Author: user (UserName LastName)

Shoppers’ visits to physical stores were 39.1 percent fewer on the Saturday before Christmas this season compared to the same day in 2019. For the entire pre-Christmas weekend, foot traffic in stores plummeted 40 percent year on year, according to data from Sensormatic Solutions, a tech firm tracking store visits. The firm had predicted traffic...

COMPANIES SHEDDING OFFICE SPACE AT RECORD RATE. As we had forecast when the COVID War began, the economic shutdown will hit commercial real estate hard. Beginning with Silicon Valley last February, they were the first to tell their employees to work from home.  And what a boost it was for them, as the tech-heavy NASDAQ...

As painful as it was to hear her talk during her stint as Chairwomen of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 2014 into 2018, it was reported that Janet Yellen, Joe Biden’s choice to be treasury secretary, raked in more than $7 million in speaking fees during 2019 and 2020.  Among those paying to hear Yellen...

Municipal bonds, usually among the safest places to store money, may no longer be so secure. The months-long economic lockdown has robbed city and county coffers of expected income, leaving them without funds to meet many of their obligations, perhaps including bond payments. Since March, cities’ revenue fell 21 percent from the same period in...

The oil and gas industry will lead others in corporate defaults in 2021 and is likely to fail to make $15 to $18 billion in bond payments this year, ratings agency Fitch has predicted. The amount is more than twice as many companies in health care and manufacturing are expected to miss; those sectors are...

The new fiscal stimulus passed by Congress in the final days of 2020 likely will strengthen an economic rebound that will occur during the second half of this year. The program sends a $600 cash stipend to most U.S. adults and adds $300 to weekly unemployment payments for 11 weeks. The plan also extends other...

U.S. corporations borrowed a record $2.5 trillion in bonded debt in 2020, sending the American business sector’s debt-to-earnings ratio to another record high, surpassing the one set last year, Bank of America has reported. However, corporations show signs of being increasingly unable to repay those loans. One measure: the growing number of so-called “zombie companies,”...

U.S. consumer spending weakened by 0.4 percent in November, the first decline since April, as household incomes shrank 1.1 percent and new weekly claims for unemployment benefits remained near or above 800,000. Spending on goods dropped 1 percent, spending on services 0.2 percent. Big-ticket items fared worst. Auto sales were off 3.6 percent, and major...

Again, despite the travel and tourism industry stocks rising on stimulus/vaccine news, the rebound will be long and slow. In November, revenue per available room – a key measure of the hotel industry’s financial well-being – was half of what it was a year earlier, according to S&P Global Ratings. In 2021, the number will...

The $900-billion economic aid bill President Trump signed helped push stock markets to record highs as 2020 came to an end. Travel stocks perked up, trading at what some investors saw as bargain prices ahead of a summer economic recovery they believe will restart pleasure travel. In the new stimulus round, U.S. airlines will share...