The Economist (October 17 Edition)
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much risked by one man for so little. Donald Trump is threatening to cripple Ukraine in its fight for survival—and to expose Europe to Russian aggression—seemingly for the pitiful prize of minimising his losses in next month’s midterm elections. The hard question is what Ukraine and its allies should do.”
Tags: Cripple, Elections, Europe, Fight, Human conflict, Losses, Pitiful prize, Risked, Russian aggression, Survival, Threatening, Trump, Ukraine
Inc. (October 1)
“Self-checkout was supposed to cut costs. instead, it created a problem retailers didn’t anticipate.” Some of the retailers who installed them “are starting to abandon self-checkout lanes” because they are proving costly. ECR Retail Loss found that “grocery stores experienced an average 22 percent increase in merchandise losses in the year after installing self-checkout lanes. These losses included both theft and accidental errors, such as missed scans and incorrect product selections.” Overall, retailers are still investing in technology, but they are currently searching for better solutions.
Tags: Abandon, Accidental errors, Costs, Grocery stores, Incorrect product selections, Losses, Merchandise, Missed scans, Problem, Retailers, Self-checkout, Theft
MarketWatch (July 30)
“One of the wildest months in recent memory for the U.S. stock market is ending on yet another remarkable note: A highflying hedge fund run by an AI wunderkind in his mid-20s has apparently just been carried out on a stretcher.” Before offloading “the bulk of its public-equity portfolio after suffering heavy losses over the past month,” Situational Awareness “had posted dazzling returns by using leverage to bet on AI-related stocks, reportedly tallying a more than 2,000% gain since its launch in September 2024.”
Tags: AI, Bet, Dazzling, Gain, Hedge-fund, Leverage, Losses, Market, Offloading, Public-equity portfolio, Remarkable, Returns, Situational Awareness, Stocks, Stretcher, U.S., Wildest, Wunderkind
Wall Street Journal (May 26)
“Phoenix built an empire of cubicle jobs.” By population, Phoenix “is currently the nation’s fifth-largest city” and, at least for now, “the country’s call-center capital.” But Artificial Intelligence is currently “piling on offshoring losses, decimating careers that were once a sure path to the middle class.” In 2021, the city’s “customer-service workforce” peaked at 92,970. By 2025, it had tumbled to 68,930 and the precipitous drop looks likely to continue, though typically not through mass layoffs. “Instead, companies have taken advantage of the industry’s high churn, cutting head count by not replacing workers who quit or were fired.”
Tags: AI, Call-center capital, Careers, Churn, Cubicle jobs, Customer service, Decimating, Largest, Losses, Mass layoffs, Offshoring, Peaked, Phoenix, Population, Precipitous, Tumbled, Workforce
Wall Street Journal (April 28)
“The Magnificent Seven drove the stock market’s bull run. Now, their bruising losses pose a new test for markets.” Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla “helped fuel a gangbusters rally that lifted stocks out of the 2022 bear market and toward dozens of all-time highs,” with their shares reaching “eye-popping levels.” Now, however, “the Magnificent Seven are off to their worst start to a year since the 2022 slide,” with each stock falling over 6.5%, collectively destroying “$2.5 trillion in market value.”
Tags: $2.5 trillion, 2022, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Bear market, Bruising, Bull run, Eye-popping, Gangbusters, Losses, Magnificent Seven, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Rally, Stock market, Tesla, Value
Time (February 10)
Losses, estimated at $52 to $57 billion, from the LA fires are accelerating “an uninsurable future.” Many affected homeowners had already been dropped by private insurers because distorted risks from climate change made the policies unviable. Many were essentially “forced to obtain coverage from the state’s insurer of last resort, the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (CA FAIR) Plan,” but that plan’s exposure far outstrips its assets, placing all of the state’s insurance policyholders on the hook for additional levies. This situation is not unique to California and action is required. “What won’t work, experts say, is continuing with the same system and hoping that climate risk just goes away.”
Tags: $57 billion, CA FAIR, California, Climate, Climate change, Coverage, Homeowners, LA fires, Last resort, Levies, Losses, Private insurers, Risks, Uninsurable future
South China Morning Post (January 5)
“More than 30,000 car dealers in mainland China are facing another bleak year in 2025, with many turning from profit-generators into corporate failures in two years under a debilitating price war and an e-commerce onslaught.” Amid the switch to EVs, price wars “resulted in 177.6 billion yuan (US$24.3 billion) of losses between January and November” with the “financial squeeze” blamed for the closure of approximately 4,000 dealerships.
Tags: 2025, Bleak, Cars, China, Closure, Corporate failures, Dealerships, Debilitating, E-commerce, EV, Financial squeeze, Losses, Price war, Profit-generators
New York Times (December 22)
“An annual ritual is underway at the major Wall Street investment houses: predicting exactly where the S&P 500 will finish the next calendar year.” Since 2000, the Wall Street consensus has failed miserably at this fool’s errand, predicting only gains when there were seven years of losses. Their average “variance between actual annual performance and the prediction was huge — an average gap of 14.2 percentage points.”
Tags: 14.2 percentage points, 2000, Consensus, Fool’s errand, Gains, Investment houses, Losses, Performance, Prediction, Ritual, S&P 500, Variance, Wall Street
MSN (December 20)
“The smooth economy that Donald Trump was poised to inherit suddenly looks a bit rockier — with critics saying the president-elect is contributing to the uncertainty.” After 10 days of losses, the DJSI “essentially ended Thursday flat” and the Federal Reserve “has become cautious about further interest rate cuts planned for next year” amid persistent inflation.
Tags: Cautious, DJSI, Economy, Fed, Flat, Interest rate cuts, Losses, Persistent inflation, President-elect, Rockier, Smooth, Trump, Uncertainty
New York Times (June 6)
Office building losses are starting to “pile up, and more pain is expected.” The culprits? Weak demand for office space and interest rates and other costs that are higher than in many years. “The repercussions could extend far beyond the owners of these buildings and their lenders. A sustained drop in the value of commercial real estate could sap property tax revenue” that cities depend on and “hurt restaurants and other businesses that served the companies and workers who occupied those spaces.”
Tags: Cities, Costs, CRE, Culprits, Interest rates, Lenders, Losses, Office building, Office space, Owners, Pain, Pile up, Property tax, Repercussions, Restaurants, Weak demand
