Tag: inflation

Inflation is not nearly gas prices anymore, as value will increase broaden throughout the economic system

Post author By
Post date September 14, 2022

The market reaction to CPI numbers is justified, says Wells Fargo's Paul Christopher

A person shops at a supermarket as inflation impacted consumer prices in New York City, June 10, 2022.

Andrew Kelly | Reuters

For most of the year, the inflation narrative among many economists and policymakers was that it was essentially a food and fuel problem. Once supply chains eased and gas prices eased, the reasoning went, this would help lower food costs and in turn ease price pressures across the economy.

However, August’s CPI figures put that narrative to the test, with widening increases now suggesting that inflation may be more stubborn and firm than previously thought.

CPI excluding food and energy prices — known as core inflation — rose 0.6% for the month, double the Dow Jones estimate, leading to a 6.3% year-on-year increase in the cost of living. Including food and energy, the index rose 0.1% on a monthly basis and a robust 8.3% on a 12-month basis.

Just as importantly, the source of the gain wasn’t gasoline, which fell 10.6% for the month. While the fall in energy prices over the summer helped dampen inflation headlines, it failed to quell fears that inflation will remain a problem for some time to come.

The expansion of inflation

Instead of fuel, it was food, shelter and medical services that drove up costs in August, levying a costly tax on those who could least afford it and raising important questions about where inflation is headed from here.

“Core inflation numbers were hot across the board. The breadth of sharp price increases, from new vehicles to medical services to rent increases, everything was sharply up,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “That was the most disturbing aspect of the report.”

In fact, new car prices and medical supplies each rose 0.8% over the month. Housing costs, which include rent and various other housing-related expenses, make up almost a third of the CPI weight and rose 0.7% on the month.

Grocery costs were also a nuisance.

The Home Grocery Index, a good predictor of food prices, rose 13.5% last year, the largest such increase since March 1979. Prices of items like eggs and bread continued their meteoric rise, fueling household budgets further charged.

For medical benefits, the 0.8% monthly increase is the fastest monthly increase since October 2019. Vet costs increased 0.9% month-on-month and 10% year-on-year.

“Even things like clothing prices, which often go down, have gone up a bit [0.2%]. My view is that if they stay at these lower oil prices and assuming they don’t bounce back, it will lead to broad inflation moderation,” Zandi said. “I didn’t change my inflation forecast to go back to it [the Federal Reserve’s 2% target] to early 2024, but I’d say I stand by that forecast with less conviction.”

On a positive note, things like plane tickets, coffee, and fruit have all come down in price again. A survey released earlier this week by the New York Fed showed consumers are less concerned about inflation, although they still expect the rate to hover at 5.7% a year from now. There are also signs that supply chain pressures are easing, which should at least be disinflationary.

Higher oil possible

But about three-quarters of the CPI stayed above 4% year-on-year with inflation, reflecting a longer-term trend that belies the idea of ”temporary” inflation that the White House and Fed had been pushing.

And low energy prices are not a matter of course.

The US and other G-7 countries say they intend to introduce price controls on Russian oil exports from December 5, potentially inviting retaliatory action that could lead to price hikes later in the year.

“Should Moscow halt all natural gas and oil exports to the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom, then there is a strong possibility that oil prices will retest the highs reached in June and move the average price of ordinary gas significantly higher again currently $3.70 per gallon,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM.

Brusuelas added that even if housing is in a slump and a possible recession, he thinks the price declines there are unlikely to carry through as housing has “about a good year to go before the data in this critical ecosystem”.

With so much inflation in the pipeline, the big economic question is how far the Fed will go with raising rates. Markets are banking on the central bank raising interest rates by at least 0.75 percentage point next week, which would take the fed funds rate to its highest level since early 2007.

“Two percent stands for price stability. That’s her goal. But how do they get there without breaking something,” said Quincy Krosby, chief equity strategist at LPL Financial. “The Fed is not done yet. The road to 2% will be difficult. Overall, we should see inflation continue to fall. But at what point do they stop?”

Tags anymore, Broaden, Costs, Economy, Fuel, increases, inflation, isnt, Price

Business

Inflation Defined: The Good, the Unhealthy and the Unsure

Post author By
Post date September 13, 2022

Inflation Explained: The Good, the Bad and the Uncertain

Inflation in the United States has started to cool year on year due to falling gas prices, but economists are looking for further evidence that the slowdown in price increases will become more widespread and pronounced.

So far, policymakers are getting good news, but the data is far from conclusive.

Here are a few positive developments, a few worrying signs, and a major looming uncertainty that analysts will be watching closely in Tuesday’s CPI data and the months ahead.

Good news

gas and other raw materials. Falling prices at the pump have dragged down annual inflation and some food prices have also fallen, which could eventually filter through to retail prices. This is good news for consumers, who tend to be sensitive to transportation and grocery costs. But for Federal Reserve officials, lower gas and food prices would be a welcome but not crucial development. As these costs bounce, central bankers tend to look past them when trying to get a feel for where inflation is headed.
‌cars and other physical products. A more meaningful positive development is taking place in commodity prices, which are showing the first signs of cooling. In particular, used car price hikes, which helped fuel the inflation that started last year, are slowly starting to recede. Commodity inflation is slowing in part because consumers are shifting spending away from products they bought during the pandemic and back to services like dining out and vacations. That’s also in part because supply chain issues that have plagued manufacturers for more than a year are showing signs of abating, though not back to normal.

Not so good news

Services linked to the labor market. Even as price increases for some goods are easing, prices for services — including the cost of dining out or hiring childcare — have risen rapidly. This could continue as these prices are closely linked to wages, which have risen in particular due to a strong labor market with low unemployment and labor shortages in many areas.
Rent. The most important service category is rent-related costs, which account for almost a third of overall inflation. For the time being, economists are assuming that housing costs will continue to rise sharply. There are too few apartments, especially since renters are reluctant to buy houses in view of rising mortgage interest rates. And a sharp rise in rents over the past year is still slowly adding to inflation.

uncertainties

War and Disruption Risk. Economists have repeatedly predicted that inflation would be on the verge of a slowdown, only to crush those expectations. In fact, inflation fell briefly last summer before rebounding in the fall. With the war in Ukraine still stoking uncertainty about supply chains and commodity markets, central bankers may hesitate to declare victory over inflation. And even if inflation begins to ease, a key question is how much will inflation slow down?

“The more important question for the Fed isn’t, ‘Has inflation peaked?’ It’s, ‘What’s the goal?’” said Aneta Markowska, chief financial economist at Jefferies. She believes that without a significant slowdown in economic growth, bringing annual gains back below 4 percent will be difficult. That would be far more than the 2 percent annual average targeted by the Fed.

