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September 27, 2007
Victorian-Era Films Mined for Clues to Handedness
Researchers studying handedness found data in a group of early 20th-century films of everyday English life.
The researchers concluded left-handedness declined in Victorian England because of social and school pressures and the rise of industrial tools, among other factors, reaching bottom around the turn of the 20th century.
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Posted by eubie at 10:37 PM permalink
How hot is Halo 3?
If it were a movie, it would have been a blockbuster. It it were a book, it would have passed "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Los Angeles Business from bizjournals: First-day sales for 'Halo 3' top summer blockbusters, last 'Potter' book
Posted by eubie at 10:32 PM permalink
Are steady earnings a myth?
Steady growth in earnings is a touchstone of value investing, but Mark Hulbert, editor of The Hulbert Financial Digest, writes in NY Times piece: Strategies: How Many Quarters in a Row Can Earnings Really Grow? says it's likely managers are doing lots of legal manipulation to make those earnings consistent.
Hulbert reports on research by three accounting professors who find that no more than 46 companies during that 42-year period should have had earnings-per-share growth for 20 consecutive quarters. But 587 companies actually reported such strings of growth, so the professors conclude that their findings constitute “prima facie evidence of earnings management.”
Those companies with the consistent earnings do trade for higher PE ratios compared to other companies, even those with slightly more fluctuations in earnings, and the companies can be penalized strongly if the streaks are broken.
The clear investment implication is that we shouldn’t bet too heavily on companies that have reported long strings of increases in quarterly earnings per share.Such companies’ stocks will most likely have already been bid up to too-lofty a level, and will therefore be especially vulnerable to a big decline once the string of earnings gains comes to an end.
Posted by eubie at 8:56 PM permalink