Greatest Hitter: Roger Federer

On June 7, as Roger Federer was on his way to equaling Pete Sampras' record of 14 Grand Slam victories by winning the French Open, James Blake and a group of fellow pros watched on a television in the players' lounge at the Aegon Championships at The Queen's Club in London, a warm-up event to Wimbledon. It's hard to imagine NBA stars congregating to cheer on Kobe Bryant, or pro golfers arranging to watch a Tiger Woods play-off, but for Blake and his mates there was no question where their allegiance lay. "We wanted to see Roger make history," Blake says.

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The world's most earthquake-prone cities

1. Tokyo
2. Beijing
3. Mexico City
4. Los Angeles
5. Lima
6. Tehran
7. Manila
8. Jakarta
9. Karachi
10. Naples

Source: Steven Dutch

University of Wisconsin at Green Bay

Are Stocks Still Good for the Long Run?

Stocks, we have been told again and again through the years, are the best long-term investment. Prices go up and they go down, but give stocks enough time and they deliver returns that trounce those of bonds, real estate, commodities or any other asset class.

Ha! you say. Have you checked your 401(k) balance lately? Since the beginning of this decade, the stock market has been a money pit. At the market's nadir in early March, stock investors had lost more than 50% since March 2000, if you factored in inflation. Things have improved since then--to a mere 40% loss.

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One Drip at a Time

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch recently stated the obvious when he said the newspaper business model of providing content online for free was "malfunctioning." Poleaxed by a severe ad slump and hemorrhaging red ink, printed newspapers and magazines have been downsizing or closing in some countries, even as their digital editions attract growing numbers of readers. Murdoch — whose News Corp. media empire includes the Wall Street Journal, a rare newspaper with a profitable, subscription-based website — has vowed to boost the earning power of his digital properties by increasing the number of News Corp. sites that charge for content.

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技术投资望保持强势

在经济低潮时期，IT部门通常都是削减开支的目标。但最近麦肯锡的一项调查指出，即使公司决定削减运营开支，但他们同时也认识到对于IT方面的新投资能够提高公司生产力或者创造新的市场机遇。共有548位来自IT及其他部门的管理人员参与了此项调查。尽管大多数认为对于IT的预算将低于去年同期水平，但也有40%以上的人将会在2009年增加IT方面的新投资。

虽然这项数据低于去年（69%的人预计将会增加投资），但这在以IT投资锐减为标志的过去几次衰退中，已是一个显著的改变。

来源："IT's Unmet Potential: McKinsey Global Survey Results," The McKinsey Quarterly, December 2008.

哪些公司将会在衰退后更快复苏？

一项对于600间欧美金融及保险公司的研究显示，在近28年的7次经济衰退的影响下，相对于拥有更多大型投资方的公司，那些具有较多个人投资者的公司在复苏中拥有更好的表现。在始于2000年的金融衰退中，后者至2003年的市盈率恢复了105％，而前者只有96%的恢复率。

源自： "Lessons from the Past for Financial Services" in Harvard Business Review, December 2008.