Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

With the COVID War ending and the economy reviving, the “Bigs” are ready to shower cash on leveraged buyouts priced at $10 billion or more.  CVC Capital Partners has bid $20 billion for Toshiba, the Japanese conglomerate that makes everything from hard drives to escalators. Medline Industries has hired Goldman Sachs to find it a...

Forty-four percent of 800 U.S. small businesses surveyed by research firm Vistage Worldwide reported running short of supplies or experiencing other disruptions in their supply chains. Among examples cited by the Wall Street Journal: a Colorado manufacturer is altering its manufacturing process to accommodate a lack of plastic; an Oklahoma restaurant paid $200 instead of...

Before the COVID War, owners of office blocks leased to single or a few major tenants counted their blessings: they had fewer tenants to deal with, bigger companies were more likely to pay rent on time, and more likely to sign long-term leases. That all instantly flipped when COVID arrived and people stopped commuting and...

Completed sales of existing homes in March fell 3.7 percent from February to an annualized rate of 6.01 million, the second straight month of decline and the slowest since last August, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported.  March sales were still 12.3 percent above those of the previous March when the COVID pandemic was...

Southwest Airlines reported a first-quarter profit of $116 million, due in part to federal support, and has begun recalling pilots in anticipation of a strengthening summer vacation season, CEO Gary Kelly said in a statement announcing the result. The airline expects to see positive cash flow by June, he noted. “I’m relieved, I’m enthused, I’m...

Having raised an estimated $100 billion this year, hundreds of special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are looking for places to put it.  Many are discovering the junk bond market. A SPAC is a company that has no assets. It issues stock, then uses the proceed to buy a promising business. The SPAC merges with the business...

The yield premium that investors demand to buy riskier bonds has dropped below 3 percent this month, its lowest level in 13 years, signaling investors’ growing confidence in a broad and strong economic recovery. The yield premium is the extra interest investors charge on a high-risk bond compared to that paid by U.S. Treasury securities....

During 2021’s first quarter, technology start-ups garnered $69 billion from investors, 41 percent more than in the previous quarterly record set in the last three months of 2018, according to Pitchbook Data. The typical valuation for new ventures has more than tripled from last year’s, the research firm noted, with late-stage start-ups now averaging $1.6...

During the seven days ending 21 April, investors put another $1.6 billion in funds buying U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), according to research firm EPFR. It was the 29th consecutive week of money flowing into TIPS, raising the total invested to $14.4 billion so far this year. TIPS has seen its longest run of investment...

The Trend is your friend. As we continue to note in this Trends Journal, cities, states, and nations have again locked down in their fight to win the COVID War, but many others are opening up. Come summertime, get ready for the “Roaring 21s” as the COVID rules get lifted and pent-up populations, especially younger...