Recession 2019/2020 Mega-thread (putteth all thy strange eruption in h're)

[rcjordan]

Tesco announces 4,500 job cuts as it overhauls Metro stores
https://news.sky.com/story/tesco-to-cut-4-500-jobs-from-metro-stores-chain-11778072

[Rupert]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49247514
More than 1,000 jobs could be at risk after fashion firm Boohoo bought the online business of UK brands Karen Millen and Coast for £18.2m.

Boohoo, an online-only retailer, said acquiring the website operations of the two brands "would represent highly complementary additions".

The firms' 32 UK High Street stores and 177 concessions, employing 1,100 people, now appear set to close.

Administrators Deloitte said the stores would trade for a "short time".

It is understood they will continue to trade for months, as opposed to a matter of days.

[rcjordan]

Walgreens to close 200 US stores

^{That's on top of 200 UK closures.}

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/06/walgreens-to-close-200-stores-in-us.html

[Rupert]

They bought Boots in the UK.  It used to be a Great local company (National but based in Nottingham)

I think they borrowed heavily to buy, and it then never made a profit, as the interest rates the owners charged were so high.

Clever, but it stripped the company. The Rich get Richer, and the poor.....

[Brad]

I think the dollar stores are having an effect on Walgreens along with other erosion like online buying and health insurers encouraging mail order prescriptions.

[Mackin USA]

Sears and Kmart store closings list: 21 Sears and 5 Kmart locations to close in October

https://beta.finance.yahoo.com/news/sears-kmart-store-closings-list-030519645.html

[littleman]

I know I said this before, but Sears had it all to capitalize on the web and threw it all away; oh well it is a very old story repeated again and again.

The last Sears catalog was 1993.

The first year of Amazon was 1994.

[Brad]

>Sears

They are such a pale shadow of what they once were that it is almost a kindness to have them shut down.

[Mackin USA]

BofA raises chance of a recession to 1-in-3 in the next 12 months

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/12/bank-of-america-raises-chance-of-a-recession-to-1-in-3-in-the-next-12-months.html

[littleman]

Value stocks have already priced in a recession: the SCHV (Schwab Large Cap Value ETF) sports a dividend yield of 2.96%, nearly double the 10-year Treasury yield of 1.64%. Meanwhile, the QQQ (Invesco QQQ Trust), the tech-heavy talisman of growth investors, pays only 0.78%. It's normal for growth stocks to pay a lower dividend than value stocks, but the size of the current gap is historically huge. The disparity can no longer be ignored.

A stock like Amazon (AMZN), trading at 73 times trailing earnings, can lose half its value in a Nasdaq minute as soon as a recession becomes visible. The sky-high multiple depends on continued high rates of growth, and even companies like AMZN lose momentum in a recession. Most readers of this article are too young to remember, but AMZN lost more than 90% of its value in the recession of 2001. It barely shows up in the chart today, but AMZN declined from a late-nineties high of over $100 to less than $6 by September, 2001.

The Coming Recession Will Crush Growth Stocks

[ergophobe]

All the news this morning on the radio was of recession
- German economy contracted .1%
- coastal housing markets dropping (I believe 4% price decline in Los Angeles)
- record unemployment in Chinese cities (is Trump winning the trade war or other structural issues?)
- two and ten year T bonds inverted for first time since 2007
- US homeowners carrying highest level of mortgage debt since 2007 (but defaults still low)
- oil prices down on fears of recession and Saudis who had been planning to boost production are looking at that again.

[rcjordan]

>this morning

All warning signals are flashing red.

[littleman]

Yeah, lots of bad news today. 

[Mackin USA]

Compare us to Europe or Japan:

Economy growing
Low Unemployment
Rising wages
AND
When folks put money in the USA, we actually pay interest :-)

[Drastic]

Welp, since I just made my largest financial commitment to date last week, we should be entering a full blown recession in 3....2....1....