“Succeed or fail, Masayoshi Son is changing the world of technology investing.”
“The fund is the result of a peculiar alliance forged in 2016 between Mr Son and Muhammad bin Salman. Saudi Arabia’s thrusting crown prince handed Mr Son $45bn as part of his attempt to diversify the kingdom’s economy. That great dollop of capital attracted more investors—from Abu Dhabi, Apple and others. Add in SoftBank’s own $28bn of equity, and Mr Son has a war chest of $100bn. That far exceeds the $64bn that all venture capital (VC) funds raised globally in 2016; it is four times the size of the biggest private-equity fund ever raised.”
“The fund has already spent $30bn, nearly as much as the $33bn raised by the entire American VC industry in 2017. And because about half of its capital is in the form of debt, it is under pressure to make interest payments. This combination of gargantuanism, grandiosity and guaranteed payouts may end up in financial disaster. Indeed, the Vision Fund could mark the giddy top of the tech boom.”
“Rapid growth in debt levels is historically the best predictor of a crisis. And this year the corporate bond market has been on a tear, with companies issuing a record $1.7tn last year, and over half a trillion already this year. Even mediocre companies have benefited from easy money. But as the rate environment changes, perhaps more quickly than is imagined, many could be vulnerable.”
“Investors who bought some of the riskiest emerging market sovereign bond sales in the past year have been left nursing paper losses as a strengthening dollar has rattled sentiment for emerging markets.”
“JPMorgan’s emerging markets bond index has lost 5.1% since the start of this year.”
WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – BOJ Assets YoY Change 5/13
“Chinese airlines are buying foreign flying schools and poaching pilots, amplifying a talent shortage that has affected airlines in other regions.”
“’The growth in Chinese aviation is unprecedented in our lifetimes and probably in history,’ said Paul Jebely, a Hong-Kong-based lawyer specializing in aviation. ‘There have been more aircraft ordered than there are pilots to fly them’.”
“The squeeze on flying talent has triggered flight cancellations, dented profits and threatened the industry’s ambitious growth targets around the world.”
“China is on course to overtake the US as the world’s largest air travel market by 2022, according to the International Air Transport Association.”
“US aircraft maker Boeing predicts China will need 110,000 new pilots in the years through to 2035, and its airlines are expected to purchase 7,000 commercial aircraft over the next two decades.”
“China’s aviation market grew by 13% last year, with 549m passengers taking to the skies, double the number who flew in 2010. Growth is being driven by the rising middle class, an expansion of routes by Chinese airlines and the easing of visa restrictions by foreign governments keen to attract Chinese tourists.”
“The number of pilots and co-pilots working in China almost doubled between 2011 and 2017. Over recent months China’s main airlines — China Eastern, Air China, China Southern and Hainan Airlines — have stepped up recruitment and are expanding their offshore training.”
“The starting salary offered to foreign pilots in China has jumped over the past 10 years from $10,000 per month to $26,000 per month, tax free, and was still rising, he said.”
“’Some Chinese airlines are offering tax-free salary packages, which can be up to twice what western airlines offer,’ said Murray Butt, president of the Australian and International Pilots Association.”
“India’s surging air travel — where passenger numbers have been growing by an average of about 16% a year since the beginning of the millennium — adds more pressure to the global pilot shortage.”
“Having seen rapid growth in passenger numbers over the past few years, Indian airlines have been recruiting from the military, from abroad and from their competitors by offering increasingly lucrative contracts. They have also made it more difficult for pilots to leave, forcing commanding officers to give a year’s notice if they wish to leave.”
“Chinese airlines pay the tuition of cadet pilots and are intensifying efforts to develop more local talent. But there are only 22 pilot schools in China and restrictions on the use of domestic airspace mean they are increasingly looking overseas to partner with foreign flights schools.”
“Almost half of China’s 5,053 trainee pilots last year were trained abroad, creating a flourishing business for flight schools and their owners in the US, Canada and Australia.”
“It isn’t rare for a handful of big movies to do much better than anything else during the same year, but over the past few years the differences have become more acute. One way to see this is by applying a standard measure of inequality—the Gini coefficient—to the box office. A Gini of zero would mean all the movies did equally well and a Gini of one would mean one movie made all the money.”
“Based on the domestic receipts of the top 100 grossing movies, the box office Gini for last year’s releases was 0.49, versus 0.46 for 2016. Over the previous 10 years, the Gini averaged 0.4 so there has been a big change in an already skewed field. For comparison’s sake, the Gini coefficient for after-tax household income is 0.39 in the U.S. versus 0.46 in Mexico, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.”
“Apple has joined forces with two of the world’s biggest aluminum producers to develop a ‘carbon-free’ metal it plans to use in its iPhone and laptop computers.”
“The consumer electronics group is backing a joint venture between Rio Tinto and Alcoa that is seeking to commercialize a new technology to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from aluminum smelting.”
“The uninsured rate rose by statistically significant margins in 17 states in 2017, the first time since the full implementation of the major mechanisms of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2014 that any state had a rate increase. Also, for the first time since 2013, no states had a lower uninsured rate than the previous year.”
“A report released this week from MetLife Inc.’s asset-management business confirmed that the premium cost of apartments near public transit has begun to decline due to services such as Uber and Lyft.”
Nothing formalized at this moment, just be aware of the direction of this effort.
“Hybrid cars that rely on traditional engines, such as the Toyota Prius, would be banned by 2040 under clean-air plans being drawn up by the UK government that would outlaw up to 98% of the vehicles currently on the road.”
“Three people involved in the decision-making process said the proposed rules would limit new car sales to those that can travel at least 50 miles using only electric power.”
“The change would outlaw more than 98% of the vehicles currently sold in Britain and require manufacturers to switch to vehicles predominantly driven by batteries — though they might be able to have petrol engines for back-up or support.”
“In addition to hyperinflation and a $70bn bond default that has cut off the country from fresh finance, the drop in oil production to 30-year lows has slashed government revenues, making it ever harder for Mr Maduro’s regime to import basic necessities and deploy the patronage he needs to maintain military and political support.”
“Caracas has also alienated key allies such as Beijing. Chinese state banks, which extended over $60bn in oil-backed loans between 2007 and 2016, last year made no fresh loans. A two-year grace period on a remaining $19bn debt to China expired last week, Reuters reported, meaning that Venezuelan export revenues will fall further.”
“Americans are spending more at the pump than they have in years. Prices could rise even higher just as drivers hit the road for family vacations.”
