Reuters (October 18)
“The prospect of Aramco selling a piece of itself has had Wall Street on tenterhooks since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman first flagged it three years ago.” But it looks like the IPO will again be delayed, possibly until next year, to “bolster investor confidence” by reassuring them of the company’s recovery from recent attacks. The sought-after $2 trillion valuation remains in question as “countries have been accelerating efforts to shift away from fossil fuels to curb global warming.”
Tags: Aramco, Confidence, Fossil fuels, Investors, IPO, MBS, Recovery, Valuation, Wall Street
USA Today (October 4)
“The unemployment rate fell from 3.7% to 3.5%, the lowest since December 1969…. Average wages, however, fell. Wall Street cheered the mixed report, which … kept in play a possible Fed rate cut this month, which would be the third since July.”
Tags: Fed, Mixed, Rate, Rate cut, Unemployment, Wages, Wall Street
New York Times (August 20)
“Nearly 200 chief executives, including the leaders of Apple, Pepsi and Walmart, tried on Monday to redefine the role of business in society—and how companies are perceived by an increasingly skeptical public.” The new inclusiveness of multiple stakeholders sounds appealing. Still, “for companies to truly make good on their lofty promises, they will need Wall Street to embrace their idealism, too. Until investors start measuring companies by their social impact instead of their quarterly returns, systemic change may prove elusive.”
Tags: Apple, CEOs, Idealism, Inclusiveness, Investors, Pepsi, Redefine, Role of business, Skeptical, Society, Stakeholders, Wall Street, Walmart
Wall Street Journal (August 1)
“President Trump moved Thursday to extend tariffs to essentially all Chinese imports, escalating a trade conflict that is poised to hit U.S. consumers in the pocketbook and roiling financial markets…. Wall Street was rattled by the news.” The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite all closed lower. “Oil prices sank almost 8%, their biggest drop since February 2015.”
Tags: China, Dow Jones, Financial markets, Imports, Nasdaq, Oil, Rattled, Tariffs, Trade conflict, Trump, U.S. consumers, Wall Street
Financial Times (August 1)
Wall Street is enthusiastic about all things pet. “The growth of pet versions of everything from health food to personal service and new drugs is luring investors.” For example, “Zoetis, the animal pharmaceuticals company, has strongly outperformed its former owner Pfizer since being spun off in 2013; shares in Chewy, the online pet supplies retailer rose by 50 per cent on its first day of trading in June.” Consistency makes the pet industry stand out. The sum Americans spend on pets “has risen steadily at around 5 per cent annually for two decades, even following the 2008 financial crisis, when people bought less for themselves.”
Tags: Chewy, Drugs, Enthusiastic, Health food, Investors, Personal service, Pfizer, Pharmaceuticals, Wall Street, Zoetis
Bloomberg (June 10)
“Pity Europe’s banks. For years, they have been in retreat, losing business in their own back yards to Wall Street rivals. Now the battlefront is shifting – but what looks like an opportunity to gain ground may be just the opposite…. Shackled by sluggish economic growth at home and record-low interest rates that are crushing margins, European firms have been unable to compete with U.S. rivals in trading and capital markets. Those same dynamics look set to play out again in transaction banking,” which is set to displace fixed income as the largest revenue driver by 2020.
Tags: Banks, Battlefront, Capital markets, Economic growth, Europe, Fixed income, Interest rates, Margins, Retreat, Rivals, Trading, Transaction banking, U.S., Wall Street
Newsweek (May 13)
“China’s decision to raise tariffs on U.S. goods made its impact felt on Wall Street as stock markets began the week on a downbeat note. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 index fell by more than 2 percent in early trading,” while the Nasdaq dropped even further. Market volatility “was directly linked to the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China…. The back-and-forth retaliation between the two superpowers wiped out the marginal gains stocks recorded at the end of last week.”
Tags: China, Dow Jones, Downbeat, Gains, Nasdaq, Retaliation, Stock market, Superpowers, Tariffs, Trade war, U.S., Volatility, Wall Street
MarketWatch (November 27)
The plan to close plants and slash workforce “is good for GM—and it could shake up things at Tesla and Ford too.” Despite coming under political fire, GM’s “newly announced cost-cutting plan has drawn praise on Wall Street, with analysts applauding the car maker for sharpening its focus on higher-growth areas such as driverless and electric vehicles and forestalling a slowdown in its business.”
Tags: Analysts, Cost cutting, Driverless, EVs, Ford, GM, Plants, Slowdown, Tesla, Wall Street, Workforce
CNN (October 8)
“Wall Street’s top activist investors are raising lots of cash and gearing up for battle over the next year…. The group see more opportunity to disrupt the consumer discretionary sector, which includes retailers, than in any other industry.”
Tags: Activist, Cash, Consumer sector, Disrupt, Industry, Investors, Opportunity, Retailers, Wall Street
Newsweek (September 4)
“September 15 will mark the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and near meltdown of Wall Street, followed by the Great Recession.” With household debt at “an all-time high of $13.2 trillion,” we’re now close to a repeat. The direct cause will be income imbalance, not a banking crisis. “The U.S. economy crashes when it becomes too top heavy because the economy depends on consumer spending to keep it going…. For a time, the middle class and poor can keep the economy going nonetheless by borrowing. But, as in 1929 and 2008, debt bubbles eventually burst. We’re getting dangerously close.”
Tags: Anniversary, Banking, Collapse, Consumer spending, Crisis, Great Recession, Household debt, Income imbalance, Lehman Brothers, Meltdown, Top heavy, U.S., Wall Street
