By Jared Kofsky Officials in Newark and Trenton are seeking changes in local business districts, while construction on a major development in a Jersey City neighborhood has yet to begin.
While officials in two of New Jersey’s largest cities are planning to increase development and improve the appearance of storefronts in major business districts, a new restaurant has already closed in one of them while a proposed project in a nearby municipality has yet to begin construction. Here are some details behind these recent Garden State business headlines, as initially featured on JerseyDigs.com. --- When it opened its first franchise to be located in the northeastern United States in December 2016, Grabbagreen made headlines for choosing New Jersey’s largest city to launch its expansion. In fact, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka even went to celebrate at the grand opening event for the Arizona-based company’s new healthy eating restaurant on Halsey Street in Prudential Financial’s Shoppes on Broad complex. The Downtown location was expected to be the first of dozens to open in the Garden State, according to a statement from the company at the time. However, the days of fresh juices, salads, and sandwiches being served to hungry customers in this corner of Newark suddenly ended on an afternoon this fall, when a sign was posted on the door informing patrons that the location would not be reopening for business the following day. The company did not return a request for comment regarding why the store closed and whether Grabbagreen is still planning major expansion in New Jersey. Despite the openings of businesses like Nike Factory Store, Starbucks Coffee, and The Halal Guys at Shoppes on Broad, the plaza has contained several vacant storefronts since it opened its doors near Prudential’s headquarter complex in 2015. It has been three years since the largest building ever proposed for Jersey City’s growing McGinley Square neighborhood was approved by the local planning board, but construction still has not started on Saint Peter’s University’s proposed 21-story complex at 688 Montgomery Street. The building was slated to include a grocery store, a 13-screen movie theater, a landscaped promenade, an underground parking garage, the Jesuit Institute for Lifelong Learning and Living, a residence hall with 300 beds, and 450 residential rental units, but all that can be found at the site today is a parking lot. University officials refused to explain the status of the project or state whether it is still moving forward when reached for comment, citing confidentiality. Students at Saint Peter's told Jersey Digs that they have received similar responses over the last few years when they asked administrators why there has yet to be any progress on the project, which was set to be co-developed with Sora Development and KPN Architects. City officials in New Jersey’s capital want residents to know that more development could be coming near its three rail and light rail stations. The Trenton Department of Housing and Economic Development’s Planning Division held a public meeting at City Hall on November 15 in partnership with New Jersey Future and the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs regarding the new Strategic Development Plan that is being crafted as part of the Trenton250 master plan project for neighborhoods surrounding the Trenton Transit Center, the Hamilton Avenue Station, and the Cass Street Station. Developers such as HHG Development Associates and Ajax Development have already begun constructing new residential buildings and rehabilitating older ones in these communities. The most prominent of these projects is Roebling Lofts, which opened this spring in a former wire rope factory next to the Hamilton Avenue Station. The development is in the first stage of a new transit-oriented complex that is being constructed, called Roebling Center. Residents and visitors who drive, walk, or take the bus through Newark’s outer wards can prepare to see changes when traveling along Bloomfield, Clinton, South Orange, and Wilson Avenues. The Newark Community Economic Development Corporation has launched a facade improvement program in order to improve the appearance of storefronts in the North, East, West, and South Wards. According to the organization's Executive Director Aisha Glover, updates that will be made to storefronts in the selected areas will include changes to existing signage, windows, and lighting, as well as overall building improvements. She explained that the selected locations are often overlooked, but are essential points of entry and exit to the city, adding that, "the program will directly impact community neighborhoods where Newarkers shop, dine and play."
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By Sean Lange The BB&L & WIB will host the best-selling author, WSJ management news editor on November 30th “We conversed in her Manhattan corner office, where the floor-to-ceiling window overlooked bustling Madison Avenue far below. Four television screens displaying HSN filled one wall, while a single white orchid sat aside a small side table.” “Back in her high-ceilinged living room, Smith perched on the edge of a pale beige couch, ignoring the clatter from the kitchen, where her husband was whipping up pancakes for her sons.” “We met in her thirty-ninth floor office atop GM headquarters, a black-sheathed skyscraper with sweeping views of the Detroit River.” - Joann Lublin, Earning It To be able to convey context in one or two lines is the pinnacle of journalism. Joann Lublin has mastered this technique. Well-versed in journalism, the 45-year Wall Street Journal veteran will come to TCNJ on November 30th to speak about her 2016 book, Earning It. Ms. Lublin is an expert on the mentalities and intrinsic rewards that drive the world’s most powerful managers, yet also displays awareness of how environment can help characterize a leader. Through the interviews of 52 different female leaders, in Earning It, Ms. Lublin describes how businesswomen can overcome obstacles they face in the workplace. In just the first few chapters, it is evident how Lublin uses setting to distinguish her numerous subjects, without detracting from their honesty and humility. Lublin packs enough character into the encapsulations to truly transport readers to the high-rise offices, even-keeled homes, or street-side cafés where she engages her subjects. Ms. Lublin is incredibly adept at accenting her reports on these executives with descriptions of the environments where