He closed or sold loss-making divisions, most of them in consumer electronics.
In response, the Dunstan Government sold loss-making railways to the Commonwealth and brought in new taxes to allow wage rises.
Giving away samples and selling "loss leaders" cheaply enough to attract customers is a tradition practically as old as commerce itself.
Better still, you can claim tax losses by selectively selling loss positions.
They're selling loss leaders in order to gain market share.
With help from FolioFN-like trading platforms, separately managed account providers can now accept individual accounts as small as $150,000 and apply a portfolio strategy (such as selling loss positions) to a large group of customers en masse.
In the US, M&S sells loss-making Brooks Brothers for $225m – less than a third of the price it paid 15 years earlier.
They will not want to take many new risks; any narrowing of spreads is likely to be used to sell loss-making assets at slightly better prices.Investors may also wait to see how serious Mr Greenspan is about increasing liquidity.
Last year the German engineering company sold the loss-making business to Taiwan's BenQ, which says the losses are "unsustainable" and announced it would stop funding BenQ Mobile.
American Electric Power, the Ohio utility, reported a narrower loss in the fourth quarter on Tuesday, hurt by lowered values for some operations being sold and losses from discontinued operations.
