Buying American

In 1929 Willis Hawley and Reed Smoot, two protectionist Republicans in Congress, sponsored a bill to raise tariffs to the highest levels America had ever seen. And in the midst of economic distress, the protectionists won. The result was a round of reciprocal tariff hikes elsewhere, and a disastr...

By Economist Staff • Feb. 2, 2009

Top Ten Concerns of CFOs

Where do you turn for information on the fast-changing financial crisis? Siebe van Elsloo hopes it is to a newspaper, a magazine or the journals at the local library. In fact, any publication will do. For the CFO of Royal Swets & Zeitlinger, a Dutch subscription-services company, the greater ...

By Jason Karaian • Feb. 2, 2009

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

Farewell to Finance Jobs

Although the fallout from the Satyam scandal, in which the Indian outsourcing giant admitted to massive fraud, has yet to be fully understood, one study found that U.S. firms plan to embrace offshoring to a remarkable degree. A survey of 200 companies by The Hackett Group indicates that companies...

By Sarah Johnson and Alix Stuart • Feb. 1, 2009

You Oughta Plea in Pictures

In 2007, as a major U.S. publishing company contemplated going public, it realized it had a problem: no one had ever heard of it. Despite broad market penetration and an impressive breadth to its product line, the company feared that its anonymity would have a devastating effect on its offering p...

By Scott Leibs • Feb. 1, 2009

Finance Keeps Cranking Away

With recession starting to slice into sales of his firm’s flagship software suite, Adobe Systems CFO Mark Garrett looked for ways to cut costs. In the end, Adobe trimmed capital investment, combined departments, and reluctantly laid off about 600 employees, around 8 percent of its workforce. No d...

By Nelson Wang • Feb. 1, 2009

Sound Familiar?

So much for Chinese exceptionalism. The financial crisis continues to ripple across the economy, leaving many CFOs here shaken, particularly those who until very recently thought the country would emerge unscathed. The slowdown has been dramatic, particularly in the final two months of last year....

By Wu Chen • Feb. 1, 2009

The CEO’s Take: Recovery to Be Long, Painful

CEOs are digging in for a long, painful recovery.Only 34 percent of chief executives surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers are very confident of growth over the next three years, down from 42 percent last year, when CEOs were just beginning to recognize the full impact of the credit crisis on the gl...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 28, 2009

Blue Monday: U.S. Layoffs Top 57,000 Today

Caterpillar Inc.’s decision to cut 20,000 jobs – announced as part of a fourth-quarter report showing earnings off 28 percent – led the damage of a day in which at least 57,000 layoffs were announced by five U.S. companies.Noting that global economic conditions and commodity prices have continued...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 26, 2009

NYSE: $15M Market Cap Enough for Listing

Some small public companies with eroding market capitalization will have one less thing to worry about for the next three months.On Friday the New York Stock Exchange announced a temporary relaxation of the market-cap threshold required in order to remain listed. Through April 22, companies whose...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 23, 2009

Super Bowl XLIII Spending Off XX Percent: PwC

Spending in the Tampa Bay area for Super Bowl XLIII is likely to be thrown for a loss by the lousy economy — with receipts expected to be off far by 20 percent — but it should still approximate $150 million, according to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.Fans of professional football’s rival ...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 21, 2009

An Italian Lifeline

Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne may not exactly be putting his money where his mouth is, but he is staking his reputation as a consummate dealmaker. Last month he declared that the immediate prospects for the car industry were so dire that only big producers, with sales of more than 5.5m a year, would b...

By Economist Staff • Jan. 21, 2009

How Optimistic Is Small Business? Why Even Ask?