Tags Bad, Explained, Good, inflation, uncertain

World News

Dow rises 220 factors to new report after inflation report is just not as unhealthy as feared

Post author By
Post date August 11, 2021

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 rose on Wednesday after inflation jumped, but not by quite as much as investors feared when stripping out volatile food and energy prices.

The 30-stock Dow gained 220.30 points, or 0.6%, to 35,484.97 to close at a new record. The index was lifted by names like Caterpillar and Home Depot. The S&P 500 traded up 0.2% to 4,447.70, also notching an all-time high. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite traded over 0.1% lower to 14,765.14.

July’s Consumer Price Index released Wednesday showed prices jumped 5.4% since last year, compared to expectations of 5.3%, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The government said CPI increased 0.5% in July on month-to-month basis.

But investors were concentrating on the core rate of inflation, which could signal inflation will remain tempered and the economy will remain strong. CPI, excluding energy and food prices, rose by 0.3% last month, below the 0.4% increase expected. Core prices still jumped 4.3% on a year-over-year basis.

“It’s encouraging to see the pace moderating a bit month over month supporting the notion that recent price increases are transitory and reopening related,” said Mike Loewengart, managing director of investment strategy at E*TRADE Financial. “So while inflation continues to run hot, it’s likely that investors are already pricing it in.”

Used car prices, which investors have been watching as one sign of out-of-control inflation, rose just 0.2% in July after surging more than 10% in the prior month.

The data “should help assuage investor fears that the Fed is too laid-back about inflation pressures, ” said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. “The details of the data release suggest some easing in the reopening and supply-shortage driven boost to prices, and tentatively suggests that inflation may have peaked. Investors in the transitory camp will feel slightly vindicated.”

The inflation reading supported the Federal Reserve’s belief that high price pressures are “transitory” as the economic recovers from the pandemic-triggered recession.

The 10-year Treasury yield dipped amid the inflation report and a strong auction. The decline in rates accelerated after Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan told CNBC that the Fed should start tapering its bond-buying programs in October.

Oil prices dropped and then recovered after the White House called on OPEC and its allies to increase oil production to support the global recovery from the pandemic.

On Tuesday, the Dow and S&P 500 closed at record highs following the Senate passing the $1 trillion infrastructure bill. The legislation earmarks $550 billion in new spending for areas including transportation and the electric grid. The Nasdaq Composite slid nearly 0.5% on Tuesday, registering its second negative session in the last three.

The march to record highs for stocks comes despite Covid case numbers rising in the U.S. and around the world.

“Widespread vaccine distribution and distancing measures have helped limit the variant’s impact, but we could still see some drag on economic growth as some restrictions are reintroduced and consumers potentially become more cautious,” said Barry Gilbert, asset allocation strategist at LPL Financial. “While we may see an increase in market volatility due to the delta variant, we believe the S&P 500 is still likely to see more gains through the end of the year.”

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— with reporting from CNBC’s Yun Li.

Tags Bad, Dow, Feared, inflation, points, record, report, rises

World News

S&P 500 hits new file after sizzling inflation information, sturdy earnings

Post author By
Post date July 13, 2021

The S&P 500 inched out a new high on Tuesday as investors weighed a hotter-than-expected inflation report and a strong start to second-quarter earnings season.

The broad index traded 0.12% higher, reaching an intraday record. The Dow Jones Industrial average shed about 41 points, or 0.12%. The measure closed at a record just below 35,000 the day prior.

The Nasdaq Composite gained about 0.4% and also hit another intraday high as investors went back into their favorite tech stocks amid the competing market crosscurrents. Apple and Amazon each gained more than 1% and both are outperforming the market this month.

Inflation rose at its fastest pace in nearly 13 years, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The consumer price index increased 5.4% in June from a year ago; economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected a 5% gain. Core CPI, excluding food and energy, jumped 4.5%, the sharpest move for that measure since September 1991 and well above the estimate of 3.8%.

“A white-hot June CPI print has the markets jittery this morning,” Cliff Hodge, chief investment officer at Cornerstone Wealth, said. “Moving forward we expect these inflation numbers to begin to cool. June 2020 was the absolute low for Core CPI during the pandemic shutdown, so the comparisons get tougher from here. Used car prices soared 45% year over year which is not likely to persist in coming months.”

The latest inflation data came after big banks and PepsiCo posted blowout second-quarter earnings reports. But with stocks at record highs and the Dow Jones Industrial Average just shy of 35,000, expectations likely ran higher than the official estimates reflected.

JPMorgan Chase shares dipped even after posting second-quarter earnings of $11.9 billion, or $3.78 per share, which exceeded the $3.21 estimate of analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.

Banks set aside billions of dollars for loan losses amid the pandemic, but have been releasing those reserves as consumers performed better than expected. JPMorgan released $3 billion in loan loss reserves after taking just $734 million in charge-offs. That gave the firm a $2.3 billion benefit, allowing the bank to top earnings expectations. Investors may be giving less credit to JPMorgan’s earnings beat due to this loan loss reserve release.

Goldman Sachs also shares edged lower after the firm reported second-quarter earnings of $15.02 per share, topping analysts’ expectation of $10.24 earnings per share. The bank posted its second-best ever quarterly investment banking revenue as a rush of IPOs hit Wall Street last quarter.

PepsiCo shares added more than 2% after the company crushed estimates for its second-quarter earnings and revenue, fueled by returning restaurant demand. The drink and snack giant also raised its forecast.

Meanwhile, shares of Boeing fell more than 3%, weighing on Dow sentiment, after the plane maker cut 787 Dreamliner production following the detection of a new flaw.

Overall earnings reports are expected to be stellar for the second quarter over the coming weeks with profit growth estimated at 64% year-over-year for the quarter, according to FactSet. That would be the biggest quarterly profit increase since 2009.

Banks’ earnings are expected to more than double for the second quarter, with an estimated 119.5% estimated year-over-year growth rate, according to analysts polled by FactSet.

In the regular trading session on Monday the Dow rose 126.02 points to close just below 35,000. The blue-chip measure is up 14% this year. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively, to record closes.

“High expectations for earnings and each companies’ forward guidance will push markets higher or disappointment may create a small pullback in equity markets,” said Jeff Kilburg, chief investment officer at Sanctuary Wealth. “Eyes will be on the major banks to set the tone for the next few weeks of earnings.”

Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley all ended Monday higher as well. They will report their earnings later in the week.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to appear in front of Congress Wednesday and Thursday to provide an update on monetary policy. He has maintained that the Fed’s easy policies will remain intact until there’s more progress on its employment and inflation goals.

Tags Data, earnings, Hits, Hot, inflation, record, Strong

World News

Inflation is again close to targets and that ought to be celebrated: BIS

Post author By
Post date June 29, 2021

A crowded bar in Paris’ 6th Arrondissement as Parisians embrace the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions as cafes and restaurants across France re-open for the first time in over 6 months.

Kiran Ridley | Getty Images News | Getty Images

LONDON — The recent surge in consumer prices is temporary and should be celebrated, Claudio Borio, head of the economic and monetary department at the Bank for International Settlements, told CNBC.

“For those countries … that have been trying very, very hard to get inflation up unsuccessfully, having inflation persistently higher, roughly at target, that would actually be very good news and one should rejoice about that,” Borio told CNBC’s Julianna Tatelbaum in an interview.

His comments come after inflation readings have beaten expectations in both the U.S. and Europe over recent months — dividing policymakers.

Some European officials believe the region’s pandemic-induced stimulus program should be scaled back in the face of rising prices, while others argue that inflation will be temporary and so monetary policy should remain loose.

Inflation can be a tricky economic indicator: If it is too high, it erases the purchasing power of consumers; if it is too low, it can reduce economic growth.

“The real problem is if inflation proves to be higher, uncomfortably higher for uncomfortably long,” Borio said.

However he stressed that the BIS — which is known as the central bank of central banks — expects the increase in inflation to be “transitory.”

Until recently in the euro zone, inflation has been persistently low in the wake of the global financial crisis and the region’s sovereign debt crises. But prices have experienced a massive increase in recent weeks.

Annual Inflation in the euro zone rose to 2% in the month of May, slightly above the ECB’s target of “below, but close to, 2%.” This has been linked to the easing of various social-distancing rules across the 19 euro nations and consumers’ willingness to spend more.

However, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde has insisted that the uptick in inflation is temporary, and that it will fall back below target in the foreseeable future.

“Inflation has picked up over recent months, largely on account of base effects, transitory factors and an increase in energy prices. It is expected to rise further in the second half of the year, before declining as temporary factors fade out,” she said at a press conference earlier this month.

Speaking to CNBC, Borio agreed that “so far, most [of] what is going on is essentially temporary.”

“We have one-off increases in prices which are basically bouncing back from where they were before; we’re having technical effects, so-called base effects; we’re seeing, indeed, there are speed limits to [the] world economy,” he added.

The latest ECB forecasts point to a headline inflation of 1.9% at the end of 2021, followed by a decrease to 1.5% and 1.4% in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

In the BIS latest annual report, released Tuesday, the institution said that “normalising policy will not be easy” for central banks.

This subject has already sparked some divisions within the ECB, with hawkish member Jens Weidmann pushing for the coronavirus-stimulus program to be lifted step-by-step.

Whereas other ECB members are worried about a premature scaling back of the program.

Correction: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Claudio Borio, head of the economic and monetary department at the Bank for International Settlements.

Tags BIS, Celebrated, inflation, Targets

World News

The Fed might be going through a jobs headache in its inflation combat

Post author By
Post date June 12, 2021

Residential single family homes construction by KB Home are shown under construction in the community of Valley Center, California, June 3, 2021.

Mike Blake | Reuters

If the Federal Reserve’s view on inflation prevails, a few key things have to go right, particularly when it comes to getting people back to work.

Solving the jobs puzzle has been the most vexing task for policymakers in the coronavirus pandemic era, with nearly 10 million potential workers still considered unemployed even though the number of open positions available hit a record of 9.3 million in April, according to the latest data from the U.S. Labor Department.

There’s a fairly simple inflation dynamic at play: The longer it takes to get people back to work, the more employers will have to pay. Those higher salaries in turn will trigger higher prices and could lead to the kinds of longer-term inflationary above-normal pressures that the Fed is trying to avoid.

“Unfortunately, we see good reasons to think that labor participation might not return quickly to its
pre-Covid level,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in a note. “Whatever is happening here, the Fed needs large numbers of these people to return to the labor force in the fall.”

The pace of inflation is of critical importance for economic trajectory. Inflation that runs too high could force the Fed to tighten monetary policy quicker than it wants, causing cascading impacts to an economy dependent on debt and thus critically tied to low interest rates.

Consumer prices increased at a 5% pace year over year in May, the fastest since the financial crisis. Economists, though, generally agreed that much of what is driving the rapid inflation surge is due to temporary factors that will ease up as the recovery continues and the economy returns to normal following the unprecedented pandemic shock.

That’s far from certain, though.

The Atlanta Fed’s gauge of “sticky” inflation, or price of goods that tend not to fluctuate greatly over time, rose 2.7% year over year in May for the strongest growth since April 2009. A separate measure of “flexible” CPI, or prices that do tend to move frequently, increased a stunning 12.4%, the fastest since December 1980.

In their most recent forecast, Fed officials put core inflation at 2.2% for all of 2021; Shepherdson said the current numbers suggest something closer to 3.5%.

“That’s a huge miss, and it potentially poses a serious threat to the Fed’s benign view of medium-term inflation because of its potential impact of the labor market,” Shepherdson said.

What’s keeping workers home

Surveys show a variety of factors keeping workers from taking jobs: Ongoing pandemic concerns, child-care issues, particularly for women, and enhanced unemployment benefits that are being withdrawn in about half the states and will expire entirely in September.

From the employer perspective, worries over skill mismatches have persisted for several years and have worsened during the pandemic. For instance, a survey from online learning company Coursera showed that the U.S. has fallen to 29th in the world in digital skills needed for high-demand entry-level jobs.

The dilemma is a pervasive one in American business nowadays.

All of my customers are struggling to staff at levels that they need staff to really get to the other side of this surge.

David Wilkinson

president of NCR Retail

David Wilkinson, president of NCR Retail, the cash register maker that now provides a variety of products and services to the industry, said he sees “a bit of a labor crisis” unfolding.

“As labor gets harder to come by, as labor gets more expensive, the other side of the inflationary worry is that as prices go up, the cost of living goes up and you have to pay people more as they demand more,” Wilkinson said. “All of my customers are struggling to staff at levels that they need staff to really get to the other side of this surge.”

While he thinks inflation eventually will come down from its current level, he expects it will be higher than the sub-2% that prevailed during most of the post-financial crisis era.