“Crude prices have jumped thanks to continuing production cuts by major exporters. As a result, gasoline is also becoming more expensive. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, average regular retail gas prices reached $2.70 a gallon last week—the highest level since 2015.”
“While higher fuel prices could herald an end to the glut that has plagued the energy market since 2014, they also threaten to dampen demand and hit consumers in their pocketbooks.”
“Since the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major oil producers, including Russia, agreed to collectively limit output two years ago, U.S. oil futures have risen about 40%, closing at $62.06 a barrel on Friday. Gasoline futures are up 8.6% this year.”
And of course, Venezuela’s drop off in production…
“In recent months, the U.S. has also exported record amounts of gasoline, mostly to Latin and South America. In January, exports totaled more than 33 million barrels, near an all-time monthly high set in November.”
“’That’s a big difference from a decade ago, or even a few years ago,’ said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service. ‘We’re kind of refiners to the entire Western Hemisphere right now.’”
“The parents of teen internet celebrities get a crash course in a new kind of fame while trying to maintain boundaries for their newly rich and powerful children.”
“Hyperinflation is disorienting. Five or six years ago, the 500 bolivars on the floor would’ve bought you a meal for two with wine at the best restaurant in Caracas. As late as early last year, they would’ve bought you at least a cup of coffee. At the end of 2016, they still bought you a cup of café con leche, at least. Today, they buy you essentially nothing … well, except for 132 gallons of the world’s most extravagantly subsidized gasoline.”
“Prices are now rising more than 80 percent per month, according to the opposition-led National Assembly’s Finance Committee. (The government itself stopped publishing official inflation data long ago.) At that rate, prices double every 34 days or so. Salaries lag far behind, leaving more and more of the country to face outright hunger. Thus, the looting.”
“Rule No. 1 of surviving hyperinflation is simple: Get rid of your money. Given the speed with which money is shedding its value, holding on to it means you’re losing out. The second you’re paid you run out as fast as you can to buy something – anything – while you can still afford it. It’s better to hold almost any asset than money, because assets hold their value and money doesn’t.”
“I think this is what’s so hard to wrap your mind around if you’ve never experienced hyperinflation. It sounds like it’s about prices rising fast, but it really isn’t. It’s about money breaking down. Under hyperinflation, money no longer works. It doesn’t store value. It just stops doing the basic things people expect money to do. It stops being something you want to have and turns into something you’ll do anything to avoid having: something so worthless you won’t even bend down and scoop it up off the floor while you’re looting.”
“For years, the likes of Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have stashed billions of dollars offshore to slash their U.S. tax bills. Now, the tax-code rewrite could throw that into reverse.”
“The implications for the financial markets are huge. The great on-shoring could prompt multinationals — which have parked much of their overseas profits in Treasuries and U.S. investment-grade corporate debt — to lighten up on bonds and use the money to goose their stock prices. Think buybacks and dividends.”
“It’s hard to say how much money the companies might repatriate, but the size of their overseas stash is staggering. An estimated $3.1 trillion of corporate cash is now held offshore. Led by the tech giants, a handful of the biggest companies sit on over a half-trillion dollars in U.S. securities. In other words, they dwarf most mutual funds and hedge funds.”
“The $14.5 trillion Treasury market, of course, can absorb the selling pressure of even the largest corporate holders. There’s little to suggest multinationals will immediately liquidate their investments. Many analysts say companies, rather than selling, could just let their holdings gradually mature.”
“Yet even at the margin, a drop-off in demand could add to the government’s burgeoning funding costs. Not only are interest rates on the rise, but the most sweeping tax cuts in a generation, which could end up mostly benefiting shareholders, risk leaving the government with trillion-dollar shortfalls for years to come — an expense that taxpayers would ultimately have to bear.”
“And since Treasury yields are the global lending benchmark, any upswing could also ripple through the real economy in the form of higher rates on everything from credit cards to mortgages. Since September, 10-year yields have climbed over a half-percentage point, hitting a high of 2.595% this month.”
“Of course, it’s important to understand that for most multinationals, offshore cash is really only ‘offshore’ for accounting purposes. Under the old tax system, earnings attributed to foreign subsidiaries, often based in jurisdictions with low taxes or lax regulations like Ireland or Luxembourg, could be repatriated and remain earmarked as ‘held overseas’ — so long as it was stashed in U.S. securities. Apple, for example, manages its hoard from Reno, Nevada, where its internal investment firm, Braeburn Capital, is located.”
“’The term overseas cash can be a bit of a misnomer, as it doesn’t have to be overseas and in fact a lot of it isn’t,’ said Michael Cahill, a strategist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. That should limit any appreciation in the dollar related to repatriation over the longer term.”
“Big multinationals have good reason to bide their time, according to Richard Lane, a senior analyst at Moody’s Investors Service. Because their debt investments are so extensive, companies could end up inflicting losses on themselves with any large-scale selling.”
“’I don’t think there will be a rush to the door by these companies to sell this debt and causing increasing yields and lower pricing,’ said Lane.”
“It also said Wednesday it would spend more than $30 billion to create 20,000 jobs and open a new campus at a U.S. location to be announced later this year.”
“According to figures released on January 4th by Munich Re, a reinsurer, global, inflation-adjusted insured catastrophe losses reached an all-time high of $135bn in 2017. Total losses (including uninsured ones) reached $330bn, second only to losses of $354bn in 2011.”
“A large portion of the losses in 2011 was caused by one catastrophe: the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Losses in 2017 were largely traceable to extreme weather. Fully 97% were weather-related, well above the average since 1980 of 85%.”
“Last year’s disasters were particularly concentrated in North America (including the Caribbean), with 83% of global losses; half of those were in America alone, hitting that country’s insurers particularly hard. Fitch, a ratings agency, expects the ‘combined ratio’ for American property-and-casualty insurers to rise from 100.7% in 2016, meaning costs and claim payouts just exceeded premium revenue, to 104.4% in 2017. That implies a substantial underwriting loss for the industry. Even Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway looks poised for its first full-year underwriting loss in 15 years. It took a $3bn hit from the three hurricanes and an earthquake in Mexico.”
“For all the gloom, the 2017 losses were also proof of the resilience of the reinsurance industry. Insurers have long spread catastrophe risk by taking out reinsurance policies. This time, reinsurers had such ample capital buffers that they are expected to suffer only a small dent, of around 5-7% of capital.”
“Battered by losses, long-term-care insurers hit policyholders with steep rate increases that many never saw coming.”
