월스트리트저널 읽기 - Fed, TikTok, FedEx etc.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2023

 

 

◈ Fed Stands Pat but Keeps Hike in Play(연준은 가만히 있지만 인상은 계속 유지)

 

WASHINGTON—Federal Reserve officials voted to hold interest rates steady at a 22-year high and revealed a divide over whether they should raise rates once more this year, with most leaning toward another increase.

 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that officials didn’t need to decide yet whether to lift rates again after a historically rapid series of increases over the past 18 months and as they await evidence that a recent inflation slowdown can be sustained.

 

“Really, what people are saying is, ‘Let’s see how the data come in,’” he said at a news conference Wednesday. “They want to be convinced. They want to be careful not to jump to a conclusion.”

 

Fed officials also indicated they expect to keep rates higher for longer through 2024 than they anticipated earlier this year.

 

Stock markets slid after the meeting, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 77 points, or 0.2%, and the S& P 500 sliding 0.9%. Yields on the two-year Treasury note rose to 5.118%, the highest since 2006.

 

Fed officials lifted their benchmark federal-funds rate at their previous meeting in July to a range between 5.25% and 5.5% to combat inflation by slowing economic activity. They began increasing rates from near zero in March 2022.

 

◈ The Billionaire Keeping TikTok on Phones(틱톡을 계속 사용하는 억만장자)

 

WASHINGTON—TikTok had hardly any friends in government earlier this year as the Biden administration, Congress and state legislatures were threatening to ban the Chinese-owned video giant.

 

TikTok now has many more friends, with something in common: backing from billionaire financier Jeff Yass. They’ve helped stall attempts to outlaw America’s most-downloaded app.

 

Yass’s investment company, Susquehanna International Group, bet big on TikTok in 2012, buying a stake in parent company ByteDance now measured at about 15%. That translates into a personal stake for Yass of 7% in ByteDance. It is worth roughly $21 billion based on the company’s recent valuation, or much of his $28 billion net worth as gauged by Bloomberg.

 

Yass is also one of the top donors to the Club for Growth, an influential conservative group that rallied Republican opposition to a TikTok ban. Yass has donated $61 million to the Club for Growth’s political-spending arm since 2010, or about 24% of its total, according to federal records.

 

◈ Landlords Struggle to Find Homes(집을 구하기 위해 고군분투하는 집주인들)

 

It isn’t just regular Americans who are having trouble buying houses these days.

 

High borrowing costs and the shortage of properties for sale have slowed home buying by Wall Street’s rental giants as well, limiting their ability to grow at the same time suburban rents are climbing.

 

The big landlords’ computers are still poring over listings, scanning for houses they can buy and turn into rentals. But financing has become expensive even for them, and competition is fierce from people willing to pay up for the few homes hitting the market. Prices have pushed past what big landlords, including AMH and Invitation Homes, can pay and still meet profit targets.

 

◈ Iran Oil Exports Grow During Talks With U.S.(미국과의 회담에서 이란 석유 수출이 증가)

 

 

WASHINGTON—The U.S. backed away from some actions meant to stop Iran’s oil shipments as Washington and Tehran conducted negotiations that led to Monday’s release of five Americans, part of a larger step back from sanctions enforcement that has seen Iran’s energy exports grow, according to current and former U.S. officials.

 

The release of the five Americans came days after the Biden administration issued a waiver for international banks to transfer $6 billion in frozen Iranian money to Qatar from South Korea. The prisoners’ return to the U.S. also follows months of rising Iranian oil shipments, including to China, Iran’s biggest buyer, as Washington chose not to aggressively enforce the international sanctions regime, people familiar with the matter said.

 

◈ Britain Bores In On Investors, Touting Stability(영국은 안정성을 내세우며 투자자들에게 신경을 쓴다)

 

LONDON—It isn’t a political slogan that would win many votes: Make Britain Boring Again.

 

But for the first time in nearly a decade—after nonstop drama from Brexit to the colorful antics of Boris Johnson— politics in Britain is eliciting yawns rather than headlines. And that’s good news for the world’s sixth-biggest economy.

 

A year after a political and financial crisis sent the pound plummeting and ushered in the country’s fifth prime minister in seven years, things have settled down under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, allowing business investment to grow and finally surpass levels last seen before Britain’s 2016 vote to quit the European Union. The economy is stuck in very slow growth but has avoided widespread expectations of recession and proved surprisingly resilient.