A monthly survey of executives led to a sharp plunge in the “small business optimism index” — down 2.6 points, to a near-record low score of 85.2 — showing how economic worries are swelling in that huge segment of the economy.The 35-year-old survey by the National Federation of Independent Busine...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 13, 2009

Bank Shots: Small Firms Often Eager to Switch

Almost half of small and middle-market companies are actively seeking a new bank, or would consider switching banks if presented with a compelling offer, according to a survey from Greenwich Associates.At the end of 2008, nearly 50 percent of small businesses in the survey, and 40 percent of mid...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 7, 2009

Diagnosing Depression

The word “depression” is popping up more often than at any time in the past 60 years, but what exactly does it mean? The popular rule of thumb for a recession is two consecutive quarters of falling GDP. America’s National Bureau of Economic Research has officially declared a recession based on a ...

By Economist Staff • Jan. 7, 2009

From Bad to Worst

For those seeking a glimmer of hope amid the current economic news, the latest CFO Magazine/Duke University Global Business Outlook Survey is not the place to look. With CFO optimism plummeting to its lowest level in the 12-year history of the survey, 81 percent of finance executives say they are...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Jan. 1, 2009

Driving a Hard Bargain

If you’re wondering how the financial crisis is rippling through the European economy, just log on to Broadspeed.com. Since November, the Essex, England, online auto broker has extended an offer that even cash-strapped customers can’t refuse — buy one car, get one free.With new car sales in the U...

By Janet Kersnar • Jan. 1, 2009

Layoffs Take a (Brief) Holiday

The rapid pace of layoffs slowed a bit as Corporate America — with its record November for job cuts just past — plans to ring out 2008. Could it be the sign of a bottom? Or, perhaps more likely, that few companies have the heart to fire workers during the holidays and preparations for New Year’s ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 31, 2008

No End to the Nightmare

The sense of relief in Detroit that greeted the $17.4 billion federal lifeline thrown by President Bush to General Motors and Chrysler just before Christmas is unlikely to last long. The terms of the bridging loans amount to a gun at the heads of the two carmakers and their stakeholders. Unless t...

By Economist Staff • Dec. 31, 2008

Economy Puts Sports on Defensive, Sort Of

C.C. Sebathia’s seven-year, $161-million deal with baseball’s New York Yankees notwithstanding, the global recession has the sports world down in the count, as well.While some companies cancel their corporate sponsorships, some football and baseball teams are freezing ticket prices for the durati...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 11, 2008

Business Outlook Survey: Rock Bottom

For those searching for a glimmer of hope in the current economic news, the latest CFO Magazine/Duke University Global Business Outlook Survey is not the place to look. With CFO optimism plummeting to its lowest level in the 12-year history of the survey, 81 percent of finance executives say they...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Dec. 10, 2008

Debunking Decoupling

Last month, Fitch Ratings degraded the sovereign debt of Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan. The move put paid to the theory of “decoupling,” at least for now. Few still cling to the idea that the fallout from wobbly markets in the west will bypass emerging markets in the east.For western ...

By Gabor Taroczy • Dec. 8, 2008

Business Outlook Survey

“This time is different” is the most expensive phrase in finance, according to European strategists at Morgan Stanley, who cite a long history of bursting bubbles in a recent report. Nonetheless, they add, “every now and then a true shift takes place.”Could this be one of those rare occasions? Ac...

By Jason Karaian • Dec. 8, 2008

Unhappy First Birthday, Recession of 2008

Some say the current recession is a noisy newborn, even if it arrived in recent months with screams and yelps of pain. But the National Bureau of Economic Research says it is already a churlish one-year-old this month.The NBER, a private nonprofit research organization dedicated to promoting unde...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 1, 2008

With a (Very) Little Help from the Feds

When the nation’s largest financial companies were deemed too big to fail, the Treasury Department swooped in with a $700 billion–plus rescue package. But what about businesses that are deemed too small to rescue? They can only hope that their homegrown approaches — pruning costs, postponing grow...

By Josh Hyatt • Dec. 1, 2008

What Goes Down Will Come Up

Only last April, Michael Graff of Graff Trucking predicted catastrophe if diesel prices climbed higher. “I’m at the point where I’m questioning my ability to continue to operate,” he said. While the current respite may have dialed back such angst, volatility has not vanished. Nor has the continge...

By S.L. Mintz • Dec. 1, 2008