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The World
“U.S. shoppers pounced on deep online discounts during Cyber Monday to set a new spending record.” The $12.4 billion in online purchases was up 9.6% from last year. Online spending “during the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday was up 7.8% year-over-year, totaling $38 billion.” (Axios)
“A record 200.4 million people shopped over the five-day period, according to the National Retail Federation. And more consumers than ever shopped online, coming in at 134.2 million.” But “lingering inflation and rising debt, among other financial headwinds, continue to keep retailers and industry analysts wary about the rest of the year and into 2024.” (Washington Post)
“No government funding bills are scheduled to hit the House floor this week, an ominous sign” with lawmakers facing “a mid-January deadline to fund the government or enter a partial government shutdown.” After this week, “the House is set to be in session for just 16 legislative days before the first of a two-part deadline to fund the government on Jan. 19 — with the rest expiring two weeks later, on Feb. 2.” (The Hill)
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned “that it would be ‘dangerous’ to curtail support” to Ukraine as NATO members “tried to pin down the United States on its commitments to Kyiv and as the conflict in Gaza saps Washington’s attention.” With a White House proposal to send Ukraine about $61.4 billion in additional emergency aid stalled in the House, the U.S. has “less than $5 billion available to contribute to the war.” (New York Times)
Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Finland “will close its final remaining border crossing with Russia, accusing the Kremlin of using migrants as part of ‘hybrid warfare’ aimed at destabilizing the Nordic country following its entry into NATO.” Finnish authorities say about 900 migrants have crossed from Russia this month “as part of a rising trend since August.” (DW)
In a “political earthquake that has provoked speculation about the future of one of the most closed and repressive countries in the world,” ruling party candidates in North Korea failed to win 100% of the vote in local elections over the weekend. According to state-run media, “a small proportion of voters rejected” the candidates of the Workers’ Party of Korea. (Times of London)
Javier Milei, Argentina’s libertarian president-elect, said he had a “very comfortable” meeting with advisers to US President Joe Biden in Washington on Tuesday, the first step of what is likely to be a crucial relationship for the cash-strapped South American country. Milei, a first-term congressman, ran an insurgent hard-right campaign promising to punish Argentina’s political elites and cut spending amid its worst economic crisis in two decades, winning praise from Donald Trump, the Republican former US president. But support from the Democratic Biden administration will be key in the coming weeks as Milei enters negotiations over Argentina’s troubled $43bn loan from the IMF, in which the US is the biggest stakeholder. (Financial Times)
India and China are key coffee markets for Nestle SA, with the food giant bullish on the outlook for consumption growth in the world’s most populous countries, according to the global head of strategy. “We have a really strong footprint in Asia and we are really bullish about those markets that have very low per capita consumption,” Philipp Navratil, head of Nestle’s coffee strategic business unit, said in an interview in Vietnam’s Dak Lak province. “China is really a big focus, and India is a big focus.” (Bloomberg)
As global rates turn, banks in India and Indonesia set to win: As Asia's banking sector navigates a peak in global interest rates and risks of slower growth, investors are wagering that banks in India and Indonesia have the strongest loan and profitability profiles to provide returns next year. (Reuters)
South Korea markets will offer the highest earnings growth next year, Goldman Sachs says. Goldman Sachs forecasts Kospi earnings growth to rebound to 54% in 2024 and to grow 20% further in 2025. South Korea’s short-selling ban could also be a potential catalyst in the next year. (CNBC)
Economy
U.S. gasoline prices “have dropped for 61 consecutive days after getting dangerously close to $4 a gallon in September. The average price for a gallon of regular gas stood at $3.25 a gallon on Tuesday, according to AAA. That’s down five cents from a week ago and 26 cents from a month ago.” (CNN)
U.S. consumer confidence rose in November after three straight monthly declines. The Conference Board consumer confidence index “increased to 102.0 this month from a downwardly revised 99.1 in October.” However, “the improvement in confidence was concentrated mostly among households aged 55 and up. Consumers in the 35-54 age group were less optimistic about their prospects.” (Reuters)