“Only a dozen or so insurers still sell the coverage, down from more than 100. General Electric Co. said Tuesday it would take a pretax charge of $9.5 billion, mostly because of long-term-care policies sold in the 1980s and 1990s. Since 2007, other companies have taken $10.5 billion in pretax earnings charges to boost reserves for future claims, according to analysts at investment bank Evercore ISI.”
“When sales of long-term-care insurance were ramping up in the 1980s and 1990s, companies thought they had found the perfect product for middle-class families—and that’s how they pitched it.”
“The annual premium was designed to hold steady until a claim was filed and premiums then halted, though the rates weren’t guaranteed. Many policies paid out benefits for life.”
“Families flocked to what seemed like affordable peace of mind that would save them from draining their lifetime savings, leaning on children or enrolling in the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor.”
“Long-term care often costs more than $100,000 a year a person, financial advisers say. The nationwide total exceeds $200 billion, according to analysts at LTCG, a third-party administrator of long-term-care policies.”
“Almost every insurer in the business badly underestimated how many claims would be filed and how long people would draw payments before dying. People are living and keeping their policies much longer than expected.”
“After the financial crisis hit, nine years of ultralow interest rates also left insurers with far lower investment returns than they needed to pay those claims.”
“A new crypto-currency is born almost daily, often through an ‘initial coin offering’ (ICO), a form of online crowdfunding. CoinMarketCap, a website, lists about 1,400 digital coins or tokens, including PutinCoin, Sexcoin and InsaneCoin (worth $7m). Most are no more than curiosities, but by January 10th, around 40 had a market capitalization of more than $1bn.”
“Might any of these one day replace bitcoin as crypto-land reserve currency, something insiders call the ‘flippening‘? Given bitcoin’s governance problems (another ‘fork’, or split, may be in the offing) and limited capacity (a transaction now costs nearly $30, on average, in fees), this cannot be excluded. But the others have problems, too. Ethereum’s user fees have soared and the system has again hit technical snags. As for Ripple, some question the extent to which XRPs are actually used.”
WSJ – Daily Shot: Ripple 1/17
WSJ – Daily Shot: Capital Economics – Transactions Per Second 1/17
Authorities in the Japanese city of Toyama are encouraging migration to its city center through incentives. The goal being to reduce the cost of maintaining lightly-used infrastructure as its population declines.
“About 30% of Toyama’s 418,000 residents are 65 or older, an even higher proportion than in Japan as a whole, where it is 27%. By 2025, the proportion in Toyama is projected to be 32%. In addition to greying, the population is also declining. The city had 421,000 people in 2005; by 2025, it will have 390,000.”
“As the population ages and shrinks, the services residents need have changed. The Kadokawa Centre, for example, is built on the site of a primary school that closed in 2004. But overhauling public services is costly, and the declining number of people of working age means there is ever less tax revenue to help pay for the shift. To remain solvent, the city has decided to shrink not just in population, but in size, concentrating residents and services in the center.”
“Most of Japan is in a similar quandary. About 400 schools shut every year; some are being converted into retirement homes. In 2016 there were 300,000 more deaths than births. If Japan continues on its present course, it will have shed nearly a third of its population (and four out of every ten workers) by … 2065.”
“The global gender gap will take 100 years to close at the current rate of change, according to new World Economic Forum research.”
“The WEF’s annual report into gender equality found increasing inequality at the workplace and in political representation, contributing to its calculation that it would take a century to reach overall gender parity compared with its estimate last year of 83 years.”
“According to the WEF’s metrics — which take into account disparities between men and women in health and education, as well as politics and the workplace — the world has closed 68% of the gap between total gender inequality and total equality.”
“This level is slightly worse than the figures for 2016 and 2015, when the gender gap was 68.3 and 68.1%, respectively, and represents the first widening of the gap since the WEF began such calculations 11 years ago.”
“Of the 142 countries covered in the 2017 report, the gender gap had increased in 82, with countries such as Kenya, Brazil, Japan and India regressing in terms of the number of women in ministerial roles, while countries including Mexico, South Africa and Spain made less progress towards offering women equal economic opportunities.”
“Iceland remains the world’s most gender-equal country, while the US dropped four places to 49 in the country rankings because, in particular, of a significant decline in the number of women holding ministerial positions. The US’s political empowerment measure is at its lowest level since 2007.”
“The top three countries in the index are all Nordic but among the non-European countries in the top ten are Rwanda in fourth place, Nicaragua in sixth place and the Philippines in tenth place.”
“The region of the world with the smallest gender gap is western Europe, which has closed 75% of the gap, followed by North America and eastern Europe.”
“The Middle East and north Africa is the lowest-ranked region, having closed the gap by an average of 60%, and is home to four of the world’s five lowest-ranking countries on female political empowerment: Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar and Yemen.”
“Mr Trump is right to want to ‘keep America safe’ from such influences, even if he muddled his figures. Yet his approach is hardly achieving that. ‘Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now? That’s because they used knives and a truck!’ he tweeted after the London Bridge attack. True enough. But whereas in the past five years 11 jihadists have launched fatal attacks in America, killing 82 of their 86 victims with bullets, during the same period nine jihadists in Britain, without access to guns, killed only 37, according to the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland. America’s overall homicide rate is five times Britain’s. British crime statistics may well contain lessons for America, but not the ones Mr Trump claims.”
“E-commerce will not obliterate all retail trade. Stores that are distinctive in one way or another—because they offer excellent service, for instance, or unique products—will remain. But consider the change already wrought in America, where e-commerce accounts for about one-tenth of retail spending. If that share were to rise to one-fifth, let alone one-third, the effects would be vast. In the longer run the impact of e-commerce will not be limited to the conventional retail industry it is increasingly replacing. It will also change how consumers spend their days, transform the landscape, disrupt workers’ lives and reshape governments’ view of corporate power.”
“For consumers, e-commerce has ushered in a golden age. They can choose from more products of better quality than ever and spend far less time and effort to get what they want. Once-complacent manufacturers must compete fiercely for their business. No wonder Amazon is the most popular company in America, according to a recent Harris poll.”
“As demand for physical shops ebbs, that for warehouses will surge. Citi estimates that 2.3bn square feet (214m square meters) of new warehousing—equivalent to about 20,000 football pitches—will be needed worldwide over the next 20 years.”
“The future for ailing stores is less certain. Many shops in big cities will remain, less as sales hubs than as showrooms. Rents for them will probably come down. Retail rents are already falling in America and in much of Asia, according to CBRE, a property agency.”
