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 November 2008, Issue #32 Is Change in Sight? October turned out to be one of the worst months in financial market history. During the first seven trading days of the month, the Dow lost more than 20% of its value and set multiple volatility records including a record 800-point intraday tumble on October 6th. Although the Dow rebounded over 900 points and set a new record for largest single-day point increase on October 13th, these gains were soon erased and stocks were at new five-year lows by October 27th. Overall, the Dow lost 15.4% for the month, making it the 11th-worst month in its history and worst month since 1987. The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates by another half-percentage point, cutting the target short-term interest rate to 1%, the lowest since June 2004. However, with a weak Q3 GDP report along with data indicating large declines in personal spending, the economic slowdown only seems to be worsening each day. Not even Barack Obama's convincing victory in the Presidential election has been able to produce a market rally. In fact, stocks lost 10 percent in the two days that followed the election. Investors remain cautious and say that it is too soon to if that the worst is over. They are pondering what impact Obama will have on the economy and monitoring the direction the next administration will take. Obama's response to this crisis will probably revolve mostly around the $700 billion financial rescue package passed last month. However, he has proposed other measures including exempting seniors from having to make withdrawals from retirement savings, exempting jobless workers from having to pay income taxes on employee benefits, and offering a tax credit to businesses for every domestic new hire they make. Obama also plans to temporarily reduce or suspend fees charged by the Small Business Administration. Will these measures work? Is change in sight? We'll have to wait and see.
What's New at Firstrade On the Roadmap
In every issue we take a quick look at a stock that has been in the news. Feel free to make suggestions as to what stock you would like to see covered next by sending an email to editor@firstrade.com, or the editor will pull a random symbol out of a hat. This month we take a look at Activision Blizzard, a recently merged Franco-American video game developer and publisher. The company, the result of a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games, has established a leading market position in the video game industry. In its recently released 3Q report, results jumped past expectations and blew away other video game giants. Although grim retail sales from two major competitors, THQ and Electronic Arts, have caused them to scale back on their payrolls, Activision Blizzard is expected to fair very well this holiday season compared to other not so lucky game developers. Activision Blizzard operates as an online and console game publisher. Its most famous products include Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, Tony Hawk, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, StarCraft, Diablo, Warcraft, and World of Warcraft. Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, it has operations in 20 countries and is currently a subsidiary of Vivendi. Let's take a look at some key events.  Key Events:
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