Wall Street Journal (January 30)
“Logistics technology companies are cutting costs and slashing staff as a prolonged slump in freight stretches into 2024.” After soaring to “huge valuations during the Covid pandemic when a wave of consumer spending pushed freight volumes and shipping rates to record levels,” high interest rates and weak freight volumes are now “stretching some companies to their limit.”
Tags: Companies, Consumer spending, Costs, Covid, Freight volumes, Logistics, Pandemic, Prolonged, Shipping rates, Slashing, Slump, Staff, Technology, Valuations
South China Morning Post (September 26)
“Foreign investors are returning to Japan’s property market in their droves, attracted by the weak yen and an economic recovery fuelled by the buoyant logistics and hospitality sectors, according to a new report.” Singapore investors are leading the charge with property investments totaling “nearly US$3 billion spent from January to September, eclipsing the around US$2.5 billion from the US, and some US$1 billion from Canada.” Japan’s “mild inflation and favourable financing costs” are also adding to the attraction.
Tags: $3 billion, Canada, Economic recovery, Financing, Foreign investors, Hospitality, Inflation, Japan, Logistics, Property market, Singapore, U.S., Weak yen
Forbes (August 24)
“Europe’s worst drought and heatwave in half a millennium is also a disaster in the realm of energy.” Though unspeakable suffering has followed in its wake, “it is the drought, especially the drying of European rivers, which should worry everyone the most…. Rivers are Europe’s economic and transportation backbone, and their drying will drive up energy and commodity prices” and stifle logistics and energy production. “Rivers form an invisible but vital infrastructure to every part of the European economy, and energy is no exception.”
Tags: Backbone, Commodity prices, Disaster, Drought, Drying, Energy, Europe, Heatwave, Logistics, Millennium, Rivers, Suffering, Transportation, Worst
Markets Insider (April 7)
Investors are punishing transportation stocks “in the face of sky-high fuel prices and slowing growth.” Since hitting a November high, the Dow Jones Transportation Average has fallen 20%, “the technical definition of a bear market.” Often seen as “a bellwether for the health of the underlying economy, the index is comprised of “transportation stocks, from logistics companies such as FedEx and UPS, airlines, to railroad operators like Union Pacific.”
Tags: Airlines, Bear market, Bellwether, Dow Jones, Economy, FedEx, Fuel prices, Investors, Logistics, Punishing, Railroad, Sky-high, Slowing growth, Stocks, Transportation, UPS
New York Times (February 2)
“Warehouse space is the latest thing being hoarded.” Retailers and logistics companies now confront a new challenge as they “try to stockpile goods to hedge against supply chain problems…. The shortage of commercial warehouse and industrial space is the latest fallout from pandemic-fueled growth in online shopping and shows few signs of abating.”
Tags: Challenge, Commercial, Fallout, Hoarded, Industrial, Logistics, Pandemic, Problems, Retailers, Shortage, Space, Stockpile, Supply chain, Warehouse
The Times of India (March 26)
“On day one of lockdown, supply of fruits and vegetables took a hit, despite the government having marked it out as an ‘essential service.’ Wholesale suppliers…say there are multiple logistics issues.” The largest “is the closure of state entry points and tolls across India. Some 1.2 crore trucks are said to be stranded across India” with some drivers “getting no food or water as dhabas remain closed for miles along highways, even as essentials rot inside the trucks.”
Tags: Closure, Essential service, Food, Fruits, Government, Highways, Lockdown, Logistics, Stranded, Supply, Tolls, Trucks, Vegetables, Water, Wholesale
Bloomberg (May 11)
“It’s not making headlines yet, but wages in Japan are rising the fastest in decades, in a shift that’s poised to divide the nation’s companies — and their stocks — into winners and losers…. Consumer-focused sectors with low salary bills as a percentage of revenue are best positioned. Logistics and some health-care companies will be most negatively impacted,” according to a report from Morgan Stanley.
Tags: Consumers, Healthcare, Japan, Logistics, Morgan Stanley, Revenue, Rising, Stocks, Wages
Nikkei Asian Review (April 20)
“Transportation and logistics networks brought to a standstill by the recent earthquakes in Kyushu are starting to return to life, while utilities are striving to restore such crucial services as electricity and gas.” Kumamoto Airport has partially reopened and the shinkansen resumed service to Kagoshima, but nearly 100,000 households still lack running water and gas. In contrast, electricity has been restored to all but 6,500 households.
Tags: Airport, Earthquakes, Electricity, Gas, Kagoshima, Kumamoto, Kyushu, Logistics, Service, Shinkansen, Transportation, Utilitie, Water
Bloomberg (June 9)
“Every day, Tokyo’s subway and trains carry out one of the world’s largest logistical operations, getting a metropolis of 38 million people to work, many commuting for hours. The closer they get to the center, the more congested the carriages become.” While the “system may appear to be straining at the seams, it’s preparing for an even bigger challenge, as the city transforms to welcome its first Olympic Games since 1964.”
