All Alone in the Office? Take This Quiz

1 of 5

Using 58,000 pharmacies for COVID-19 vaccine injections rapidly increased protection against the virus. Millions of Americans, however, live far from a pharmacy, so researchers proposed also using:

Grain elevators.

Dollar stores.

Truck stops.

Read on: Tapping many of the more than 30,000 dollar stores as vaccination points could reduce travel distances by an average of 62% nationwide, from nearly 4 miles to about 1.5 miles.

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Go figure: Despite antitrust laws that prohibit competitors from sharing price and other key data, participating in industry standard setting organizations leads to improved sales forecasting.

The more deeply involved in an SSO, the more improved the company forecast.

The more volatile a company’s sales, the more it benefits from SSO involvement.

Networking with one’s direct competitor yields stronger benefits.

All of the above.

Read on: Researchers studied the forecasting of firms that participated in 13 SSOs between 1980 and 2016, comparing a participating firm’s annual sales guidance to actual reported sales.

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In their endless quest for esoteric signals of stock performance, analysts may have overlooked which prosaic data point?

Trademark filings by companies.

Unused CEO vacation time.

Corporate headquarters proximity to drinking establishments.

Read on: Firms that take out the most trademarks each year — relative to their total assets — provide superior stock performance over the next 12 months, researchers found studying trademark filings from 1976 to 2014.

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Soaring used car prices — a result of a shortage of new cars — mightn’t be quite the boon to dealer profits you’d expect. Why?

Visibly higher car values lead some to sell their cars privately, rather than trade in to dealers

Lenders, expecting used prices to revert to norms once the new car shortage abates, are reluctant to lend at elevated prices

Both are correct.

Read on: A supply crunch a decade ago caused dealer profits per used car to fall 4%.

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Academics love to see their research cited, a sign of their work’s influence, but investors trying to employ researchers’ stock market observations might prefer research go unnoticed. Why?

It’s more fun to brag about an obscure study.

Only one hedge at a time is allowed to use academic research.

As predictive variables become well known by investors, they lose their edge, just like a stock tip — when those tipped off start buying, the stock price rises and the tip loses its value.

Read on: In a retesting of 46 possible market strategies from academics, those found to remain statistically significant on an extended examination had the fewest citations.