GisermanGroup ??BizBuzz: ??Google Hits $1-Trillion Value, Powers Stocks Higher??HELP WANTED, but ??Lower Mortgages ??Cancer Deaths Decline
Google powers Stocks to new record highs. It’s parent company Alphabet topping $1-trillion in market value, becoming the fourth U.S. technology company to reach that level, after Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. Stocks setting new highs, despite concerns over the just signed China Trade Deal, and despite Impeachment proceedings moving to the Senate, the Dow above 29000 for the first time.
Call it "Ground Hog Day" since we've been here before. The deal signed in Washington does not remove existing U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports and leaves questions as to how the terms of the agreement will be enforced. The agreement is also seen as “fragile” by some analysts who believe additional levies could still be implemented. The Dow, Nasdaq & S&P 500 coming off a 'Hat Trick,' all hitting record highs after Iran's retaliation was less than feared.
Iran CyberAttack on U.S. Business Feared
Officials still fear a CyberAttack by Iran in retaliation. The Iranians can overwhelm computerized systems to snarl business operations, as they did to U.S. banks from 2011 to 2013. They can also use malicious software to wipe out data, as government officials said they did in 2014 to the Las Vegas Sands casino, whose staunchly pro-Israel owner Sheldon Adelson had suggested the United States drop nuclear bombs on Iran America, security authorities say.
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Iran Fallout Means Lower Mortgage Rates
Mortgage rates moving lower due to the Iran fallout resulting in a seriously strong start to 2020 in the mortgage business for new home loans and refinances. Total mortgage application volume surged 30.2% last week from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's seasonally adjusted index. Refinancing led the surge, applications jumped 43% for the week.
>SitusAMCManaging Director, and former Fannie Mae Executive Tim Rood with the Good, Bad and Ugly of it all on Yahoo Finance TV via Giserman Group:
Mortgage Rates Decrease (Freddie Mac) 30 Year Fixed 3.72% 15 Year Fixed 3.16% 5 Year ARM 3.30%
But, Many Millennials Choose Renting Homes
As more Americans find it harder to afford a home, rental demand is soaring. But, the supply of rental homes is shrinking, and that continues to push rents higher. This, as just over 12% of millennial currently renting plan to "always rent"
Giserman Group Client Larry Heller, President Heller Wealth Management on The Jim Bohannon Radio Show says Millennials are getting hooked on the "drug" of renting:
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Impeachment Moves to Senate
The House officially delivered articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate, formally paving the way for a historic trial which begins Tuesday, over the President's dealings with Ukraine. The resolution, which passed 228-193 largely along party lines, came nearly a month after lawmakers voted to impeach the president on two counts. While Senate leader Mitch McConnell resisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pressure campaign, a number of Senate Republicans have expressed interest in voting to hear from witnesses after the initial opening arguments next week.
Adoption Law Change
New Yorkers who were adopted can now learn identities of their birth parents under a new law that took effect January 15.
>Giserman Group Client Attorney Joseph Milizio on NBC4 New York explains:
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Investing Like the Environment Depends on It
Laurence D. Fink, the founder and chief executive of BlackRock says his firm will make investment decisions with environmental sustainability as a core goal. BlackRock is the largest in its field, with nearly $7 trillion under management, and this move will fundamentally shift its investing policy — and could reshape how corporate America does business and put pressure on other large money managers to follow suit. Fink writes in his annual letter: BlackRock would begin to exit certain investments that “present a high sustainability-related risk,” such as those in coal producers.
HELP WANTED, but...
...the economy added just 145,000 jobs in December, versus the 160,000 expected by so called "experts". The unemployment rate held steady at 3.5%, a 50-year low. Average hourly earnings rose by just 2.9%, below the 3.1% projection. December marked the first time that wage gains were below 3% on a year-over-year basis since July 2018.