“An even hotter topic is the effect of all this on employment. So far the decline in traditional retail jobs in America seems to have been offset by a rise in warehousing work. Between 2007 and 2017 the number of retail jobs shrank by 140,000 while those in e-commerce and warehousing rose by about 400,000, according to Michael Mandel of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think-tank. But the net gain in jobs may be temporary. Stores are only now starting to close, and those that remain are just testing automation. More robots will be used in warehouses, too, as their costs come down and their picking skills improve.”
“Barring any dramatic intervention, however, the biggest e-commerce sites look set to get bigger. Amazon and Alibaba typify a new breed of conglomerate that benefits from network effects. The more shoppers firms can muster, the more sellers will flock to them, attracting yet more shoppers. These effects are turbocharged by the breadth of their businesses and the vast amount of data they generate. This does not mean they will dominate every sector or market, but their mere presence in an industry will reshape it. The question is not if they will keep upending retailing, manufacturing and logistics, but which industry and part of society they will change next.”
“Hong Kong’s richest person Li Ka-shing is selling the city’s center—literally.”
“The billionaire’s property firm CK Asset has agreed to sell its stake in The Center, a 73-storey skyscraper in Hong Kong’s central business district, for $5.15 billion, making it the world’s most expensive commercial building ever. The sale continues Mr. Li’s retreat from China and Hong Kong in recent years as he invests in sectors like utilities in developed markets such as Australia and the U.K. Last year, he sold a commercial property project in Shanghai for about $3 billion.”
“The major shareholder entity buying The Center is an oil company in which the Communist Party of China has an effective 15% stake.”
“The S.E.C. said in a statement released on Wednesday afternoon that celebrities who promoted coin offerings could be violating multiple laws, including antifraud regulations and rules that govern investment brokers.”
“Marriage, which used to be the default way to form a family in the United States, regardless of income or education, has become yet another part of American life reserved for those who are most privileged.”
“Fewer Americans are marrying over all, and whether they do so is more tied to socioeconomic status than ever before. In recent years, marriage has sharply declined among people without college degrees, while staying steady among college graduates with higher incomes.”
“Currently, 26% of poor adults, 39% of working-class adults and 56% of middle- and upper-class adults are married, according to a research brief published today from two think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute and Opportunity America. In 1970, about 82% of adults were married, and in 1990, about two-thirds were, with little difference based on class and education.”
“A big reason for the decline: Unemployed men are less likely to be seen as marriage material.”
“As marriage has declined, though, childbearing has not, which means that more children are living in families without two parents and the resources they bring.”
“’The sharpest distinction in American family life is between people with a bachelor’s or not,’ said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins and author of Labor’s Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working-Class Family in America.”
“Just over half of adolescents in poor and working-class homes live with both their biological parents, compared with 77% in middle- and upper-class homes, according to the research brief, by W. Bradford Wilcox and Wendy Wang of the Institute for Family Studies. 36% of children born to a working-class mother are born out of wedlock, versus 13% of those born to middle- and upper-class mothers.”
“The research brief defined ‘working class’ as adults with an adjusted family income between the 20th and 50th percentiles, with high school diplomas but not bachelor’s degrees. Poor is defined as those below the 20th percentile or without high school diplomas, and the middle and upper class as those above the 50th percentile or with college degrees.”
“Americans across the income spectrum still highly value marriage, sociologists have found. But while it used to be a marker of adulthood, now it is something more wait to do until the other pieces of adulthood are in place — especially financial stability. For people with less education and lower earnings, that might never happen.”
“Evidence shows that the struggles of men without college degrees in recent years have led to a decline in marriage. It has been particularly acute in regions where well-paying jobs in male-dominated fields have disappeared because of automation and trade.”
“’A bad economy lowers the cost of having bad values — substance abuse, engaging in crime, not looking for a job right away,’ said Gordon Hanson, an economist at the University of California, San Diego, who wrote the paper with David Autor of M.I.T. and David Dorn of the University of Zurich.”
“Never-married adults cite financial instability as a major reason for being single, especially those who are low-income or under 30, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Most men feel it’s important for a husband to be a financial provider, especially men without college degrees, according to another new Pew survey.”
“Women, meanwhile, have learned from watching a generation of divorce that they need to be able to support themselves. And many working-class women aren’t interested in taking responsibility for a man without a job.”
“’They say, ‘If he’s not offering money or assets, why make it legal?’’ said June Carbone, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and the author with Naomi Cahn of Marriage Markets: How Inequality Is Remaking the American Family.”
“While researchers say it’s stability, not a marriage license, that matters for children, American couples who live together but don’t marry are generally less likely to stay committed.”
Clearly changing this momentum will take a lot. From an improved economy to strengthened cultural supports. A recommendation from Mr. Wilcox – “a bigger emphasis in high schools and pop culture on what’s known as the success sequence: degree, job, marriage, baby. ‘The idea is that if people follow that sequence, their odds of landing in poverty are much lower.'”
“The iPhone helped to catapult Apple into its position as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company. But now Apple has another and, arguably, more exalted stock market distinction.”
“In the history of the markets since 1926, Apple has generated more profit for investors than any other American company.”
“The core of investing is quite simple: Determine what everyone else thinks, and then figure out in which direction they are wrong. That’s it. No one tells you what they think. You’ve got to feel it.”
“It’s all about figuring out what is priced into a stock right now. That’s the pulse of the market, the collective mind meld aggregated into stock prices. I know from experience this is the hardest part of running a hedge fund. You can find the greatest story ever, but if everyone already knows it, there’s no money to be made.”
“And the pulse changes with each government statistic, each daily ringing of cash registers and satellite images taken of parking lots. That’s why stocks trade every day. Real-world inputs and the drifting pulse drive the psychotic tick of the stock market tape. Once you feel the pulse, then and only then can you figure out how everyone’s wrong about tomorrow, next month or next year. And believe me, they’re always wrong. Stocks rarely tread water.”
“How do you find that pulse? It’s hard enough to invest your IRA. Can you image managing $160 billion?”
“The aggregate message is that there is no shortage. Sporadic spikes and volatility will be driven by political instability but demand can be supplied at a relatively high level for many years to come. Oil is not going away any time soon. That will comfort those companies that are unprepared for the energy transition but is more disturbing in terms of emissions and climate change.”
“David Howell, the UK’s former energy secretary, writes in the new edition of his fascinating book on energy policy that there is a fundamental conflict between different views of the energy future — what he describes as the Black and the Green. That conflict will shape the public debate on energy for a long time to come. The age of hydrocarbons is far from over.”
