Market Watch
Deragon Executive Search
PO Box 13642
San Luis Obispo, CA 93406
Phone: (805) 783-0292
Fax: (805) 783-0293
Email: info@deragons.com
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| INTRODUCTION: |
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Greetings to our friends and readers, as we embark on a new business year.
At Deragon Executive Search, we often ask our audience what their strategy for success is, for the year, and how that will differ from the previous one. Universally, professionals out there during the month of January are expressing to us a painful awareness of the need for serious time management organization in their professional lives. The increasing pressure of time sensitive projects and personally imposed deadlines for achieving specific goals and obtaining their personal milestones never seems to let up.
The year is eight percent gone already, that much opportunity has passed February is moving along; we struggle to get our goals and priorities rolling, and in order. The market is cooperating with strong earnings and optimistic prognostications about the Fed and the economy and the market is expected to do well. My personal late start, following an extended holiday, made January a three-week long sprint, but very interesting projects have been initiated for us in the business development and management arenas currently. Our shift to Retained Search will continue through the year, as we solidify relationships with clients that in many cases have been sustained for most of our thirteen years of service.
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| INTRODUCTION CONTINUED... |
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Our monthly newsletter, which is written to serve to our greater audience, seeks to address a mixed audience of recipients: you are clients, would-be clients, and you are the professionals who power the business machine upon which we perform. Our demographic includes people who appreciate our broader lifestyle approach to business marketing, which includes photographic coverage of rocket launches at Vandenberg, Antique Auto Races in Monterey, Golf all over the place, Snowboarding, Kayak trips, and other typical forms of recreation for the active investment industry professional. Well point you to the website when new material is generated.
The newsletter unabashedly doubles as a marketing tool for us at Deragon Executive search, but also aims to deliver industry-focused information in a concise and brief format, consistent with our website, that will also provide inspiring images relating to the common leisure pursuits of our active demographic. All of you tend to be avid readers, exercisers, travelers, and collectors to some degree. Along with the tight scheduling, pressurized decision making, and typically high level of responsibilities we carry, the blessings of recreation and upscale vacationing and hobbies allowed by our investment business incomes inspire me to celebrate an active and luxurious lifestyle, which flows through to our marketing.
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| INTRODUCTION CONTINUED... |
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Weve enjoyed and encourage continued feedback with our audience, when it comes to career related inquiries and input about the newsletter. This dialogue is critical to our practice. Shoot us an email about what you like, or dont like, about the content, and get some dialogue going. If you are a financial services company, we know your challenges: a long professional history of having lived through the famed high-interest rate environment of the early eighties, the crash of 87, the recessions in the early nineties, the zooming equity and tech-boom years up to 99, and the consolidative years of the past six or seven, shows us that information is still the most sought-after advantage, and it comes at us quickly. So well share this valuable currency as quickly as it can be collected and delivered to you. For 2007, mergers and acquisitions have already become a disruptive buzz for uneasy professionals, along with plentiful upper-management changes in many of the prominent companies on the street: If you didnt already know it, your cheese will be moved. If it hasnt been moved already, it will, and we hope to be one of the parachutes you choose to reach for.
2006 was the best year on record for our firm. We continue to have a great time doing this, and it is because of interesting people making for interesting challenges. After 12 years focused on recruiting top performing heavyweights in the commissioned brokerage business, we will be strategically moving in the direction of Retained Executive Search and consulting. There are a dozen or so ancillary positions within the brokerage, banking, and asset management businesses that are out there, prominent and in need of a great talent pool, and we are particularly well-equipped to place winning candidates from this growing network of achievers. We are moving forward with new clients for search projects this month- pursuing business developers and training managers, for instance.
These are leadership roles, with opportunity for highly compensated professionals to reach for greater success.
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| INTRODUCTION CONTINUED... |
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We are focused on a shorter, fresher format to streamline this years newsletter series. Length and content have been critically evaluated, and youll see these adjustments in a friendlier and briefer product. I will eliminate much of the types of general economic news or earnings results that weve regurgitated in the past, which is too much general information, and too readily available everywhere.
Higher relevance and higher impact on you the reader, is my goal in distributing this news, along with staying in touch with you on a regular basis. Political comments will continue to appear, when there is an immediate impact likely on the search business, or the investment business, (or if there is nothing else to talk about). We remain the typical information junkies weve always been, but will expedite getting out great information over too much. If it relates to work, jobs, careers, or companies that we are close to, in the investment business, it will likely get some ink.
Cheers
Pete
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| WALL STREET, JANUARY NEWS BYTES: |
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Marsh and McClennan sells Putnam Investments.
Jefferies Group earnings rose 11.8%; revenue was up 9%.
Citigroup will re-brand itself as “Citi” and a new logo will be offered without the red signature umbrella, which is a holdover from the old Traveler’s Insurance.
Merrill Lynch Buys First Republic for $1.8 billion. Deal closes in Q4.