The implementation of technology accelerated during the Covid era. While that will continue, Wilkinson said he also expects to see retailers paying higher wages to fill the demand for staff.

“We’re seeing an increased focus on the worker in retail, and part of that is both the experience, the technology they need to do the job, and part of that is the willingness to pay,” he said. “This brought that back to the forefront.”

Managing its way through the various dynamics could prove difficult for the Fed.

Previous attempts to normalize policy over the years have largely failed, with the central bank having to revert back to the zero-interest money-printing world that arose during the financial crisis.

“The Fed is trapped,” wrote Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist for the Americas at Natixis and former chief economist for the National Economic Council.

While LaVorgna sees inflation as staying relatively under control, he thinks the Fed could face problems from deflationary pressures. The central bank doesn’t like inflation that’s too low, as it creates a low-expectation cycle that constricts monetary policy during downturns.

“The political pressure to do nothing will be intense” as government debt increases, LaVorgna said. “If the Fed cannot (or will not) remove excessive policy accommodation when the economy is booming, how can policymakers do it when growth invariably slows?”

Markets betting on the Fed

Indeed, markets aren’t expecting much movement at all in policy.

Treasury yields actually have dropped since Thursday’s hotter-than-expected consumer price index report, and market pricing now points to no rate hikes until about September 2022 and a fed funds rate of just 1% through May 2026.

A report Friday from the University of Michigan also showed consumers are lowering their inflation expectations, with the year-ahead outlook at 4%, down from 4.6% in the last survey, and at 2.8% over five years, down from 3% though still well above the Fed’s 2% target.

“For all the fears that the Fed will be prompted to tighten policy early to curb inflation, we suspect officials will be just as worried about a slowdown in the recovery in real activity,” wrote Michael Pearce, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics.

Federal Reserve Board building is pictured in Washington, U.S., March 19, 2019.

Leah Millis | Reuters

Fed officials likely will talk next week about which way the risks are tilted in the current scenario. They’ve been lukewarm about the recovery, continuing to emphasize the role, albeit diminishing, of the pandemic and encouraging a full-throated policy response.

However, if inflation readings persist to the upside, the pressure at least to tap the brakes on the monthly asset purchases will build.

“There’s been this debate about whether inflation is different this time,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial. “If inflation rises in a more material and less transitory way, consumers are going to need higher wages.”

The Fed is betting that a return to the labor market, particularly by women, will help hold down wage pressures and keep inflation in check. The current labor force participation rate for women is 56.2%, up from the pandemic lows but otherwise the worst since May 1987.

Regardless of the inflation pressures, the Fed last year changed its mission statement to keep policy accommodative until the economy sees inclusive labor gains, meaning across gender, income and race.

“They are going to make sure that the glide path to [policy] liftoff is long,” Krosby said. “The question is, if inflation picks up in a more meaningful way and is stickier, what does the Fed do? That’s the concern the market has.”

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Tags Facing, Fed, Fight, headache, inflation, jobs

Business

Costco is seeing inflation abound, impacting a slew of client merchandise

Post author By
Post date May 29, 2021

A butcher stores a display case of steaks at a Costco store in Novato, California on May 24, 2021.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Don’t tell Costco executives that inflation is low.

The big box club chain announced that prices for a number of products, including shipping containers, aluminum foil, and a 20% increase in meat prices over the past month, have increased.

“Inflation factors abound,” said CFO Richard Galanti in the company’s earnings forecast for the third quarter on Thursday.

“These include higher labor costs, higher freight costs, higher transport demand as well as the shortage of containers and delays in the port … increased demand in various product categories, some bottlenecks, various bottlenecks from chips to oils to chemical supplies by facilities affected by the Gulf Frost and Storms and in some cases higher commodity prices, “he added.

Costco reported earnings of $ 2.75 per share for the period, well above Wall Street estimates. It also generated $ 45.3 billion in revenue, which also topped the road that looked for $ 43.6 billion.

However, beneath those numbers was a story about how higher prices across the board affected the chain.

On the upside, gas inflation spiked as pump prices rose about 30% across the country this year. In other cases it wasn’t that easy.

Like other companies, Costco struggled to pass the cost on to customers. The company assumes that there could be some margin pressure, although the degree remains to be seen and no material impact has occurred so far.

Economists view the current rate of inflation – a closely tracked measure released Friday – as temporary. They list many of the same factors as the Costco executives, mainly a series of supply chain issues that have led to a surge in products central to the US economy and household consumption.

Galanti cited price increases of up to 8% and cited goods such as pulp and paper, an assortment of plastic products, and soda and cheese. For some clothes, prices rose by 3% to 10%.

Overall, he said the company cut inflation from 1% to 1.5% in March to 2.5% to 3.5% today.

“Some items are higher and some items, the retail prices haven’t changed. And some items have even gone down a little,” said Galanti. “Again we think we’ve done pretty well to control this as best we can, but the inflationary pressures are great.”

Costco has worked with its supplies to keep price pressures under control. But Galanti admitted that “some of [inflation] went through. “

Going forward, items like the warehouse’s $ 4.99 fried chicken and the $ 2.99 40-pack water container could be affected.

Tags abound, Consumer, Costco, impacting, inflation, products, slew

Business

Shares Rebound as Wall Road Shakes Off Inflation Worries: Reside Updates

Post author By
Post date May 21, 2021

The buyers returned to central London last month. UK retail sales in April rose twice the rate forecast by economists.

Recognition…Mary Turner for the New York Times

The US stock futures rose along with most European stock indices on Friday as the data showed more signs of the European economy strengthening as it emerges from lockdowns and vaccines are introduced faster.

The S&P 500 is expected to gain 0.3 percent at the start of trading, according to the futures. The US benchmark index is down around 0.4 percent so far this week after concerns about faster-than-expected inflation unsettled markets.

The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.4 percent, led by gains in consumer goods companies. One of the biggest winners was Richemont, the Swiss luxury goods company that owns brands like Cartier and Montblanc. Richemont stock rose 5.3 percent after the company reported annual results of strong sales growth in Asia, particularly for its jewelry and watch brands.

Oil prices rose. West Texas Intermediate, the US crude oil benchmark, futures rose 0.7 percent to $ 62.38 a barrel.

