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?
Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.
The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.
After learning of his AIDS diagnosis, artist Keith Haring created the work, "Unfinished Painting" (1989),…
Seton Hill students Emily Vohs, Elizabeth Burns, Jake Carnahan-Curcio and Carolyn Jerz in a scene…
Inspiration can come to those with the humblest heart. Caedmon the Cowherd believed he had…
View Comments
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!!!)