Anchoring Read online In Alex Edmans' great book The Madness of Markets, he writes about how the bookshop Computer Literacy, Inc changed its name. The store, in 1999, became Fatbrain.com. But why? What's wrong with Computer Literacy, Inc? According to Alex Edmans, it was to profit from the dot-com bubble. And it worked. Fatbrain's stock climbed 36% after the name change. A Bloomberg article about the name change. But was the Fatbrain spike in earnings a one-off? To find out, Cooper, Dimitrov...

Mere Exposure Read online In E.T., director Steven Spielberg planned a scene where the alien creature was coaxed out of hiding using sweets. Keen not to miss a profitable opportunity, Spielberg approached Mars to use M&M’s for a small fee. Mars turned Spielberg down. Undeterred, Spielberg asked Hershey’s for product placement. Hershey’s had just launched Reese’s Pieces, so they jumped at the chance to feature the new chocolates on screen. Reese’s Pieces were used to lure out the alien. After...

Concrete Phrases Read online Take a look at this satellite photo. What do you see? Most see a busy Walmart car park. But stock market investors see earnings. RS Metrics sells daily satellite images of parking lots at 44 of the USA’s largest retailers. They photograph 67,000 locations every day (assuming no cloud cover). To a layperson like me, this seems ridiculous. Surely there’s a better metric investors can use to gauge business success? But investors place a high value on these images....