“It doesn’t take fancy consultants to spot the problem. Harvard abandoned one of the stalwart adages in finance: Pick an investment philosophy and stick to it. With its revolving door of chief executives, the endowment has been anything but stable.”
“One common sign of trouble ahead is people borrowing heavily to buy equities.”
“Investors should be worried then that stocks are being supported by record amounts of margin debt, according to research released last week from the Bank for International Settlements, the Switzerland-based central bank for central banks.”
“These kinds of loans secured against stocks have often proved dangerous in a downturn because when share prices fall borrowers are forced to sell.”
“In the U.S., margin debt is more than three-times the level ahead of the 2008 crisis and is greater even than its peak in 2000 before the dot-com crash, according to the B.I.S.”
“However, lending volume alone isn’t a clear indicator of risk because equity values have increased, too. In the U.S. at least, lending as a share of market capitalization has been relatively steady for the past four years, most recently at 2.12%. But that level is much higher than the period before 2007 and above even the dotcom-era peak of 2.05%.”
“Rich clients’ desire to borrow against stocks has been stoked by the low interest rates and rising stock markets. It is attractive for banks, too. Lending against shares is seen as less risky than mortgages because stocks can be sold more quickly than a house, so banks can hold less capital against margin loans. Also, if the borrowed money is invested with the bank, rather than spent on yachts or cars, that boosts assets under management.”
“The banks themselves all say that while lending looks high, their own approach is conservative and the general competition for clients is less aggressive than in the past. But neither the banks nor their investors have a full view of leverage across the system and the risk that may pose.”
“Equities have to fall 20% to 30% before margin loans are underwater. That protects the banks, but doesn’t stop a wave of selling to repay debt when a downturn comes. That could spell real pain for everyone else.”
“Construction workers in California are among the highest paid in the nation, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
“Fixr.com, an online website that provides cost guides, comparisons and other information for people looking to do remodeling or repair projects, crunched the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers to create a state-by-state ranking of average hourly wages for workers in the industry.”
“California landed 10th on the list of the 10 Highest Wage States, with average hourly earnings of $21.26. Connecticut and Washington ranked just above California with slightly higher pay, and Hawaii and Illinois were tied for the top slot. Construction workers in both of those states earn an average of $27.01 an hour.”
“Massachusetts, followed with $25.84 an hour and New Jersey ranked fourth with an average hourly wage of $24.05. Construction workers in Arkansas are hurting the most, according to the report, as their average wage is just $12.38 an hour.”
“The national average wage for construction workers is $18.22 an hour, which equates to $37,897 a year. In California, construction workers earn an average of $44,221 a year.”
“Mike Balsamo, CEO of the Building Industry Association of Southern California, isn’t surprised that California ranks near the top. But he said wages can be considerably higher for someone with specific skills and more experience.”
Get Chinese citizens to adopt the consumer and debt habits of the Americans. This has always been the goal – at least for the MNCs (Multi-National Corporations) and it takes a burden off the central government in regard to boosting demand.
“Hong Kong-listed developers saw share prices drop on Monday as investors reacted to new property sales restrictions imposed across eight major Chinese cities in response to rising house prices.”
“The cities of Changsha, Chongqing, Guiyang, Nanchang, Nanning, Shijiazhuang, Wuhan and Xi’an had all tightened controls on housing sales since Friday, with state news agency Xinhua stating most had banned sales within two to three years of purchase.”
“Authorities in Shijiazhuang imposed particularly strict limits, requiring home buyers to wait for five years before reselling property.”
“There is no more agriculture in Puerto Rico. And there won’t be any for a year or longer.” – Jose A. Rivera, farmer
“In a matter of hours, Hurricane Maria wiped out about 80% of the crop value in Puerto Rico — making it one of the costliest storms to hit the island’s agriculture industry, said Carlos Flores Ortega, Puerto Rico’s secretary of the Department of Agriculture.”
“Plantain, banana and coffee crops were the hardest hit, Mr. Flores said. Landslides in the mountainous interior of the island took out many roads, a major part of the agriculture infrastructure there.”
“The island suffered a loss of $780 million in agriculture yields, according to the department’s preliminary figures. Hurricane Georges in 1998 wiped out about 65% of crops and Hurricane Irma, which only grazed the island, took out about $45 million in agriculture production.”
“Puerto Rico already imports about 85 percent of its food, and now its food imports are certain to rise drastically as local products like coffee and plantains are added to the list of Maria’s staggering losses. Local staples that stocked supermarkets, school lunchrooms and even Walmart are gone.”
“Apple has removed from its Chinese app store applications that enable users to bypass China’s ‘Great Firewall’, in a move that developers have condemned as ‘censorship’.”
“The Silicon Valley company has withdrawn virtual private network (VPN) apps from the store, as it pulls all software that do not comply with local law, even if the makers are based outside the country.”
“VPNs allow users to access content banned by Chinese censors to control access to information online. This has, in effect, created a ‘Chinese internet’, without many western social media or search engine sites.”
“In a hastily organized plebiscite on July 16, held under the auspices of the opposition-controlled National Assembly to reject President Nicolás Maduro’s call for a National Constituent Assembly, more than 720,000 Venezuelans voted abroad. In the 2013 presidential election, only 62,311 did. Four days before the referendum, 2,117 aspirants took Chile’s medical licensing exam, of which almost 800 were Venezuelans. And on July 22, when the border with Colombia was reopened, 35,000 Venezuelans crossed the narrow bridge between the two countries to buy food and medicines.”
“Venezuelans clearly want out – and it’s not hard to see why.”
“But is this just another bad run-of-the-mill recession or something more serious?”
“The most frequently used indicator to compare recessions is GDP. According to the International Monetary Fund, Venezuela’s GDP in 2017 is 35% below 2013 levels, or 40% in per capita terms. That is a significantly sharper contraction than during the 1929-1933 Great Depression in the United States, when US GDP is estimated to have fallen 28%. It is slightly bigger than the decline in Russia (1990-1994), Cuba (1989-1993), and Albania (1989-1993), but smaller than that experienced by other former Soviet States at the time of transition, such as Georgia, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Ukraine, or war-torn countries such as Liberia (1993), Libya (2011), Rwanda (1994), Iran (1981), and, most recently, South Sudan.”
“Put another way, Venezuela’s economic catastrophe dwarfs any in the history of the US, Western Europe, or the rest of Latin America. And yet these numbers grossly understate the magnitude of the collapse…”
“Inevitably, living standards have collapsed as well. The minimum wage – which in Venezuela is also the income of the median worker, owing to the large share of minimum-wage earners – declined by 75% (in constant prices) from May 2012 to May 2017. Measured in dollars at the black-market exchange rate, it declined by 88%, from $295 per month to just $36.”
