What we’re reading (5/16)
“Americans Curb Spending On Home Improvements” (Wall Street Journal). “Executives at Home Depot said such spending has cooled sharply this year, prompting the retailer to warn that its annual sales will decline for the first time since 2009. Homeowners are pinching pennies amid concerns about the economic outlook, and many people have completed most of the projects they wanted to accomplish during the pandemic.”
“Homebuilder Sentiment Pulls Out Of Negative Territory For The First Time In Nearly A Year” (CNBC). “Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes rose 5 points in May to 50, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). It’s the fifth straight month of gains and the first reading of builder sentiment since July that wasn’t negative, which would be a reading below 50. Sentiment stood at 69 in May of last year.”
“Move Over, U.S. Dollar. China Wants To Make The Yuan The Global Currency.” (Washington Post). “The dollar’s widespread use makes it difficult to displace. Because it is widely used, it is easy to exchange, creating more incentive for countries to use it. This network effect encapsulates part of the challenge to adoption of the yuan, which is more expensive and inconvenient partly because there is less of it circulating outside China. But the recent flurry of settlements in yuan do constitute some progress toward Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s vision: with China at the helm of a global economic order that is insulated from the fluctuations of the dollar and Western sanctions.”
“Silicon Valley Bank Was Not Your Bank” (Slate). “Imagine that the government had left SVB deposits up to fate. In that event, why would anyone bank anywhere other than JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and the like? There’s an extremely simple answer, which I am qualified to give, because I am a reasonably normal American person with a bank account, not a venture capital-funded startup or midsize company…Smaller banks offer higher rates to be competitive with the much better known, richer Goliaths of the industry. They can do it because they run leaner businesses with lower costs.”
“The “Return To The Office” Won’t Save The Office” (Vox). “The so-called “return to the office” has been underway for a while now, and it’s a bit of a mess. Sure, more people are going to the office more often than they were a year ago, but we’re still eons away from where we were before the pandemic. And despite the gains in office attendance, many office buildings themselves are in big trouble — some of which goes beyond remote work and started long before the pandemic. So despite what you’re hearing from some bosses, things will likely never go back to the way they were.”
