1) A crew of three astronauts went into space aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster. Not since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 has America launched humans into orbit from American, to docked with the International Space Station. The Crew Dragon carried an international assembly of astronauts, three Americans and one Japanese, who are expected to spend the next six months in the station. The launch is another milestone in the commercialization of space. Previously, NASA was purchasing flights on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft but with SpaceX, NASA will save about $25 million per seat.
2) There are growing fears that tourism may not fully recover in New York city until 2025, another result of the coronavirus pandemic. New York city may only get one-third as many visitors as it did last year, a city that is one of the world’s most popular destinations. Forecasters predict that tourism will not fully rebound for at least four years, where in recent years tourism has been a vital part of the city’s economy, that supports hundreds of thousands of workers from hotels to restaurants to Broadway. New York had a record 66.6 million visitors in 2019 and drew $46 billion dollars in annual spending. The collapse of tourism has been a key reason that New York’s economy has been hit harder than most other major American cities. The city’s unemployment rate is 14.1 percent, more than double the national rate.
3) Experts predict that Boeing’s 737 MAX debacle could be the most expensive corporate blunder ever. The 20-month grounding of the 737 MAX could end very soon, but Boeing’s mounting costs have soared to tens of billions of dollars, which may rank among the most expensive corporate mistakes in history. Financially, Boeing continues to pay a high cost to ensure the safety of future 737 MAX passengers, with about $20 billion dollars in direct costs from the grounding, then $8.6 billion dollars in compensation to customers, $5 billion for costs of production, and $6.3 billion for increased costs of the 737 MAX program. Also, Boeing is spending $600 million for jet storage, pilot training and software updates that are not included in the company’s overall cost estimate. Finally, the company has established a $100 million dollar victim compensation fund, which also is not included in Boeing’s $20 billion dollars in estimated costs. Not included is the cost of legal liability which may add another $500 million. Boeing has had to borrow billions of dollars at a roughly 5% interest rate adding more money to be paid out over the 737 MAX. There is also the cost of opportunity lost from the lost of sales with 448 canceled orders for the MAX this year, compared with only nine for its other models. In addition Boeing has dropped another 782 orders from its backlog of orders believed to be no longer certain enough to rely on. In at least some cases those uncertain plane orders are jets airline customers have said they no longer want.
4) Stock market closings for – 18 NOV 20:
Dow 29,438.42 down by 344.93
Nasdaq 11,801.60 down by 97.74
S&P 500 3,567.79 down by 41.74
10 Year Yield: up at 0.88%
Oil: up at $41.62