Media Navel Gaze: May 7, 2012
It pays to scream in pastel colors, with Munch’s Home-Alone-ish piece selling for $119 million, the most expensive artwork at auction ever, signaling a hot art market unlike a not hot stock market last week with the Dow recording its largest drop in a month amid a weak jobs picture. Blue chips ended down 1.4 percent for the week at 13,038. The jobless rate inched down to 8.1 percent in April from 8.2 percent in March (reflecting job seekers saying uncle more than job seekers finding jobs), with non-farm payroll adding a much weaker-than-expected 115,000 jobs.
Elsewhere:
- Facebook prepped for its IPO scheduled for May 18 with a targeted valuation of $96 billion (that’s a lot of Screams);
- Carlyle priced its IPO at $22 per share, below initial estimates, and stayed near that level throughout opening day;
- Yahoo CEO is under fire (mostly from a hedge-fund investor) for fudging on his resume;
- Rupert Murdoch was called by parliament as “not a fit person” to lead a big media company like News Corp;
- Buffett hosted his annual meeting amid succession talk;
- Bosses at insurance giant Aviva were left humiliated after their multi-million pound bonuses were rejected by investors at their annual meeting;
- The Coalition government suffered at the local elections; Labour made key breakthroughs in the best night for the party since 1997;
- The Bacs Family Finance Tracker, which analysed the spending habits of almost 5,000 families, revealed that the downturn has led to Brits becoming more savvy and frugal when it comes to their cash; and
- I’ll Have Another wins the Kentucky Derby.