Though corporations feared that a rapid rise in interest rates “would confine consumer spending and corporate profits, sharply reducing hiring and cooling a red-hot economy,” things have not worked out “quite the way forecasters expected. Inflation has eased, but the biggest companies in the country have avoided the damage of higher interest rates. With earnings picking up again, companies continue to hire, giving the economy and the stock market a boost that few predicted when the Fed began raising interest rates nearly two years ago.” (New York Times)
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller “has sent his strongest signal to date that further monetary tightening” may not be needed given the “clear signs that the economy is slowing to a degree necessary to bring inflation fully under control.” (Financial Times)
Dollar hits 3-month low after Fed official signals rates may start to fall. (Financial Times)
Bill Ackman Bets Fed Will Cut Interest Rates as Soon as First Quarter. (Bloomberg)
Apple is pulling the plug on its credit-card partnership with Goldman Sachs, the final nail in the coffin of the Wall Street bank’s bid to expand into consumer lending. The tech giant recently sent a proposal to Goldman to exit from the contract in the next roughly 12-to-15 months, according to people briefed on the matter. The exit would cover their entire consumer partnership, including the credit card the companies launched in 2019 and the savings account rolled out this year. It couldn’t be learned whether Apple has already lined up a new issuer for the card. (Wall Street Journal)
Disney CEO Bob Iger “appeared to downplay his earlier comments suggesting he’d be willing to sell off Disney’s linear TV assets” during a Tuesday staff town hall, “adding that the company’s traditional networks’ ‘strategic value’ remains ‘pretty significant.’” Over the summer, Iger told CNBC that Disney’s “TV networks — which include ABC, FX and Freeform — “may not be core” to Disney’s business, resulting in a flurry of interest from potential buyers. But during the town hall, Iger said he was simply testing the waters with investors.” (Los Angeles Times)
Charlie Munger, the 'Oracle of Pasadena' who was Buffett's second-in-command: Charles Munger, who died on Tuesday, went from working for Warren Buffett's grandfather for 20 cents an hour during the Great Depression to spending more than four decades as Buffett's second-in-command and foil atop Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Munger's family had advised that he died peacefully on Tuesday morning at a California hospital, said Berkshire. The union of Munger with Buffett is among the most successful in the history of business; they transformed Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire into a multi-billion dollar conglomerate with dozens of business units. (Reuters)
Technology
“Vladimir Putin wants Russia to rival the West on AI development.” In a speech at the Artificial Intelligence Journey conference in Moscow, Putin “vowed to sign off on a new AI strategy, which would see his government pour money into supercomputers and educational initiatives. Moscow’s strategy would focus on generative AI and large language models.” (GZERO)
The windfall from Chinese investment in AI “will stretch into the trillions of dollars and become a strategic driver of economic growth,” according to McKinsey. The chairman of the consultancy’s China offices said Chinese companies “are eyeing AI as they enter new arenas with hopes of winning a competitive edge in an uncertain business environment.” (South China Morning Post)
The technology behind ChatGPT is evolving insanely fast. (Axios)
Law enforcement agencies from seven countries have arrested “the core members of a ransomware group linked to attacks against organizations in 71 countries.” The Ukraine-based criminals “paralyzed major corporations' operations in attacks using ransomware such as LockerGoga, MegaCortex, HIVE, and Dharma.” (Bleeping Computer)
“Google Drive users are reporting files mysteriously disappearing from the service,” with at least one saying everything saved since May has vanished. “Others chimed in with similar experiences, and one claimed that six months of business data had gone AWOL.” (The Register)
Smart Links
JPMorgan vs Citi: the Wall Street fight to bank New York’s top lawyers. (Financial Times)
Musk’s Cybertruck Is Already a Production Nightmare for Tesla. (Bloomberg)
China nips at Japan’s heels in patents for bendable solar panels. (Nikkei Asia)
Google’s new geothermal energy project is up and running. (The Verge)