The number of condominiums for rent in Canada’s largest city ballooned by 132 percent in the last quarter of 2020 year over year as the city reimposed a stringent lockdown, a 27 January report from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board disclosed. The glut of empty flats pushed rental prices down. A one-bedroom condo was...
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CANADIAN HOTELS: BUSINESS DOWN, INSURANCE COSTS SKYROCKET
Canadian hotels, financially drained after months of occupancy rates below their break-even points, have seen their property insurance premiums skyrocket. In the province of Alberta, property insurance rates have risen 100 to 300 percent in the past year, according to the Alberta Hotel & Lodging Association. A group owning hotels in western Canada reported rates...
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GOVERNMENTS CAN PILE UP HIGHER DEBT, IMF SAYS
As the COVID pandemic ends, governments should not rush to reduce their debt but “rethink” their financial policies so they continue to support recovery and reduce joblessness, Vitor Gaspar, chief of fiscal policy for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a 28 January public statement reported by the Financial Times. The position is a...
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JPMORGAN TO CREATE DIGITAL BANK
JPMorgan Chase has hired 400 people to create a digital bank in the U.K., the financial giant has disclosed. The new bank is being tested inside the company, using employees as customers, before opening to the public later this year. The bank will begin by offering checking and savings accounts, then move into loans and...
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JUNK FOOD SALES TURN SUNNYSIDE UP
In 2020’s fourth quarter, McDonald’s U.S. sales in stores open for more than a year rose 5.5 percent compared to a year earlier, the company reported, building on November’s 4.6-percent year-on-year gain. The burger chain saw sales shrink in Europe, down 7.4 percent compared to 2019’s final quarter and less bad than the third quarter’s...
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S&P MAY CUT OIL INDUSTRY’S CREDIT RATING
S&P Global Ratings may cut the credit ratings of major oil companies as the world shifts from petroleum-powered engines to electric vehicles, the agency announced last week. General Motors has revealed plans to end the manufacture of gas- and diesel-powered vehicles by 2035, the same year that California will ban the sale of such vehicles...
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CONSTRUCTION: SLOW RECOVERY
Although 37 states added jobs in the building trades in November and December, the total number of U.S. construction workers still lags pre-pandemic levels, according to a 26 January report by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGCA). Construction jobs declined during the two-month span in 11 states and D.C. However, even those recent gains...
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BLACKROCK: INFLATION AHEAD
“It’s fair to assume we’re going back into an era of inflation,” Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s richest investment management company, said in comments at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia and reported by CNN. The global COVID vaccination campaign will create herd immunity by September, Fink said. “That...
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FEDS: KEEP THE GAME GOING
At its meeting in late January, the U.S. Federal Reserve left interest rates and its bond-buying policies unchanged amid signs that the American economic recovery has stumbled. “Following a sharp rebound in economic activity last summer, the pace of the recovery has moderated in recent months, with the weakness concentrated in the sectors of the...
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BIDEN: “BUY AMERICAN”
President Biden has signed an executive order directing federal agencies to spend more of the government’s annual $600-billion purchasing budget with U.S. companies, particularly small and medium-sized businesses and companies owned by minority entrepreneurs. “Under the previous administration, federal government contracts awarded directly to foreign companies went up 30 percent,” Biden said when signing the...