she meets them, a strategy that is vital to her approach in writing Earning It. Instead of one-at-a-time profiles of each executive, Ms. Lublin structures her chapters around different issues and topics. She then selects comments from each woman to provide first-hand perspectives. When The Bull, Bear & Lion spoke with Ms. Lublin in October, she remarked that, “Finding the best stories to illustrate the points that need to be made is the challenge of journalism.” However, with so many women involved, it was important that the individual stories and messages didn’t become too tangled up. By injecting her own observations about each interviewee and their surroundings, Ms. Lublin provides a center of gravity for the various times that each woman’s commentary appears throughout the book. Beyond the small, vibrant settings that she conveys within her narratives, Ms. Lublin herself has honed her news craft in some of the most prominent cities in the world. Her journalism career started in 1971 at The WSJ’s bureau in the culturally thriving San Francisco. It then led her to the socially tumultuous Chicago in 1973, and later to the pivoting political landscape in Washington D.C in 1979. By 1987, Ms. Lublin had been appointed news editor in The Journal’s London Bureau, before returning stateside in 1990 to be a special senior writer at the publication’s New York City headquarters. Today, Lublin is The Wall Street Journal’s management news editor. Her recent columns have explored topics such as the White House’s proposed tax breaks impact on the nature of performance-based executive pay, and the potential outcomes of the failed Rockwell-Collins/United Technologies military weaponry merger in September. She often writes about leadership, and pens her “Your Executive Career” advice column in a style that carries the same practicality found within the pages of her book. With that in mind, Ms. Lublin’s skill at scene-setting is just the beginning of her scholarship in Earning It. In the book (see The BB&L’s review on Page A2) her examination of women in the workplace is centered in social psychology, politics, and extensive research on corporate dynamics. Lublin references calculations of salaries and office square footage, and the number of women CEOs that head Fortune 500 companies — a statistic that reached a new high in summer 2017, with 32 females now helming major firms. When asked about what she believes to be the largest developments for women in business since she wrote Earning It, Ms. Lublin replies that this the question that she has been most often asked in the recent months: “What have I learned about the state of working women by traveling around the country and talking about the book?” To hear Ms. Lublin’s response, come to the library auditorium on November 30th, from 6PM to 8PM. Recounting her destinations around the nation -- and her encounters at each with the businesswomen that she has inspired -- cannot be accomplished in only one or two lines. By Sean Lange On October 27th, the School of Business held its second installment of the new Business Leaders Talks, themed “Marketing and Media” and co-sponsored by the American Marketing Association and Delta Sigma Pi. The night featured lessons on brand management, account synergy, software customization, and diagnostics and database building; and welcomed Kathleen Bannon ’87, Vice President of U.S. Marketing for Origin, Inc.; Colleen Duke ’11, Revenue Operations Senior Manager for Rodale, Inc.; Tracy Kaplan ‘15, Ad Management Team Lead for SocialCode; Tim McAuliffe, Vice President of Digital Integration at Oxford Communications; and Emily Skalko ’14, Associate Client Manager at Nielsen. The event was poised to be immersive in a real-time sense: giving host to five Marketing experts four days before the imminent kickoff of the holiday season, and on the eve of Halloween weekend. The final months of the year are the peak of commercial advertising and retail sales; and marketing and media professionals are entrusted with enchanting the public during this time. There is a camaraderie between companies and consumers during these months which festive ad campaigns galvanize, when people crave the most abundant Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween spirit that sellers can offer. On the Thursday of the Business Leaders Talk, the National Retail Federation announced that Americans had already broken the record for yearly Halloween candy sales, eclipsing the $8.4 billion mark set in 2016. However, TCNJ’s business leaders embodied a new age in the field, where keying in on social customs like trick-or-treating, getting dressed up, or bedecking in black and orange means less to the modern marketer. The guests listed data mining, demographic assessments, and return-on-investment analyses as their primary career tasks. When compared to the prerequisite labors of identifying an audience and calculating the cost to reach it, tying in stereotypical seasonal content is a finishing touch on account projects. It’s no longer the holiday behaviors, like those listed above, that are most important to modern marketers; but rather, the data that those behaviors generate. Colleen Duke explained the role of new information in creating the campaign budgets for smaller, niche companies. In 2017, outlining a long-term spending plan is a delicate task, since data shows that up-to-the-minute marketing is more important than ever. If a tragic world event, like the hurricane in Puerto Rico, strikes, then consumers expect their favorite businesses to have an immediate response. For the brands that Duke has worked with, like Runner’s World and Men’s Health, there is a new need to constrain the expenses of a fully scheduled holiday campaign. Greater savings are needed to support reactionary PR and in-the-moment promotions. In serving larger companies, Tracy Kaplan noted that the most challenging part of her job is actually the opposite: getting clients to spend more, not less. On many occasions, she must inform major clients that, per her research, they need to spend more money than initially given in order to fully reach audiences. Projects for Michael Kors, Coca Cola, and SiriusXM can be expansive; and can often enlist the full network of SocialCode offices nationwide. Coincidentally, the most “seasonal” element of Kaplan’s position could be that her accounts are sometimes phantomlike, vanishing overnight. From the advent of online collaboration platforms, the project that she was working on when she left work one night is gone when she arrives the next