Tema: PPCC-Pisitófilos Creditófagos-Invierno 2022

[Cadavre Exquis]

Veo su tablilla babilónica, y le subo la apuesta con una asiria... 2.500 a. C.

https://twitter.com/RyanHaecker/status/1595050589163245569

Saludos.

[sudden and sharp]

Los chicos no obdecen... a sus padres; el acabose.   

[muyuu]

Los chicos no obdecen... a sus padres; el acabose.   

y todo el mundo quiere escribir un libro, un sindiós

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/da4e8397-ef73-4d21-9062-1542d715d45c

Fears for London market after SoftBank and building group opt for New York

Moves to list CRH and chip designer Arm in US come as UK tries to sharpen appeal

Fears for the future of the London stock market are mounting after SoftBank and the world’s largest building materials group shunned the City in favour of New York.

SoftBank this week rejected a London listing for Cambridge-based chip designer Arm despite an intense lobbying effort from three successive prime ministers, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.

Arm’s chief legal officer Spencer Collins had informed City minister Andrew Griffiths on Wednesday, one of them said.

The decision to concentrate instead on a single New York listing will be a personal blow for prime minister Rishi Sunak, who held a meeting with SoftBank boss Masayoshi Son and Arm chief executive Rene Haas before Christmas to lay out the benefits of listing in London.

On Thursday, £30bn building materials giant CRH set out plans to move its shares to the US, where it generates the bulk of its profits and expects to benefit from President Joe Biden’s plans for infrastructure investment.

Shares in CRH, which has worked on large construction projects across the US, Europe and the UK, jumped as much as 9 per cent as analysts said the group would command a higher valuation in New York. Analysts at UBS said shifting the listing to the US could lead to a “multiple re-rating given US peers trade on roughly 25x [price to earnings] vs CRH on 13x”.

Asked about the move by CRH, David Schwimmer, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange Group, said: “If companies are going to make decisions when most of their business is in the US, that sort of is what it is.”

The planned exit comes at a difficult juncture for London’s capital markets, which over the past two decades have failed to attract the biggest tech companies. The challenge facing the market has deepened during the past year as a wave of listed groups have been acquired. (...)

[Derby]

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/ecb-confronts-cold-reality-companies-are-cashing-inflation-2023-03-02/

ECB confronts a cold reality: companies are cashing in on inflation

FRANKFURT, March 2 (Reuters) - Huddled in a retreat in a remote Arctic village, European Central Bank policymakers faced up last week to some cold hard facts: companies are profiting from high inflation while workers and consumers foot the bill.

The prevailing macroeconomic narrative over the past nine months has been that sharp increases in prices for everything from energy to food to computer chips were ramping up costs for companies in the 20 countries that make up the euro zone.

The European Central Bank (ECB) responded by raising interest rates by the most in four decades to cool demand, arguing it faced the risk that higher consumer prices would push up wages and create an inflation spiral.

But at the retreat in the Finnish village of Inari intended to give the bank's Governing Council a chance to delve into themes only touched upon at regular meetings, a slightly different picture emerged, three sources who attended the meeting said.

Data articulated in more than two dozen slides presented to the 26 policymakers showed that company profit margins have been increasing rather than shrinking, as might be expected when input costs rise so sharply, the sources told Reuters.

An ECB spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

"It's clear that profit expansion has played a larger role in the European inflation story in the last six months or so," said Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management. "The ECB has failed to justify what it's doing in the context of a more profit-focused inflation story."

The idea that companies have been raising prices in excess of their costs at the expense of consumers and wage earners is likely to anger the general public.

But it has implications for central bankers too.

Inflation fuelled by higher corporate margins tends to self-correct as companies eventually put the brakes on price rises to avoid losing market share, making it a very different beast to tame than a wage-price stampede.

So a new inflation narrative focused on margins could give the more dovish members of the Governing Council some ammunition to fight against further rate rises after their resistance proved largely futile over the past year, according to economists interviewed by Reuters.

The debate is due to resume at the ECB's next policy meeting on March 16, when the bank has promised to raise rates to their highest level since the height of the financial crisis in 2008.

CHANGE IN NARRATIVE

The received inflation narrative in the euro zone has been slowly starting to shift.

