WARC (June 1)
“As lockdowns start to ease and the scale of the economic challenge becomes clear, uneasy businesses are adjusting to a future which is looking decidedly different from the one they had planned for at the start of 2020.” For starters, many are slashing advertising spend as they move “back to basics: service and trust,” while also focusing more on online presence and purchases.
Tags: Adjusting, Advertising spend, Basics, Ease, Economic challenge, Future, Lockdowns, Online, Service, Trust, Uneasy
Financial Times (June 1)
“Shareholders have ramped up pressure on companies to tackle global warming even as businesses grapple with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.” Their targets have included JPMorgan and Rio Tinto and through May 20, “climate change resolutions at annual meetings received average shareholder support of 23 per cent,” up from “16 per cent during all of 2019.”
Tags: Annual meetings, Climate change, Coronavirus, Global warming, JPMorgan, Pandemic, Pressure, Resolutions, Rio Tinto, Shareholders
New York Times (May 30)
“E-commerce has been embraced for all manner of goods and services — books, travel, groceries, electronics — but auto sales have resisted the trend.” Consumers do frequently conduct research over the internet, but ultimately “have gone to dealers for most transactions. With the coronavirus and stay-at-home orders, that is changing.”
Tags: Auto sales, Books, Consumers, Dealers, E-commerce, Electronics, Goods, Groceries, Internet, Research, Services, Travel
The Economist (May 30)
“Bail-outs are taking place everywhere. But in Europe they are especially dangerous, because they can undermine economic integration and encourage politicians’ inexhaustible appetite to meddle in industry. Creating a giant, open and competitive market has been one of Europe’s great achievements. In the rush to help business it must not be eroded.”
Tags: Bail-outs, Competitive, Dangerous, Europe, Industry, Integration, Meddle, Politicians, Undermine
Bloomberg (May 29)
“It looks as though the market is at or approaching a tipping point right now. What happens next will be driven by the two most important narratives of the day — the attempt to reopen economic activity after the Covid-19 pandemic, and worsening relations between the U.S. and China.”
Tags: COVID-19, Economic activity, Market, Narratives, Pandemic, Reopen, Tipping point, U.S.
LA Times (May 28)
“Trump hasn’t been a victim of bias” as he made out while trying “to take a big, dumb bite out of the Twitter hand that feeds him.” In fact, “he’s been the prime beneficiary of the platforms’ lax and inconsistent enforcement of their terms of service. It’s richly ironic that the president would want to remove liability protections for the platforms that broadcast the damaging rumors and wild conspiracy theories he spreads about his rivals.”
Tags: Beneficiary, Bias, Conspiracy theories, Damaging, Dumb, Enforcement, Inconsistent, Ironic, Lax, Liability, Rivals, Rumors, Trump, Twitter, Victim
Wall Street Journal (May 27)
“We don’t write this with any expectation that Mr. Trump will stop” smearing people and promoting far-fetched conspiracy theories. “His latest accusation against MSNBC host Joe Scarborough is ugly even for him.” By suggesting the TV host was somehow complicit in what by all accounts was a natural death, “Mr. Trump is debasing his office, and he’s hurting the country in doing so.”
Tags: Accusation, Conspiracy theories, Debasing, Expectation, MSNBC, Scarborough, Smearing, Trump
Reuters (May 26)
The NYSE “partially reopened its trading floor on Tuesday, having been closed since March 20. The question is why. It’s getting harder to argue the exchange, owned by Intercontinental Exchange, even needs such a thing. Trading didn’t suffer any noticeable glitches while it was closed.”
Tags: Closed, Glitches, Intercontinental Exchange, NYSE, Reopened, Trading floor
Washington Post (May 24)
“Beijing has just hammered the final nail in the coffin for Hong Kong’s autonomy. The promise of “one country, two systems” is dead.”
The Economist (May 23)
Have we reached “peak capital?” It seems London may be entering “a covid-accelerated decline,” in a shift that “could reverse three decades of ascendancy.” The UK may be “levelled up” as Boris Johnson promised, but primarily by levelling down London.
Tags: Accelerated, Ascendancy, Covid, Decline, Johnson, London, Peak capital, UK
