Business Insight Zone

Consider this assortment of headlines from the past couple of days.

Automotive

• Bloomberg: Honda Unexpectedly Boosts Profit on Fuel-Saving Cars
• AP (via Forbes): Auto shares fall after Ford announces record loss

Finance

• Wall Street Journal: Munich Re Issues Surprise Profit Warning
• Austin Business Journal: Wachovia to lay off 6,350 after posting $8.9B loss
• Reuters: T.Rowe profit steady; more stock buybacks possible
  

Airlines

• AP (via the Baltimore Sun): Southwest profits from fuel hedging
• Bloomberg (via the IHT): United Airlines to slash 7,000 jobs by 2009
• Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Northwest Airlines’ debt downgraded
  

General economy

• Bloomberg: U.S. Foreclosures Double as House Prices Decline
• Reuters: U.S. June durable goods orders rise unexpectedly
• Washington Post: Volatile Week Ends On a High Note

It’s tempting to say “We live in interesting times” and leave it at that. But here’s one more little point — maybe an obvious one — that I believe can’t be made often enough:

We long for simple explanations. We want to see clear trends so we can be sure of what to do next. But life doesn’t usually give us that luxury — and this is especially true for the business world during a downturn.

Resist the temptation to throw up your hands in despair the next time you see a headline proclaming “The economy’s in the toilet!” Similarly, resist the temptation to think “Everything’s fine” when you see positive headlines like those for Southwest, Honda, or durable-goods orders above.

It’s not that simple. There’s a lot of pain in the markets right now, but the distribution of it is highly uneven across sectors, and even among the individual companies within troubled sectors.

Now more than ever, we need to focus on achieving real discernment in our business decisions — and that doesn’t come from passing glib judgments on whole industries.

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Related posts:

• How much more of the hard times?
• American Airlines, Ford Motor, and the price of oil.

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(Photo by seanmcgrath.)