Wall Street Journal (October 9)
“Investors worried about the recent pullback in stocks are counting on the coming earnings season to give them something to get excited about. For much of 2023, U.S. stocks roared higher despite lackluster corporate profits. But an accelerating selloff in bonds has pushed longer-term yields near their highest levels in more than a decade, denting enthusiasm for stocks.”
Tags: 2023, Bonds, Earnings season, Investors, Lackluster, Profits, Pullback, Selloff, Stocks, U.S., Worried, Yields
Council on Foreign Relations (August 25)
“American homeowners already coping with extreme weather now face a new risk: disappearing property insurance. Private companies have increasingly reduced coverage, concluding that the risks—and potential losses—threatened by climate change outweigh probable profits. As of now, this primarily affects a handful of coastal U.S. states, including California. In other states, insurers have substantially increased the price of property insurance.”
Tags: California, Climate change, Coastal, Coverage, Extreme weather, Homeowners, Potential losses, Private companies, Profits, Property insurance, Risks, U.S.
Institutional Investor (July 7)
“Large alternative asset managers… have emerged as unlikely leaders of the clean-energy movement. The big alts firms have convinced investors that the transition to a low-carbon era depends on a willingness to plow money into the fossil-fuel companies with some of the worst ESG ratings — and then use part of the profits to transform those polluters into founts of green energy.”
Tags: Alternative asset managers, Big alts, Clean-energy movement, ESG ratings, Fossil fuel, Investors, Low-carbon era, Money, Polluters, Profits, Transition, Unlikely leaders, Willingness
Reuters (June 23)
“Chinese faith in the economy is shaken…. Those who thought property was a one-way winning bet are rushing to pay down mortgages. With industrial profits plunging, companies are exhibiting similar conservatism.” Confronting this “double whammy of depressed consumption and investment is raising fears of long-term stagnation similar to Japan’s ‘lost decade’ in the 1990s.” Without successful countermeasures, “China risks slowly slipping into the same outcome.”
Tags: China, Depressed consumption, Double whammy, Economy, Faith, Fears, Investment, Japan, Mortgages, Plunging, Profits, Property, Shaken, Stagnation
Seeking Alpha (May 7)
“Berkshire Hathaway holds $130 billion in cash. That is over 18% of the company’s market cap. Clearly, management is not confident in the near term outlook of U.S. equity markets” in light of “the increasing preponderance of data that supports lower growth and lower earnings. The U.S. has certainly experienced an incredible period of growth and profits over the last 3 years. That phase is coming to an end.”
Tags: $130 billion, Berkshire Hathaway, Cash, Confident, Data, Earnings, Equity markets, Lower growth, Management, Market-cap, Near term, Outlook, Profits, U.S.
Washington Post (July 26)
“The U.S. economy is caught in an awkward, painful place. A confusing one, too. Growth appears to be sputtering, home sales are tumbling and economists warn of a potential recession ahead. But consumers keep spending, businesses keep posting profits and the economy keeps adding hundreds of thousands of jobs a month.”
Tags: Awkward, Businesses, Caught, Confusing, Consumers, Economists, Economy, Growth, Home sales, Painful, Profits, Recession, Spending, Sputtering, U.S.
The Economist (May 28)
Signs suggest “America’s markets are entering a new, more worrying phase.” Falling share prices could initially be attributed to the Federal Reserve’s policy moves, but “in recent weeks share prices have kept falling, even as bond yields have dropped back,” a combination suggesting recession. “Indeed, the mix of Fed tightening, slowing gdp and rising production costs has the ominous feel of the later stages of a business cycle. The expansion is barely two years old. Yet investors are already worried that corporate profits are under threat.”
Tags: Bond yields, Business cycle, Expansion, Falling, Fed, GDP, Investors, Markets, Ominous, Production costs, Profits, Recession, Share prices, Signs, Tightening, U.S., Worried, Worrying
Barron’s (May 2)
“Sure, it feels like the S&P 500 has nowhere to go but down….and sentiment toward stocks remains terrible.” Given this, ”you’d expect to see fundamentals crumbling. They haven’t. About 80% of companies have reported better-than-expected profits this earnings season, while margins of non-bank companies, at least, have increased from the fourth quarter despite higher inflation.” With everyone “so terrified” and fundamentals strong, “stocks might be ready to rise.”
Tags: Better-than-expected, Earnings season, Fundamentals, Inflation, Margins, Non-banks, Profits, Q4, S&P 500, Sentiment, Stocks, Terrified
Australian Financial Review (February 4)
“Mr Buffett shocked the world in 2020 when Berkshire Hathaway announced that it bought stakes in five of Japan’s biggest trading companies, which at the time were grappling with declining profits as the COVID-19 pandemic reduced demand for fuel and raw materials.” Now, his “surprise bet” is clearly “paying off as the companies expect a record-breaking rebound in profits.”
Tags: 2020, Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett, COVID-19, Demand, Fuel, Grappling, Japan, Pandemic, Profits, Raw materials, Shocked, Stakes, Trading companies
Australian Financial Review (October 25)
“Inflation will be the key issue for financial markets in coming years, with investors set to reap massive profits or suffer swingeing losses, depending on whether they make the right call on the stickiness of price pressures.” Astute investors are now figuring out strategies, like shortening bond maturities within their portfolio, to help “insulate their investment portfolios from the threat of rising inflation.”
Tags: Bond maturities, Financial markets, Inflation, Investors, Losses, Portfolio, Price pressures, Profits, Shortening, Stickiness, Strategies, Threat