“Measured in the cheapest available calorie, the minimum wage declined from 52,854 calories per day to just 7,005 during the same period, a decline of 86.7% and insufficient to feed a family of five, assuming that all the income is spent to buy the cheapest calorie. With their minimum wage, Venezuelans could buy less than a fifth of the food that traditionally poorer Colombians could buy with theirs.”
“A massive build-out by retailers has left the country piled up with grocery shelves as consumers are shifting from big weekly shopping trips to more snacking and to-go meals. The mismatch has flattened retail sales and leaves the industry vulnerable to a wave of closures that some executives, bankers and industry experts think is coming soon.”
“Commercial square footage of retail food space per capita last year set a record, with 4.15 square feet of food retail per person, according to CoStar Group, a commercial real-estate firm, nearly 30 times the amount of space allocated to groceries at major chains in 1950.”
“To be sure, major grocery chains weren’t as numerous decades ago, with many Americans shopping for food at mom and pop stores.”
“But the growth in groceries have extended across many types of retailers in recent years. Part of the expansion comes from grocers, who accelerated their store openings as a way to drive sales growth after the 2008 recession. At the same time, club chains, dollar stores, pharmacies—and even gas stations—increased their fresh food offerings to drive traffic and boost profits.”
Additionally, this article doesn’t mention the increasing foot prints of these grocers. Many are resembling department stores, but with an emphasis on food.
“A wave of retail bankruptcies washing through court has revived an old debate about the role of private-equity firms in accelerating the problems of companies in distress.”
“Payless ShoeSource Inc., Gymboree Corp., rue21 Inc. and True Religion Apparel Inc. were all acquired by private-equity firms during the past decade. Now, lawyers for creditors have questioned whether private-equity firms share blame for the retailers’ financial collapse, in some cases by loading debt on the companies.”
“In the case of Payless, investors Golden Gate Capital and Blum Capital, after a leveraged buyout in 2012, over the next two years paid themselves $350 million in dividends—in total putting more than $700 million in debt on the company. In 2016, Payless said in court papers, it had about $2.3 billion in global net sales, and nearly $840 million in debt.”
“Vendors and landlords alleged in court papers that the dividend payouts, along with other payments to the investors, left the retailer particularly vulnerable to collapse just as technology and shifting consumer behavior upended the retail industry.”
“In general, private-equity executives say they often help companies improve operations and grow and that, sometimes, economic forces are beyond what any company could weather.”
“Moreover, retail woes are much bigger than private equity and extend to many companies that aren’t owned by such investors. Some private-equity investments haven’t had the problems others are experiencing.”
“Bankruptcy cases are messy by nature, and creditors—typically facing losses—are often determined to minimize them. In Payless’s case, which moved closer to exiting bankruptcy protection this month, lenders owed a majority of its debts will take control of the company.”
“Chinese authorities have asked Anbang Insurance Group Co., the insurer whose chairman was detained in June, to sell its overseas assets, according to people familiar with the matter.”
“The government has also asked Anbang to bring the proceeds back to China after disposing of holdings abroad, said the people, who asked not to be identified because details are private. It is not clear yet how Anbang will respond, the people said.”
“Anbang was among the most prominent of Chinese insurers that went on a buying binge across the globe, fueled by soaring sales of investment-type insurance policies, with its 2014 acquisition of New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel catapulting it into the public eye. Chairman Wu Xiaohui has been detained for questioning since mid-June, while the policies fueling its growth have been all but banned by regulators.”
“Anbang’s rise in recent years was fueled by sales of lucrative investment products that offered among the highest yields compared with peers. China’s insurance regulator this year started clamping down on what it termed ‘improper innovation’ and tightened rules on high-yield, short-term investment policies. Anbang and other aggressive insurers such as Foresea Life got caught up in the crackdown.”
“One Anbang product, called Anbang Longevity Sure Win No. 1, boosted the firm’s life insurance premiums almost 40-fold in 2014 by offering yields as high as 5.8%. That helped provide fuel for the firm’s more than $10 billion of overseas acquisitions since 2014 and equally ambitious investing in the domestic stock market.”
“China’s pending regulatory crackdown on the $120bn peer-to-peer lending industry has claimed its first scalp before it has even begun, with one of the biggest players saying it will wind up its business in an industry full of bad loans and no profits.”
“Beijing this month said it would delay regulations that will bar online lenders from guaranteeing principal or interest on loans they facilitate, cap the size of loans at Rmb1m for individuals and Rmb5m for companies, and force lenders to use custodian banks — a requirement only a fraction of the industry has met so far.”
“Imposition of the new rules has been delayed from next month until June next year to give companies more time to comply.”
“But Hongling Capital has already thrown in the towel, with founder and chairman Zhou Shiping last week admitting that ‘P2P lending is not what we are good at, neither is it something we see potential in. This [P2P lending] business of ours would always be cleared out eventually — it’s only a matter of time.'”
“Hongling, which has Rmb17.6bn ($2.6bn) in loans, plans to wind down its eight-year online lending business by the end of 2020.”
“According to Online Lending House, a website that tracks the industry, the number of P2P lenders peaked at 2,600 in 2015, while 3,795 platforms have collapsed since 2011.”
“Outstanding loans from China P2P lending platforms totaled Rmb816.2bn ($121bn) at the end of December, double the figure of a year earlier, according to P2P consultant WDZJ.com.”
“Investors have long questioned when China’s banking system, with its heaps of bad loans and hidden leverage, would resort to raising much-needed equity. From the look of it, the weakest lenders are starting to do so.”
The method, convertibles. To start, “Ping An Bank, a midsize lender notorious both for selling piles of high-yielding investment products and for sitting on masses of overdue loans, said last week that it plans to issue 26 billion yuan ($3.9 billion) of convertible bonds—uncommon in China—that can be switched into its Shenzhen-listed shares. While convertibles don’t count as equity straight away, they could help improve Ping An’s equity levels when they are turned into stock.”
“Venezuelans on Sunday largely snubbed Nicolás Maduro’s election for a new all-powerful political assembly, in a vote marred by violence that killed at least 10 people and left seven police officers injured by a bomb attack.”
“Opposition leaders rejected the electoral commission’s turnout figure of 8.1m — 41.5% of the electoral register — saying only about 2m had actually voted. Analysts estimated the turnout at 3m-4m.”
