Wall Street Journal (September 24)
“The AI build-out is becoming the biggest economic bet in U.S. history.” Spending on data centers is already “greater than that for the canals, railroads and grid combined—creating jobs and wealth but also boosting inflation.” Between 2025 and 2032, “total investment in data centers and related artificial-intelligence infrastructure is projected to total $10.3 trillion.” As this investment transforms the economy, “it is also creating significant risk, as much of it is built on debt. An abrupt slowdown could ignite shock waves throughout the U.S. economy.”
Tags: $10.3 trillion, 2032, AI, Build-out, Canals, Data centers, Debt, Economic bet, Grid, Inflation, Infrastructure, Investment, Jobs, Railroads, Risk, Slowdown, Spending, U.S., Wealth
WARC (November 19)
“More shoppers, GMV growth and the growing role of AI was the Singles Day story from Alibaba and JD.com, but the wider economy continues to feel the impact of China’s property slowdown.”
Tags: AI, Alibaba, China, Economy, GMV, Growth, Impact, JD.com, Property, Shoppers, Singles Day, Slowdown
Wall Street Journal (July 17)
“A clearer outlook on interest rates is giving bankers hope that dealmaking is emerging from a two-year slowdown.” Though up about 8% from a year ago, Q2 global M&A volumes “are still below those of the deal boom coming out of the pandemic,” with M&A activity “unlikely to kick into full gear until interest rates come down.”
Tags: 8%, Bankers, Boom, Clearer, Dealmaking, Emerging, Interest rates, M&A, Outlook, Pandemic, Q2, Slowdown
South China Morning Post (May 17)
“A larger fall of property investment and a slowdown of consumption continued to haunt China’s economic activities in April, despite Beijing having stepped up actions to boost consumer goods sales, upgrade equipment and solve the widely watched property slowdown.”
Tags: April, Beijing, Boost, China, Consumer goods, Consumption, Economic activities, Equipment, Fall, Haunt, Investment, Property, Sales, Slowdown
Wall Street Journal (December 6)
“2024 is the year the global spillover implications of China’s slowdown will sink in. Advanced economies will downgrade the importance of market access in China, and Global South nations will be forced to find other engines of development.” This will lead to “a new phase of geopolitical conditions, with the anchor assumption of a rising China and declining U.S. being retired. The implications of this will be far reaching and challenging to forecast.”
Tags: 2024, Advanced economies, Assumption, Challenging, China, Downgrade, Far-reaching, Geopolitical conditions, Global South, Global spillover, Implications, Market access, Slowdown, U.S.
WARC (October 12)
“After a pandemic-driven boom, luxury sector growth rates are slowing and returning to something approaching the long-term norm.” Ultimately, a “slowdown had to come at some point – 20% growth rates are not sustainable for an extended period – but the question now being asked is how far the pendulum might swing in the opposite direction, especially as ‘aspirational’ buyers at the bottom end of the market cut back.”
Tags: Aspirational buyers, Boom, Cut back, Growth rates, Luxury sector, Pandemic, Slowdown, Sustainable
Bloomberg (September 1)
“That jump in the unemployment rate was not a reflection of companies firing workers in anticipation of a slowdown.” A “very large 700,000 increase” in job seekers “caused the labor force participation rate to jump to 62.8%, the highest since before the pandemic.”
Tags: 62.8%, Companies, Firing, Highest, Job seekers, Jump, Labor force, Pandemic, Participation rate, Slowdown, Unemployment rate, Workers
Financial Times (April 28)
“Deprived of investment opportunities abroad, Russians have piled their savings into the likes of Lukoil, Gazprom and Sberbank, which combined account for about 40 per cent of the stock market’s total value.” Marking a rebound, “Russia’s stock market has climbed to its highest level in more than a year as domestic retail investors with nowhere else to go snap up the dividend-paying stocks that sold off heavily following the invasion of Ukraine”.
Tags: 2022, Banking crisis, Bracing, Economy, Fears, Growth, Interest rates, Q1, Q4, Recession, Slowdown, U.S., Wall Street, Wobbled
Fortune (September 4)
“The Pandemic Housing Boom saw U.S. home prices spike an unprecedented 43% in just over two years. But that’s over now: Spiked mortgage rates have pushed the U.S. housing market into a sharp slowdown that could threaten some of those gains.” Estimates on potential 2023 home price changes range from +2.4% to -15%, with nearly all certain that some regions will decrease.
Tags: 43%, Gains, Home prices, Housing boom, Mortgage rates, Pandemic, Slowdown, Spike, Threaten, U.S., Unprecedented
Bloomberg (June 30)
“The Federal Reserve is cooling off the red-hot housing market as it fights to curb inflation by driving up interest rates.” The ensuing “housing slowdown is helping to solve the US real estate market’s most intractable problem: tight inventory.” New sellers are entering the market at a faster pace while there are “fewer buyers competing.” As a result, “the number of active US listings jumped 18.7% in June from a year earlier, the largest annual increase in data going back to 2017.”
Tags: Buyers, Cooling off, Fed, Housing market, Inflation, Interest rates, Intractable, Inventory, Listings, Real estate, Red-hot, Sellers, Slowdown, U.S.
