Washington Post (December 22)
“There’s no reason to worry about the Japanese takeover of U.S. Steel.” Nippon Steel is poised “to buy U.S. Steel for $14.1 billion, and Rust Belt senators from both parties are raising alarms.” Make no mistake, however, “large-scale capital investment by a Japanese company poses no danger to U.S. national or economic security.” Moreover, “consolidation is necessary to compete with China.” The merger would create the world’s second largest steel maker capable of competing with the state-owned Baowu Group.
BBC (December 19)
“Once a poster boy for Japan’s dominance in electronics—known as Japan Inc—the company has delisted, ending a 74-year history with Tokyo’s stock exchange.” The reasons for “such a spectacular fall from grace” are numerous and the challenge for Japan Investment Corp (JIC), which led a group of investors in purchasing the remnants for $14 billion, is immense. While JIC has successfully revived other failing businesses, “Toshiba is a much bigger company and the stakes are high.”
Tags: $14 billion, Challenge, Delisted, Dominance, Electronics, Failing businesses, Fall, Japan Inc., JIC Investors, Revived, Stakes, Toshiba, TSE
Institutional Investor (December 19)
Investors and CEOs using their power to change the world around them provides the best hope for restoring value-creating potential to relationships between public companies and asset owners. But it may not be good enough. Investors and companies that seek to remain in public markets and derive value from their relationships will need ways to find each other in the masses of intermediaries between them, special tools for using this approach, and plans for navigating the inevitable collisions with short-term activists.”
Tags: Asset owners, CEOs, Hope, Intermediaries, Investors, Markets, Navigating, Potential, Power, Public companies, Relationships, Restoring, Value, Value-creating
International Banker (December 18)
If Japan’s Financial Services Agency and the nation’s “asset-management industry work together to establish ‘customer-oriented business operations’, they may succeed in gaining the trust of retail investors, and the financial assets of Japanese households may finally show a visible shift from cash and deposits to securities.” Two decades of failed efforts starting with the Big Bang financial reform suggest “it will take much effort to gain the trust of retail investors, some of whom have experienced disappointing returns in the past. Unless the Japanese financial industry works harder than ever for customers’ interests, the goal of ‘savings to investments’ will turn out to be elusive once again.”
Tags: Asset-management industry, Big bang, Customer-oriented, Disappointing, Elusive, Failed, Financial assets, Financial Reform, FSA, Households, Investments, Japan, Retail investors, Securities, Trust
Market Watch (December 16)
“AI brings efficiency, but it lacks the empathy and emotional intelligence inherent to humans. So although AI can be a useful tool for management and leadership, CEOs must ensure that the human touch in customer relations, employee management, company culture and business decision-making remains prominent. If these become overly-automated, they’ll lose the power to create human connection, eroding trust in the process.”
Tags: AI, Business decision-making, Company culture, Customer relations, Efficiency, Emotional intelligence, Empathy, Human touch, Management, Overly-automated, Trust
Financial Times (December 16)
“European bonds rallied on Friday, pushing yields to nine-month lows as investors focused on the latest signs of a slowing economy and shrugged off the European Central Bank’s insistence that it was not considering interest rate cuts.” Given the Fed’s pivot, markets appear skeptical of “ECB president Christine Lagarde’s insistence on Thursday that it was too soon to talk about the timing of rate cuts and that the bank had ‘more work to be done’ in its battle to tame inflation.”
Tags: Bonds, ECB, European, Inflation, Insistence, Interest, Investors, Lagarde, Lows, Rallied, Rate cuts, Slowing Economy, Timing, Yields
New York Times (December 14)
“The markets have been climbing since July — and have been positively buoyant since late October — on the assumption that truly good times are in the offing. That may turn out to be a correct assumption,” but the Fed “went out of its way to say that it is positioning itself for maximum flexibility. Prudent investors may want to do the same.”
Tags: Assumption, Buoyant, Climbing, Fed, Flexibility, July, Markets, October, Prudent
Time (December 13)
“Low fertility threatens to undermine South Korea’s economic future by shrinking its workforce and slowing consumption. It also casts a long shadow over national security by reducing the pool of men available to join the military to counter threats from North Korea.” The number of expected babies per woman in South Korea is forecast to fall to 0.72 in 2023 and “will continue to fall through 2025,” when it will likely bottom out at 0.65.
Tags: Economic future, Fertility, Low, National security, North Korea, Shrinking, Slowing consumption, South Korea, Threats, Undermine, Workforce
Reuters (December 13)
“Conflict in the Middle East added geopolitical uncertainty to a luxury industry outlook already clouded by inflation, with shoppers in the U.S. and Europe tightening their purse strings while expectations for a strong post-pandemic rebound in China were derailed by a property crisis” On top of all that, Bergdorf Goodman and other high end retailers are already discounting adding to “concern that a lackluster Christmas could lead to inventory gluts – potentially dragging labels into a discounting spiral that would cheapen their image.”
Tags: Bergdorf Goodman, China, Christmas, Clouded, Discounting, Europe, Geopolitical uncertainty, Inflation, Inventory gluts, Lackluster, Luxury, Middle East, Outlook, Property crisis, Shoppers, Tightening, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (December 12)
“Investors spent most of 2023 fretting about inflation and interest rates. Now they are snapping up everything from stocks and bonds to crypto and even gold.” Does the “simultaneous surge across assets” signal “the arrival of a lasting bull market” or is it “just a fleeting sugar high at the end of the Federal Reserve’s tightening cycle?” Opinions are divided.
Tags: 2023, Bonds, Bull market, Crypto, Cycle, Fed, Fleeting, Fretting, Gold, Inflation, Interest rates, Investors, Stocks, Surge, Tightening