Economic data

UK retail sales rose sharply in April as unneeded stores were allowed to reopen. The sales volume rose by 9.2 percent compared to the previous month, announced the office for national statistics on Friday. It was more than double the forecast of the economists polled by Bloomberg. Shopping for clothing stores led to the resurgence.
Across the euro area, activity in the service sector increased in May. The purchasing managers index rose from 50.5 in April to 55.1 points, IHS Markit announced on Friday. A value above 50 indicates expansion. The index for the manufacturing sector has hardly changed compared to the previous month at 62.8.
“Growth would have been even stronger had it not been for supply chain delays and difficulty restarting businesses fast enough to meet demand, especially in terms of recruitment,” wrote Chris Williamson, chief economist at IHS Markit, in the report.
“The outlook for the euro zone is currently quite positive as growth and inflationary pressures mount,” ING’s economist Bert Colijn wrote in a note. He added that the economic recovery, which “started cautiously somewhere in January,” accelerated significantly in the second quarter of this year.

Recognition…Ed Kashi for the New York Times

The government’s $ 788 billion relief effort to small businesses hit by the coronavirus pandemic, Paycheck Protection Program, is ending as it began. The last days of the initiative are full of chaos and confusion.

Millions of applicants seek money from the scarce handful of lenders who still provide government-sponsored loans. Hundreds of thousands of people are stuck in the air waiting to find out if they will get their approved loans – some of which have been stalled for months due to errors or malfunctions. According to the New York Times’ Stacy Cowley, lenders are overwhelmed and borrowers are panicking.

The aid program should continue until May 31st. Two weeks ago, its manager, the Small Business Administration, announced that $ 292 billion in funding for the forgeable loan program was nearly depleted this year and that it would cease processing most new applications immediately.

Then the government tossed another curve ball: the Small Business Administration ruled that the remaining money, roughly $ 9 billion, would only be available through Community Financial Institutions, a small group of specially designated institutions focused on underserved communities.

Recognition…Taylor Glascock for the New York Times

The American steel industry is making a comeback that only a few months ago would have predicted.

Steel prices are at record highs and demand is rising as companies ramp up production amid the easing of pandemic restrictions. Steel makers have consolidated over the past year so they can have more control over supply. Tariffs on foreign steel imposed by the Trump administration have kept cheaper imports out. And steel companies are hiring again, reports Matt Phillips of the New York Times.

It’s not clear how long the boom will last. This week, the Biden government began talks with European Union trade representatives on global steel markets. Some steel workers and executives believe this could lead to an eventual decline in Trump-era tariffs, widely believed to be the catalyst for the turnaround in the steel industry.

Record prices for steel will not reverse decades of job losses. Employment in the steel industry has fallen by more than 75 percent since the early 1960s. More than 400,000 jobs disappeared as foreign competition increased and the industry shifted to manufacturing processes that required fewer workers. The price hike, however, is fueling optimism in steel cities across the country, especially after job losses during the pandemic brought American steel employment to its lowest level in history.

Shareholders in Tribune Publishing, the owner of major city newspapers like The Chicago Tribune and The New York Daily News, will vote on Friday on whether to sell the company to Alden Global Capital, a financial investor with a reputation for cutting costs and increasing costs should lower, approved jobs. Alden already has a 32 percent stake in Tribune, so the deal depends on approval from the shareholders who own the other two-thirds of Tribune shares. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a multi-billion dollar medical entrepreneur who owns the Los Angeles Times and other California newspapers, has a 24 percent stake in Tribune with his wife, Michele B. Chan. Dr. Soon-Shiong has not publicly commented on how he plans to vote.
CNN said Thursday that its prime-time host, Chris Cuomo, gave inappropriate public relations advice to his brother, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, after a series of sexual harassment allegations threatened the governor’s political career earlier this year would have. CNN said Chris Cuomo would refrain from further similar talks with the governor’s staff. However, the network said it would not take disciplinary action against the anchor, whose program was CNN’s top-rated show in the first quarter of the year. Chris Cuomo apologized to viewers and colleagues at the start of the show on Thursday for the calls to the governor’s staff, saying, “It won’t happen again. It was a mistake. “But he also defended himself, saying that he” naturally “gave advice to his brother and that he was” family first, job second “.

Tags inflation, Live, Rebound, Shakes, Stocks, Street, Updates, Wall, worries

Business

Shares Drop for a Third Day as Inflation Issues Improve

Post author By
Post date May 13, 2021

Drivers line up at a QuickTrip filling station in Atlanta on Tuesday.

Here’s what you need to know:

Stocks on Wall Street dropped for the third consecutive day on Wednesday as new data on consumer prices added to investors’ concerns that inflation could upend the Federal Reserve’s efforts to keep interest rates low to bolster the economy.

The S&P 500 fell 2.1 percent, pushing its losses this week to 4 percent. It was the benchmark index’s worst day since February and its worst three-day performance since October.

The drop came after the Labor Department said the Consumer Price Index climbed 4.2 percent during the month, from a year earlier, the fastest pace of increase since 2008. From March to April, prices increased 0.8 percent.

Analysts had been expecting a high annual increase, given the comparison to last April, when the economy was cratering amid the early stages of the Covid crisis and price growth slowed to a crawl. But the report still caught them off guard.

“While the high levels were expected, not many were expecting them to be this high,” wrote analysts at Bespoke Investment Group in a note on Wednesday.

The worry for stock investors is that persistently hotter-than-expected inflation readings could force the Fed — which is supposed to focus on price stability as well as employment — to lift interest rates earlier than expected to.

Analysts agree that the Fed’s willingness to keep interest rates low has been a key driver of the stock market’s gains of more than 80 percent since March 2020; higher interest rates can discourage risk taking in the markets, and when concern about inflation dominates it can hit the highest-flying stocks hard.

On Wednesday, yields on long-term Treasury bonds — which are driven by expectations about both inflation and how the Fed may shift interest rates — rose sharply. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.695 percent. It was as low as 1.50 percent late last week.

The Fed has signaled that it intends to keep interest rates low for the foreseeable future, and has said that it will likely disregard signs of sharp price increases as the economy reopens from the virus, and will view them as transitory.

But on Wednesday, technology stocks, which are particularly sensitive to concerns about rising rates, were hit harder. The Nasdaq composite fell 2.7 percent, bringing its losses for the week to more than 5 percent.

In the oil markets, West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, rose 1.2 percent, to $66.08 a barrel.

Gasoline prices continued to rise as the Colonial Pipeline, a 5,500-mile conduit stretching from Texas to New York, remained closed because of a ransomware attack. The AAA motor club said Wednesday that the national average price had reached $3.008 a gallon, up about 2 cents from Tuesday’s average price and 8 cents from a week ago. A year ago, the average price was $1.854. The pipeline operator said it began to restart operations Wednesday evening.

Credit…Megan Varner/Getty Images

Panic over the shutdown of a vital fuel pipeline in the United States has driven Americans to search for gas for their vehicles, causing several thousand gas stations across the nation to run out of fuel. Hundreds of others are limiting sales.

