UPDATE: Carvana, DJIA, NASDAQ, S&P, Crypto, Gasoline and the US Budget Deficit

Posted on May 12, 2022 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

By Staff Reporters

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Carvana, the fast-growing used-car seller based in Tempe, announced its plans to lay off 2,500 employees – more than 10% of its workforce – as losses mount. The company, which operates a network of high-profile vehicle “vending machines” including one at Loop 202 and Scottsdale Road, said the move was designed to “better align staffing and expense levels with sales volumes.” Carvana reported a $506 million loss in its first quarter ending March 31st, well above red ink of $82 million during the same stretch of 2021, despite a 56% jump in revenue to $3.5 billion and a 14% increase in vehicles sold.

And, new inflation data scared some investors, who continued to dump riskier assets like cryptocurrencies amid the ongoing market selloff: The price of Bitcoin fell up to 7%, to around $29,000, according to Coin Metrics, before paring back losses. The price of the Terra (LUNA) cryptocurrency has fallen by more than 99 per cent, wiping out the fortunes of crypto investors. Terra, which ranked among the top 10 most valuable cryptocurrencies, dropped below $1 on Wednesday, having peaked close to $120 last month.

LINK: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/crypto-billionaires-vast-fortunes-are-destroyed-in-weeks/ar-AAXaijp?li=BBnb7Kz

Indices:

  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 215 points, or 0.7%, to 31,949 after swinging between gains and losses after the opening bell.
  • The S&P 500 shed 46 points, or 1.2%, to 3,954.
  • The NASDAQ Composite fell 296 points, or 2.5%, to 11,445.

The national average for a gallon of gas surged to $4.40, the highest price recorded by AAA since it began keeping track in 2000 (though lower when adjusted for inflation than the high-water mark in July 2008, when gas was $5.36 per gallon in today’s dollars).

Finally, the US federal government’s budget deficit has shrunk by some $1.57 trillion so far this fiscal year, driven by record receipts from a strong economy and a slowdown in spending as pandemic-era programs fade.

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Challenging Standard & Poor’s 500 Index

Posted on March 20, 2009 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA MEd CMP™

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Dr. Jeremy Siegel Opines

[By Staff Reporters]56371606

According to Financial Advisor News – an electronic trade magazine on March 17 2009 – Standard & Poor’s underestimate the earnings of its S&P 500 Index. So says, Jeremy Siegel PhD, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and author of Stocks for the Long Run.

The Dilemma

The problem started when the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed piece by Siegel that argued Standard & Poor’s uses a “bizarre” methodology for calculating the earnings and P/E ratio for the S&P 500. In it, Siegel explained that the earnings of S&P 500 companies are currently treated equally, but should instead be weighted in proportion to their market capitalization. Market capitalization weighting, he noted, is used to measure the S&P 500 returns. Such a system gives larger weight to the earnings of a company such as Exxon-Mobil, and lower weight to an S&P 500 member such as Jones Apparel.

Siegel’s Example

For example, “a 10% rise in Exxon-Mobil’s price would boost the S&P 500 by 4.64 index points, while the same fall in Jones Apparel would have no impact since the change is far less than the one-hundredth of one point to which the index is routinely rounded,” Siegel wrote.

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Outcome

As a result of the above, if capitalization weightings were applied to 2008, the earnings of S&P 500 companies would have been $71.10 per share instead of $39.73 per share.

S&P’s Support

In response, an S&P official said Siegel’s argument “fails the test of both logic and index mathematics.”

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