 

A symbol of this return to stodgy stability is Jeremy Hunt, the soft-spoken chancellor of the exchequer, who this week travels to the U.S. West Coast to meet with tech companies.

 

◈ Rate-Sensitive Tech Stocks Press Markets(금리에 민감한 기술주, 시장을 압박하다)

 

 

For months, investors snapped up tech stocks as if they didn’t believe the Federal Reserve’s promise to slow the American economy by keeping interest rates higher. Wednesday gave the latest evidence that the tech trade is cooling.

 

The central bank unveiled its long-telegraphed rate-hike pause but warned of possible increases to come. Markets largely didn’t like the message.

 

Bond yields hovered near at least 15-year highs, and big tech companies that powered the 2023 rally dragged down stocks, suggesting Wall Street is finally getting ready for a longer period of higher borrowing costs.

 

◈ FedEx Overcomes Demand Fall(페덱스, 수요 감소 극복)

 

FedEx’s profit rose in the latest quarter despite a drop in revenue, as the shipping giant continues its extensive cost-cutting efforts amid slumping demand.

 

Executives also said that the industry is likely to see a muted “peak” season, which is typically the busiest time for carriers ahead of the fall holidays and Christmas.

 

The company is in the early stages of merging its Express and Ground units, from which it expects to save $4 billion in costs over two years. FedEx has already merged some functions in select markets around the U.S., but says the full combination will take several years.

 

Cost cuts boosted FedEx’s margins in the fiscal first quarter, especially in the company’s Express and Ground units, the company said Wednesday. FedEx said that it grounded certain flights and adjusted staffing due to lower shipping volumes in order to reduce expenses.

 

◈ Chinese Office Market Flounders(중국 오피스 시장의 횡포)

 

 

HONG KONG—The office market in the U.S. is dismal. In some ways, it is even worse in China.

 

With the country’s economy facing its worst slowdown in years, huge amounts of office space are sitting empty in once-booming cities like Shenzhen and Wuhan, while rents are falling.

 

Nearly 24% of the office-tower space in 18 major Chinese cities was unoccupied as of June, according to CBRE, the real-estate services firm. That is worse than the U.S., where office vacancy rates hit a 30year-high of 18.2% in June.

 

Unlike the U.S., however, China’s office market isn’t suffering from a significant shift toward hybrid work patterns, which have reduced Western companies’ need for space.

 

China is facing a more basic real-estate problem: Developers simply built too much supply and now the economy is too weak to absorb it.

 

◈ German Firms Defy Pressure to Limit China Exposure(독일 기업들이 중국 노출을 제한하라는 압력에 저항하다)

 

BERLIN—The German government and European politicians in Brussels are leaning on Germany’s largest companies to reduce their exposure to China. The companies are instead doubling down.

 

As government pressure intensifies, German companies with sizable Chinese operations in recent months have been scrambling to insulate those businesses from possible West-ern sanctions.

 

They are seeking to boost local production to rely less on imports from Germany, striking deals with Chinese suppliers to make their supply chains more local and building alliances with Chinese companies. The efforts aim to protect these businesses’ market shares, shield their profits and ride out a worsening of the political tension between China and the West—especially the U.S.

 

◈ Goldman Boosts Private-Equity Capital(골드만삭스는 사모펀드 자본을 늘리다)

 

Goldman Sachs Group’s asset- management arm has amassed more than $15 billion across vehicles dedicated to acquiring private-fund stakes on the secondary market, a segment that continues to attract large amounts of capital despite a wider fundraising slowdown.

 

The New York bank’s alternatives arm, which managed around $45 billion of capital dedicated to secondary investments at the end of June, has collected $14.2 billion from investors for its Vintage IX strategy to acquire stakes in private- equity funds from other investors, according to a statement.

 

Goldman also collected $1 billion for Vintage Infrastructure Partners, its debut commingled fund to acquire stakes in private infrastructure vehicles. The firm closed both drives above their target levels after receiving commitments from high-net-worth individuals as well as institutional investors, according to the statement.

 

◈ Stock Indexes Decline(주가지수 하락)

 

Major stock indexes veered slightly lower following his remarks. While shares in tech firms and banks sputtered, consumer staples and healthcare stocks were among the S& P 500’s few bright spots. Those moves fit within a broader uptick in investor interest in sectors considered to be more defensive investments, such as energy.

 

Stocks in oil drillers, fuel refiners, tanker operators and oilfield-service firms have jumped in recent weeks along-side rising oil prices.

 

 

오늘도 경제신문으로 세상을 봅니다.