Grande Expectations: A Year in the Life of Starbucks' Stock by Karen Blumenthal
The book I read from is a 2007 version.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 January - A New Year
Chapter 2 February - The Annual Meeting
Chapter 3 March - The Stock
Chapter 4 April - The Growth
Chapter 5 May - Buybacks
Chapter 6 June - The Investors
Chapter 7 July - The Trader
Chapter 8 August - The Coffee Moat
Chapter 9 September - The Stock Split
Chapter 10 October - Same-Store Sales
Chapter 11 November - The Analyst
Chapter 12 December - The Earnings
Chapter 13 January - The Annual Review
Epilogue - Another New Year
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Book
(Courtesy of Barnes & Noble)
Karen Blumenthal, like most people, is mystified by the stock market. Just why is it, she wonders, that seemingly good news can send a stock plummeting and bad news can send it skyrocketing again?
In Grande Expectations, she shows how money is made and lost by following one of America’s hottest growth stocks, Starbucks, through a year of rapid store openings, fancy new drinks, and clever promotions, revealing how the many players—big and small investors, company management, analysts, and the media—propel its shares up and down.
Blumenthal pulls back the curtain on the stock market to expose its quirks and inner workings, from the power of a penny of earnings and the unexpected impact of a stock split to the image-enhancing effects of a brand of bottled water. With a fly-on-the-wall, character-driven narrative, Grande Expectations not only makes investing interesting but also will help you make smarter and savvier investing choices by:
•Understanding how big pension and mutual fund managers decide whether to buy more Starbucks—or dump it
•Seeing the unique ways that analysts and other finance professionals assess an investment—dissecting not only the numbers but also the company’s management, demographics, and global opportunities
•Learning how Starbucks executives manage our expectations and keep excitement percolating about the business—and the stock
•Watching how a stock is traded and how that might affect your buying or selling
•Gleaning how multibillion-dollar private hedge funds make money on infinitesimal changes in a stock’s price
•Entering the dark, strange world of the short sellers
•Realizing how different people can make absolutely opposite bets and all still come out ahead
You’ll come away with new insights into how the stock market really works—the power of expectations, stock buybacks, and profits—and explore Starbucks’ phenomenal growth and whether it is sustainable. By unraveling the market’s mysteries, Grande Expectations shows how investing can be both profitable and understandable. Get ready for the ride of your life—and a lifetime of fruitful stock market success.
Wall Street Journal bureau chief Blumenthal is a seasoned financial reporter, yet she admits that the stock market mystifies her. Her mission: to follow one stock closely for a year (2005) to gain insights on how the market works, and, ultimately, become a better investor. There could not have been a better choice than Starbucks (stock symbol SBUX). A favorite of the growth investing crowd, it's sexy, yet familiar, a phenomenal achiever that tends to go through stomach-churning gyrations. As the year unfolds, we attend the annual shareholders' meeting, learn the history of Starbucks, and find out the significance of stock buybacks, (legal) insider trading, stock splits, and analysts' reports. We get an inside view on how institutional investors, the big players like mutual funds and hedge funds, value a stock, as these big guns trade in and out of SBUX in blocks of 10,000 or more shares. While managing to take some of the mystery out of the market's machinations, Blumenthal provides insights and tools for the individual investor looking to "take the plunge." David Siegfried
(Courtesy of Barnes & Noble)
Karen Blumenthal, like most people, is mystified by the stock market. Just why is it, she wonders, that seemingly good news can send a stock plummeting and bad news can send it skyrocketing again?
In Grande Expectations, she shows how money is made and lost by following one of America’s hottest growth stocks, Starbucks, through a year of rapid store openings, fancy new drinks, and clever promotions, revealing how the many players—big and small investors, company management, analysts, and the media—propel its shares up and down.
Blumenthal pulls back the curtain on the stock market to expose its quirks and inner workings, from the power of a penny of earnings and the unexpected impact of a stock split to the image-enhancing effects of a brand of bottled water. With a fly-on-the-wall, character-driven narrative, Grande Expectations not only makes investing interesting but also will help you make smarter and savvier investing choices by:
•Understanding how big pension and mutual fund managers decide whether to buy more Starbucks—or dump it
•Seeing the unique ways that analysts and other finance professionals assess an investment—dissecting not only the numbers but also the company’s management, demographics, and global opportunities
•Learning how Starbucks executives manage our expectations and keep excitement percolating about the business—and the stock
•Watching how a stock is traded and how that might affect your buying or selling
•Gleaning how multibillion-dollar private hedge funds make money on infinitesimal changes in a stock’s price
•Entering the dark, strange world of the short sellers
•Realizing how different people can make absolutely opposite bets and all still come out ahead
You’ll come away with new insights into how the stock market really works—the power of expectations, stock buybacks, and profits—and explore Starbucks’ phenomenal growth and whether it is sustainable. By unraveling the market’s mysteries, Grande Expectations shows how investing can be both profitable and understandable. Get ready for the ride of your life—and a lifetime of fruitful stock market success.
Wall Street Journal bureau chief Blumenthal is a seasoned financial reporter, yet she admits that the stock market mystifies her. Her mission: to follow one stock closely for a year (2005) to gain insights on how the market works, and, ultimately, become a better investor. There could not have been a better choice than Starbucks (stock symbol SBUX). A favorite of the growth investing crowd, it's sexy, yet familiar, a phenomenal achiever that tends to go through stomach-churning gyrations. As the year unfolds, we attend the annual shareholders' meeting, learn the history of Starbucks, and find out the significance of stock buybacks, (legal) insider trading, stock splits, and analysts' reports. We get an inside view on how institutional investors, the big players like mutual funds and hedge funds, value a stock, as these big guns trade in and out of SBUX in blocks of 10,000 or more shares. While managing to take some of the mystery out of the market's machinations, Blumenthal provides insights and tools for the individual investor looking to "take the plunge." David Siegfried
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About the Author
KAREN BLUMENTHAL has been a business reporter or editor for nearly twenty-five years, including two decades at The Wall Street Journal. Her previous book, Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, won the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award for older children. Six Days in October, a book for young people on the 1929 stock market crash, was named a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book by the American Library Association.
KAREN BLUMENTHAL has been a business reporter or editor for nearly twenty-five years, including two decades at The Wall Street Journal. Her previous book, Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX, won the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award for older children. Six Days in October, a book for young people on the 1929 stock market crash, was named a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book by the American Library Association.
