1) China has had another year of record corporate bond defaults, which is by design. Ten years ago, bond defaults almost never happened, not because Chinese businesses were healthy, but rather the government stepped in to prevent default. Companies were often linked to the government and bonds which were largely bought by state owned lenders, making a financial system with little discipline. The government has become more comfortable with defaults and so is stepping out of economic control, to impost more incentive to make careful assessment of companies.
2) This year, more than fifty banks have announced plans to cut 77,780 jobs, the most lost since 91,448 jobs in 2015. The 2019 cuts will bring the total for the last six years to more than 425,000 lost jobs. The European banks are still weak from the ‘o-eight’ financial crisis, and are still struggling to regain their footing, forcing continual cost cutting measures. Job losses are anticipated to continue into 2022.
3) With germs growing more resistant to common antibiotics, many drug companies are hemorrhaging money and going out of business. The effect is reduced efforts to develop new antibiotics just when they are become most needed. Other well established drug companies are abandoning the antibiotic market segment refraining from doing any research on new antibiotic drugs. One marketing problem is antibiotics are prescribed for just days to weeks, so there isn’t the revenue stream as with drugs continually consumed year after year by a patient such as insulin. Presently, drug resistant infections kill 35,000 people each year.
4) Stock market closings for – 27 DEC 19:
Dow 28,645.26 up 23.87
Nasdaq 9,006.62 down 15.77
S&P 500 3,240.02 up 0.11
10 Year Yield: down at 1.87%
Oil: up at $61.72