By SIMON CONSTABLE
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Thursday, January 30, 2025
Korn Ferry: Britain’s Gen Z: ‘No, Thanks’ on Job-Hopping
By SIMON CONSTABLE
If you’d asked a Gen Zer a few years ago about how long they wanted to stay at one company, you’d likely have heard comments like “as short a time as possible.” Most saw job-hopping as a path to pay raises; most regarded corporate loyalty as a joke.
But guess who’s had a change of heart? In a remarkable finding, almost nine out of 10 Gen Zers rank stability as a priority, alongside financial security and a sense of community and belonging. That’s according to a recent study by UK-based insurance company Admiral. On average, Gen Z wants to stay with one company for seven years, the report says. That’s more than double the average of 3.5 years reported by workers overall. Read more here.
Thursday, January 23, 2025
#France: Starmer's failure to lead. @RealConstable @BatchelorShow Occitanie
By SIMON CONSTABLE
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Undated engraving depicting the executioner after the beheading of Charles I of England, 1649. Portrait File, Harvard University. Houghton Library , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Kiplinger: 2025 Stocks Forecast: What Stock Pros Expect This Year
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Landing on a 2025 stocks forecast is a tricky business. Both 2023 and 2024 were some of the best times for investors. Each of those years produced total returns in double digits. But will 2025 also be a booming year for equities? History says it’s unlikely, while analysts hold differing positions.
Since 1942, three-year annual gains of 10% have occurred just three times. Only twice have there been four consecutive years of double-digit gains and only once has there been a five-year run.
“There is certainly a possibility that we have another gain that’s double-digit,” says Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA. “The problem is how do we know if we will have a gain or a loss.” Read more here.
HitomiAkane, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Thursday, January 16, 2025
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Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Briefings Magazine: Suddenly, Global Defense Spending Booms
By SIMON CONSTABLE
It was 1962, and tensions were rising as the Soviet Union began a buildup of nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles south of the United States. Worries of a nuclear Armageddon were palpable. Fortunately, the crisis was averted—and so was the military buildup. Over the next six decades, in a remarkable string of declines, global defense spending (including military equipment, war matériel, personnel, and weaponry) would fall from 6.3 percent of global GDP in 1962 to a low of 2.1 percent in 2018, helped in part by the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But that was then. In a turnabout whose magnitude may surprise you, global defense spending rose a whopping 6.8 percent in 2023 from the previous year to a staggering $2.4 trillion, the largest annual increase since 2009. Read more here.
Thursday, January 9, 2025
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Korn Ferry: A Slump in Britain’s Hiring
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Two years ago, British companies couldn’t find enough people to work for them. It was the Great Resignation of 2022, and salaries soared.
But things have changed dramatically since then. New job vacancies in the UK have dropped by a staggering 23% through the end of November versus the same time last year, according to data from job-posting website Indeed. Britain is also far behind other rich countries such as Germany, Ireland, the US, and Canada, in which job openings dropped between 5% and 15% over the same period. Read more here.
Sunday, January 5, 2025
WSJ: FINANCIAL FLASHBACK -- 25 YEARS AGO: The AOL-Time Warner Merger
By Simon Constable
In January 2000, Steve Case, CEO of internet provider AOL, agreed to merge with media conglomerate Time Warner for a record-breaking $156 billion offer for a public company.
At the time, The Wall Street Journal noted that the 15-year-old AOL wasn’t old enough to purchase beer.
On the other hand, Time was founded in 1923 and survived the Great Depression with many well-loved brands. “[AOL] has essentially swallowed an ancien regime media conglomerate that took most of a century to construct,” wrote The Wall Street Journal.
“This was supposed to be the proving ground of Old Economy meets New Economy,” says Pete Earle, a senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research. AOL needed content, Time Warner had lots of it, and there would be synergies. “It seemed like a match made beyond heaven,” says Earle.
But that dream died fast.
A big part of the issue was the culture clash. “You have Time Warner, a conservative long-lived company added to AOL, an aggressive tech firm,” Earle says. “It hindered effective collaboration.”
In retrospect, the deal’s announcement in January 2000 marked the peak of the dot-com bubble.
Read more here.
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