Businesses are anticipating smaller price rises as the outlook for costs and demand becomes less clear, according to surveys published by the ECB and Germany's Ifo institute.

Some European countries such as Greece have tabled measures to curb inflation in essential goods while France and Spain are debating similar steps.

"The economics of profitability suggest we might see more of a profit squeeze coming up," ECB chief economist Philip Lane told Reuters. "European firms know that if they raise prices too much, they will suffer a loss in market share."

In the United States, the profit margin expansion started earlier and has already started to reverse, albeit slowly and unevenly.

But unlike the United States, there is no official corporate margin data for the euro zone. Instead, national accounts and earnings reports from listed companies are being used as proxies to paint the inflation picture.

Euro zone consumer good companies, for example, boosted operating margins to an average of 10.7% last year, up by a quarter over 2019, before the global pandemic and the war in Ukraine, Refinitiv data shows.

The 106 companies included in the survey ranged from French resort owner Pierre et Vacances (PVAC.PA) to carmaker Stellantis (STLAM.MI) to luxury goods group Hermes (HRMS.PA) and Nordic retailer Stockmann (STOCKA.HE).

Similarly, profits rather than labour costs and taxes have accounted for the lion's share of domestic price pressures in the euro zone since 2021, according to ECB calculations based on Eurostat data.



DETACHED DISCOURSE

Indeed, wages have been growing far more slowly than inflation, implying a 5% drop in the standard of living for the average employee in the euro zone compared with 2021, according to ECB's calculations.

That's pretty much the opposite of the wage-led inflation that characterised the 1970s, an era which has become the most widely used point of comparison in the public debate about appropriate central bank policy responses, economists say.

"The public discourse to some extent is detached from what's actually happening out there," said Philipp Heimberger, an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies. "The main story of the risks going forward is still that there's a looming wage-price spiral which should make the central bank even more aggressive in hiking interest rates."

For example, wages were mentioned 14 times in ECB President Christine Lagarde's latest news conference while margins didn't get a single mention. Her deputy, Luis de Guindos, also warned that the ECB needed to be careful because labour unions might demand excessive pay rises.

"You see a very clear reluctance to discuss profit," Daniela Gabor, a professor of economics and macro-finance at the University of West England in Bristol. "That illustrates that the distributional politics of inflation targeting is: You don't go for profits; you don't go for capital."

In the United States, the issue of runaway margins has been raised by former Federal Reserve Bank vice-chair Lael Brainard, who is now President Joe Biden's top economic adviser, and Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Even inside the ECB, labour representatives demanding higher pay for central bank staff have distanced themselves from what they described as the institution's "anti-worker bias".

They cited, among others, a paper by researchers at the International Monetary Fund showing that accelerating wages have not historically led to a wage-price spiral.

PROFIT VS WAGES

ECB policymakers gathered in Finland went through similar data sets showing that profits had outpaced wages thanks to savings built up during lockdowns being spent, but also because of companies' power to set prices, the sources said.

With those savings now being depleted and competition returning, things may be changing for ECB policymakers who have been calling for a redrafting of the inflation narrative.

In January, Portuguese central bank governor Mario Centeno was among the first to warn about the risk of a very clear increase in profit margins, saying it should be brought up the European policy agenda.

ECB board member Fabio Panetta later said workers had borne the brunt of the surge in prices while, on balance, company mark-ups had remained stable, or even increased in some sectors.

Wages are accelerating, with the ECB's forward-looking wage tracker anticipating a rise of nearly 5% in 2023 for contracts signed in the last quarter of 2022. But that won't offset the massive drop in real wages over the past year, analysts said.

"A key missing ingredient is the bargaining strength of the labour movement, which is structurally weakened by the disinflation policies of the 1980s and the ensuing liberalisation of labour markets," said Mattias Vermeiren, a professor of international political economy at the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies.

During the last inflation crisis in the 1970s, nearly 70% of economic output went to employees, with just over 20% going to profits, according to Eurostat data. Now, labour's share stands at 56% with a third going to profits.

The ECB policymakers went over those differences at their Finnish retreat, though their tentative conclusions were dotted with caveats, the sources who attended the meeting said.