morning, as someone in a California bureau had logged into it, finished it, and submitted it before their Pacific time zone-based workday ended. Tim McAuliffe more deliberately associates the metaphysical world with his marketing work. Originally a Math and Physics major, he enjoys bringing, “a scientific approach to figuring out what works and what doesn’t in a marketing campaign, and finding creative, new, cutting-edge ways to measure campaign success.” Kathleen Bannon echoed that marketers, because of their growing reputation for being effective data analysts prior to being strategic marketers, are gaining larger footing in esoteric industries like law and pharmacy. Not only has the data-driven revolution in marketing made sales for pharmaceuticals more nuanced — new treatments now regularly display separate systems of promotion for insurers, prescribers, and patients individually — but has attracted marketing talent to sectors that previously had been deemed less exciting and less rewarding by job-seekers. Bannon confirmed that, true to this judgement, the drugmakers she has worked for are no-frills, and don’t commission campaigns that rejoice in the holiday season. However, highly competitive companies like these are helping to drive up the value of intelligent marketing professionals. Marketers are becoming renowned for their versatility, and their mastery of heuristics and statistics in addition to the human spirit — and that is something to celebrate. By Connor C. Introna As markets continue to climb to historic heights, the likelihood of a potential market-wide pullback grows with each passing day. In just a year, both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ have zoomed upwards to the tune of around 30% while the S&P 500 has gained more than 20% without any major disruption. With really no market-wide downturn of more than 5% within the past 20 or so months, some Wall Street bears might argue that stocks are due for a correction soon. By the very nature of cyclicality, investors could soon acknowledge that a lot of stocks have become very expensive, and then be desperately waiting for the next excuse to liquidate and hide in cash. Regardless whether the next hit on the overall markets is a result of events out of Washington, actions from North Korea, interest rate adjustments by the Federal Reserve, or a combination of the above, something might be around the corner to trigger a downturn for stocks. This article is not dedicated to uncovering what that something is, or implying that the markets are necessarily about to fall; rather, its goal is to play devil’s advocate for the sake of education. When markets experience downturns, stocks crumble under selling pressure, and news causes investors to panic, there is still a way for traders to profit. Where there is a way to do something, there is always also a way to do it much more intelligently. On the subject of trading, that means minimizing risk and loss, and increasing potential for gain. It is a difficult subject to grasp at first, however, once it is understood, it could be a powerful and lucrative weapon in the trading arsenal. This article is dedicated to shedding light on the method bearish traders use to make money: short-selling. For those who are unfamiliar with the convoluted, controversial, and incredibly risky activity of short-selling, this article will explain the process and provide one of the smartest ways to do it. For starters, short-selling is a practice by which bearish traders could profit off of the falling price of a security. Just as a bullish trader buys a security (such as a common stock) at a low price with the intention of later selling it at a higher price, the bearish trader does the exact opposite. When short-selling, a trader will essentially borrow securities that they do not own in order to sell them at a specific price. Once having done this, the proceeds of this sale will go into the trader’s account. If the price of the borrowed security falls below what the trader sold it for, the proceeds would be used to buy it back, and the trader would keep the difference as a profit. For a better understanding, take this example: say a trader wants to short-sell 10 shares of Company A, whose stock price is $1,000. This trader believes that shares of Company A are going to plummet 10% to $900, so they short-sell the shares with a broker; $10,000 is credited to their account, and a short position with negative shares appears. If they are correct and the price of Company A shares falls to $900, then the trader has the option to do what is known as “buying to cover.” Once the shares fall to a certain price (in this case, $900) the trader buys those 10 shares, now for a total of $9,000. This covers, or corrects, the short position with the negative shares, as the only way to make a negative number equal zero is to add back in the positive equivalent. After using $9,000 from the original sale to buy to cover, the trader is left with $1,000, which is now profit. After brokerage fees and taxes, the trade might be lucrative for the trader, which is exactly the idea. Short-selling allows the bear to make money, ensuring someone can benefit when others lose. As great as this may sound, it does not come without risk and a major catch. When a bullish trader buys stock, their potential profits are virtually unlimited given a stock could travel higher to an astronomical price. A bullish trader can really only lose what they bought, as stock prices stop at zero. Unfortunately, the bearish trader is forced to take the opposite end of this undertaking -- having gains capped and losses virtually unlimited. Because security prices have no limit of how high they can travel, the trader might have to pay up more than the $10,000 they originally invested if the security’s price becomes greater than what they sold it for. In the case of the earlier example, if the price of Company A common stock increased to $1,100 per share, the short position would have a value of $11,000, reflecting the additional $100 increase times the position of 10 shares. Once the trader buys to cover, they still need an extra $1,000 in order to come up with the money to pay for the securities they first sold. At a maximum, if Company A’s stock decreases 100% to $0.00, the trader makes $10,000. However, if Company A’s stock increases 100%, 200%, or 300%, the trader must come up with an additional $10,000, $20,000, or even $30,000 respectively to cover the original bet. This makes the method of short-selling incredibly risky, especially