Column: Starbucks good gauge of economic climate

Column: Starbucks good gauge of economic climate
Tags: Coffee / Specialty Beverages
February 16, 2009

The Philadelphia Enquirer: It's not a coincidence that Starbucks reached its peak at the precise height of the housing boom.

Plot Starbucks' stock price against the Dow Jones industrial average and you see that over the last four years, Starbucks has anticipated the market at nearly every turn. Starbucks' stock started heading north in 2005, five months before the rest of the market started climbing.

Starbucks began its decline in late 2006, just as the outlines of the recession were emerging on the horizon. And Starbucks' stock dropped through the floor nine months before the Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc. crash sent the rest the market tumbling.

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