Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

Publicly-traded U.S. companies are holding a record $2.7 trillion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, an increase of 90 percent from 2011’s fourth quarter, according to S&P Global. For example, Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, had $135.9 billion in cash at the end of this year’s second quarter, S&P said. With interest rates at...

U.S. consumers spent 0.8 percent more in August than in July, after July’s figure was revised downward to -0.1 percent, the U.S. Commerce Department reported on 1 October. As we had forecast the more fearful people became of the Delta virus, the less they would spend. Thus, the variant fear had slowed consumers’ consumption mid-summer...

FED’S KEY INFLATION GAUGE HITS 30-YEAR HIGH The Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, rose to 3.6 percent in August from a year earlier, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported, the number’s biggest jump since May 1991. The index excludes the costs of energy and food. The...

BUYOUT LENDING SOARING Facing a possible hike in capital gains tax rates proposed by President Joe Biden, companies are scurrying to conclude mergers and acquisitions ahead of it—and lenders are accommodating them with billions in cheap loans, enabled by the U.S. Federal Reserve keeping its base interest rate barely above zero. This year through September,...

After decades of transactions handled through phone calls and handwritten notes, initial public stock offerings (IPOs) are going digital. Capital Markets Gateway (CGM), as the new online platform is called, will list which new deals are pricing when, the terms, and will allow firms to place orders through their existing relationships with their bankers. Once...

Investors jumped out of bonds last week after the Bank of England and U.S. Federal Reserve signaled a willingness to hike short-term borrowing costs to combat inflation, the Financial Times reported. Bond prices fell at the fastest rate in seven months. Also, soaring energy costs across Europe and the U.K. are leading investors to believe...

After lowering their growth forecasts for this year’s third and fourth quarters, many economists see a brighter 2022 ahead, The Wall Street Journal found, with analysts expecting production and spending delayed by this year’s Delta virus and supply chain tangles to appear next year instead. There are early signals that things are looking up, analysts...

Stock prices slid on Tuesday, 28 September, bumped through Wednesday, and fell again on Thursday, September’s last day, while the best bond yields in months also lured investors away from tech stocks. Alphabet, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, all of which have outperformed the broader market this year, each dropped at least 3.5 percent during the...