“The president’s critics say the new assembly, which will be convened within 72 hours, will snuff out the last vestiges of democracy in Venezuela after nearly two decades of populist leftwing rule, turning the country into a new Cuba. It will have the power to dissolve the democratically elected Congress, where the president’s opponents have a majority, rewrite the constitution, scrap future elections and draft new laws.”
“In the run-up to the vote, all reliable polls had suggested that between two-thirds and three-quarters of Venezuelans opposed Mr. Maduro’s assembly. One poll said only about 12% of the electorate would vote for it.”
“There is a reason so many Americans choose to develop their net worth through homeownership: It is a proven wealth builder and savings compeller. The average homeowner boasts a net worth ($195,400) that is 36 times that of the average renter ($5,400).”
“People who are living in a middle- to-lower-class system, there’s no progressing. You’re stuck in that system. I don’t have subsidies. I work, but I feel stuck in this cycle and can barely make ends meet.’’ – Crisaliz Diaz, renter
Trying to get subsidized housing? Good luck.
“The last time Boston accepted new applications for rental-assistance Section 8 vouchers was nine years ago, when for a few precious weeks you were allowed to place your name on a very long waiting list. Boston is not atypical in that way. In Los Angeles, the estimated wait time for a Section 8 voucher is 11 years. In Washington, the waiting list for housing vouchers is closed indefinitely, and over 40,000 people have applied for public housing alone. While many Americans assume that most poor families live in subsidized housing, the opposite is true; nationwide, only one in four households that qualifies for rental assistance receives it. Most are like Diaz, struggling without government help in the private rental market, where housing costs claim larger and larger chunks of their income.”
“Almost a decade removed from the foreclosure crisis that began in 2008, the nation is facing one of the worst affordable-housing shortages in generations. The standard of “affordable” housing is that which costs roughly 30% or less of a family’s income. Because of rising housing costs and stagnant wages, slightly more than half of all poor renting families in the country spend more than 50% of their income on housing costs, and at least one in four spends more than 70%. Yet America’s national housing policy gives affluent homeowners large benefits; middle-class homeowners, smaller benefits; and most renters, who are disproportionately poor, nothing. It is difficult to think of another social policy that more successfully multiplies America’s inequality in such a sweeping fashion.”
In 2015, “the federal government dedicated nearly $134 billion to homeowner subsidies. The MID accounted for the biggest chunk of the total, $71 billion, with real estate tax deductions, capital gains exclusions and other expenditures accounting for the rest. That number, $134 billion, was larger than the entire budgets of the Departments of Education, Justice and Energy combined for that year.”
As a homeowner myself, I fully attest to the wealth effect. While I greatly appreciate the MID, I would understand if it went away.
“When we think of entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare immediately come to mind. But by any fair standard, the holy trinity of United States social policy should also include the mortgage-interest deduction — an enormous benefit that has also become politically untouchable.”
“The MID came into being in 1913, not to spur homeownership but simply as part of a general policy allowing businesses to deduct interest payments from loans. At that time, most Americans didn’t own their homes and only the rich paid income tax, so the effects of the mortgage deduction on the nation’s tax proceeds were fairly trivial. That began to change in the second half of the 20th century, though, because of two huge transformations in American life. First, income tax was converted from an elite tax to a mass tax: In 1932, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (precursor to the I.R.S.) processed fewer than two million individual tax returns, but 11 years later, it processed over 40 million. At the same time, the federal government began subsidizing homeownership through large-scale initiatives like the G.I. Bill and mortgage insurance. Homeownership grew rapidly in the postwar period, and so did the MID.”
“By the time policy makers realized how extravagant the MID had become, it was too late to do much about it without facing significant backlash. Millions of voters had begun to count on getting that money back. Even President Ronald Reagan, who oversaw drastic cuts to housing programs benefiting low-income Americans, let the MID be. Subsequent politicians followed suit, often eager to discuss reforms to Social Security and Medicare but reluctant to touch the MID, even as the program continued to grow more costly: By 2019, MID expenditures are expected to exceed $96 billion.”
“’Once we’re in a world with a MID, says Todd Sinai, a professor of real estate and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, ‘it is very hard to get to a world without the MID.’ That’s in part because the benefit helps to prop up home values. It’s impossible to say how much, but a widely cited 1996 study estimated that eliminating the MID and property-tax deductions would result in a 13% to 17% reduction in housing prices nationwide, though that estimate varies widely by region and more recent analyses have found smaller effects. The MID allows home buyers to collect more after-tax savings if they take on more mortgage debt, which incentivizes them to pay more for properties than they could have otherwise. By inflating home values, the MID benefits Americans who already own homes — and makes joining their ranks harder.”
“The owner-renter divide is as salient as any other in this nation, and this divide is a historical result of statecraft designed to protect and promote inequality. Ours was not always a nation of homeowners; the New Deal fashioned it so, particularly through the G.I. Bill of Rights. The G.I. Bill was enormous, consuming 15% of the federal budget in 1948, and remains unmatched by any other single social policy in the scope and depth of its provisions, which included things like college tuition benefits and small-business loans. The G.I. Bill brought a rollout of veterans’ mortgages, padded with modest interest rates and down payments waived for loans up to 30 years. Returning soldiers lined up and bought new homes by the millions. In the years immediately following World War II, veterans’ mortgages accounted for over 40% of all home loans.”
“But both in its design and its application, the G.I. Bill excluded a large number of citizens. To get the New Deal through Congress, Franklin Roosevelt needed to appease the Southern arm of the Democratic Party. So he acquiesced when Congress blocked many nonwhites, particularly African-Americans, from accessing his newly created ladders of opportunity. Farm work, housekeeping and other jobs disproportionately staffed by African-Americans were omitted from programs like Social Security and unemployment insurance. Local Veterans Affairs centers and other entities loyal to Jim Crow did their parts as well, systematically denying nonwhite veterans access to the G.I. Bill. If those veterans got past the V.A., they still had to contend with the banks, which denied loan applications in nonwhite neighborhoods because the Federal Housing Administration refused to insure mortgages there. From 1934 to 1968, the official F.H.A. policy of redlining made homeownership virtually impossible in black communities. ‘The consequences proved profound,’ writes the historian Ira Katznelson in his perfectly titled book, When Affirmative Action Was White. ‘By 1984, when G.I. Bill mortgages had mainly matured, the median white household had a net worth of $39,135; the comparable figure for black households was only $3,397, or just 9 percent of white holdings. Most of this difference was accounted for by the absence of homeownership.‘”
“This legacy has been passed down to subsequent generations. Today a majority of first-time home buyers get down-payment help from their parents; many of those parents pitch in by refinancing their own homes… Differences in homeownership rates remain the prime driver of the nation’s racial wealth gap. In 2011, the median white household had a net worth of $111,146, compared with $7,113 for the median black household and $8,348 for the median Hispanic household. If black and Hispanic families owned homes at rates similar to whites, the racial wealth gap would be reduced by almost a third.”