Interesting: Women held more jobs than men in December for the first time in nearly a decade, a development that likely reflects the future of the American workforce. Labor Department data showed. Women held 50.04% of jobs last month, surpassing men on payrolls by 109,000.
>>>Analysts lots here for YOU, TV wants to know what's ahead in 2020.
$100K to Manage Fast Food Restaurant
Wanted: Restaurant manager.
Salary: $100,000.
The six-figures, not being offered at a haute-cuisine location, but at Taco Bell. Amid an increasingly tough labor market, the company is betting a higher salary will help it attract workers and keep them. The chain will test the higher salary in select restaurants in the Midwest and Northeast.
Robots Coming for YOUR Job
The economy is besting expectations for job growth, and the unemployment rate is at its lowest in several decades, but the other side of the story is that millions of jobs out there just aren't good enough. Half of all American workers are stuck in low-wage jobs that often don't pay enough to support their lives, lack benefits and sit squarely inside the automation bullseye. By the end of 2025, more than 580,000 robots will be deployed to help warehouses fulfill customer orders.
Cancer Deaths Drop
The cancer death rate in the U.S. dropped 2.2% from 2016 to 2017, the largest single-year drop ever recorded, according to the latest report from the American Cancer Society. The drop is largely driven by progress against lung cancer, though the most rapid declines in the report occurred in melanoma. Advances in treatment are helping improve survival rates in the two cancers, experts say.
Dr. Google
Google’s health re-search unit has de-vel-oped an ar-ti-fi-cial in-tel-ligence sys-tem that can match or out-per-form ra-di-ol-ogists at de-tect-ing breast can-cer, ac-cord-ing to new re-search. But doctors still beat the ma-chines in some cases. Google says the system is still under development.Help Wanted
And The Oscar Goes To....
“Joker” topped all films with 11 Academy Awards nominations, while Martin Scorsese’s elegiac crime epic “The Irishman,” Quentin Tarantino’s 1960s Los Angeles fairy tale “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood” and Sam Mendes’ World War I tale “1917” all trailed close behind with 10 nods apiece. Those four were among the nine films nominated for best picture. The others were: “Parasite,” “Little Women,” “Marriage Story,” “Jojo Rabbit” and “Ford v Ferrari.” The 92nd Academy Awards will take place Feb. 9 in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theatre. ABC will again broadcast the show, viewership for which last year rose 12% to 29.6 million.
Super Bowl, Super Politics, Super Costly
Mike Bloomberg and President Trump's 2020 campaigns have both paid for 60-second commercials to run during the Super Bowl at a likely cost of at least $10 million each. The buy highlights Bloomberg's massive spending power, as the billionaire continues to pump millions of his own money into his campaign. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign says they're still working out the details of the Super Bowl ad.
Retail Apocalypse
The retail apocalypse rages on. Macy's is closing at least 30 stores in the next couple months..
Bloomingdale’s is closing up shop in Miami after 35 years at the location.
Target didn't have the strong holiday in the toy department that many expected, ringing alarm bells for the entire industry. The retailer reported its toy sales were about flat over the 2019 holidays compared with the prior year, though it said it continued to gain market share in toys, based on data from NPD Group. Target shares fell more than 7% on the news, while the report sent Walmart’s stock down more than 1%. Toymaker Hasbro’s shares dropped about 2.5%, while Mattel’s stock tanked more than 6%.Pier 1 Imports announced it plans to close up to 450 locations, nearly half of its 942 stores.
J.C. Pen-ney, Kohl’s and Vic-to-ria’s Se-cret par-ent L Brands all re-ported lower sales in the crit-i-cal months of No-vember and De-cem-ber. All three com-pa-nies en-tered the hol-iday sea-son on weak foot-ing, with fall-ing sales as they lost or-ders to Ama-zon as well as tra-di-tional ri-vals such as T.J. Maxx and Target.
Bed Bath and Beyond withdrew its fiscal 2019 outlook, saying it would reveal its strategic plans in early 2020. The retailer also reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.
