Seeing Alpha (November 10)
“CPI came in red-hot again, up 0.9% month-over-month and 6.2% year-over-year, showing broad-based increases. The biggest contributors to price gains were energy, rent, food, and used cars and trucks.” As a result, “real average hourly earnings for American workers are down 1.2% year-over-year. Not exactly what we’re hoping to see.”
Washington Post (November 9)
“After nine days of grand pronouncements, pledges and plans, scientists delivered a rude awakening to a COP26 summit that has been called ‘the last, best hope’ for climate action: Earth is on track to warm about 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit), eclipsing the world’s shared climate goal by a full degree.”
Tags: 2.5 degrees, Climate action, COP26, Earth, Hope, Plans, Pledges, Pronouncements, Rude awakening, Scientists, Summit
Wall Street Journal (November 7)
“The global recovery—while still robust—is at a precarious point, with the risk of missteps.” A recent survey shows “Only about a fifth of businesses judge that the worst of the supply-chain disruptions has passed,” complicating strategy for executives. Meanwhile, central bankers “are trying to chart a path that will curb inflation but not choke off growth as they navigate the process of weaning economies” from extraordinary support.
Tags: Central bankers, Disruptions, Executives, Extraordinary, Global, Growth, Inflation, Missteps, Precarious, Recovery, Risk, Robust, Strategy, Supply chain, Weaning
U.S. News & World Report (November 7)
“With the approval of the COVID-19 vaccine for younger children, many elementary schools around the U.S. are preparing to offer the shots, which educators see as key to keeping students learning in person and making the classroom experience closer to what it once was.”
Tags: Approval, Children, Classroom experience, COVID-19, Educators, Elementary schools, In-person, Learning, Shots, Students, U.S., Vaccine
The Economist (November 6)
“Global bond markets are wakening from a long slumber.” The Fed “will wind down its vast bond-buying programme” just as bond investors react to higher inflation. “Across a group of 35 economies, five-year bond yields have risen by an average of 0.65 percentage points in the past three months.”
Tags: Bond markets, Economies, Fed, Global, Higher inflation, Investors, Wind down, Yields
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (November 5)
“On Thursday, Georgia topped 25,000 confirmed deaths in the 20-month-long coronavirus pandemic… the same week that the U.S. toll reached 750,000 and the global toll 5 million.” The reality is likely grimmer. “The number is likely a significant undercount…. In addition to undiagnosed cases, the state listed and additional 5,351 deaths as ‘probable’ pandemic deaths—ones attributed by health authorities to COVID-19 but not yet confirmed with the proper test.”
Tags: Authorities, Confirmed, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Deaths, Georgia, Pandemic, Probable, Toll, U.S., Undercount, Undiagnosed
New York Times (November 4)
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced a tapering of stimulus programs, but he did not “lay the groundwork for higher rates.” That doesn’t mean “the era of near-zero rates will last anything close to as long as it did after the global financial crisis,” but if the current inflation surge “proves something other than temporary, Mr. Powell’s decision to stick to his guns” on interest rates “will loom as a missed moment to join other English-speaking countries in using monetary policy to try to stamp it out.”
Tags: Fed, Global financial crisis, Inflation, Interest, Monetary policy, Near-zero, Powell, Rates, Stimulus, Surge, Tapering
USA Today (November 3)
“The coronavirus lockdowns had an ‘extreme’ effect on carbon emissions, causing a whopping 17% drop globally during peak confinement measures by early April 2020 – levels that hadn’t been seen since 2006.” We are now reverting to mean. “Global emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that’s most responsible for global warming, have returned to near pre-pandemic levels…. This year saw a 4.9 percent increase in emissions over 2020, similar to the rebound that followed the 2008 global financial crisis.”
Tags: CO2, Coronavirus, Emissions, GHG, Global warming, Lockdowns, Pre-pandemic levels, Rebound, Reverting
San Francisco Chronicle (November 1)
City employees in San Francisco “will be required to come back to the office after a year and a half of being allowed to work from home. That means this week could boost San Francisco’s slow economic recovery, particularly for small downtown businesses struggling without the normal buzz of lunch, coffee and happy hour crowds.”
Tags: Crowds
Reuters (November 1)
It’s easier and faster to buy bitcoin, ethereum and dogecoin in India than it is to order a pizza on food-delivery app Zomato.” Startups have been tremendously successful at “luring the country’s next generation of investors” and “unlike China, which effectively banned the industry, India is more likely to regulate it rather than risk driving digital asset enthusiasts underground.”
Tags: Underground