Some argued that furlough schemes during the pandemic may buttress incomes, the sources said, and that a sustained period of high inflation may raise salary demands in a way that models developed during periods of stable prices fail to predict.

And the interest rate doves might have their work cut out after data showed inflation in France, Spain and Germany exceeded expectations last month.

[Derby]

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/marc-benioff-salesforce-recession-dot-com-crash-financial-crisis-layoffs-2023-3

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff sounds the alarm on recession - with shades of the dot-com crash and financial crisis

*Marc Benioff is bracing for a recession that shows shades of the dot-com crash and financial crisis.
*The Salesforce CEO is shifting his focus from sales and deals to efficiency and profitability.
*Benioff warned that falling stocks and recession fears dampen corporate spending.

Marc Benioff has raised the alarm on a US recession, drawing parallels between the coming downturn and both the dot-com crash and financial crisis.

The Salesforce CEO has also warned the enterprise-software titan now faces a tougher backdrop, and in response he will focus on boosting profitability instead of growing sales or buying companies.

"There have been moments where we've had to pull back," the Salesforce CEO said during a fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense/Sentieo.

"'01, '02, bad recession, we had to pull back," Benioff continued. "'08, '09, we had to pull back and reassess. We're kind of looking at this moment as, 'Hey, we can reassess.'"

Salesforce's billionaire cofounder rattled off some of the headwinds that started buffeting his company last year.

"Currencies, measured buying environment, macro conditions, inflation, the stock market," he said.

In response to historic inflation, the Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates from virtually zero to upwards of 4.5% within the past year. Its goal is to encourage saving over spending, and make borrowing more expensive, to cool price growth.

Yet those higher rates have lifted the US dollar, pulled down asset prices, and stoked fears of an economic downturn.

Benioff noted on the call that when stocks tank and recession fears mount, bosses stop hiring salespeople and slash their marketing spend. Tighter corporate budgets are bad news for Salesforce, a specialist in customer relationship management (CRM).

"As soon as the stock market implodes, CEOs, they hit the brakes," he said. "That's what we saw in '08, '09. I think we really started to see that in the middle of '22."

Salesforce has reacted by shifting its focus from chasing sales and striking deals, to cutting costs and boosting efficiency.

As a result, it has scrapped its goal of hitting $50 billion of annual revenue in 2026. It has also disbanded its mergers-and-acquisitions committee after buying Slack and Tableau in recent years.

The software group widened its operating margin from 22.7% to 29.2% during the last three months of 2022, and plans to reach at least 30% by the first quarter of 2025. The company has cut about 8,000 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, since the start of this year.

"We have a recession playbook," Benioff said. "We know how to transform the company."

Investors welcomed his pledge to prioritize profitability. They sent Salesforce stock up as much as 14% in early trading on Thursday.

[Cadavre Exquis]

José Luis Cava | Se han roto soportes clave tanto en el bono americano como en el SP 500. 2/3/23

¡Hola qué tal, muy buenos y muy frescos días desde Madrid!

La rentabilidad del bono americano superó el 4%. Si ustedes recuerdan, esta es la barrera que establecimos. ¿Esto qué significa? Bueno, pues significa muchas cosas, en primer lugar, que en el mercado los más listos han creído la tesis de la re-aceleración de la economía a partir de los datos que se publicaron de la actividad económica y de inflación del mes de enero,, es decir, están dando por bueno los ajustes estacionales.

¿Qué consecuencias tiene? Pues automáticamente la consecuencia que tienen es que estiman que lo más probable es que la Fed suba los tipos de interés 50 puntos básicos en la reunión de marzo, 25 en la de mayo, y 25 más en la de junio. ¿Qué puede provocar este hecho? Lo que puede provocar es que indudablemente llegamos a una recesión. Olvídense del no aterrizaje, olvidémonos del aterrizaje suave, vamos al aterrizaje brusco. ¿Cuando? Está la pregunta. Da la sensación de que si ha habido una re-aceleración económica a lo mejor la recesión se retrasa un poquito más de lo esperado, pero a una recesión indudablemente nos van a llevar. ¿Y ahora qué nos queda? Bueno, nosotros a seguir la tendencia, evidentemente, y desde el punto de vista macro, ver si los datos de febrero confirman la tesis de la re-aceleración de la economía.