And so it goes. >Analysts lots here for you!
Major Turbulence for Boeing
Boeing employees boasted about bullying regulators to approve the now-grounded 737 Max without requiring pilots to undergo simulator training while others raised safety concerns and complained about lax standards, according to a trove of internal documents the company released. In messages from April 2017, one Boeing employee told another: “This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.” Another message showed a Boeing employee hopeful they could “gang up” on regulators and steer them “in the direction we want.”
This as Dennis A. Muilenburg, who was ousted as Boeing’s chief executive last month as the company contended with the biggest crisis in its history, will depart with more than $60 million. What a way to fly.
March Against Hate
Tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews alike took to the streets of New York City marching across the Brooklyn Bridge in a dramatic show of unity after a string of bloody anti-Semitic attacks in the region. Chanting "No Hate, No Fear," a crowd estimated at 25,000 assembled in Lower Manhattan and then crossed into Brooklyn, braving a January chill and gathering under heavy police presence.
Tesla Powers to Record
Tesla shares soar to records, the culmination of a late-year rally that started in October when the Silicon Valley car maker surprised investors by showing a profit for its third quarter.
2020 Retirement Changes
Give until it hurts! A number of new provisions may make it easier to do so. For starters, when it comes to 401(k) plans, savers will be able to contribute more money. The SECURE Act aims to increase access to retirement plans – addressing one of the biggest barriers to saving. Small businesses will be given tax credits under certain circumstances for having plans in place.
Amazon's Bezos Still World's Richest
Tech Rules!
Jeff Bezos paid nearly $38 billion in his divorce settlement over the summer, but keeps his status as the richest person in the world. The Amazon CEO is ending the year with a staggering $115 billion fortune, roughly $10 billion less than he had at the beginning of 2019, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. Comparatively, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, the second richest person in the world, added $22.7 billion to his net worth, while Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw an astonishing $26 billion increase in his fortune.
David Stern, Former NBA Commissioner Dies
David Stern, the lawyer who became the head of the National Basketball Association and had been the longest-serving commissioner of any major U.S. sport, died on New Year’s Day. He was 77. Stern died three weeks after being hospitalized for a sudden brain hemorrhage. In a league of tall, sleek athletes capable of performing seemingly superhuman feats on the basketball court, the 5-foot-9 Stern was unquestionably the most dominant figure in the NBA.
During his 30-year tenure from 1984 to 2014, Stern took the league from a 23-team organization struggling to make a profit to a 30-team operation whose revenue increased by 30 times to $5 billion. He helped boost its attraction by expanding its presence outside the United States through marketing and television broadcasts in more than 200 countries and regions in 49 languages. RIP David Stern.
NFL Ratings Score
Rat-ings for National Foot-ball League games rose 5% in 2019, mak-ing it the most-watched sea-son since 2016, the league said. This is the second straight se-son of view-er-ship growth for the NFL, af-ter it lost a chunk of view-ers in 2017.
Florida or Bust
Florida topped the nation in net arrivals of U-Haul trucks in 2019, providing more evidence of the rapid migration that’s fueling economic gains there. The Sunshine State, previously No. 2 in the ranking, overtook Texas, the leader from 2016 through 2018. Florida’s arrivals rose 1% from a year earlier, while departures fell 1%.
??DAYBOOK??
THURSDAY, JAN. 16
8:30 am Weekly jobless claims
8:30 am Retail sales Dec.
8:30 am Retail sales ex-autos Dec.
8:30 am Philly Fed Jan.
8:30 am Import price index Dec.
10 am Business inventories Nov.
10 am NAHB home builders' index Jan.
FRIDAY, JAN. 17
8:30 am Housing starts Dec.
8:30 am Building permits Dec.
9 am Patrick Harker speaks
9:15 am Industrial production Dec.
9:15 am Capacity utilization Dec.
10 am Consumer sentiment index Jan.
10 am Job openings Nov.
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