A Case Study of a Stalled Luxury Brand—Coach, Inc.: Whether Coach Bags Fit Your Budget or Style, We Can Learn a Great Deal from This Former Darling

Abstract

Investing is analogous to many things. Most investors are loathe to make the comparisons, though. They want investing to sound smart. Clever. Difficult. They need for their clients to think they are incredibly well-informed and working so very hard to protect and grow their assets. The mystique also serves to create a kind of intellectual barrier to entry. The higher the better as far as the entrenched professionals are concerned. I know, I once played the game. We used phrases like “secular trend” vs. “cyclical trend” or “portfolio alpha” as opposed to the “portfolio beta.” We tossed in a standard deviation or two, a reference to the negative or perfect correlation of two investments, and if we really wanted to ratchet up the intellectual superiority (or render our clients entirely somnambulant) we talked about the bond market and the yield curve. The pièce de résistance? Convexity. We usually lost them there and felt a kernel of the smug satisfaction physicists must feel when explaining the Theory of Relativity.