Teniendo en cuenta esto, ¿cuál es la estrategia? Está clara, la estrategia en cuanto a renta fija no ha variado: seguimos manteniendo –desde Bolsa Cava, con nuestro plan de especulación– invertir en plazos cortos, no superiores ya a 90 días, y luego esperar a que los bonos hagan un techo para volver a abrir posiciones largas, que van a ser muy rentables, porque indudablemente los banqueros centrales van a mandar a millones de personas al paro, así de claro.

[...]

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

He estado dudando sobre si encajaría mejor en el hilo de Coches eléctricos, pero creo que lo que se comenta en este post de Xataka encaja mejor en este hilo dado que, en el fondo, trata sobre el decrecimiento y de la Agenda 2030.

"Los que ayer conducían un Opel Corsa mañana irán en autobús": Volkswagen y el futuro del coche eléctrico en Europa

Alberto de la Torre | 2023-03-01

Foto | Mitchell Johnson

Una entrevista con Jens Andersen, exdirectivo de Volkswagen y responsable de estrategia de la marca, ha levantado polvareda. Sus palabras contra Tesla y Elon Musk, recogidas por Bussiness Insider, han sido duras pero, lo más interesante, es el futuro que anticipa para la automoción europea.

Un candidato a compra. Es a lo que apunta Andersen que es Tesla. La firma de  coches eléctricos carece del músculo suficiente para sobrevivir y ser relevante en un futuro, según el exdirectivo de Volkswagen. La compañía alemana estará en posición de hacerse con la empresa de Elon Musk, ahora que, en palabras de Andersen, sólo el software mantiene en ventaja.

Del director de la compañía señala que pensaba de él que era un "hombre sensato" pero que "con los años se ha convertido en un provocador, un jugador y un sabelotodo, y sobre todo en un multimillonario. Con estos rasgos de carácter, es un modelo para la generación joven de hoy; hay que tomar nota de ello".

El Opel Corsa. Pero la parte más interesante de la entrevista es en la que Andersen habla del estado actual de la industria, enfocándose en Alemania. Según el exdirectivo de Volkswagen, los precios de los coches eléctricos no bajarán a corto plazo y "los que ayer conducían un Opel Corsa, mañana irán en autobús".

Andersen explica que el acceso al coche será, cadaa vez, más complicado y asegura que el público alemán está optando cada vez más por servicios de suscripción y por el transporte público. Un camino que ya ha tomado, entre otros, Peugeot o Toyota, con el lanzamiento de sus últimos vehículos.

El volumen. "Durante mucho tiempo hubo una gran base de volumen para el negocio con motores de combustión interna, especialmente en el grupo VW. Esta base de volumen, a su vez, es esencial para una movilidad asequible", apunta Andersen.

Sin embargo, cuando se habla de coche eléctrico, asegura que "esta base de volumen no existe todavía y puede que no sea atendida por los fabricantes alemanes en el futuro. Su producción en Europa, a día de hoy, no será rentable en comparación con los vehículos fabricados en China". Los resultados, los tiene claros: "El tiempo de la movilidad individual asequible made in Europe está llegando a su fin sin medidas adicionales de acompañamiento".

Abandonados. Esta dificultad para rentabilizar el producto hará que los grandes fabricantes alemanes se olviden de los vehículos de masas, según el exdirectivo de Volkswagen. Mercedes, BMW y hasta Volkswagen ya han confirmado que, al contrario que en épocas anteriores, sus estrategias de cara al futuro pasan por vender menos pero más caro.

No es la primera vez que se habla de esto desde dentro de la industria. Los consumidores de gamas bajas parecen abandonados por los fabricantes europeos y sólo China parece ser la salida. "Un vehículo como el MG4 Electric, que el grupo chino SAIC ofrece por unos 30.000 euros en Alemania, difícilmente sería rentable si se produjera en Europa. No a este precio y menos en las condiciones económicas actuales", apunta Andersen.

Misma estrategia. Andersen no está solo cuando se habla en estos términos. Carlos Tavares ha hecho pública en diversas ocasiones su disconformidad con la entrada de fabricantes chinos al mercado europeo. Lo cierto, sin embargo, es que los fabricantes, europeos o no, han sido los primeros en buscar soluciones para rebajar sus costes de producción. El último: centrarse en Estados Unidos, donde el Gobierno da importantes ventajas fiscales.

