This weekend, millions of college basketball fans will start filling out their NCAA tournament brackets. The period during this “distraction” can be economically meaningful to corporate America: it is estimated that, due to lost productivity, companies will lose a combined $6.3 billion.
No Brackets Busted by the Fed
As traders were nursing their wounds from early bracket pains, the market saw that U.S. stocks were muted this week, up 0.2 percent. Investors’ reactions to finally getting the anticipated Fed rate hike were tempered by oil production figures from OPEC, causing concern early in the week.