Twitter CEO apologizes to developers
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ECONOMIC CALENDAR
- Monday: IBM, Morgan Stanley, Halliburton Earnings; China GDP
- Tuesday: Chipotle, Verizon, Yahoo Earnings; Housing Starts
- Wednesday: American Express, Boeing, Coca-Cola, eBay, General Motors, Las Vegas Sands, SanDisk Earnings
- Thursday: Alphabet, Amazon, AT&T, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Under Armour Earnings; Existing Home Sales; Weekly Jobless Claims
- Friday: Procter & Gamble Earnings
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INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT SANCHEZ
Mr. Robert Sanchez is Chairman and CEO of Ryder System Inc., a Fortune 500 transportation and supply chain management solutions company. Since joining Ryder in 1993, Robert has served in senior executive leadership positions in operations, finance and information technology. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Texas Instruments. Robert earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami and his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania.
How did you get to become the CEO of Ryder?
I started working at Ryder after I got my MBA. I didn’t really think it was going to be an exciting area to be in, but when I got here, I realized there is a lot to this company. We work behind the scenes in so many ways that touch people’s lives every day. Needless to say, when I got here and realized all the things that we do I thought it was pretty cool. I started working in IT and I quickly learned about the business and got a real appreciation of it and I started moving into different areas. I wouldn’t have a plan—I would get offered a job and decide to try it out. So, I went from IT and worked in finance, planning, pricing for our logistics business. I ran our transportation management business, where we actually manage freight for large corporations. And I got to learn not only about the inner workings of the company, but also about working with customers and the value we bring to them.
You’re extremely involved with many different organizations (Big Brothers Big Sisters, Latin Community, UM President Council) and you’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, How do you manage your time?
I was not a very good time manager when I was in school, when I was younger. When I got here to Ryder, I did get into management roles pretty early on and I realized quickly that if I didn’t learn how to manage my time, I wasn’t going to have time for anything. My boss recommended I take a time management class, so I did it. It was the most powerful class I ever took because it taught me how to organize my day. It said you have to have a schedule and you have to have a list of things you’re going to do each day. Prioritize these lists and focus on getting those things done. From that day on, that’s all I ever did. I have a book for every year that I’ve worked here—it goes back to 1993. If you open up those books, it’ll tell you what I did every day.
What advice do you have for recent college graduates about to enter the workforce?
Number one is have a passion for problem-solving. I mentioned this already, but the second thing is time management. The third thing is how you treat people. You have to treat people with respect and you have to try to make others successful. Because if you do, they will want you to succeed. The last thing is that it’s always important to be willing to step outside your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid that you won’t know anything because every time you do something new, the more you learn. And the more you know, the more valuable you become. I’ve been at Ryder for 22 years and have had 17 different jobs and most of those jobs I didn’t know much about when I got into them, but I learned.
How do you like your coffee?
Sugar, no cream. |
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INTERVIEW QUESTION OF THE DAY
A swan sits at the center point of a perfectly round pound. At an edge of the pond stands a monstrous lion waiting to eat the swan. The lion is afraid of water and plans to catch the swan as soon as it reaches the edge of the pound. The speed of the swan is one-fourth the speed of the lion, and the lion always runs in the direction around the shore that brings it closer to the swan the fastest.
Both the swan and the lion can change directions in any given time. The swan realizes that its only chance to escape is to reach the shore without getting caught by the lion.
By what method can the swan successfully escape? (Answer)
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BUSINESS TERM OF THE DAY
Smurf — Colloquial term for a money launderer. Also refers to one who seeks to evade scrutiny from government agencies by breaking up a transaction involving a large amount of money into smaller transactions that are below the reporting threshold.
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
53.8: percentage of NBA general managers who predict the Cleveland Cavaliers will win the NBA championship this year.
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