Lo mismo está haciendo Tesla también, que próximamente abrirá una gigafactoría en suelo mexicano si, finalmente, termina de solucionar sus diferencias con los políticos del país. Y Volkswagen ya avisó en España que, sin más dinero para su planta de baterías, no habría fábrica en Sagunto, después de ser anunciada a bombo y platillo.

Expulsados. De una manera o de otra, las palabras de Andersen anticipa un futuro en el que buena parte de los ciudadanos sean expulsados del vehículo en propiedad. Sus palabras lo dejan claro: o apuestan por servicios de suscripción y renting (una forma más accesible de acceder a un producto caro, aunque luego se pague más con el paso de los años) o tendrán que dejar el coche a un lado.

Sony y Honda ya anticipan alquileres a muy largo plazo para poder acceder a sus vehículos. ¿El motivo? El Afeela, el coche eléctrico que han diseñado de forma conjunta, será "un poco caro". Y los precios no sólo subirán en el terreno de los eléctricos, Andersen apunta en la misma línea que Renault, quienes anticipan coches de combustión más caros como consecuencia de Euro 7.

Un nuevo suelo. De momento, lo que parece claro es que tendremos un nuevo suelo para el sector de la automoción. Cuando los fabricantes han hablado de un nuevo "coche eléctrico barato" siempre han apuntado en la misma dirección: un coche de 20.000 euros que, además, ahora mismo es impensable.

Y el crecimiento en los precios de la oferta actual confirman que la tendencia es realmente alcista. Los últimos movimientos europeos por conseguir vehículos más eficientes y seguros también han tenido una clara contrapartida para el bolsillo de los compradores: un aumento significativo de los precios.

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/opinion/2023/03/03/64013798468aeba3128b4674.html

https://www.expansion.com/empresas/inmobiliario/2023/03/03/640114a0468aebeb678b45a6.html

https://www.expansion.com/economia/politica/2023/03/02/6400f141e5fdea2c108b463c.html

https://www.expansion.com/empresas/2023/03/02/64006e9d468aebe9358b456f.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/mercados/2023/03/02/64007cae468aeb7d638b4573.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/empresas/banca/2023/03/03/640116afe5fdea3c488b45de.html

https://www.eleconomista.es/legal/noticias/12170898/03/23/Europa-ve-mala-fe-en-que-la-banca-espere-a-recibir-una-demanda-por-clausulas-abusivas-para-allanarse.html

https://lectura.kioskoymas.com/cinco-dias/20230303/page/23

Lagarde anima a los ahorradores a pedir más a sus bancos por los depósitos

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/mercados/bitcoin/2023/03/02/63ffd65de5fdead34d8b45e3.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2023/03/03/640104e8e5fdeab9528b45d0.html

https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12170757/03/23/La-inflacion-se-enquista-en-la-Eurozona-y-arrincona-al-BCE-el-IPC-subyacente-se-dispara-a-maximos-historicos.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.expansion.com/economia/2023/03/03/6401006fe5fdead34d8b462c.html

https://www.pressreader.com/spain/el-economista/20230303/page/28/textview

Los altos precios explican más del 50% de la mayor recaudación en 2022

https://cincodias.elpais.com/economia/2023-03-02/el-banco-de-espana-atribuye-a-la-inflacion-mas-de-la-mitad-del-incremento-de-la-recaudacion-en-2022.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://cincodias.elpais.com/economia/2023-03-02/el-empleo-se-reactiva-con-88918-nuevos-cotizantes-por-el-tiron-de-la-educacion-y-la-hosteleria.html

https://www.eleconomista.es/economia/noticias/12170556/03/23/el-paro-resiste-por-debajo-de-los-tres-millones-en-un-febrero-de-aceleron-para-la-afiliacion.html

https://www.pressreader.com/spain/expansion-nacional/20230303/page/31/textview

El empleo gana pulso pese al mal dato de agricultura, autónomos y jóvenes

Madrid crea tres de cada diez nuevos puestos de trabajo el último año

Saludos.