because it is usually done with margin from a broker, who reserves the right to do whatever they must in order to cover the sale. These are some of the risks short-sellers take for the opportunity to make money when no other conventional investor is. This is what also makes the process controversial, as some view shorts like those seen in Michael Lewis’ 2010 novel and eventual movie The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine as immoral and dishonest. Some could make money while many others lose money. But what if there was a smarter way to engage in short-selling, and to hedge that a stock will fall? Wall Street is a crafty and complex place with many ways to make money. There is a method to short stocks, all while capping potential losses, eliminating the need for margin, and adding greater efficiency: enter the Put Options contract. Trading options contracts is a subject for another entire article, but in short, options essentially allow traders to make riskier bets in either direction without worrying about losing more than what they invested. Put Options allow investors to sell a stock that they do not own at a higher price than what it is currently trading at. Therefore, if a trader buys a $100 Put Option contract for Company A at $1,000, and the price of the shares fall to $900, the Put Option contract invariably becomes more valuable. If the contract is exercised (actually used to sell the stock), the owner of the option will have potential to make a larger amount of money. They then could, at this point, sell the $100 contract to another investor at a premium that reflects this greater value. The worth of an options contract could increase anywhere from 100% to 1,000% depending on the volatility of movements of the underlying security. Because of this potential increase in value (which is greater than the regular way of shorting stocks), and because they too stop at $0.00, trading Put Option contracts can be a smarter way to short stocks. After all, who would not want to make less-limited profits with more-limited risk, especially when others are left scratching their head and even losing money on the same securities? By Sean Lange The company with expected 2017 revenues higher than the GDP of over eighty of the world’s nations, with the two most popular online purchasing platforms among 1.381 billion consumers whose spending power is predicted to increase 72% by 2025, and with a larger volume of yearly sales than Amazon and e-Bay combined, is vying to establish even more implausible rubrics for its success — in one day. Alibaba (NASDAQ: BABA) is, for context, the “Chinese Amazon,” an internet-based and tech-driven conglomerate whose central business is e-commerce. Based on complexion, however, the companies are much different: in a country where Amazon’s “online store” format has failed to entrench itself, Alibaba has excelled with its concept of digital sales “forums” that match registered buyers and sellers based on search queries and purchase history, and enable the parties to negotiate terms of pay and shipment. This strategy requires no warehouses, no fulfillment services, and no inventory to be coordinated by Alibaba’s consumer-to-consumer platform Taobao (think a cross between e-Bay and Etsy), and business-to-consumer platform, T-Mall (think Taobao for the big brands that one would find in a shopping center). Underlying these services is a potent interaction between business and environment: Alibaba now commands 56.6% of the $378 billion Chinese e-commerce market; and reported having $4.9 billion in free cash flow in the third quarter of 2017. With those metrics in mind, Alibaba looms large as it prepares promotions for “Singles’ Day” next Monday, 11/11. Traditionally known as the “anti-Valentine’s Day” in Chinese society, Alibaba repositioned the unofficial holiday in 2012 as a day of prolific sales offers, similar to the “Prime Day” of deals that Amazon has introduced for each July 11th. For reference, Amazon’s Prime Day shattered U.S. records for intra-day e-sales in 2017, with over $1 billion in transactions taking place. In comparison, on 11/11 in 2016, Alibaba brokered $18 billion in exchanges, three times the amount grossed by Black Friday, Thanksgiving, and Cyber Monday together in the United States last year. Since that day, Alibaba has grown 61% by revenues. While Alibaba verges on Singles’ Day and continues expansion into cloud computing, e-pay platforms, agri-tech solutions, digital entertainment, and e-commerce in India and Indonesia, it is important to note that Alibaba’s stock price has already doubled year-to-date, to the recent high of $192 on November 2nd. Even phenomenal Q3 results — beats on EPS by $0.25 and revenue by $500 million — incited only marginal investor entrance into the stock. The spending extravagance on 11/11 should be impressive, but no more impressive than any of the other feats that Alibaba has displayed in 2017. By Nicholas Maldarelli The idea of home means more than a house, a comfy bed, a dimly lit living room on Friday nights. It means comfort, reprieve, security. Having a place to call home removes the fear of being displaced or unwanted. Home serves not only as a physical security but as a mental one; it allows you to focus your energy on other parts of your life: learning, loving, living. For my entire life, I have had a place to call home, although I had never actually known what home, and homelessness, meant. It took a trip halfway across the world to figure that out. On that trip, I befriended a young boy from Sri Lanka who touched my heart in ways I’ll never forget. I spent four months in the spring of 2017 as a study abroad student trying to assimilate into the German culture, learning the language, the customs, and the norms. The privilege of studying abroad was complemented by service work at the Patrick Henry Village (PHV), a temporary housing facility for individuals from Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East seeking political and economic refuge. It was there I met J (I have not used his name for fear of reprisal if his family is repatriated). This boy had a resounding laugh and jubilant personality. His broken English was not a barrier in our friendship. He taught me Tamil, his native tongue, and I taught him English and Russian. We found similarities and used that common ground to develop a strong friendship that transcended everything I had come to understand about refugees and friendship thus far in my life. J divulged his reason for being at PHV: his late father was executed for participating in an anti-government coup as he tried to bring justice to those who wronged the millions of lower and middle class Sri Lankans. J explained how in Sri Lanka, people fear the government leaders more than the militias. The government holds supreme power over the people, and uses extortion and fear-based behavior to control the people of the country. He lived with his mother and uncle, and came to Germany to seek political asylum from the oppressive forces within Sri Lanka. In my time with J and other children of parents seeking asylum in Germany, I learned that these people were not terrorists but rather victims of terror. My eyes and heart were open to hear their stories, share in their tears, and do everything in my power to make their troubles of finding a home a little more bearable. He loved chess, drawing, learning language, and making friends. