Electric cars are on fire at General Motors - the fire could spread to other companies. Lowe's gives US real estate market hope for growth. Buying Cboe turns out to be a lie. New tool for planning crypto investments. In American retail, sales are falling - but not everywhere.
Disclaimer: when we talk about that, that something has grown up, we mean a comparison with the same quarter a year ago. Since all issuers from the United States of America, then all indicators in dollars. Sources were used in the development of the material, hard-to-reach for users from Russia. Putting our hopes on, Do you understand, what to do.
Bolt hits from time to time 2 times in the same place
General Motors (NYSE: GM) recalls 73,000 of its own Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles due to battery defects. As it turns out, in recalled cars there are high risks of overheating and ignition of the battery.
The company is not the first to face similar challenges.. In 2020, she already recalled 69,000 Bolts more than the old model due to a similar difficulty.. And in June 2021 she again withdrew: Found, that the breakdown was still present in the machines. The company ended up spending $800 million to fix issues with a batch of old Bolts..
For GM, the harm here will be moderate.: the company will spend about a billion dollars to eliminate the shortcoming. This is a completely feasible amount for her., though big. 'Cause GM stock didn't take a big hit on these news reports..
Another question, that the frequency of these cases may indicate crude technology and, that the number of such cases may become more frequent not only for GM, and almost all other manufacturers. Despite all the noise, electric cars make up an extremely small percentage of all car sales in the world - 2,6% of the total number of cars sold. That is why such stories, like with Bolt, was a bit: just a small sample so far. But if we extrapolate to the future, then, what do we see now, then such cases can become much more frequent - like GM, as well as other major automakers. In this case, the transition of large automakers to the production of electric cars threatens to become much more costly..
Construction does not stop
Lowe's building materials store chain (NYSE: LOW) reported better-than-expected quarterly results — and even raised its forecast for this year. The results were better, than their competitors from Home Depot. The main reason for Lowe's success was the company's shift in the past quarter from retail consumers to professional builders..
Lowe's reporting news is an important indicator for the entire US real estate market. The cost of housing in America has already begun to scare away many buyers, therefore, experts are waiting for a decline in sales and activity in construction. But Lowe's results suggest, that builders of houses do not curtail operations, and increase them. Therefore, suppliers of building materials for professional builders can count on further sales growth due to developers., which increase the volume of supply, - after all, it was the lack of supply that led to such an increase in house prices. Understandably, that construction companies benefit from the current inflated prices, but, seems to be, they are willing to give up some margin and bring more homes to market for sale.
Exchange takeovers
Exchange operator CME Group discusses merger prospects with exchange operator Cboe. or does not discuss. It's hard to say now: earlier news about, that CME is going to buy Cboe for $16 billion, published by the Financial Times, what made Cboe stock soar. Truth, then both companies began to deny, that such a deal will take place at all. Most likely, negotiations were actively conducted and the parties did not agree on a price, so the Financial Times news was outdated by the time it was released.
At the same time, news of a possible major merger between exchanges suggests that, that there is a trend towards consolidation in this area. In this regard, we can cautiously expect news about other major deals.. On the other hand, if CME and Cboe did not agree on a price, then the possibility of buying, say, crypto-exchange Coinbase someone tends to zero. Considering Coinbase's market cap of $ 54.28 billion, shareholders should not be too hopeful, that someone will buy the company in the near future.
More crypto for cryptocurrency lovers
Chainalysis Company, doing blockchain analytics, launched the index, helping to track the level of distribution of cryptocurrencies in the world. According to the index, cryptocurrencies over the past year in different countries began to be used on 880% more.
Think, this tool can be useful to everyone, who invests in this area. And if you get too cold, then you can use the index when making decisions regarding the shares of the aforementioned Coinbase: obviously, that its peaks of trading activity coincide with periods of increased interest of the general public in cryptocurrencies and, respectively, a drop in trading activity coincides with a drop in interest.
I forbid you to buy
A caring American government regularly supplies the general public with large volumes of economic statistics, on which you can track certain trends in the American economy. Here is a recent report on the retail situation in the US, for example.
According to him, in July, sales fell by 1,1% compared to June – although July 2021 sales were higher than July 2020 sales by 15,8%. There is no special valor in the last fact: if any sector of the economy is compared with a period of particularly strict quarantine, then the progress will look very impressive. See, what is interesting and useful can be noted in the report.
Sales in catering establishments increased by 1,7% compared to a month ago. Obviously, that this is the result of measures to open the economy, as well as the recent improvement in the performance of the cinema chain Cinemark. This moment may be an occasion to take a closer look at the shares of restaurateurs and their suppliers..
Sales of cars and auto parts fell by 3,9% compared to last month. Out of context, this fact could be regarded as a reason for skepticism regarding the shares of car dealers.. But it is necessary to take into account the problem of the crisis in the production of cars due to the shortage of semiconductors.. There are few cars on the market, leading to a drop in sales, - because, that there is nothing to sell, not because, that consumers are unwilling to buy.
At the same time, you should be mentally prepared for, that the reporting of car dealers at the end of the current quarter may somewhat disappoint investors.
