WSJ By The Numbers - Top 10 for Nov.06
A compendium of revealing stats and the key leading economic indicators and business metrics based on today's Wall Street Journal article and reports:
Forecasters
See Holiday Gains Measly and Big: Forecasters are more divided than
usual over this holiday retail sales, with predicted gains ranging from a
2.5% hiccup to a gangbusters 7.5% advance and each percentage point
represents billions of dollars in sales. Depending on who is counting and
how they do the tallying, shoppers are expected to spend anywhere from
about $250 billion to $786.6 billion this holiday season. Retailers count
on holiday sales for as much as 40% of their annual sales and half their
annual profit. ComScore estimates nontravel online purchases will total
$24 billion this year, up 25% over last year.
| Cheaper Insurance Rates Point To Decline in Life, Business Risks: In the auto market, insurance-price increases have slowed drastically. In 2002 and 2003, prices rose 8.8% and 7.8%, respectively. However, collision claims claims are down by between 1.7% and 5.1% in each of the past four years. With the business becoming less risky, car insurance prices rose just 1.1% in September from a year ago, less than the 2.1% inflation rate. | 1.1% Car Insurance Rise |
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China and Africa Strengthen Ties With $1.9 Billion in Deals: Total trade between China and Africa has been increasing at 30% a year and is expected to top $50 billion this year, up from $39.7 billion in 2005. Resources and raw materials dominate the relationship: Angola this year surpassed Saudi Arabia as China's largest supplier of crude oil, and the scale of China's purchases means the country runs a trade deficit with Africa. |
$50B China Trade with Africa |
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Novartis to Establish Drug R&D Center in China: Estimates of the cost to develop and market a new drug run as high as $1.2 billion. In the U.S. the overall cost of a chemist to do drug development work can be around $250,000 a year. In China, chemists with similar educational backgrounds sometimes cost as little as $25,000 a year. China's booming pharmaceutical market grew 20% to $11.7 billion last year and is poised to become the world's seventh-largest pharmaceutical market by 2009, according to IMS. |
$1.2B New Drug Dev. Cost |
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A New Breed of Watchdog For Election Day: A 2002 legislation offered voting jurisdictions $3.8 billion to replace their punch-card and lever voting machines and to put together voter databases. As a result, about 55 million voters will be casting ballots on new voting systems this election, and 22 million of them will be using touch-screen machines in a federal election for the first time. |
55M Voter To Use New Machines |
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In Japan, Banks And Consumers Turn to Plastic: Credit-card payments account for just 8% of Japan's consumer spending, compared with about 25% in the U.S., according to American Express. However, in the fiscal year ended March 31, Japanese shoppers charged 24.3 trillion yen, or about $206 billion, on credit cards, up 14% from a year earlier, according to government data. Customers of Visa cards in the U.S. charged $4,135 on average on their cards last year, compared with $1,500 in Japan, according to company data. |
$206 Japan Card Biz |
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The Private-Equity CEO: Through Oct. 31, there were 2,163 private-equity buyouts globally valued at $538.67 billion, up from 2,024 deals and $291.63 billion for the same period last year, according to Dealogic. More deals are coming as private-equity firms have raised more than $199 billion since the start of 2005 but have spent only $56 billion, according Thomson Financial. |
$538B Global PE Deals |
| Google Targets Print Realm in Ad Push: Google had more than 400,000 advertisers that bought online ads using its system, according to an internal company document from last year. Google this week plans to let businesses start buying ads in more than 50 daily newspapers through its Web site. Under the three-month test effort, a group of more than 100 Google advertisers will be able to place bids for space in newspapers including the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer. | 400,000 Google Advertisers |
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On Drawing Lines in Bonds: Senior bond traders and compliance officers from 22 big Wall Street bond dealers are meeting with New York Fed and Treasury Department officials, who suspect some firms have been manipulating prices in the vast $4 trillion bond market. In the most egregious case in the early 1990s, Salomon Brothers was caught cheating at government-bond auctions. |
$4T Bond Market |
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WSJ By The Numbers - Metrics 2.0 |
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