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, he would shuffle into the classroom, often without socks on his feet, and sit down at the table with an alacrity to learn and interact. His smile was genuine. Should you look deep enough into his eyes, they bore the scars of his past, but also glimmered at the hope of a future. I walked to PHV three times a week to show him that future was waiting for him. There is no doubt that the political climate of the United States is undergoing a radical change. A change in leadership of the free world carries with it a change in diplomatic relations and policies. In light of news regarding anti-Muslim migration into the United States, I feel it necessary to voice my opinion and recount my coming of age as an individual who, because of the friendship with one boy from a very dysfunctional country, now understands what it means to be a refugee without a home. My friendship with J inspired me to stand up and fight for people like him. I cannot ignore their cries for help anymore, nor should the United States of America. People seldom realize what home really means. Home is the foundation upon which the rest of one’s life thrives. Safety and security, education, nourishment, companionship, and personal meaning and ambition. None of that would exist without a home. Just 19 years ago, I immigrated to the United States of America to have a better life, and after a few years of moving from one state to the next, I found my home in Mount Olive, New Jersey. So I ask you President Donald Trump, when it comes to allowing J, or any other victim of terror in the U.S., what makes these innocent lives any different? By Paul Mulholland The October Revolution, whose 100th Anniversary (per Russia’s adherence to the Gregorian calendar) will take place on November 25th, was a critical turning point in world history. The Provisional Government in Russia was toppled by the Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. The consequence was ultimately the creation of the Soviet Union under the rule of Joseph Stalin. It's difficult to say where exactly the origins of the Revolution lie. In the preceding decades, Russia’s economy and industry were growing faster than any other nation, but it was still far behind Western Europe and the United States. Then, World War I put tremendous strain on Russian society, bringing about bread riots and strikes beginning on International Women’s Day in February 1917. Soldiers who had been called upon to stop the strikes, joined them; and Russian generals who had been deeply frustrated with the Tsar Nicholas II’s lack of reforms and further development of Russia demanded that he step down. What replaced Nicholas was an unpopular Provisional Government under Alexander Kerensky. The Provisional Government could not bring itself to leave the War, in part because it hoped to acquire new territories promised to it by the Allies, especially the Dardanelles from the Ottomans, and in part because the allies were its main source of support because the government had little to none internally. After the Bolsheviks took power from Kerensky in October, the Russian Civil War (1917-1921) began between the “Reds” (the Communists) and the “Whites” (a medley of groups with diverse views, but which included liberals, other socialists, and leftovers from the Tsarist autocracy). The Whites were supported financially, militarily and politically by many other countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, which invaded Russia on behalf of the Whites. It is in the Civil War that Stalin made a name for himself. The trauma caused by the Civil War is hard to overstate, and made strict adherence to Marxist theory impossible, because Marx saw history as a constant progression and provided no allowance for a dramatic decrease in development as a consequence of war. Lenin launched a “New Economic Policy” which essentially allowed for small-scale capitalism to help the country to rebuild itself, and showed his increasing practicality as a leader. Lenin would become incapacitated by a stroke and would die in 1924. Trotsky seemed the natural heir to Lenin, as a key leader in the October Revolution and leader of the Red Army. However, Trotsky lacked the sense of Russian society and the interests of its elites that Stalin possessed. While many Bolsheviks advocated for expanding the Revolution, Stalin advocated for first consolidating the new Soviet Union. Trotsky, in contrast, cared little for Russia and wanted to spread a global Marxist Revolution. TCNJ’s Professor of History, Professor Kovalev, says that Trotsky saw Russians as “nothing more than cannon fodder and kindling to ignite global revolution.” This made him less popular with a war-weary Russian public and, more importantly, with the Russian military elite that still wanted the nation to catch up industrially and militarily to the West so it would be prepared for future conflict. Stalin had a plan (in five year intervals) for the Soviet Union similar to what the generals themselves had been advocating. While Trotsky still believed in a Marxist dream of global revolution, Stalin understood Soviet politics and society, and reframed Russian Empire-building and industrialization as Communist projects. Trotsky was driven from the Soviet Union in 1929, and assassinated in Mexico in 1940; Stalin ruled until his death in 1953. By Connor C. Introna As markets continue to climb to historic heights, the likelihood of a potential market-wide pullback grows with each passing day. In just a year, both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ have zoomed upwards to the tune of around 30% while the S&P 500 has gained more than 