Reuters (November 4)
“Fears of a market bubble come as the benchmark S&P 500 continues its meteoric climb, repeatedly hitting record highs and evoking memories of the dot-com boom.” And on Tuesday, the chief executives of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs warned that “global equity markets could be heading towards a correction, underscoring a growing concern that investor optimism has driven valuations to sky-high levels.”
Tags: Boom, Concern, Correction, Dot-com, Equity markets, Executives, Fears, Goldman Sachs, Investor optimism, Market bubble, Meteoric, Morgan Stanley, Record highs, S&P 500, Valuations
Wall Street Journal (September 26)
“Walmart executives aren’t sugarcoating the message: Artificial intelligence will wipe out jobs and reshape its workforce.” They are not alone. “Companies including Ford, JPMorgan Chase and Amazon have bluntly predicted job losses associated with AI.” For the next three years at Walmart, head count is “expected to stay flat… despite growth plans, as AI eliminates or transforms roles.” Beyond that time frame, the outlook “remains murky” for the specifics of its labor force composition, but it will definitely be leaner.
Tags: AI, Amazon, Companies, Eliminates, Executives, Ford, Growth, Head count, Job losses, JPMorgan Chase, Murky, Reshape, Sugarcoating, Transforms, Walmart, Workforce
New York Times (August 13)
“Not content to steer the ship of state, our president apparently wants to run the ship of commerce, too. Literally. The entire Fortune 500.” President Trump thinks “he is the C.E.O. of Everything…. In ripping up numerous business regulations, Donald Trump seems intent on replacing them with himself.” This “is bad for corporations, consumers and capitalism. Please just run the executive branch, Mr. President, and let real executives run the businesses of America.”
Tags: Bad, Business regulations, C.E.O. of Everything, Capitalism, Commerce, Consumers, Content, Corporations, Executives, Fortune 500, Ship of state, Trump
Wall Street Journal (July 28)
“Big companies are getting smaller—and their CEOs want everyone to know it.” Executives used to tiptoe around staff cuts, trying to avoid linguistic landmines. In contrast, corporate leaders are now “recasting the headcount reductions as accomplishments that position their businesses for change.” Similarly, they are increasingly likely to view “large workforces as an impediment, not an asset.”
Tags: Accomplishments, Asset, Big companies, CEOs, Corporate leaders, Executives, Headcount reductions, Impediment, Landmines, Recasting, Staff cuts, Tiptoe, Workforces
Financial Times (January 14)
“It’s the dawn of a new era of conservatism in corporate America, as executives embrace Trump and the new Republican Washington.” The president-elect “has a history of making personal attacks on companies and executives he doesn’t like.” Amid the rush to get into Trump’s good graces, “companies are reshaping how they interact with society…. It’s a mirror image of the surge in support for social justice causes after a police officer killed George Floyd in 2020.”
Tags: Conservatism, Corporate America, Era, Executives, George Floyd, Personal attacks, Republican, Reshaping, Social justice, Society, Trump
Wall Street Journal (July 29)
The “post-covid factory boom Is running out of steam,” leaving U.S. manufacturers to rethink “their plans as they brace for an extended slump in demand.” Compounding factors include “higher interest rates, rising operating costs, a strengthening U.S. dollar and lower selling prices for commodities” as more executives forecast “challenging business conditions for the remainder of the year.”
Tags: Commodities, Demand, Dollar, Executives, Extended slump, Factory boom, Interest rates, Manufacturers, Operating costs, Plans, Post-Covid, Rethink, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (June 8-9)
“The recession, predicted by business executives, economists, and investors, refuses to show up. Steady hiring continues to fuel consumer spending and, in turn, an economic expansion unlike any the U.S. has seen. Employers added 2.75 million jobs over the last 12 months,” with an unemployment rate “at or below 4% for 30 months, something that last occurred during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and the Korean War in the early 1950s.”
Tags: Consumer spending, Economic expansion, Economists, Employers, Executives, Hiring, Investors, Predicted, Recession, U.S., Unemployment rate
American Banker (November 6)
“Bank consolidation, caught in a 2023 deep freeze, could thaw and accelerate in the coming year and beyond, executives of acquisitive banks said during the third-quarter earnings season.”
Tags: 2023, Accelerate, Acquisitive, Bank, Consolidation, Deep freeze, Earnings season, Executives, Q3, Thaw
Institutional Investor (March 29)
“Personal coaches to private-equity executives report that their clients are increasingly worried about their impact on their employees, business, and even the world.” While fundraising dominates their concerns amid recent market uncertainty, “executives are also thinking hard about other broad changes in their industry. Investment committees, limited partners, and employees increasingly expect firms — and their portfolio companies — to be more diverse, inclusive, and generally better places to work than in the past.”
Tags: Diverse, Employees, Executives, Fundraising, Impact, Industry, Investment, Market uncertainty, Personal coaches, Portfolio, Private equity, Worried
Reuters (January 20)
“The end of a long battle to wring some value from Toshiba is finally within reach.” Foreign investors and private equity are unlikely to be encouraged. The process “typifies the tortuous journey required of pushy shareholders to get Japanese executives to allocate capital more shrewdly.”
Tags: Allocate, Battle, Capital, Encouraged, Executives, Foreign investors, Japan, Private equity, Pushy, Shareholders, Tortuous, Toshiba, Value
