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
Reuters (April 25)
The U.S. “standoff over the debt ceiling is a white swan, or an entirely predictable, very frequent event that has the potential to be as catastrophic as its darker sibling.” Arriving at the “deadline without a congressional fix would lead to a calamitous default,” which could “exacerbate the very risks that sparked last month’s bank failures.”
Tags: Bank failures, Calamitous, Catastrophic, Congressional fix, Deadline, Debt ceiling, Default, Exacerbate, Predictable, Risks, Standoff, U.S., White swan
Investment Week (April 21)
“Following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and other US regional banks, as well as the turmoil around Credit Suisse, the banking sector has sat on wobbly ground in investors’ minds.” Depositors have “moved into treasuries and money market funds to avoid the risk that their bank could be next to fall.” As a result, the S&P Banks Select Industry index dropped 22.5% during March.
Tags: Banking sector, Collapse, Credit Suisse, Depositors, Investors, Money market funds, Regional banks, Risk, SVB, Treasuries, Turmoil, U.S., Wobbly
Wall Street Journal (April 20)
“When it comes to China, the U.S. and EU are largely now on the same page. “Europeans use milder language than Americans, saying they wish to ‘de-risk’ their economic relationship with China, not ‘decouple.’ But in substance, European de-risking and American decoupling look much the same. Indeed, Europe is erecting economic defenses against China that in some cases go further than the U.S.”
Tags: China, De-risk, Decouple, Economic defenses, Economic relationship, EU, Language, Milder, Same page, U.S.
Bloomberg (April 19)
“Sales of previously owned US homes fell in March by more than forecast, underscoring a housing market that’s still on shaky footing despite some signs of stabilizing.” Though inventory remains tight, “the median selling price of a previously owned home fell 0.9% from a year earlier to $375,700 in March — the largest decline since January 2012.”
Tags: Decline, Forecast, Homes, Inventory, March, Sales, Selling price, Shaky, Stabilizing, U.S., Underscoring. Housing market
The Economist (April 15)
Anxiety over the U.S. economy “obscures a stunning success story—one of enduring but underappreciated outperformance. America remains the world’s richest, most productive and most innovative big economy. By an impressive number of measures, it is leaving its peers ever further in the dust.”
Tags: Anxiety, Economy, Enduring, Innovative, Obscures, Outperformance, Productive, Richest, Stunning, Success story, U.S., Underappreciated
Bloomberg (April 8)
“Almost $1.5 trillion of US commercial real estate debt comes due for repayment before the end of 2025. The big question facing those borrowers is who’s going to lend to them?” Morgan Stanley has estimated “office and retail property valuations could fall as much as 40% from peak to trough, increasing the risk of defaults.” Regional banks are now skittish about lending and “the wall of debt is set to get worse before it gets better.”
Tags: $1.5 trillion, 2025, Borrowers, Commercial real estate, Debt, Defaults, Morgan Stanley, Office, Peak, Regional banks, Repayment, Risk, Skittish, Trough, U.S., Valuations
Wall Street Journal (April 3)
“For decades, American cities have had a parking problem: too much of it. Countless residential parking spots go unused, and many downtown garages sit half empty. Ride-sharing and the rise of remote work during the pandemic have aggravated the trend.” In response, “cities are shrinking the number of spaces, freeing up the land for other uses, with far-reaching consequences.”
Tags: Aggravated, Cities, Consequences, Downtown, Empty, Garages, Pandemic, Parking spots, Problem, Remote work, Ride-sharing, Trend, U.S., Unused
Bloomberg (April 1)
“Rarely has the consensus been more uniformly bearish than it is now. Investors are sitting with the lowest allocation to US stocks in almost two decades.” But this extreme is creating a phenomena not seen “during any bear market in the past four decades.” Since “everyone’s leaning one way, big swings are apt to break out in the other…. Small gains can snowball when the worry is missing out on the next big rally.” As a result, “the S&P 500 just finished the first three months of the year up 7%, rounding out back-to-back quarterly gains.”
Tags: Allocation, Bear market, Bearish, Big swings, Consensus, Extreme, Investors, Rally, S&P 500, Small gains, Snowball, Stocks, U.S.
New York Times (March 31)
“For the first time in American history, a grand jury has indicted a former president of the United States.” Former President Trump “spent years… ignoring democratic and legal norms and precedents, trying to bend the Justice Department and the judiciary to his whims and behaving as if rules didn’t apply to him.” His indictment shows the rules do apply and, with it, these “institutions have proved to be strong enough to hold him accountable for that harm.”
Tags: Accountable, Democratic, Grand jury, History, Indicted, Institutions, Judiciary, Justice Department, Legal norms, Precedents, President, Rules, Strong, Trump, U.S., Whims
