Williams notes that when he picked up coverage of the company last year, he noted that the company was a likely beneficiary of both the retail self-service trend and an ATM upgrade cycle.

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Instead, gold has behaved more as a risk asset, bought by momentum investors who like its recent trend and believe in the commodity bull cycle.

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Like any new trend, gamification will move through the hype cycle from the peak of inflated expectations into the trough of disillusionment.

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My work suggests margins are above trend relative to normalized profits for where we are in the economic cycle.

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Although poorer countries still limit themselves to ad hoc welfare offerings, fitting the spending level to revenues one budget at a time, there is an increasing trend towards entitlements served by statutory institutions that will outlive the budgetary cycle.

ECONOMIST: Asian welfare states

This could be a trend, but it could also be part of a seasonal production cycle where Chinese companies import raw materials and components in the spring, in order to gear up to export finished products later in the year.

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Slowing the economy, such a trend could increase the share of the population relying on government transfers, leading to a vicious cycle (Alesina and Wacziarg 1998).

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If energy prices, already on the rise, continue to trend upward, it could put further pressure on producers and on consumers, who are stuck in a cycle of deleveraging.

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