We had forecast this would happen when governments began ramping up the COVID War 2.0 in May. Two new surveys have found small businesses’ confidence in the economic future has plummeted. The COVID virus’s surging Delta variant is forcing six in ten small businesses to alter their plans and outlook for the rest of this...
Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT
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UNLIKE THE “OLD DAYS,” NO PLACE TO PUT YOUR SAVINGS
High inflation, low interest rates, and strong economic growth make this “a terrible time for savers,” a New York Times headline declared last week. Because a savings account is now earning interest at a rate below the pace of inflation, money saved is losing purchasing power day by day. The U.S. Federal Reserve has tied...
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CONSUMER SENTIMENT TANKS
Consumers’ outlook for the economy turned its gloomiest since 2011, according to a monthly survey by the University of Michigan. Consumer sentiment fell from July’s 81.2 to 70.2 this month, below the 71.8 notched in April 2020 as the economic collapse was under way. Observers had expected a consensus reading of 81.3 for August. “Over...
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INFLATION SLOWS FROM GALLOP TO A TROT
The U.S. month-to-month inflation rate fell from 0.9 percent in June to 0.5 percent in July, the U.S. labor department reported. The core inflation rate, which ignores the always-volatile prices of food and fuel, was 0.3 percent for the month, compared to 0.9 percent in June, the department said, which gives a more accurate snapshot...
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T-NOTE YIELD SLIPS ON INVESTORS’ JITTERS
When investors are optimistic, they lose interest in the safety of bonds and sell them so they can buy stocks, which are riskier but offer higher returns. When a lot of people sell bonds, bond prices fall as supply is greater than demand. As a result, bond yields go up to attract investors. Conversely, when...
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MARKET OVERVIEW
DOW, S&P EDGE UP TO NEW RECORD CLOSES The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index barely moved on Friday, but scratched out enough of a gain to notch new record closes for both. The Dow tacked on 15.53 points to end the week at 35,515; the S&P nudged up 7.17 to...
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PENN BUYS SCORE MEDIA FOR $2 BILLION
Penn National Gaming, which operates 43 casinos and racetracks in 20 U.S. states, has agreed to buy Score Media & Gaming for $2 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. Score Media’s Score app sends scores, sports news, and betting information to its subscribers. Score had about 3.7 million active users in May, the WSJ said....
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APOLLO BUYS PART OF LUMEN TECHNOLOGIES
Private equity firm Apollo Global Management will buy a portion of Lumen Technologies’ broadband and telephone infrastructure for $7.5 billion and assume $1.4 billion of Lumen’s debt, The Wall Street Journal reported. The transaction covers about 5 million Lumen residential and business customers, mostly in the U.S. Midwest and Southeast. Around the purchased networks, Apollo...
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MALL OWNERS DUMPING MARGINAL SHOPPING CENTERS
Last year’s economic crisis has divided the world of shopping malls in two. So-called “Class A” malls, offering luxury shops and top-tier restaurants to well-off households that held their jobs through 2021, have survived more or less intact and are still able to charge premium rents. In contrast, owners of Class B and C malls,...
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BIDEN PUSHES 50-PERCENT EV PRODUCTION BY 2030
By 2030, half of all passenger vehicles produced in the U.S. will be all-electric, president Joe Biden declared, signing an executive order to that effect on 5 August. Leaders of the United Auto Workers, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Stellantis—the Dutch auto company that is the latest owner of Fiat-Chrysler—were on hand at Biden’s...