New York Times (November 6)
“President Trump’s barrage on global trade appears to have taken a hit” during questioning in front of the Supreme Court. “Concerns are growing that the Supreme Court could scramble the Trump administration’s tariffs strategy. That may be welcome news for free-trade advocates, but it could also unleash more uncertainty for businesses and Wall Street.” Market reaction was rapid as “the yield on 10-year Treasury notes spiked to 4.15 percent,” a sell-off that suggests “bond holders are fretting that an adverse ruling could deprive the government of revenues needed to offset the federal deficit.”
Tags: Barrage, Bond holders, Businesses, Free trade, Fretting, Global trade, Market reaction, Revenues, Scramble, Sell-off, Supreme Court, Tariffs strategy, Treasuries, Trump, Uncertainty, Wall Street, Yield
The Week (June 28)
“There may be no bigger scramble in business right now than the race to dominate retail media,” which is expected to “account for more than a fifth of all digital ad spending in 2024.” The stakes are high. Amazon, for example, “earned $46.9 billion from retail ads,” which was more than all of Coca-Cola’s global revenue “and makes Amazon the third-largest advertising platform in the United States, behind only Google and Facebook.”
Tags: $46.9 billion, 2024, Advertising platform, Amazon, Business, Coca Cola, Digital, Dominate, Facebook, Google, Race, Retail media, Scramble, Spending, U.S.
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
The Economist (September 29)
“A scramble to replace LIBOR is under way” before it is phased out permanently in 2021. Though scandals have revealed LIBOR’s numerous inadequacies, “a staggering $260trn-worth of financial products, from interest-rate swaps to retail mortgages,” are estimated to be priced using LIBOR and many of the contracts lack fallback clauses. “Creating and then switching to truly market-based alternatives is an almighty task.”
Tags: Contracts, Fallback clauses, Financial products, Inadequacies, Interest-rate swaps, LIBOR, Market-based alternatives, Retail mortgages, Scandals, Scramble, Staggering
