With bars and restaurants closed or operating at minimal capacity, U.S. wine and beer makers have lost about 20 percent of their sales, a figure reflected by others in the industry around the world, according to the Wall Street Journal. Diageo, the British company that owns Guinness, among other brews, reported a 9-percent sales decline...
Tag: nov 10 2020
FATTEN UP WITH FAST-FOOD TREND RISING
While the economic shutdown has decimated much of the restaurant industry, the junk food sector has suffered less than most others; some chains, in fact, are thriving. Yum Brands, owner of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, reported sales were down only 2 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period in 2019....
FINANCIAL INDUSTRY FINES SET RECORD
Regulatory agencies extracted $4.6 billion in penalties so far this year from financial industry firms found guilty of wrongdoing, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The record haul resulted from a few big cases. They included Telegram Group’s agreement to repay investors $1.2 billion to settle a lawsuit over the company’s sale of a...
FED LEAVES RATES UNCHANGED, CALLS FOR MORE MONEY INJECTIONS
The U.S. Federal Reserve left the central bank’s key interest rate unchanged at 0.25 percent at their mid-November meeting and vowed to leave rates there for the foreseeable future, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a press conference on November. At their September meeting, the officials indicated rates would remain frozen for at least three...
JOBS MARKET CONTINUES HESITANT RECOVERY
The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 6.9 percent in October as companies added 638,000 jobs to log the sixth consecutive month of job gains, the U.S. Labor Department announced on 6 November. Private-sector employers added 906,000 jobs in October, offsetting 268,000 workers terminated from government jobs, primarily at the state and local levels. The largest...
VACCINE HOPES, MARKET RUSH
Global equites spiked on Monday following a report drug dealers Pfizer and BioNTech said they invented a Covid-19 vaccine that is more than 90 percent effective. The Dow ended the day up nearly 3 percent, marking its highest close since February. Convinced the vaccine would instantly end the COVID War, terribly plummeting travel, retail, banking,...
GOING DOWN, GOING BUST, GOING OUT
BP SELLING ITS LONDON HEADQUARTERS. The British energy giant is negotiating the possible sale of its St. James Square executive offices for £250 million to the Hong Kong-based Investor Lifestyle International Holdings, a department store company, BP confirmed to the Wall Street Journal. Cash from the sale would help retire debt incurred to keep the...
GLOBAL ECONOMIC TRENDS
POST-ELECTION BOND RALLY INCREASES NEGATIVE-YIELDING DEBT. The settlement of the U.S. election sparked a rally in the bond market, raising the global total of bonds carrying negative interest rates to a record $17.05 trillion, the Financial Times reported. During the economic shutdown, governments and corporations issued a flurry of new bonds, including many in European...
SCOTT’S MIRACLE-GRO GLOWS
More people gardening to pass time during the summer’s economic shutdown gave Scott’s Miracle-Gro, maker of lawn and garden products, a net income of $3.9 million during the third quarter. A year earlier, the company had posted $57.9 million in losses. Sales for the quarter grew to $890.3 million against $497.7 million in the same...