Putting Demand and Supply to Work

Answer To Try It Problem

The information given in the problem suggests that the airline’s profits are likely to fall below expectations. Current owners of the airline’s stock and potential buyers of the stock would adjust downward their estimates of what the value of the corporation’s stock should be. As a result the supply curve for the stock would increase, shifting it to the right, while the demand curve for the stock would decrease, shifting it to the left. As a result, equilibrium price of the stock falls from P1 to P2. What happens to equilibrium quantity depends on the extent to which each curve shifts. In the diagram, equilibrium quantity is shown to decrease from Q1 to Q2.