News and my muse - layoffs at McDonald/GM/Amazon/Apple, NATO, bankruptcies & more
@KYHBKO：
News and my muse Burger chain McDonald’s is temporarily closing its U.S. offices this week as it prepares to inform corporate employees about its layoffs as part of a broader company restructuring, WSJ reported on Sunday. Private bankruptcy filings this year have surpassed a peak set in the early stage of the pandemic. Bankruptcies were on the rise before the SVB & SBNY banking turmoil due to underappreciated signs of distress in US corporate credit. Musk said that the U.S. would face consequences as a result of a declining birth rate and that "Japan is a leading indicator." A severe heatwave in Tokyo last year was a wake-up call for an island nation that only produces 12% of its energy needs domestically. Higher living costs and soaring interest rates are driving the surge in delinquency rates on credit cards and auto loans, said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. Apple layoffs. It is interesting how America sees the rest of the world and how the rest of the world sees America. The disconnect is getting wider, especially for their politicians. Finland joins NATO. Is this the start of a new war front? A threatened Russia could unleash her fury in the name of self-defense and survival. Russia will strengthen its military presence on its western border if Nato troops are deployed to Finland, the deputy foreign minister has said. Image Is the US trending in the wrong direction? Dimon says banking crisis is not over, will cause ‘repercussions for years' “As I write this letter, the current crisis is not yet over, and even when it is behind us, there will be repercussions from it for years to come,” GM says 5,000 salaried workers will take buyouts, expects $1 billion charge in first quarter GM CEO Mary Barra last month said if not enough employees participated in the program, the automaker may have needed to resort to layoffs. Job openings tumbled below 10 million in February for the first time in nearly two years. Available positions totaled 9.93 million, a drop of 632,000 from January. Layoffs from Big Tech. While it is partly due to uncertain times, some Big Tech has expanded too fast. It is time to trim some excess. How much more would be the cut? Many are looking at Twitter now. Time will tell but don't rule out Elon Musk We can have a system collapse & not learn from it. Those who fail to learn from their mistake could repeat the mistake again. Shouldn't we have a more progressive model that helps us to avoid collapse or structural failures or with lesser collateral damages? Bankruptcy hits record in January & February of 2023. This is before the collapse of SVB and SBNY in March. Are we seeing a record year for 2023? Aren't the recent injections of cash into the banking system, increase in Fed assets and surge in oil prices inflationary in consequence? Image Thankful for those who put this up. I hope that the administration can put aside their differences and work towards our common good. We need the 2 biggest economies to steer us away from global challenges in finance, food & fuel (energy). As economy weakens, inflation's inventory gluts are here to stay. Almost half of those surveyed said the biggest inflationary pressures they are paying are warehouse costs, rent & labor. Many are passing those costs on to consumers. Amazon laid off more than 100 employees in its video games division. The company would lay off an additional 9,000 employees. The company has frozen hiring in its workforce & shut down some experimental projects 5 Aussie companies closed per day amidst shortage of 106,000 homes. Are we looking at the beginning of a housing crisis with more forced to live without shelter? Austerity is needful. Prioritize your citizens. The debt of one is the asset of another. The debtor is at the mercy of the lender. Most of us look at what we pay per month. Should we consider the total costs of ownership going forward? Bankrate.com compared 30- and 40-year mortgages and found on a $312,000 loan at 6.85% interest, the monthly payments were $2,044 for 30 years & $1,904 for 40 years. The extra 10 years also added more interest, close to $170,000 more. I have done another round of cutting losses for my non-performing equities. Building up cash for crash. Affordable housing is housing that a household can pay for, while still having money left over for other necessities like food, transportation, and health care. Affordable housing consumes no more than 30% of a household’s income. Samsung's operating profit nosedived by 96% YoY and is the South Korean tech giant's lowest profit figure in 14 years since the first quarter of 2009 during the global financial crisis. Revenue has dropped by 19% from a year ago. Is there a change to US's "One China policy"? CNN news: Defying China, US House leader and Taiwan president present a united front This is how I feel about the market ... we like to "take it to the limit". Yet, "you can spend all your time making money or you can spend all your love making time". What would we choose? Cargo shippers are signing annual contracts at sharply lower rates than last year. Import demand continues to be crippled by high inventories. A massive wave of new container ships is now hitting the market in full force. If you are the global reserve currency, please behave like one. Endless money printing, domestic banking & economic crisis would erode away the confidence in your currency, bonds & assets. De-dollarization has started. Please do not help to speed this up. No man or system or AI can ever be indispensable. We need to document the processes and conduct business continuity plan (BCP) campaigns regularly. U.S. hiring slightly cooled in March as employers added 236,000 workers, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5%. China is dispatching anticorruption enforcers abroad to chase down fugitives and recover stolen assets, a new extension of Beijing’s international reach aimed at strengthening Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s crackdown on graft. Tech companies that boomed during the pandemic were flush with cash, they say, and snapped up workers to build a deep bench and hoard talent from competitors, even if those workers weren’t being fully utilized. Retailers warn of challenging orderbooks amid continued high inventory. Excessive high inventory on hand implies lacking sales and increased storage costs. Usually, discounts are required to offload them More than 1,000 insiders sold shares in their companies in Q1 of 2023, highest amount of insiders sales since Q4 of 2021. Insiders are buying less of their company’s shares - 66 executives buying stock in their companies in Q1. Geopolitical unrest poses high risk to future container shipping demand. Reshoring of manufacturing to the US & nearshoring to Mexico reduces trans-Pacific volumes. Container shipping is more exposed to global GDP than tankers. @TigerStars $Amazon.com(AMZN)$ $Apple(AAPL)$ $S&P 500(.SPX)$
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