Market Structure Map

Helping IROs understand short-term market structure to maintain long-term peace of mind.

Dec 15-20: The Last Map of 2008

We’re about to shut down the double monitor and sled off in search of festive seasonal cheer! We’ll be back for real, flicking on the lights and stoking the fire and the coffee maker January 5. Meantime, one parting 2008 thought:

Relevance. Whatever it is we’re doing, from serving as supportive spousal unit, to spearheading strategy as CEO, to running the IR department, we want to be relevant and valuable. Right? The unions wouldn’t be quibbling with management and government in this woeful and ill-fated car-company bailout if they were relevant and valued (ouch, I heard that sizzling vitriol). Government wouldn’t be rated somewhere south of coarse toilet tissue if it were relevant and valuable. And we in the IR business, if we’re to flex muscle at the management table in 2009, must be relevant and valuable.

What will our equity marketplace be like in 2009? Anybody’s guess…except that history proves that massive currency increases, coupled with gigantic plunges in productive output and consumption, never combine to produce heaven. And most times, these two hooked up turn out more like hell.

So IR relevance and value in 2009 is going to take something other than what you’ve been doing. You have to understand the global movement of money and how your equity is valued beyond the underlying cluster of business assets way down there underneath the ticker and tape.

If you can explain your rational price, and differentiate it from your natural price. If you can tell whether your market appeals to value investors, or GARP investors, or growth investors. If you know what kind of money – real, speculative, risk-management – is setting your price right now…then you’ll be well on your way relevance and value and exceeding coolness in the 2009 IR chair. Stay tuned.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, all! We’ll give you a break (we suggest Egg Nog instead) next week, back on January 6…2009. The fun will begin all over again!

 

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Market Structure Map

Our weekly Market Structure Map provides unique insights — free — on trading markets, with an exclusive focus on helping investor-relations professionals keep cool in the IR chair.

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