CNN (January 15)
“Germany’s economy shrank last year for the first time since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic… increasing the risk of an economic contraction in the wider euro area.” GDP dropped 0.3%, both during 2023 overall and during Q4. “The data bodes ill for the entire area that uses the euro because Germany is the largest of its 20 economies.”
Wall Street Journal (May 4)
“Companies will need to jump through more hoops to buy back their stock.” A new rule adopted by the SEC will require “more disclosure from public companies about share repurchases starting in the fourth quarter,” including daily data on buybacks, whether directors or officers sold shares within four days of a buyback, and the rationale for the buyback. The SEC believes this will “make it easier for analysts to compare the timing of buybacks and insider trades, or to identify buybacks designed to boost executive compensation or earnings per share.”
Tags: Analysts, Buybacks, Directors, Disclosure, EPS, Executive compensation, Hoops, Insider trades, Officers, Public companies, Q4, Rationale, SEC, Share repurchases, Stock, Timing
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
Wall Street Journal (November 25)
“China’s zero-Covid reckoning” is approaching as “record infections and new lockdowns lead to rising public frustration and slower economic growth.” China’s economy is expected to slow further, “with growth estimates falling for the fourth quarter and the year below 3%. That’s assuming Chinese officials aren’t gilding the books. China’s official GDP target for this year had been 5.5%.”
Tags: China, Economy, GDP, Infections, Lockdowns, Public frustration, Q4, Reckoning, Record, Slower economic growth, Zero COVID
Barron’s (May 2)
“Sure, it feels like the S&P 500 has nowhere to go but down….and sentiment toward stocks remains terrible.” Given this, ”you’d expect to see fundamentals crumbling. They haven’t. About 80% of companies have reported better-than-expected profits this earnings season, while margins of non-bank companies, at least, have increased from the fourth quarter despite higher inflation.” With everyone “so terrified” and fundamentals strong, “stocks might be ready to rise.”
Tags: Better-than-expected, Earnings season, Fundamentals, Inflation, Margins, Non-banks, Profits, Q4, S&P 500, Sentiment, Stocks, Terrified
WARC (March Issue)
“The cost of search, social and retail media advertising grew by double digits in the final three months of 2021…. Search cost-per-click (CPC) saw the largest rise, increasing by 23% year on year to $0.71 in Q4 2021.” Moreover, the trend in rising “advertising spend and costs looks likely to continue in 2022.”
Tags: 2021, 2022, Advertising, Cost, CPC, Double digits, Media, Q4, Retail, Search, Social, Spend, Trend
Wall Street Journal (January 29)
“You know political spin is at work when the economy grows by 4% in the fourth quarter but the headlines are that growth fell for the entire pandemic year. Everyone already knows the economy fell off the cliff in the first half of 2020. The news is that the economic recovery is continuing despite the winter Covid surge.”
