Today's WSJ article touting the leap in productivity is a good reminder that metrics based on unit inputs/outputs is a very valuable tool. Make sure that you're not just measuring revenue, margins and profits ... but measuring them against "unit" metrics like headcount and hours worked. If you watch those…
For you valuation junkies out there, it's kind of a hoot to hear The Donald talk about how he values companies and his interest in them in an interview with the Wall St. Journal. My favorite is his "mental projections", his own legerdemain for how he takes into account various…
Business Week reports its Top 50 performers based on ROE and growth. Reminiscent of Good to Great by Jim Collins, I bet you won't recognize many of the company names, many of which shine as a result of relentless innovation. BW highlights several trends among these Top 50 that are…
"You Oughta Plea in Pictures" is a solid reminder that pictures tell the story. It emphasizes the value of pictures and diagrams when illustrating important financial points rather than a plethora of spreadsheets that obscure the fundamental issues. There are some interesting, and rather famous, examples of how this has…
You may not need another metric to measure your business but CFO Magazine recently described an interesting new metric called "free cash flow growth profile" as a measure of measuring the amount of discretionary cash available. In this context, "discretionary" means "no strings attached". While you could calculate that benchmark…
Can a President Tame the Business Cycle? is the headline in the recent NY Times article on Sunday about several economic indicators and how they have fared during various Presidential terms. Many of us have believed this for years, but it's clear that most informed observers believe that the President…
It won't take long to understand the dearth of regulatory results when you look at this graphic in today's New York Times, which traces the web of existing financial market regulators that already exists. Do we really think the federal government will wisely oversee the just-passed $700M mud sandwich (see…
In today's New York Times, there is an eye-catching picture that will make the nerdiest graphmeister weep. It's a very unique graphical depiction of the Consumer Price Index. You may not know that the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathers 84,000 prices on 200 products every month to calculate the Consumer…