State officials in the Southeast have made efforts to stabilize the flow of gas, but consumers have become gripped by a fear that there could be a gas shortage. Many have turned to social media to vent, posting videos and pictures of long lines and empty pumps at filling stations. Some have begun comparing President Biden to President Jimmy Carter, who was the nation’s leader when gas lines rattled the country after the Iranian revolution and other Middle East troubles.

But the energy crises of the 1970s were caused by embargoes, the revolution and declining production. Experts say the reaction to the pipeline outage is somewhat out of proportion with the actual risk.

“The oil and gasoline is there,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Tufts University. “We can pump it manually, we can carry it by truck, and the government and other entities can hire ships. And we have oil in inventories.”

Officials in states with the longest gas lines are asking for calm. “I’m urging everyone to be careful and be patient,” said South Carolina’s attorney general, Alan Wilson.

“Remember when it wasn’t a good idea to panic buy toilet paper last year? Please don’t do it with gas now,” the Virginia Department of Emergency Management tweeted on Wednesday.

At the White House, officials said that they were taking steps to make it easier to send fuel by ship, rail or truck, but acknowledged that those measures would take time.

The frenzy came after the Colonial Pipeline, which runs 5,500 miles from Texas to New Jersey, was shut down on Friday after a ransomware attack. Colonial Pipeline said Wednesday evening that it had begun restarting the flow of fuel.

David E. Sanger contributed reporting.

Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

Three months after Tesla said it would begin accepting the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as payment, the electric carmaker has abruptly reversed course.

In a message posted to Twitter on Wednesday, Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, said Tesla had suspended accepting Bitcoin because of concern about the energy consumed by computers crunching the calculations that underpin the currency.

“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at a great cost to the environment,” Mr. Musk wrote. “We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.”

Earlier this year, Tesla announced that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and Mr. Musk trumpeted the company’s plan to accept the currency. Tesla later sold about $300 million of its Bitcoin holdings, proceeds that padded its bottom line in the first quarter.

“Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy,” Mr. Musk wrote on Wednesday, referring to the process through which new Bitcoin is created.

The price of Bitcoin dipped slightly after the announcement, according to Coindesk.

As cryptocurrencies explode in value, the amount of energy used by the digital currencies is increasingly under scrutiny. Some estimates put the energy use of Bitcoin at more than the entire country of Argentina.

“Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind, and so it’s not a great climate thing,” Bill Gates said in February.

Mr. Musk also said on Wednesday that Tesla was “looking at other cryptocurrencies” that use a fraction of the energy consumed by Bitcoin. Mr. Musk has been a promoter of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that started as a joke but that has exploded in value. In an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” last week, Mr. Musk referred to Dogecoin as a “hustle.” Dogecoin fell by nearly a third in price on the night of the show.

Credit…Ahikam Seri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

With fighting raging between Israel and Palestinian groups, Chevron, the American energy giant, said Wednesday that it had shut down a major offshore natural gas facility in the eastern Mediterranean on orders from the Israeli government.

“In accordance with instructions received from the Ministry of Energy, we have shut-in and depressurized the Tamar Platform,” Chevron said in a statement.

The company said that it was continuing to supply customers through another platform in Israeli waters called Leviathan that also processes gas from an offshore field.

Chevron acquired a 25 percent stake in the Tamar Platform and its gas field and wells through its $4 billion acquisition of Noble Energy last year. The deal was the first entry of a major Western oil company into exploration and production of oil and gas in Israeli waters.

The Tamar Platform is about 12 miles from the Gaza Strip, where militants have been launching rockets toward Israel and Israel has been aiming airstrikes. Leviathan is further away. The two gas facilities are major sources of fuel for the Israeli economy, especially for electric power generation.

In recent years the international oil industry has begun to consider the Eastern Mediterranean region as a potential major hub for natural gas. Israeli gas has also served to increase the country’s energy independence and strengthen economic ties with former enemies like Egypt and Jordan, which are customers for the fuel.

Last month Delek Drilling, one of Chevron’s Israeli partners, said that it had reached a preliminary agreement to sell its share of Tamar to Mubadala Petroleum, an arm of the government of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, for around $1 billion. The United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords signed in August.

“This is an area that looks as if it could have the resource quality and the scale to become a pretty significant energy province,” said Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chief executive, in an interview last year.

Snap announced on Tuesday that it had suspended Yolo and LMK, two anonymous messaging services, within the Snapchat app in response to a lawsuit filed on Monday.

The lawsuit accuses Snapchat, Yolo and LMK of “creating, maintaining and distributing anonymous messaging apps to teens that are inherently dangerous and defective, and for falsely promising the enforcement of safeguards.” Yolo and LMK are developed by other companies and integrate into Snapchat using an integration provided by Snap.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of Carson Bride, 16, who committed suicide last year after being bullied and threatened on Snapchat, Yolo and LMK, according to the suit filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs in the case are his mother, Kristin Bride, and the Tyler Clementi Foundation, which works to combat bullying.

A representative from Snap wrote in an email to The Times that the company was suspending Yolo and LMK “out of an abundance of caution for the safety of the Snapchat community” while it investigates the claims.

LMK and Yolo both maintain separate apps outside of Snapchat. As of Wednesday, LMK is still available for download on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play store. Yolo was not available in either store.

Snapchat, which had 280 million daily active users as of late March, allows vetted developers to integrate their apps through a portal called Snap Kit. Small companies can access bigger audiences through these partnerships, and Snapchat can add new functions to its app without having to develop each one.

Yolo and LMK allow users to post questions — “What color suits me best?” or “Does this outfit look good?” — on Snapchat Stories, to which other users can respond anonymously. Yolo and LMK also have features in their stand-alone apps that allow anonymous messaging in group chats.

Greg Henrion, one of the founders of Yolo, dismissed concerns about bullying on the platform in an interview with TechCrunch in 2019. “We’re strict on moderation,” he said. “When looking at the reviews about bullying, it’s like nothing compared to any other anonymous app. I think we solved 90 percent of the problem.”

Yolo and LMK did not respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit argues that the anonymous messaging apps have been known to cause harm for decades and that the existence of bullying on LMK and Yolo was “foreseeable.”

Yik Yak, an anonymous messaging app created in 2013, shut down in 2017 after becoming associated with bullying, discriminatory speech and threats of bomb and gun violence. Other anonymous platforms, like ask.fm and Kik, have been linked to suicides by young people and sexual abuse cases. In 2018, Pew Research Center reported that 59 percent of teenagers experience cyberbullying.