Merrill profitability was up 71% over the previous year. Revenue was up 27%.
Citibank buys Prudential’s Insurance’s Egg Banking for $1.13 Billion.
Citibank will buy ABN Amro Mortgage from Dutch ABN. The unit also owns LaSalle Bank.
Citibank CEO Charles “Chuck” Prince, forced 45 year-old Todd Thomson, who was Chief of the Wealth Management Group, over some high-profile battles over expenses, as Citigroup struggles for market share and profitability against rivals, and Prince struggles to defend his performance since taking over from Sandy Weill in October 2003. Sallie Krawcheck will re-take the position held by Thomson, after being promoted from it two years ago.
JP Morgan earnings up 47%
Charles Schwab profit rose 50%
Northern Trust profit was up 15%, revenue rose 17%.
State Street Earnings were up 16%. Revenue rose 15%
Mellon Financial is merging with Bank of New York, and reported income rose 28%.
Deutsch Bank Net Income +70% to $3.5 billion
Countrywide rumored to be in talks with Bank of America. Bank of America denies.
$473 Billion poured into US mutual funds in 2006, 85% more than 2005. Total fund assets were at over $10 Trillion in December. World Equity funds took in $13.12 billion in December.
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| ECONOMIC STATS THAT MATTER: |
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Personal Spending December: +.7%
Personal Income December: +.5%
Personal Savings Rate 2006: -.1%
Prices, year over year: +2.2%
Consumer confidence rose .3 in January (100.3 is the best level in 5 years.)
Growth in home prices is the lowest in 10 years. (Nationally 1.7% through November.)
Home loan defaults surge in California; 37,273 default notices were sent to homeowners between October and December, up 145% from Q4 2005. These statistics were the highest since 1998. the median dollar amount of the loans in default was $324,000
GDP Growth 4th quarter: 3.5%
Oil ended the month of January at about $57 per barrel.
Pending home sales December: + 4.9% (highest in 3 years)
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| CAREER IMPACT |
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Corporate Layoffs fell 39% in January vs. 2006.
The Unemployment rate holds at 4.5%
Job seekers get higher salaries- 92% of job seekers won equal or better salaries, benefits, and titles in 2006, up from 90% in 2005 according to Challenger, Gray, and Christmas. Low unemployment forced employers to increase wages, improve benefits and increase perks in order to retain the most talented workers. Demand for skilled professionals is especially strong.
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| NOTABLE: |
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Three nights of mid-January freezing temperatures destroyed up to 75% of California’s Citrus Crop. A similar cold snap in 1998 destroyed 85% of the crops.
BMW currently operates a hydrogen filling station at the BMW Engineering and Emissions Test Center in Oxnard, CA. Seven-series cars are being fitted to operate on both hydrogen and gasoline, with hydrogen tanks claiming all the trunk space of the large-platform cars.
India outpaced China in Arms Spending in 2005, with $5.4 billion vs. $2.8 billion in China.
Over half of Global Executives stated in a new poll that telecommuting is likely to stall the careers of workers, versus attending a traditional office setting. 61% of executives expressed this concern in a Study by Futurestep, a division of Korn Ferry. Although being away from a traditional office may cost them professionally, 78% of the polled group indicated that telecommuters are equally, or more productive, than those who work in offices. 46% polled favored working flexible hours.
Spam: In December 2006 spam accounted for 93% of all internet traffic.
2.5 million Americans were expected to buy a new television to watch the Super Bowl.
Digital music download sales doubled worldwide in 2006, offsetting a decline in CD sales. 2005 was a tripling of 2004’s sales.
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| QUOTABLE: |
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A master printer of the press, he spake by mouth of many thousand tongues; he swayed the pens which break the scepters. Good Lord make thy strong ones faithful- and thy bold afraid.” - Inscription in marble written by Edwin Arnold in eulogy of Edward Lloyd, Printer, 1815-1890, in Westminster Abbey, London.
“Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ then get busy and find out how to do it.” -Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President.
“When you look to hire someone, you look for brains, energy, and integrity. If you don’t have integrity, you’ve got to watch out because the first two will kill you.” - Bob Iger, Disney CEO
“For billions of people around the world, California is itself a dream. They ache to have what we so often take for granted. If they simply could live here, work here, raise their families here, their dreams would be fulfilled. So to the cynics I say, do not dismiss dreams as idle visions. Ladies and gentlemen, my dream is that California, the nation-state, the cutting edge state, becomes a model, not just for the 21st century American society, but for the larger world.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Second Inaugural Address, January 2007
“Paris the feminine and New York the phallic: The one focused on its state of flux, the other encircled by its river, complete one another and reign together over the most varied imaginations.” -Veronique Nguyen, Journalist
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke, Statesman
“In business, you have to learn to treat people as a resource, you have to ask not what they cost, but what is the yield, what can they produce?” - Peter Drucker, Author
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All Rights Reserved. ©2001-2004, Deragon Executive Search
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