Why the ghost of 2008 still haunts us in 2022

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Throughout the week, there have been events in the news that have come under the slogan “This hasn’t happened since 2007/2008”.

10-year Treasury yields briefly topped 4%, a level not seen since 2008. The move helped push mortgage rates to their highest level, 6.7%, since—wait for it—July 2007. Across the pond, as British bonds collapsed The market Earlier this week, a London banker apparently told the Financial Times: “Sometime this morning I was worried this was the beginning of the end. It wasn’t exactly Lehman’s moment. But it came close.”

The timing of all of these events is a little scary: Today, September 29, marks 14 years since the day stock markets around the world erupted, triggering the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression.

With all the gloom, it’s only natural to wonder if history is about to repeat itself.

To be clear: the market ended up recovering completely – although it took years. In many ways, the worldwide economic and financial anxiety is not at all a repetition of the period before the Great Recession. It’s a completely different beast now.

But with those scars of 2008, which remain fond memories for many, economists and analysts are nervous when things go this way as they have in recent weeks.

Now, the dominant mood is fear. Economies that have been hobbled by inflation and rising borrowing costs are vulnerable to economic shocks—whether those shocks come from a catastrophic hurricane, a superpower declaring war on its neighbor, or a radical, unfunded tax plan. Or, God forbid, a renewed pandemic.

All this means that there are not many good places for investors to put their money at the moment. Both stocks and bonds are in bear territory, and many analysts say the market can remain choppy until inflation is brought under control (which, if we hit a recession, could happen very soon…not a positive side, I know).

If there’s a lesson to stick to from the Great Recession, don’t panic. According to my colleague Jane Sahdy:

Let’s say you invested $10,000 at the beginning of 1981 in the S&P 500. That money could have grown to nearly $1.1 million by the end of March 2021. But if you’ve only missed your best five trading days during those 40 years, you’ve only grown to what Approximately $676,000.

In other words: Hold on tight, friends, and try to avoid looking at your 401(k) balance for the foreseeable future.

Stocks fell on Thursday, giving up Wednesday’s big gains and sending the Dow Jones back into a bear market.

The S&P 500, one of the broader measures of US corporate health, fell 2.1%, hitting a new low for the year. Once again, the Dow and S&P 500 are not far from their lowest levels since November 2020.

Hekova way the conclusion of the third quarter eh? The stock market actually had a promising start to the quarter in July. But concerns about inflation, interest rate hikes, rising bond yields, and recession returned with a vengeance in August and September.

Continuing the great tradition of corporate rebranding, Johnson & Johnson places all of its consumer health products under the supervision of a newly formed parent company.

Soon, Band-Aid, Tylenol, Benadryl, and Johnson’s baby powder will be sold under the “Kenvue” brand name.

“Ken”, like a doll, is pronounced “view”.

Here’s the deal: Johnson & Johnson, the owner of the brands, is in the process of splitting into two companies — one focused on medical devices and pharmaceuticals, and the other on consumer health products, my colleague Nathaniel Merson reports.

J&J is keeping its own distinct name for its larger pharmaceutical business, but it needed something new for its smaller consumer arm.

The company said Wednesday that it has landed on Kenvue, which is a combination of “ken,” an English word for knowledge used primarily in Scotland, and “vue,” referring to sight.

“Kenvue” is the winning title that landed a small team of J&J, working with a label agency. The goal was to be unforgettable. Most importantly, it surveys brands in more than 100 markets and “passes language and cultural offerings in 89 languages ​​and dialects.”

The company also released the new Kenvue logo – white letters on a green background, the ends of the letter “K” resembling a side heart.

what does that mean? Absolutely nothing, that’s the point.

Companies are attracted to very clean names. There is no possibility of a negative connotation, because it is a made-up word. It doesn’t look, as far as I can tell, like it might look like an expletive in some other language. Kenvue is harmless. bloodless It is tofu for corporate brands.

“It’s really just the holding company behind all these other brands,” one expert told Nathaniel. “They want a name that will disappear into the background and the brands will still stand out.”

(Mission accomplished. I already forgot the new name and typed it 40 seconds ago.)

my cent

The best review I can give to the new brand is that it is forgettable. Other famous (notorious?) companies failed to hold on to landing new names.

Netflix, in 2011, quickly fell off course after trying to rename its DVD mail service “Qwikster”. More recently, Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group merged in 2020 under the collective name “Stellantis,” which is still the name of the company, but I still think it’s something you should ask your doctor about if you have signs of seasonal depression.

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from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/why-the-ghost-of-2008-still-haunts-us-in-2022/