20% without any major disruption. With really no market-wide downturn of more than 5% within the past 20 or so months, some Wall Street bears might argue that stocks are due for a correction soon. By the very nature of cyclicality, investors could soon acknowledge that a lot of stocks have become very expensive, and then be desperately waiting for the next excuse to liquidate and hide in cash. Regardless whether the next hit on the overall markets is a result of events out of Washington, actions from North Korea, interest rate adjustments by the Federal Reserve, or a combination of the above, something might be around the corner to trigger a downturn for stocks. This article is not dedicated to uncovering what that something is, or implying that the markets are necessarily about to fall; rather, its goal is to play devil’s advocate for the sake of education. When markets experience downturns, stocks crumble under selling pressure, and news causes investors to panic, there is still a way for traders to profit. Where there is a way to do something, there is always also a way to do it much more intelligently. On the subject of trading, that means minimizing risk and loss, and increasing potential for gain. It is a difficult subject to grasp at first, however, once it is understood, it could be a powerful and lucrative weapon in the trading arsenal. This article is dedicated to shedding light on the method bearish traders use to make money: short-selling. For those who are unfamiliar with the convoluted, controversial, and incredibly risky activity of short-selling, this article will explain the process and provide one of the smartest ways to do it. For starters, short-selling is a practice by which bearish traders could profit off of the falling price of a security. Just as a bullish trader buys a security (such as a common stock) at a low price with the intention of later selling it at a higher price, the bearish trader does the exact opposite. When short-selling, a trader will essentially borrow securities that they do not own in order to sell them at a specific price. Once having done this, the proceeds of this sale will go into the trader’s account. If the price of the borrowed security falls below what the trader sold it for, the proceeds would be used to buy it back, and the trader would keep the difference as a profit. For a better understanding, take this example: say a trader wants to short-sell 10 shares of Company A, whose stock price is $1,000. This trader believes that shares of Company A are going to plummet 10% to $900, so they short-sell the shares with a broker; $10,000 is credited to their account, and a short position with negative shares appears. If they are correct and the price of Company A shares falls to $900, then the trader has the option to do what is known as “buying to cover.” Once the shares fall to a certain price (in this case, $900) the trader buys those 10 shares, now for a total of $9,000. This covers, or corrects, the short position with the negative shares, as the only way to make a negative number equal zero is to add back in the positive equivalent. After using $9,000 from the original sale to buy to cover, the trader is left with $1,000, which is now profit. After brokerage fees and taxes, the trade might be lucrative for the trader, which is exactly the idea. Short-selling allows the bear to make money, ensuring someone can benefit when others lose. As great as this may sound, it does not come without risk and a major catch. When a bullish trader buys stock, their potential profits are virtually unlimited given a stock could travel higher to an astronomical price. A bullish trader can really only lose what they bought, as stock prices stop at zero. Unfortunately, the bearish trader is forced to take the opposite end of this undertaking -- having gains capped and losses virtually unlimited. Because security prices have no limit of how high they can travel, the trader might have to pay up more than the $10,000 they originally invested if the security’s price becomes greater than what they sold it for. In the case of the earlier example, if the price of Company A common stock increased to $1,100 per share, the short position would have a value of $11,000, reflecting the additional $100 increase times the position of 10 shares. Once the trader buys to cover, they still need an extra $1,000 in order to come up with the money to pay for the securities they first sold. At a maximum, if Company A’s stock decreases 100% to $0.00, the trader makes $10,000. However, if Company A’s stock increases 100%, 200%, or 300%, the trader must come up with an additional $10,000, $20,000, or even $30,000 respectively to cover the original bet. This makes the method of short-selling incredibly risky, especially because it is usually done with margin from a broker, who reserves the right to do whatever they must in order to cover the sale. These are some of the risks short-sellers take for the opportunity to make money when no other conventional investor is. This is what also makes the process controversial, as some view shorts like those seen in Michael Lewis’ 2010 novel and eventual movie The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine as immoral and dishonest. Some could make money while many others lose money. But what if there was a smarter way to engage in short-selling, and to hedge that a stock will fall? Wall Street is a crafty and complex place with many ways to make money. There is a method to short stocks, all while capping potential losses, eliminating the need for margin, and adding greater efficiency: enter the Put Options contract. Trading options contracts is a subject for another entire article, but in short, options essentially allow traders to make riskier bets in either direction without worrying about losing more than what they invested. Put Options allow investors to sell a stock that they do not own at a higher price than what it is currently trading at. Therefore, if a trader buys a $100 Put Option contract for Company A at $1,000, and the price of the shares fall to $900, the Put Option contract invariably becomes more valuable. If the contract is exercised (actually used to sell the stock), the owner of the option will have potential to make a larger amount of money. They then could, at this point, sell the $100 contract to another investor at a premium that reflects this greater value. The worth of an options contract could increase anywhere from 100% to 1,000% depending on the volatility of movements of the underlying security. Because