Questions tagged [corporate-finance]
the area of finance dealing with the sources of funding and the capital structure of corporations and the actions that managers take to increase the value of the firm to the shareholders
15 questions
3
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Does BlackRock own 15% of Fox News?
In a recent YouTube live stream by The Grayzone, the hosts, Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate, stated (~8m:53s) that investment management firms, Vanguard and BlackRock are:
the two largest owners of ...
20
votes
1
answer
9k
views
Is over 96% of Moderna's revenue from their COVID-19 Vaccine?
In a recent YouTube video from "The Lotus Eaters", one of the anchors states that "During the previous quarter, Moderna's earnings on their shares were 4.97 billion overall, and the ...
26
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Are Fairtrade farmers paid worse than other farmers in the same regions?
There have been a few articles recently on the (in)efficiency of fair trade organisation Fairtrade. Here is an example from the Guardian:
Sales of Fairtrade-certified products from Uganda and ...
5
votes
0
answers
217
views
Does high CEO compensation correlate with poor performance?
In a study cited by Forbes, The Highest-Paid CEOs Are The Worst Performers, New Study Says, the authors state (among other similar conclusions):
... the 5% of CEOs who were the highest paid, [...] ...
14
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Did Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, gamble on blackjack to keep the company afloat?
There is a commonly cited claim that in the early 70s, Fred Smith - the founder of Fedex, risked the company's last $5,000 in a casino gamble:
Desperate to pay bills, he flies to Las Vegas, wins $...
15
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Do US senators and congressmen make abnormally high returns on their stock market investments?
Nate Silver's popular book on the art and science of prediction, The Signal and the Noise has a chapter on financial markets called If you can't beat em.... The chapter spends some time discussing the ...
11
votes
0
answers
713
views
Can a Bitcoin Exchange manipulate the exchange rate in a way that defrauds its users without consequence? [closed]
Bitcoin is an Internet currency with no centralized bank or agency underpinning it. I only recently heard about it and I've been trying to understand how it works and if it is safe, however this is a ...
17
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Do banks typically lose as much money as they make in the long term?
Nicholas Nassem Taleb makes the following passing statement in his latest meditation on the nature and management of risk (Antifragile):
...businesses with negative optionality (that is, the ...
19
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Is the pharmaceutical industry the most profitable business in the United States?
The Russia Today article Pharmageddon: America’s bitter pill claims
The pharmaceutical industry remains the most profitable business in the US. More success and financial gain for the companies ...
18
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Do investment managers pick stock portfolios better, on average, than monkeys throwing darts?
Many individuals believe they can make significant quantities of money by stock trading. Much of the financial services industry wants the public to believe that it can take our savings and, by the ...
12
votes
1
answer
530
views
Do record companies use a system that kept 99.995% of artists without any form of regular income?
This quote from TorrentFreak:
Under the “sign-a-record-deal-or-remain-poor system”, 99% of artists
didn’t get record deals with the abusive record industry – and out of
those who did, 99.5% ...
27
votes
2
answers
76k
views
Does Louis Vuitton burn all their unsold bags?
It first ran across the notion with this meme
Every year Louis Vuitton burns all their unsold bags
A google search yields lots of results but none of them seems credible.
Snopes yields nothing.
...
11
votes
1
answer
851
views
Are many successful entrepreneurs post-secondary education dropouts?
One often hears anecdotes about how successful CEOs / founders / entrepreneurs are college or university dropouts, usually bringing up the same set of examples with one or two CEOs du jour. Most ...
12
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Did the Renault Espace sell only 9 cars when it was launched?
According to Richard Hammond of Top Gear, Renault's entry into the people carrier market sold just nine cars in its first month (1:18 - 1:27).
However, I cannot find a single source to back up ...
20
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Can Microsoft's success be attributed to their abuse of a monopoly
Can the success of Microsoft be attributed to their abuse of their operating system monopolies of MS-DOS through the various versions of Windows (and other related monopolies such as the Internet ...