“Racial exclusion was Roosevelt’s first concession to pass the New Deal; his second, to avoid a tax revolt, was to rely on regressive and largely hidden payroll taxes to fund generous social-welfare programs. A result, the historian Michelmore observes, is that we ‘never asked ordinary taxpayers to pay for the economic security many soon came to expect as a matter of right.’ In providing millions of middle-class families stealth benefits, the American government rendered itself invisible to those families, who soon came to see their success as wholly self-made. We forgot because we were not meant to remember.”
“So why do we keep this ‘poor instrument’ around, if the overarching goal of American federal housing policy is to create a nation of homeowners? Perhaps because the MID enjoys entrenched, unyielding support from a powerful real estate lobby. We often discuss the influence of the gun and pharmaceutical lobbies, but the real estate lobby has spent much more than either group. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the National Association of Realtors spent $64.8 million in lobbying efforts in 2016, making it second only to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in terms of dollars spent. And to 1.2 million Realtors, the mortgage-interest deduction is nonnegotiable. The association calls it a ‘remarkably effective tool that facilitates homeownership.’ Jerry Howard, the chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders, refers to the MID as ‘one of the cornerstones of American housing policy.’ Of course, industry groups have a responsibility to their members, who enjoy profiting from a government subsidy that increases the prices of homes they build and sell.”
Remove the MID or alter it by capping the value on the homes it applies to, etc. The article goes on to discuss the arguments – worth the read.
“In some markets, there are virtually no affordable units left. The median annual rent for a two-bedroom apartment is currently $39,600 in Boston, $49,200 in New York City and $54,720 in San Francisco. Families priced out of large cities have moved to smaller ones, and now those cities are experiencing some of the steepest rent increases in the nation. The poor used to live on the other side of the tracks. Now they live in different towns and counties entirely.”
Of course those different towns are jacking rents with all of this new demand.
“And yet we continue to give the most help to those who least need it — affluent homeowners — while providing nothing to most rent-burdened tenants. If this is our design, our social contract, then we should at least own up to it; we should at least stand up and profess, ‘Yes, this is the kind of nation we want.’ Before us, there are two honest choices: We can endorse this inequality-maximizing arrangement, or we can reject it. What we cannot do is look a mother like Diaz in the face and say, ‘We’d love to help you, but we just can’t afford to.’ Because that is, quite simply, a lie.”
Perspective
WSJ – Daily Shot: California Economy 5/8
“Other than the US, only these four nations have an economy larger than California’s.”
“China’s championing of globalization should be great news for exporters in Latin America, where trade with the Asian giant has ballooned since the early 2000s. But trade growth has stalled and, according to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), this is not only because of the bursting of the commodities bubble. High tariffs and other barriers both in China and in Latin America show that free-trade rhetoric has yet to be matched by action.”
“In a recent report, Uncovering the Barriers of the China-Latin America and Caribbean Trade, the IDB details tariffs and other ‘discriminatory’ policies afflicting the relationship. Their presence has contributed to a decline in trade between the two, which slowed to $247bn in 2016, a 7% drop from the previous year and the third consecutive annual fall.”
“According to the IDB, Latin America’s farmers have been hit particularly hard. Beijing imposes tariffs of 17.3% on agricultural produce from Argentina, 17% on that from Brazil and 16.1% from Mexico, compared with its average tariffs of 13.4% for the farm sector worldwide. The difference matters: soya alone represents a fifth of the region’s total exports to China.”
“’During the [commodity] boom years, Latin American countries were very passive, they just sort of expected Chinese demand to continue endlessly and didn’t do much to diversify exports, with [only a few] exceptions,’ says Carlos Casanova, Hong Kong-based economist at BBVA. ‘You keep on hearing ‘la fiesta se acabo’ [the party is over]. I think Latin America is coming to grips with the fact that the Chinese economy is rebalancing and that they need to diversify the export basket.’”
Real Estate
WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – Tightening Credit Standards for Multifamily Sector 5/8
“In commercial real estate, the multi-family sector continues to struggle as banks tighten lending standards (chart below) while demand wanes (second chart below). These trends will be reflected in slowing multi-family housing starts.”
“Looking at 447 supposedly repeating price patterns identified in the last few decades, academics from Ohio State and the University of Cincinnati contend that more than half are basically figments of their discoverers’ imagination. The study, ‘Replicating Anomalies’ by Kewei Hou, Chen Xue and Lu Zhang, attributed the findings to a statistical sleight of hand known as p-hacking.”
“While lodged squarely in the academic realm, the paper is a broadside against an area of research that has come to dominate financial economics and underpin both quantitative investing and smart beta exchange-traded funds. It joins a growing body of literature that suggests people looking for money-making opportunities within the market’s chaos often see what they want to see, or confuse profitability with luck.”
“Philippine casinos reported as much as 110% increases in VIP revenue from high-rollers – from $27 billion in bets placed last year, and possibly far more if off-books betting were tallied. Phone betting, also known as betting by proxy, has grown to account for as much as 85% of the business at some VIP rooms used by big spenders, according to people familiar with the operations who asked not to be identified as they’re not authorized to speak publicly.”
“While the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., the casino regulator also known as Pagcor, permits phone betting, many other gambling centers ban it because of money-laundering concerns. Macau eliminated betting by proxy last year citing the risk. Not all Philippine casinos engage in proxy betting.”
“Unlike banks, insurance companies and other finance-related firms that must comply with the Philippines’ anti-money laundering law, casinos are exempt from such reporting requirements – an issue the U.S. State Department called ‘an especially critical concern.'”
“Phone betting isn’t the only way the Philippines is trying to attract long-distance gamblers. The regulator issued 35 licenses for online betting operations restricted to foreigners outside the country, Andrea Domingo, chairman and chief executive officer of Pagcor, told a Senate hearing in February. The government expects to ‘make a lot of money’ from these licenses, Domingo said.”
“A country that in 1980 had the highest GDP per capita in Latin America is no longer in the top 10 and its economy is smaller than those of Colombia, Chile and Peru, the IMF data show.”
