What we’re reading (11/9)
“Even If The Fed Stays On Hold, Jerome Powell Is Keeping His Options Open” (Wall Street Journal). “Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated the central bank wouldn’t declare an end to its historic interest-rate increases until it had more evidence that inflation was cooling. Price and wage pressures have eased recently, leading more investors to think the Fed is done raising rates. Powell disappointed those investors in a speech Thursday by explaining why he thinks the Fed is more likely to tighten policy than ease it if any change is warranted.”
“What History Tells Us About The Feel-Bad Economy” (New York Times). “Here’s how I think about it: The supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic made it inevitable that prices of some goods would rise sharply. The only way to have avoided overall inflation would have been to force major price cuts for other goods and services. And everything we know from history suggests that trying to impose deflation — falling prices — on large parts of the economy would have had disastrous effects on employment and output, something like the quiet depression Britain inflicted on itself after World War I when it tried to go back to the prewar gold standard.”
“Robinhood Misses Q3 Revenue Estimates On Muted Trading Activity” (Reuters). “Robinhood's transaction-based revenue decreased 11% year-over-year to $185 million amid a 13% decline in equities and a 55% decrease in cryptocurrencies. Monthly active users dropped 16% to 10.3 million from a year earlier.”
“Thousands Of AMC Shareholders Wanted The Board To Go, But Abstentions Carried The Day” (MarketWatch). “Tens of thousands of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. shareholders voted to, in essence, throw out the entertainment company’s board, but the proposal went nowhere because of no-shows and abstentions.”
“The Fight Over Return-To-Office Is Getting Dirty” (Insider). “As the return-to-office battle has heated up in the past six months, there has been a marked increase in declarations that remote work is less productive. But diving deeper into this evidence reveals flawed logic — and a media industry obsessed with proving bosses right.”
