Reuters (June 24)
“A scramble for lithium” is creating “new risks for electric-car makers. Breathtaking prices are prompting the industry to find new ways to secure the crucial battery ingredient,” often through “direct contracts with miners and refiners” with “options to buy 100% or more of a project’s planned production capacity.” Although “vertical integration is tempting when times are tough,” it can leave buyers overstretched and “dealmaking under duress makes miscalculations more likely.”
Tags: Battery, Breathtaking, Buyers, Capacity, Dealmaking, Duress, EVs, Lithium, Miners, Overstretched, Prices, Production, Refiners, Risks, Scramble, Vertical integration
Institutional Investor (May 25)
“Managers that want to run fixed-income funds with a focus on environmental, social, and governance factors face larger research challenges than those in stocks. But the massive opportunity in bonds may make the uphill battle worth it.” Compared to equities, the “patchwork of standards” increases the “risks of ESG fixed income funds.”
Tags: Bonds, Challenges, Equities, ESG, Fixed income, Funds, Managers, Opportunity, Patchwork, Research, Risks, Standards, Stocks, Uphill
Bloomberg (April 12)
“The feel-good days for global markets at the end of March are firmly over.” Suddenly, everyone is afraid of economic slowing. “With monetary support rapidly receding and recession risks rising, investors are hunkering down. Companies resilient to an economic slowdown such as health care are back in favor. Ditto cash and dividend-paying stocks. Meanwhile, demand for hedging is creeping up in the options market.”
Tags: Afraid, Companies, Dividends, Feel good, Global markets, Health care, Hedging, Hunkering down, Investors, March, Monetary support, Recession, Risks, Slowdown
USA Today (March 21)
“Groundbreaking federal regulation unveiled Monday could change how Americans – and American companies – think about climate change.” A proposed SEC rule would require listed “companies to disclose the risks they face from global warming. Much as homebuyers are protected by rules requiring a seller to disclose problems, the new SEC rule would allow investors to judge how well or poorly a company is prepared for the future costs of a warming planet.”
Tags: Climate change, Future costs, Global warming, Groundbreaking, Homebuyers, Investors, Judge, Protected, Regulation, Risks, Rule, rule Disclose, SEC, U.S.
Bloomberg (March 20)
Paul Clements-Hunt coined the acronym. ESG. He now thinks “the ESG fund industry is headed for a ‘shakeout’ over the next five years.” In successfully attracting trillions of dollars to these investments, “the finance sector has ‘sprinkled ESG fairy dust’ on products that do little to account for environmental, social and governance risks.” These and other shenanigans will increasingly come into “jeopardy.”
Tags: Clements-Hunt, ESG, Fairy dust, Finance sector, Fund industry, Investments, Jeopardy, Risks, Shakeout, Shenanigans
Wall Street Journal (March 15)
This week, the Fed meets “to address the worst inflation in 40 years amid new risks to economic growth.” The mess is “largely of the Fed’s own making. The central bank’s inflation target is 2% for personal-consumption expenditure inflation, and the rate in February was probably three times higher.” The Fed’s “historic exertions were needed” when Covid struck, but it continued them for “too long, even as the money supply exploded and clear signs of inflation began to appear.”
Tags: Central bank, Covid, Economic growth, Fed, Inflation, Inflation target, Mess, Money supply, Personal consumption, Risks
Seeking Alpha (January 4)
“While analysts on Wall Street are confident the bull market will continue uninterrupted into 2022, there are more than enough risks to derail that market outlook. Importantly, none of these independently suggest a significant correction is imminent. However, the risk is that they will undermine the bullish ‘psychology’ of the market.”
Tags: 2022, Analysts, Bull market, Confident, Correction, Derail, Imminent, Market outlook, Risks, Undermine, Uninterrupted, Wall Street
Bloomberg (October 25)
“China’s economy risks slowing faster than global investors realize as President Xi Jinping’s push to cut its reliance on real estate and regulate sectors from education to technology combine with a power shortage and the pandemic.”
Tags: China, Economy, Education, Investors, Power shortage, Real estate, Regulate, Reliance, Risks, Sectors, Slowing, Technology, Xi
New York Times (October 1)
“As species disappear and the complex relationships between living things and systems become frayed and broken, the growing damage to the world’s biodiversity presents dire risks to human societies.” We are living through “one of the most explosive extinction episodes in history” with plant and animal extinction occurring “an estimated 1,000 times faster than natural rates.” Our course is unsustainable. “It is much less costly to protect and conserve nature than it is to restore it or suffer the consequences of its destruction.”
Tags: Animal, Biodiversity, Complex, Consequences, Conserve, Damage, Destruction, Disappear, Extinction, Plant, Protect, Relationships, Restore, Risks, Species
New York Times (September 9)
“The crypto revolution is bringing financial services to the unbanked, but not without risks.” The crypto “market is expanding quickly — in all sorts of directions,” giving rise to new “Shadow Banks.” Crypto customers “can earn much higher interest rates than at traditional banks, and they can borrow money, using crypto as collateral, often with no credit checks,” but the potential dangers include hacks, fraud, and the lack of FDIC protection for deposits.
Tags: Borrow, Collateral, Credit checks, Crypto, Financial services, Fraud, Hacks, Interest rates, Revolution, Risks, Shadow banks, Unbanked
