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American Morning
'Minding Your Business'
Aired October 31, 2003 - 07:46 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The market wasn't as tidy as you would hope it to be. I know that buy the rumor, sell the news thing.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes.
M. O'BRIEN: But still, you would think with something like that, that kind of news...
SERWER: Right.
M. O'BRIEN: ... that the market would respond favorably.
SERWER: Well, we talked about this yesterday, Jack and I did. And Jack actually anticipated this might happen. He was dead-on, as usual.
A couple of reasons why the market did not take off yesterday. No. 1, the robust GDP number, the 7.2 percent. And you can see here, the Dow was up a bit. Actually the Nasdaq and the broader market were down. No. 1, it was expected. We were looking for great growth because of the tax cuts, as Jack has been talking about here. Also, it was a one-time pop because of those tax cuts, so economists didn't get all that excited about it.
And the third reason -- and this is the big one here -- is that the market has already been up a tremendous amount this year and in the month of October.
Let's take a look. First of all, here is Stocktoberfest. You know, this is the last day of the month. We're going to retire the Stocktoberfest phrase here. I'm sure you're all are delighted to hear that. I mean, that's a lot of growth in one month. It was 5 percent. How much is that? Well, if you multiplied that by 12, Miles, 60 percent plus.
So, that's a huge amount.
M. O'BRIEN: I think (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
SERWER: That's a huge amount. And here is year-to-date. So, you can see a lot of the growth in the market over the past year was actually in that month. So, that's kind of the reason why we didn't get such a big pop yesterday.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, now, tell me about Levi.
SERWER: Levi Strauss, you know, this is an interesting thing here that companies wrestle with all the time, Mile. You want to change your products, update them. But what happens if you don't tell your customers and they don't like it?
Levi's 501 jeans, they're making them baggier. It's kind of a more hip-hop thing maybe, people are suggesting. And you know what? They didn't tell customers. And you know what? Some customers aren't so happy about it. They made the seat roomier. I like that phrase -- seat roomier. And they made the legs a little baggier, and some people are saying, hey, it isn't the same thing.
I think you sort of have to tell customers on the label "cool new fit." I mean, they've been evolving these things for decades, but you kind of want to say, hey, we made them cooler, something to signal people.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Have a separate shelf for the ones that are built for the bucket butts. You know, you put those over here on one shelf, and then you have the...
SERWER: 501 plus. It's not often you get to use that phrase: bucket butts.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's the first time I've ever heard it actually, and certainly on TV.
SERWER: It's a good one. It's Friday, it's Halloween, bucket butt.
M. O'BRIEN: All right.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired October 31, 2003 - 07:46 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The market wasn't as tidy as you would hope it to be. I know that buy the rumor, sell the news thing.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Yes.
M. O'BRIEN: But still, you would think with something like that, that kind of news...
SERWER: Right.
M. O'BRIEN: ... that the market would respond favorably.
SERWER: Well, we talked about this yesterday, Jack and I did. And Jack actually anticipated this might happen. He was dead-on, as usual.
A couple of reasons why the market did not take off yesterday. No. 1, the robust GDP number, the 7.2 percent. And you can see here, the Dow was up a bit. Actually the Nasdaq and the broader market were down. No. 1, it was expected. We were looking for great growth because of the tax cuts, as Jack has been talking about here. Also, it was a one-time pop because of those tax cuts, so economists didn't get all that excited about it.
And the third reason -- and this is the big one here -- is that the market has already been up a tremendous amount this year and in the month of October.
Let's take a look. First of all, here is Stocktoberfest. You know, this is the last day of the month. We're going to retire the Stocktoberfest phrase here. I'm sure you're all are delighted to hear that. I mean, that's a lot of growth in one month. It was 5 percent. How much is that? Well, if you multiplied that by 12, Miles, 60 percent plus.
So, that's a huge amount.
M. O'BRIEN: I think (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
SERWER: That's a huge amount. And here is year-to-date. So, you can see a lot of the growth in the market over the past year was actually in that month. So, that's kind of the reason why we didn't get such a big pop yesterday.
M. O'BRIEN: All right, now, tell me about Levi.
SERWER: Levi Strauss, you know, this is an interesting thing here that companies wrestle with all the time, Mile. You want to change your products, update them. But what happens if you don't tell your customers and they don't like it?
Levi's 501 jeans, they're making them baggier. It's kind of a more hip-hop thing maybe, people are suggesting. And you know what? They didn't tell customers. And you know what? Some customers aren't so happy about it. They made the seat roomier. I like that phrase -- seat roomier. And they made the legs a little baggier, and some people are saying, hey, it isn't the same thing.
I think you sort of have to tell customers on the label "cool new fit." I mean, they've been evolving these things for decades, but you kind of want to say, hey, we made them cooler, something to signal people.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Have a separate shelf for the ones that are built for the bucket butts. You know, you put those over here on one shelf, and then you have the...
SERWER: 501 plus. It's not often you get to use that phrase: bucket butts.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's the first time I've ever heard it actually, and certainly on TV.
SERWER: It's a good one. It's Friday, it's Halloween, bucket butt.
M. O'BRIEN: All right.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
