Word: plummeted
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...lack of loans will hurt bank earnings. Lending is, after all, how banks make money. But in the past year or so, banks have had to sock away more and more cash into their reserves to account for their growing number of bad loans. That's caused earnings to plummet. With loans falling, reserve ratios - the measure of reserves to loans - are growing. That means banks will be able to divert less profit into those rainy-day accounts, which should boost bottom lines...
Even if the tax credit is extended, don't expect it to trigger a quick housing rebound. Although home prices have plunged about 30% on average from their peak in mid-2006, with certain markets in Florida, California and Nevada seeing prices plummet as much as 70%, they haven't troughed yet. With foreclosures still rising and unemployment expected to approach 10.5% in mid-2010, home prices are expected to tumble another 10% over the next six months before bottoming, says Robert Stevenson, managing director at Fox-Pitt Cochran Caronia Waller. And he expects prices to remain depressed until...
...This shift of focus partly explains why former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has seen his stock plummet - despite his celebrity, charisma and leadership qualities - since he was first mentioned as a contender for the job years ago. Now, the front-runners appear to be three low-key "fixers": Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker. While all three may be somewhat bland and anonymous even in their home countries, they appeal to a growing number of E.U. countries - in particular the smaller ones - because they would excel...
Bolivia's challenge now is to maintain the good numbers. The last time Bolivia witnessed a plummet in diarrheal-disease rates was during the cholera outbreak of 1992 and 1993, when better personal-hygiene habits led to a reduction in the spread of infection. But as the threat of the disease died down, so too did people's standards of cleanliness. Lenis says that the Bolivian government is committed to continuing its media campaigns and that ongoing potable-water and sewage-system expansion projects will help make Bolivians healthier. Most important, however, is keeping up the education, says Lenis. "Adults...
...sure of that?" says Edward Chow, senior fellow in the Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "The global economy is on a sugar high because of the stimulus spending." If the recession lags, oil prices could plummet again, discouraging oil companies from investing in exploration and new drilling and discouraging governments from introducing new alternative-energy programs. (See 10 next-generation green technologies...