Stock Market Risks Pile Up After Record-Setting Earnings Season
(Bloomberg) — Delta cases. Inflation. Fed tapering. China’s crackdown. These are among the reasons why investors could soon get more nervous about this stock market.
The S&P 500 hit another record on Friday after Jerome Powell’s dovish taper speech reassured investors. However, the mood seems more cautious compared with a few weeks ago, when companies were in the middle of a record-setting earnings season.
All the concerns boil down to one big debate: Has the recovery from the pandemic already peaked? That’s a question that will only be answered in the months ahead. For now, investors say they’re scouring through management commentary and economic data for any hint about what’s to come.
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Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Esther George on the U.S. economy and tapering measures. Kansas City Federal Reserve President Esther George said Thursday tapering should begin “sooner rather than later,” ahead of the Jackson Hole meeting. “Certainly the inflation numbers are coming in strong, and would suggest that …
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Home Flipping Becomes Virtual Reality
You can now sell your home online as quickly as you can sell a pair of shoes on eBay or Poshmark. But what is the return policy?
The pandemic bolstered already popular concepts like online shopping. But it also showed how more fringe applications could have mainstream use. We now know an entire workforce can function remotely, for example, though the risk to companies is that there are downstream costs to that convenience. A similar risk is increasingly being taken by online real-estate platforms using computerized algorithms to automate a nearly $2 trillion industry with just about 1% online penetration today. The question is whether fortune will favor the bold.
The concept of using technology to flip homes was initially met with skepticism. On top of the financial risk of holding a fortune in inventory on the balance sheet, there was the open question of whether consumers would trust such a process with their most valuable possessions. When Zillow announced it was going big on iBuying in 2019, roughly 90% of home buyers and sellers were still using an agent.
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