February 22, 2021
After a challenging 2020, the American Rental Association says the rental industry will see positive growth this year.
United Rentals
The American Rental Association has upped its 2021 rental forecast, moving from a 0.3% increase projected in November to a 1.5% increase, with rental revenues expected to surpass $50.2 billion.
This is good news, especially as ARA says total industry revenues dropped 11.7% in 2020 to just under $49.5 billion. Much of this was felt on the party and event side, which saw a decline of 49%.
ARA says construction rental saw an 11% decline in 2020 and is expected to see a 1% drop this year.
General tool rental revenue is expected to grow 4 percent.
Operator
Good morning, and welcome to H&E Equipment Services fourth-quarter 2020 earnings conference call. Today s call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Kevin Inda, vice president of investor relations.
Please go ahead.
Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you, Sarah, and welcome to H&E Equipment Services conference call to review the company s results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2020, which were released earlier this morning. The format for today s call includes a slide presentation, which is posted on our website at www.he-equipment.com. Please proceed to Slide 2. Conducting the call today will be John Engquist, executive chairman of the board of directors; Brad Barber, chief executive officer; and Leslie Magee, chief financial officer and secretary.
How Robinhood trading app drove the GameStop ‘supernova’
Last year, when Berkeley Haas finance professor Terrance Odean was researching why users of the popular trading app Robinhood tended to “herd” into a small number of stocks, he never imagined a situation like what unfolded last week with GameStop.
“It was like a supernova of herding events,” he said.
Shares in the moribund video-game retailer soared more than 400% over three days when a mob of investors many congregating on the Reddit chat room WallStreetBets coordinated to buy the stock en masse. It fell 44% the next day as Robinhood and other brokerage firms temporarily curbed new purchases of GameStop. Although trading has been restored, the stock has been mostly down but remains volatile. Tens of billions of dollars of market value have been created and erased.
The Daily Universe
Documentary subject Jen poses with her son Max in Sophia Prestwich’s documentary “Skaterhood.”
“One of the duties of being a filmmaker is building relationships with the people you film,” Prestwich said. “I learned how emotionally taxing creating films can be, especially documentaries. But I also feel like I changed as a person. I didn’t expect that.”
College of Life Sciences
A new collection of religious artwork has added a reflective nature to the Life Sciences Building. (Nathaniel Edwards)
A new collection of religious artwork has added a reflective nature to the Life Sciences Building. The art was installed to facilitate opportunities to experience peace and faith during one’s day, College of Life Sciences Dean James Porter said. Some of the paintings include Walter Rane’s “Jehovah Creates the Earth,” Yongsung Kim’s “The Hand of God,” and Simon Dewey’s “Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd.” Three paintings by Jorce C
Over the last week, financial media has exhaustively covered GameStop’s wild ride from roughly $77 on January 25th to $70 where it trades as I type roundtripping a move as high $483 per share in between. As we all know, a social media fueled trading frenzy sent the share price surging in the most extreme short squeeze I have personally ever witnessed. But all that juice looks to have been squeezed by now.
Over the past few days, I have been captivated by this violent market whipsaw, with shares moving 100 percent to 200 percent day in and day out. Many have portrayed this story as a band of merry men going after the big bad hedge funds of Sherwood Forest. It’s a classic David versus Goliath story, and everyone loves rooting for the underdog, particularly when it’s against the fat cats of Wall Street.