Credit…Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

Millions of low-income Americans became eligible on Wednesday for an emergency discount on high-speed internet service and devices to get online, an effort aimed at providing relief to families that have struggled during the pandemic as school, work and health care have moved online.

The Federal Communications Commission’s subsidy program, the Emergency Broadband Benefit, can be used for $50 monthly discounts for individuals on SNAP or Medicaid, recipients of Pell grants, and families with children on free and reduced-price lunch plans. Low-income households on tribal lands can apply for $75 in monthly broadband subsidies. The program also allows for a one-time $100 subsidy for a laptop or tablet.

The F.C.C. said 825 broadband providers have agreed to offer the discounts.

The program, which Congress approved $3.2 billion for late last year, is one of several efforts to bring broadband internet to all American homes. The F.C.C. earlier this week also approved a $7.2 billion program to give students high-speed internet access through schools and libraries. President Biden has promised to make broadband affordable and available for all and has proposed a $100 billion effort to connect every rural and low-income home to high-speed internet service.

The Emergency Broadband Benefit program comes late in the pandemic, with schools and workplaces beginning to open again. The delay was largely because of wrangling over details of the subsidies in Congress and at the F.C.C. during the Trump administration. And it’s unclear what will happen once the one-time emergency benefit fund runs out.

The program will end either when the $3.2 billion fund is depleted or six months after the Department of Health and Human Services declares an end to the pandemic.

“High-speed internet service is vital for families to take advantage of today’s health, education, and workplace opportunities,” Jessica Rosenworcel, the acting chair of the F.C.C., said in a statement. “And the discount for laptops and desktop computers will continue to have positive impact even after this temporary discount program wraps up.”

Credit…Pool photo by Graeme Jennings

The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved the nomination of Lina Khan to be a member of the Federal Trade Commission, clearing the way for a vote by the full Senate that would make Ms. Kahn, a prominent critic of the tech giants, one of its most powerful regulators.

The nomination of Ms. Khan, 32, has buoyed progressive hopes that President Biden will try to rein in Silicon Valley. At her confirmation hearing in April, Ms. Khan said that she saw a “whole range of potential risks” associated with the tech companies’ abilities to take over markets and dominate them.

Mr. Biden also appointed Tim Wu, a legal scholar who has pushed for antitrust action against the tech companies, to an economic policy role in the White House. Mr. Biden has yet to say who will lead the F.T.C. or the Justice Department’s antitrust division during his administration.

Ms. Khan would join the commission as antitrust regulators mount a campaign against the power of the largest tech companies. The F.T.C. last year filed a lawsuit accusing Facebook of cornering the market through acquisitions of small companies like Instagram and WhatsApp. The agency has also been investigating Amazon, and the Department of Justice last fall filed its own antitrust lawsuit against Google.

Ms. Khan’s ascendence to the F.T.C. would cap a quick rise. She came to prominence in law school, when she wrote a law review note charting how Amazon’s power exposed flaws in the way judges had enforced antitrust law. After law school, she worked for a progressive member of the F.T.C. and helped write a House Judiciary Committee report criticizing the sweeping power of the tech giants. Last year, Ms. Khan also joined Columbia Law School as a professor.

Some conservatives have worried that she would be too heavy-handed in regulating industry. Four Republicans specified that they were voting against her nomination.

Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Commerce Committee, voted for her nomination but said he shared some concerns about Ms. Khan.

“I believe she is focused on addressing one of the most pressing issues of the day: reining in the big social media platforms,” he said. “However, I do remain concerned that a broadly over-regulatory approach as an F.T.C. commissioner could have a negative effect on the economy and undermine free-market principles.”

Credit…Pau Barrena/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The economic outlook has brightened considerably across Europe after lockdowns restricted growth at the start of the year. Now, economists foresee the complete recovery by the end of next year from the early effects of the pandemic.

The British economy grew 2.1 percent in March from the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. The reopening of schools was one of the biggest reasons for the larger-than-expected jump in economic growth, as well as a rise in retail spending even though many stores remained closed because of lockdowns.

The statistics agency estimated that gross domestic product fell 1.5 percent in the first quarter, slightly less than economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted, while the country was under lockdown with nonessential stores, restaurants and other services such as hairdressers shut.

Though the British economy is still nearly 9 percent smaller than it was at the end of 2019, before the pandemic, the Bank of England forecasts it to return to that size by the end of this year.

The European Commission also upgraded its forecasts for the region on Wednesday. It predicted the European Union economies would grow 4.2 percent this year, up from a forecast of 3.7 percent three months ago. Germany’s economy is forecast to grow 3.4 percent this year and Spain, which suffered Europe’s deepest recession last year, is expected to grow nearly 6 percent.

“The E.U. and euro area economies are expected to rebound strongly as vaccination rates increase and restrictions are eased,” the commission, the executive arm for the European Union, said on Wednesday. The recovery will be driven by household spending, investment and a rising demand for European exports, it said.

Still, despite the optimistic outlook, the commission warned that the risks were “high and will remain so as long as the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic hangs over the economy.”

Even as millions of people were vaccinated, the number of new coronavirus cases globally reached a peak in late April as the pandemic has struck especially hard in India. The uneven distribution of vaccines around the world and the emergence of new variants has the potential to set back the recovery.

The National Institute Of Economic and Social Research in London said on Monday that it did not expect the British economy to return to its prepandemic size until the end of 2022, predicting a slower recovery than the central bank.

Economists at the institute expect lower global growth because of uncertainty about the global vaccine rollout and lingering doubts about the end of the pandemic inducing more people to hold onto their savings, rather than spend it.

Credit…Philip Fong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The comeback continued for SoftBank on Wednesday, as the Japanese technology investment firm posted a net profit of more than $36 billion for the year ending in March.

Yet a recent slide in confidence in technology stocks could make it more difficult for Masayoshi Son, the founder of the technology conglomerate turned investment powerhouse, to keep up the momentum after what seemed like an impossible change of fortune.

Last May, SoftBank was in crisis after posting a loss of more than $12 billion. Its big bets on Wall Street favorites, like WeWork, the troubled office space company, and Uber, resulted in huge losses.

But it was not down for long. Riding high on a post-pandemic stock boom, SoftBank has since notched seemingly unthinkable gains. When compared with its previously released figures, the year-end results implied a profit for the first three months of 2021 alone of more than $17 billion.

In a live-streamed press event Wednesday, Mr. Son opened by showing a photo of the humble town where SoftBank began, before calling the huge earnings numbers “lucky plus lucky plus lucky.”

