National City®

Feature
Real Estate Declines: Top Story, or a "Short First Draft?"
"News is the first draft of history," the old saying goes. This bit of wisdom sometimes proves a hard reminder of an easily forgotten truth: The "second" and "third" drafts may eventually make the first one look like fiction.

Consider the "top business news story of 2005" — rising energy prices. That "first draft" was discarded within the three months it took crude oil to fall from $80 to $50 per barrel (November 2006-January 2007).

As for the top business news story of 2006? Arguably, the "real estate bubble" leads the list.


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Financial Market Outlook
Living Standards and Inequality
Election campaigns can be rough on economic literacy. Perpetrators at both ends of the ideological spectrum frequently spin facts in an attempt to tarnish their opponents or burnish themselves, while most everyone else gets deceived or confused. Perhaps no better example is the interpretation of income trends.

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Business Planning & Strategies
The Myth of Market Share:
Can Focusing Too Much on the Competition Harm Profitability?
It is a common practice of many companies to focus their attention on grabbing market share from their competitors. But such efforts can actually be detrimental to the firm's profitability…

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Technology & Trends
Seven Counterintuitive Trends
Everyone expects turbulence, but few people are watching the most significant pressures that will confront industry this year.

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Legislative & Regulatory
A Truce in the Sarbox Tech War?
Will companies and their auditors ever agree on how to test information technology systems for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance? The Institute of Internal Auditors  hopes its new guidelines on IT controls will help.

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Finance & Treasury
Enhanced Cash Management:
Making Your Cash Work Harder
Remember when balance sheet cash was just kept on hand to meet a company's working capital requirements? For a growing number of organizations, those days are long gone because corporate treasurers are no longer simply investing to meet their working capital needs. Today, they are also completely re-thinking their investment strategies to include more complex securities to enhance returns, and they are also thinking about their responsibilities as sponsors of company pension funds.

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Private Client Group
The A.R.T. of Investing
See how the A.R.T. of Investing (After-tax returns, Risk control and Time horizons) fits into your personal investment strategy. Our CIO and Equity Research team provide timely market commentary, financial articles and more.

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International & Trade
Top trends in the Global Capital Markets Business
The Americas and Europe are running neck and neck as corporate and investment banks prepare to celebrate another year of bumper growth in global capital markets. New McKinsey research shows that bank revenues from global capital markets rose 14 percent, to almost $215 billion, in 2005 and increased a further 40 percent in the first six months of 2006. Even though disappointing third-quarter results from some major institutions have injected a note of caution into 2006 as a whole, breaking through the $250 billion barrier seems likely.

With Europe and the Americas almost identical in market size at the end of 2005, Europe is set to take the crown if current trends continue. Asia’s share of the global pool remains significantly smaller than that of the other two regions—but its potential is large, especially in emerging markets outside Japan.

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Women Business Owners
Business Owner of the Month
“National City is our knight in shining armor,” says Laurie Jazbec, president and founder, United Finishing & Die Cutting, Inc. “They turned our world around because they care about our business as much as we do.”

Find out just how National City  turned her world around and why Laurie is the Women Business Owner of the month by going here.