The Impact of Breaking News on Business: Not Quite What You Might Expect
ByIf you turned on a TV or a radio, opened a newspaper, or even glanced at your Facebook news feed yesterday, odds are you were bombarded with multiple reports of the death of Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda. And of course, every online news source is already full of opinion pieces about the impact this major event will have on a wide variety of outcomes: President Obama’s chances for re-election, the state of the economy, worldwide air travel, and even the fate of a Hollywood film based on a failed attempt to capture bin Laden, which had reportedly been in the works at the time of his death.
Interestingly, while many political analysts are predicting a boost in President Obama’s approval ratings as well as an increased chance for his re-election as a result of this breaking news, Wall Street does not seem to have been affected much. Compared to the 7.1% drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average that was reported on September 17, 2001 when the stock markets reopened after the September 11th terrorist attacks, in the wake of bin Laden’s death we saw less than a 1% increase in the same index, and the Dow actually closed slightly lower yesterday (by about 0.03%):
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-markets-stocks-idUSTRE74120Z20110502
These numbers are certainly not encouraging for business interests: according to many financial analysts who have sounded off on this issue so far, it seems that our progress toward economic recovery remains at about the same point today as it was the day before yesterday. As one blogger for the Wall Street Journal put it, “absent attacks related to Osama’s death, the economy’s future will be driven by the same trends that concerned us last week, and the war on terrorism will remain a large expense.” You can read the full blog at the link below:
So what does all of this mean for your business? Do you feel any more optimistic about your bottom line today than you did before the news broke? Do you see this development as a small step down the long road toward economic recovery, or do you expect that the only real impact this will have on your business is the likely even further heightened restrictions on air travel? Leave a comment and tell us what you think!