SoftBank Group’s net income

Mr. Son told investors on Wednesday that he would not deny that he is a gambler. But he said he regretted some decisions. The question now is whether his current run of luck can continue.

SoftBank’s profit, mostly paper gains from increases in investment values, was based heavily on a jump in the price of South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang after it listed earlier this year. Results were also lifted by strong share price rises from other SoftBank investments, DoorDash and Uber.

The share price of all three companies has fallen sharply over the past month on a broader pullback in technology shares, in part related to fears over inflation out of the United States.

Investors appeared more interested in the broader tech sell off than Mr. Son’s luck, as SoftBank’s shares fell more than 3 percent on Wednesday, despite the solid gains.

Credit…Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Amazon on Wednesday won an appeal against European Union efforts to force the company to pay more taxes in the region, illustrating how American tech giants are turning to the courts to beat back tougher oversight.

The General Court of the European Union struck down a 2017 decision by European regulators that ordered Amazon to pay $300 million to Luxembourg, home of the company’s European headquarters and where regulators said the company received unfair tax treatment. The court said regulators did not sufficiently prove that Amazon had violated a law meant to prevent companies from receiving special tax benefits from European governments.

The decision, which comes as European Union and American officials attempt to reach a global tax agreement that could result in higher levies against tech companies, undercuts an effort by Margrethe Vestager, an executive vice president at the European Commission, who issued the Amazon penalty and has led efforts to force big tech firms to pay more in taxes. The companies have been criticized for using complex corporate structures to take advantage of low-tax countries like Luxembourg and Ireland. In 2020, Amazon earned 44 billion euros in Europe, but reported paying no taxes in Luxembourg.

Tech companies are using the courts to fight European regulators trying to rein in the industry’s power. Last year, Apple won an appeal against Ms. Vestager to annul a decision to repay about $14.9 billion in taxes to Ireland, where the company has a European headquarters. That case is now before the European Union’s highest court.

Google has appealed three decisions and billions of dollars in fines issued by the European Commission over anticompetitive business practices related to its search engine, advertising business and Android mobile operating system.

More legal battles may loom, as regulators have issued preliminary charges against Apple and Amazon for violating antitrust laws.

On Wednesday, Amazon cheered the decision by the Luxembourg-based court.

“We welcome the court’s decision, which is in line with our longstanding position that we followed all applicable laws and that Amazon received no special treatment,” Conor Sweeney, a company spokesman, said in a statement.

Ms. Vestager said the European Commission would study the Amazon ruling before deciding whether to appeal.

“All companies should pay their fair share of tax,” Ms. Vestager said in a statement. “Tax advantages given only to selected multinational companies harm fair competition in the E.U.”

Credit…Vinted-Investment/via Reuters

The pandemic revealed just how important e-commerce is to the future of the global fashion industry. In a year of lockdowns, millions of shoppers turned online to satisfy their desire for clothes, accelerating a shift toward digital sales and rapid growth for many e-commerce companies.

This week, two leading European names announced their latest funding rounds, as investors look to capitalize on the expansion of the online fashion market.

Lyst, a London-based online fashion platform with 150 million users, said it had raised $85 million ahead of a planned initial public offering. In 2020, the company — which acts as an inventory-free search portal for high-fashion brands and stores to sell to trend-focused online shoppers — said it had seen a 1,100 percent increase in new users on its app. It said the company has a gross merchandise value of more than $500 million.

Appetite for secondhand fashion also boomed in the last year, as more shoppers looked to declutter wardrobes, earn cash by selling old clothes and became more aware of the environmental impact of the industry.

Vinted, which is based in Lithuania, says it is Europe’s largest secondhand fashion marketplace with more than 45 million members globally. On Tuesday, the company said it had raised 250 million euros in a Series F funding round, giving the start-up a valuation of 3.5 billion euros, or $4.24 billion.

“We want to replicate the success we’ve built in our existing European markets in new geographies and will continue investing not only to improve our product, but also to ensure we continue to have a positive impact,” said Vinted’s chief executive, Thomas Plantenga.

Credit…Alvaro Dominguez

Today in the On Tech newsletter, Shira Ovide asks: When have Jeff Bezos’ ideas and his relentlessness to pull them off been helpful, and when have those same qualities led Amazon astray?

Tags concerns, Day, drop, Increase, inflation, Stocks

Business

Shopper Costs Rose in April as Buyers Frightened About Inflation

Post author By
Post date May 12, 2021

Consumer Prices Rose in April as Investors Worried About Inflation

Consumer prices are expected to soar sharply in April data released on Wednesday. This is mainly due to a technical quirk. However, these investors will be watching closely as they attempt to determine whether inflation could change Federal Reserve policy.

The consumer price index is likely to have risen by 3.6 percent by April, predict economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The price increase from March to April is likely to be more restrained at 0.2 percent. The Ministry of Labor will release the numbers at 8:30 a.m.

The annual jump would be the fastest increase since 2011 and a sign that prices are rising as inflation numbers show extremely weak readings from 2020 and to a lesser extent as supply chain disruptions start to bite and demand increases.

Central bankers believe that the surge in prices will be short-lived and have made it clear that they want to look beyond a temporary spike in setting policy. The tech quirks at work in April will only last a few months, officials point out, and while it’s less clear when bottlenecks will be fixed, they are expected to work their way through the system at some point when businesses ramp up production to meet demand.

Wall Street and some economists fear, however, that the rapidly recovering economy, huge economic stimulus from Washington, and pent-up consumer demand could make price gains stronger or more sustainable than the Fed can tolerate.

An essential part of the central bank’s role is to contain price increases. So any likely sustained acceleration in prices could lead them to recall policies that keep money cheap and keep credit flowing. Decreasing support would likely cause stock prices to decline.

While the Fed defines its inflation target using a separate metric, the Personal Consumption Spending Index, this metric is based on data from the CPI and is also expected to go beyond the central bank’s target. Fed officials are targeting annual inflation averaging 2 percent.

It was clear to central bankers that if, contrary to their expectations, there were signs of sustained price increases, they would react. But they have also stated that they want to avoid prematurely withdrawing support from the economy, which could result in the labor market being incompletely healed and longer-term inflation in danger of reverting to uncomfortably low levels where it has been for much of the time have been bogged down in the last decade.

Lael Brainard, a Fed governor, said during a speech Tuesday that “staying patient through the temporary wave associated with the reopening will help ensure economic momentum to” achieve our goals. “

Tags April, Consumer, inflation, investors, prices, rose, worried