Tag: aug 25 2020

AIRLINES STILL IN A TAILSPIN. Air travel is down 85 percent compared to a year ago and the public is becoming more wary, not less, of being sealed in an airplane full of strangers, surveys show, especially as new, localized virus outbreaks have occurred. In June, 70 percent of people said it would be safer...

More speculators are betting the dollar’s value will fall and the euro’s will rise than at any time before, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Positive bets on the euro have reached a record high. The euro’s continuing rally prompted JPMorgan Chase analysts on 21 August to raise their year-end forecast for the euro’s...

More than two dozen powerful business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Retail Federation, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have said that thousands of U.S. businesses would not participate in Donald Trump’s proposed payroll tax holiday. The groups called the plan “unworkable” and warned it could burden workers with future obligations...

New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), already more than $45 billion in debt for new trains, buses, and infrastructure, now needs to borrow billions more to keep operating during a slow and uncertain economic recovery. The agency projects a $10-billion operating deficit through 2021. Last year, the MTA used 16 percent of its revenue...

By charging sellers on its site various fees, Amazon is claiming about 30 percent of sellers’ revenue, compared to 19 percent five years ago, according to a study by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). The fees totaled $60 billion last year, compared to $35 billion the company made in its cloud computing division, and...

As other corporations empty their commercial office space and send workers home, Amazon is defying the trend and leasing 900,000 square feet of new space – often at bargain rates – as it makes plans to add 3,500 white-collar jobs in Dallas, Denver, Detroit, New York, Phoenix, and San Diego. “The ability to connect with...

Complaining that they are paying for a “glorified Skype” service, a growing number of college and university students and their parents are demanding reductions in their tuition. At Rutgers University in New Jersey, more than 30,000 people have signed a petition calling on the school to waive certain fees and discount tuition 20 percent. The...

As we have clearly illustrated, how can it be that equity markets keep hitting new highs when industry across the economic spectrum keep hitting new lows? More than 23 percent of U.S. hotels are 30 days late or more in making their mortgage payments, according to data compiled at the end of July by Trepp,...

A record 45 companies with more than $1 billion in assets have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy since the economic shutdown began in March. The number breaks the previous record of 38 for the same period in 2009 in the depths of the Great Recession. As of 17 August, 157 companies with liabilities above $50...

IHS Markit’s U.S. Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose from 50.3 in July to 54.7 in August, indicating a continued rise in activity in manufacturing and services as more businesses reopen and more consumers make purchases delayed by the shutdown. Numbers above 50 signal expansion. Also in August, the data firm’s Manufacturing Output Index bumped up...