Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

The number of companies that have sunk into the lowest five ranks of Moody’s credit rating system, or are just one step above, has virtually doubled that of the Great Recession, from 213 in 2008 to 412 now. The 21-level ratings system ranges from Aaa to C, the lower grade meaning a company has defaulted...

According to a Federal Reserve survey, 39 percent of households with annual incomes below $40,000 lost at least one job since the pandemic struck, while only 19 percent of households earning $40,000 to $100,000 did. Among households with incomes of $100,000 or more, 11 percent lost one or more jobs. While 5 percent of workers...

Spooked by the prospect of losing their jobs and another economic shutdown this fall, Americans are cutting spending, paying off installment debt, and hoarding cash. Retail sales cratered in April, falling 16.4 percent from March, an unprecedented one-month plunge, and 21.4 percent lower than a year earlier. March’s decline was 8.3 percent. Furniture sales retreated...

Prices for U.S. consumer goods, excluding groceries, declined in March and April, falling 0.8 percent in the latter month, the largest one-month slide since December 2008, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Gasoline and energy prices, which are now heading back up a bit, led the price shrinkage, contracting by 10.1 percent. Excluding...

Yesterday, the Dow closed up 911 points on continued hopes of reopening the locked economy and hopes for progress on a COVID virus vaccine. Today, the Dow fell nearly 400 points after a report questioned the results for that potential coronavirus vaccine. NASDAQ dropped 0.54 percent. Brent Crude fell a bit, closing at $34.51 a barrel while West...

Owners of a third of small and medium-size businesses closed by the mandated economic shutdown do not expect to reopen, largely because they will not have the money to pay rent and other bills, a Facebook survey has found. Of those who do plan to reopen, 55 percent say they will not rehire their former...

Today’s U.S. stock market is “maybe the second most overvalued market I’ve ever seen,” according to David Tepper, billionaire founder of the Appaloosa Management hedge fund. A number of high-flying tech stocks such as Alphabet, Amazon, and Google are “fully valued,” he added, meaning their stock is not worth more than their current prices. “There...

Social distancing tech booms. Wearable devices that measure athletes’ performances are being tweaked and redeployed to factory floors to tell workers when they violate social distance norms. For example, when people wearing chip-based devices from Kinexon come within a certain distance of each other, the devices emit an audible alarm and record how long the...

Anheuser Busch Inbev, which makes one out of every four beers drunk in the world, reported a 32-percent global sales decline in April, compared with just a 9.3 drop in the year’s first quarter. The company warned that the second quarter’s results will be “materially worse” than the first’s, in which AB Inbev lost $2.25...

Factories shuttered amid the worldwide economic lockdown have put global coal usage on track to fall to its lowest level in more than 70 years, with prices touching a four-year low. The plunge has been especially pronounced in Europe, where the U.K. recently went a record-breaking 24 days without using any coal at all. In...