of this potential increase in value (which is greater than the regular way of shorting stocks), and because they too stop at $0.00, trading Put Option contracts can be a smarter way to short stocks. After all, who would not want to make less-limited profits with more-limited risk, especially when others are left scratching their head and even losing money on the same securities? September 25-28, 2017By Kaelyn Digiamarino If there is one way for a coffee-addicted, espresso-obsessed marketing student to become completely and absolutely enamored with her major, it is to sit five rows away from Howard Schultz. In the unseasonable heat of late September, Times Square buzzed with professionals of all different backgrounds and ages, industries and levels, as Advertising Week took over New York City for four days. Sessions were held throughout different venues across Midtown, as attendees were free to walk back and forth among the ones that piqued their interest the most. Topic tracks ranged from data analytics to storytelling, from brand innovation to the future of media, from Millennials to agency culture to leadership. Food trucks offered free wood fired pizza and coffee, while another sponsor’s booth challenged passersby to stop and anonymously divulge their deepest professional confessions. Tantalizing previews of the latest AR and VR innovations filled the Tech X exhibit, where there were conversant dragon robots, and holograms that offered recipe suggestions for dinner. On Tuesday night, the Impact Awards showcased companies that were breaking ground in environmental, humanitarian, cultural, and economic awareness initiatives. But while all of that contributed to the energy and impressiveness of AdWeek, there was nothing that quite matched the brilliance of the speakers themselves, who each in their own way proved that great minds think unalike. Notebook in hand, it was not possible to scribble down quickly enough the words that spilled offstage from industry leaders I never fathomed being near. First to take the stage was Andrew Keller, Facebook’s Global Creative Director. He led a panel of speakers in discussing creativity and collaboration, addressing mobile specifically as a consumption platform. “Mobile is with you at your best and worst moments,” Keller pointed out, noting that it changes not just our minds but also our brains. Our brains are fast; and they are getting faster. It takes the average person just 13 milliseconds to identify and develop an emotional response to an image. Keller later cited that people thumb through 300 feet of content in their social feeds every day, a figure equal to the height of the Statue of Liberty. This overwhelming amount of content has resulted in the decoupling of reach and attention. To capture an audience you must bring your brand message to life in a way too compelling to be ignored. You must think braver, bolder and stand out in a way that is contextually relevant. Modern consumers look for the promise of personalization and want to be engaged in the process. On the note of collaboration, one panelist emphasized that, “Collaboration is at the heart of any creative genesis.” Furthermore, friction between people who think differently leads to innovation, and being comfortable with being uncomfortable is a must when embracing the messiness of collaboration. Protection, trust, generosity and empathy are the keys to this approach. “Thinking like a startup” can also transform collaboration and creativity; startups are committed, resourceful, resilient and have skin in the game. Next up was a session with Allan Thygesen, the President of the Americas at Google, and Keith Weed, the CMO and CCO of Unilever, that discussed marketing in the age of assistance. The age of assistance is characterized by increased empowerment of consumers, a result of the democratization of information and connectivity through the rise of mobile, social, and real-time web. Thygesen began by remarking that for these reasons, today’s consumer is more demanding, more curious, and more impatient than ever before. The hyper-connected consumer is changing how they engage with products and in turn is transforming the traditional path to purchase. To navigate this new landscape, Weed suggested following a framework of “5Cs” to resonate with today’s consumers: consumer, connect, content, community, and commerce. Give users real utility and real value in the moment, because the best strategy a brand and its marketers can have is to become consumer centric. Jessica Alba, founder of The Honest Company, Neil Blumenthal, co-founder and co-CEO of Warby Parker, and Harry Kargman, founder and CEO of Kargo, took on the topic of building a brand in a mobile-first world. Both Alba and Blumenthal believe that the best businesses are those that solve real problems. The Honest Company and Warby Parker each rewrote the way consumer-packaged goods were sold when they began their online, direct-to-consumer business models. Both companies received unprecedented attention from the start because their ideas innovatively launched entirely online, and because both supported ethical initiatives. Blumenthal credited the phenomenal success of Warby Parker to good timing in entering the market, and to deliberate serendipity—putting in the work to help create luck, and then taking advantage of it when it appeared. Warby Parker and The Honest Company thrive because they are simple solutions to customer pain points, because they clearly define the purpose of their brands, because they use details and specificity to create authenticity, and because they understand that consumers buy products based on attributes and price, not just for the good of other people. My time at Advertising Week ended with Howard Schultz, and as he began, it became clear his session would be the most impactful. Schultz started with a provocative statement, one that might have made accountants shudder: not every business decision should be a financial one. Schultz mused that Starbucks’ purpose as a business is to build shareholder value, but making money is not its mission. Starbucks is a financially driven company. But, it is one so that it can scale for good and through the lens of humanity. He challenged the audience: what is the courage of your convictions? Schultz explained that he is adamantly against the way people and companies are conditioned not to talk about certain subjects, such as race and sex. Except Schultz believes that there are some topics you simply cannot start the workday without first discussing and