Financial Times (March 27)
“The price of cocoa surged past $10,000 a tonne for the first time on Tuesday, as a dizzying rise in prices caused by poor harvests in Africa accelerates. Cocoa futures traded as high as $10,080 in New York, more than double their price only two months ago, as traders warned a global shortage of cocoa beans would herald higher price tags for chocolate bars.”
Tags: Africa, Chocolate bars, Cocoa, Dizzying, Double, Futures, Higher, New York, Poor harvests, Price, Shortage, Surged, Traders
Wall Street Journal (February 7)
“Luxury retailers, flush with cash, are spending big on real estate in the world’s most expensive and exclusive shopping corridors” including New York’s Fifth Avenue, Avenue Montaigne in Paris, and London’s New Bond Street. The “shopping spree shows that retailers are using their considerable cash to free themselves from the control of landlords and plant their flags on streets where they want a long-term presence.”
Tags: Avenue Montaigne, Cash, Exclusive, Expensive, Fifth Avenue, Flush, Landlords, London, Luxury retailers, New Bond Street, New York, Paris, Real estate, Shopping corridors
Investment Week (July 31)
“British American Tobacco is resisting shareholder pressure to move its primary listing from London to New York.” Others haven’t. “The London Stock Exchange has seen a string of departures this year, as companies flee from cheap valuations towards the deeper investor pool the US market offers.”
Tags: BAT, Cheap valuations, Companies, Departures, Flee, Investor pool, London, LSE, New York, Primary listing, Resisting, Shareholder pressure, U.S.
Fortune (May 26)
“The pandemic spurred work-from-home era is decimating the office sector, with rising vacancy rates and declining property values.” Researchers at NYU and Columbia have revised their estimate of the negative impact upward. “They now see a 44% decline in New York City office values by 2029, and a nationwide value destruction, as they put it, of $506 billion in just a three-year period from 2019 to 2022.”
Tags: $506 billion, 2029, Columbia, New York, NYU, Office sector, Pandemic, Property values, Vacancy rates, Value destruction, Work-from-home
American Banker (March 20)
“After bank merger-and-acquisition activity slowed substantially in 2022, it could reach a standstill following the failures of Silicon Valley Bank in California and Signature Bank in New York.” Their “sudden demise… injected hefty doses of uncertainty into the financial system and raised doubts about the veracity of regulatory oversight.” Because they missed vulnerabilities, “bank supervisors are likely to further ramp up reviews of banks’ potential weaknesses,” which is likely to “extend to bank M&A.”
Tags: 2022, Bank, California, Doubts, Financial system, M&A, New York, Regulatory oversight, Signature Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, Standstill, Sudden, Uncertainty, Veracity
Investing.com (August 9)
“Inflation expectations among consumers in the U.S. have plunged, falling at the fastest rate ever in the history of the New York Federal Reserve’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations.” The July survey revealed “consumers expect inflation to rise 6.2% over the next year and 3.2% over the next three years,” down considerably from 6.8% and 3.6% in June’s survey.
Wall Street Journal (July 8)
“Big cities can’t get workers back to the office.” More than two years since Covid-19 first struck, “less than half the number of prepandemic office workers are returning to business districts consistently.” Despite numerous carrots and the occasional stick, “occupancy is especially low in cities like New York, where workers are the engine of local economies.”
Tags: Big cities, Business districts, Carrots, COVID-19, New York, Occupancy, Office, Prepandemic, Stick, Workers
San Francisco Chronicle (December 16)
While there have only been 10 omicron cases in Santa Clara, “officials have “found the highly contagious variant in all four of the county’s wastewater treatment facilities, encompassing most of the local population.” The CDC said the new variant now accounts for about 3% of all cases nationwide “with the highest—13%–in the New York-New Jersey area.”
Tags: CDC, Contagious, New Jersey, New York, Officials, Omicron, Santa Clara, Treatment facilities, Variant, Wastewater
San Francisco Chronicle (August 24)
“San Francisco has long reigned as the priciest rental market in the U.S.—but it has officially been dethroned…. New York’s one-bedroom median rent rose a whopping 4.9% in August to $2,810, slightly more than San Francisco’s median of $2,800, which reflected a month-over-month increase of 2.9%.” San Francisco had been the priciest rental market since at least 2014 when Zumper began tracking data.
Tags: Dethroned, New York, One-bedroom, Priciest, Rental market, San Francisco, U.S., Zumper
Financial Times (June 22)
Wall Street banks “have been at the forefront of the push to convince workers to return to the office.” In the strictest vaccination policy yet, “Morgan Stanley employees and clients who have not received their Covid-19 vaccine will be barred from entering the bank’s New York offices.”
Tags: Banks, Barred, Clients, COVID-19, Employees, Forefront, Morgan Stanley, New York, Office, Return, Strictest, Vaccination policy, Wall Street
