Media Navel Gaze: October 20, 2014
The Week Unpeeled
Volatility ruled last week, with markets staging major swings nearly every day, a pattern that began earlier this month with the S&P 500 moving 1% or more in either direction on eight days. The market, in fact, has lost over $1.14 trillion since the peak at the middle of September and closed the week down about 1% after staging an impressive rally Friday to end at 16,380. Volatility culprits have been concerns about growth overseas, plunging crude oil prices, yield-curve outlook and yes, even Ebola. (Or maybe, as reports have suggested over the weekend, just catching up to the real economy.)
Elsewhere:
- Yes, Ebola dominated, with headlines and misinformation fanning fear factors; However, NYT Dealbook reported in an interesting not using World Bank figures that the outbreak will have an economic drain of as much as $32.6 billion by the end of next year;
- President Obama named an Ebola overseer;
- As the market and world unraveled, media unbundled with HBO announcing a new stand-alone service for streaming that is not subscription based;
- France economist Jean Tirole won the Noble Prize for Economics for his work on regulating businesses and has since been sitting down for some pretty interesting interviews on everything from the cable business to net neutrality;
- No real surprise but worth noting that Fidelity Investments named Abby Johnson as its new CEO, taking over from her father, and whose grandfather started the firm in 1946;
- A Park Ave building topped out last week to become the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere at 1,396 feet; and
- Royals/Giants.
