Its doughnuts, available for many years only in the Southeast, had attracted a devoted, even fanatical, customer base. When the company decided to go national, it opened franchises in locations guaranteed to generate buzz — Manhattan, Los Angeles, Las Vegas — and customers lined up around the block. By August 2003, KKD was trading at nearly $50 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 235 percent from its initial public offering price of $21 on Nasdaq, and Fortune magazine was calling Krispy Kreme the “hottest brand in the land.” For the fiscal year ended in February 2004, the company reported $665.6 million in sales and $94.7 million in operating profit from its nearly 400 locations, including stores in Australia, Canada, and South Korea. —Kremed! (CFO.com)
Wait a minute… $21 x 2.35 = 49.35, so “nearly $50” is accurate. But “up 235%”?
$21 x 1.00 = $21, but I wouldn’t say “trading at $21, up 100% from its initial public offering price of $21.”
I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that should read “up 135%.” Am I wrong?
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It's actually the phrase "up 235%" that makes this text wrong... The original price is included in the formulation, so it would have been better to say "...selling AT 235% of its initial public offering..." I just finished a chapter on consumer mathematics in class - it's always the words that confuse people, not the formulas :)
If I were the writer, I would have said "more than doubled"...which is still weasely, but impressive without fidgeting the math. Of course a bazillion bazillion % is "more than doubled" so it's still too vague. So maybe "a little more than doubled" would work better. But wait -- how much is a little? Ahhh...words and numbers...they're all arbitrary signifiers.
Ooo, we English-y people CAN do math and not just hang on others' statistics brainlessly. *beams with pride because she is in math class presently and got an A on the first test* :-)
I know it's not rocket science to see that some numbers just don't add up, but I like feeling truly competent by recognizing things like this when they're not my forte--you should, too! It seems that there needs to be an explanation behind these numbers.
I just did the math in Excel (21 * 235%) and it came to 49.35. 135% would be about 28.something.
I guess the "up 235%" wording is iffy. But 49.35 is indeed 235% of 21.
(This is why I hate it when my students spout out statistics during their speeches in my class...they never make any sense!!!)