addressing. Furthermore, Schultz emphasized the need to be curious and the need to see around corners, but not just in terms of products and innovations. We, as marketers and people, cannot be indifferent; companies must use their sphere of influence to demonstrate that there is another way. The need is to be sensitive to human experience, because that is where you learn. Advertising Week was impactful in ways that words cannot fully describe. The train ride home from New York was a bittersweet one, as I sat with mixed feelings of melancholy and exhaustion. But also with feelings of excitement and empowerment and confidence, and with feelings that could not quite capture the invigorated passion for marketing instilled in me. And with the feeling that I really, truly needed another shot of espresso (or two). By Nicholas Maldarelli It seems that no matter where one shops today, every business has the same gimmick, “We do things differently.” Be it product or service differentiation, or customer service, or product design and quality, businesses want to be different. More importantly, however, is that businesses want their target markets to perceive them as different. This is especially true with clothing companies between which rivalry is high and product differentiation is relatively low. Companies that sell affordable yet stylish clothing have ultimately failed to achieve different; that is, except when Dov Charney created American Apparel in 1989. The story of American Apparel’s rise and fall as the iconic “cool clothing” brand is one that could likely be featured in undergraduate business management and marketing textbooks for decades to come. The company existed as a vertically integrated manufacturer, distributor, and retailer of domestically produced apparel and accessories. Its business model of backwards integration and a streamlined value chain propelled the company into the hundreds of millions of dollars range in gross revenue and facilitated its opening of over 200 locations across three different continents. During American Apparel’s 28-year tenure as an emblem of non-conventional style and dress, the company prospered financially and socioculturally as both a lifestyle brand as well as a general statement to society: “Products of value and quality can and will be produced in America, and people will pay more for them.” This was the essence of the company’s mission statement, and it proved profoundly lucrative and scalable up until Dov Charney engaged in corporate misconduct. From a marketing perspective, American Apparel thrived and simply did business different. From a corporate management perspective, the company performed poorly, and top executives, including and especially the founder and former CEO Charney, made poor judgements that inevitably sunk the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Before his inevitable downfall, Dov Charney had been an ambitious hustler. His entrepreneurial spirit, backed by a loan from his father, helped him import clothing from his hometown in Canada across the border into the United States. This brought to life the beginnings of American Apparel. Charney opposed corporate America, suits and ties, HR departments, memos, weekly meetings, banter next to the coffee machine at break time, and the like. He resented everything that had to do with conventional American business; and so by building a textile importer whose values and business practices worked against the current of American corporations, Charney felt comfortable defying the status quo at nearly every turn during his tenure as CEO. For much of its existence, the apparel company was revered for being sweatshop-free, instituting a liberal hiring process for immigrants, paying above-industry average wages for employees, and implementing edgy and largely controversial advertising, which most often featured scandalous outfits worn by young women. It was by these latter means that American Apparel differentiated itself, albeit in a way that inevitably corroded its brand reputation. Most importantly, however, American Apparel went into business at perhaps the most auspicious time for a progressive fashion company; young men and women with money to spend were searching for a sense of identity and meaning, and so often self-identity is discovered through forms of self expression i.e fashion. Impressionable teens and young adults distinguished themselves by thinking and acting differently, and tucking in a white t-shirt into one’s Made-in-America blue jeans consummated that identity shift. American Apparel displayed some foresight about this change in consumer tastes, attitudes, and preferences, and cashed in by building a product line that facilitated that exact aesthetic…hipster. Backed for its edgy, promiscuous advertising, which was also demolishing boundaries of ethics and respect by women, American Apparel commodified the hipster aesthetic and allowed anyone willing to spend big to come along for the ride. Nearly three decades later, Dov Charney was ousted by his executive board, the stock subsequently plummeted, the business began to crumble in all levels of management, and American Apparel eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As of June 2017, Canadian-American clothing manufacturer Gildan Activewear agreed to buy out American Apparel as a company, but opted out of keeping any retail locations open for business. Since this past summer, the company has quietly withdrawn from gentrified neighborhoods and cities across the country and abroad, and is currently under capital and financial restructuring with Gildan at the head. The reasons why American Apparel ultimately failed are numerous and complicated. Changing market conditions such as the rise of e-Commerce detracted from the company’s brick-and-mortar sales and branding, fashion trends changed over time, and management fiascos corroded company reputation. However, perhaps the most pernicious influence on American Apparel’s demise was its inability to keep up with its customers’ attitudes and values. American Apparel found its identity in basic apparel produced and distributed in the USA, but failed to understand the ethical and legal implications of its business policies. As Millennials with moderate-to-high purchasing power begin to take notice of ethical standards within a company, any company that targets those consumers must heed these priorities. They drive purchasing behavior and manifest brand loyalty. American Apparel lost touch with the very people who put the company in business in the first place. |