It seems as the week comes to a close that change is in the air from India\u2019s new Central Bank Governor to consumer preferences shifting online and Japan consider more interest rate cuts. Read more about these changes and additional news in this edition of Steady Investor\u2019s Week\u2026<\/p>\n
More E-Commerce Stats \u2013 <\/strong>I also wrote recently about the retail revolution that\u2019s underway, which is seeing the rapid closing of big box stores as consumers shift their preferences online. A research report came out this week that underscores the transition. Research firm eMarketer forecasts e-commerce sales globally to increase 24% Y\/Y to $1.95T this year, which means online shopping could account for 8.7% of all of retail spending. Here in North America, e-Commerce sales are expected to jump 15.6% to $423.34B. eMarketer also expects retail e-Commerce sales to balloon to $4.058T in 2020, to represent around 15% of all retail spending. Expect these figures to continue climbing.<\/p>\n Japan\u2019s Wormhole, Part II \u2013 <\/strong>in a previous article, I wrote about Japan\u2019s downward spiral into the world of ineffective monetary policy, a zero interest rate trap, and how the fast-approaching demographic shift are all things that make their economic future look quite bleak. I just don\u2019t see a secular case for growth in the country, and it is very difficult to imagine how it can emerge from deflationary pressures and flat to negative growth over the long term. Well, the desperate moves by Japan\u2019s central bank keep piling on, as the central bank\u2019s Governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, stated this week that he is ready and willing to cut interest rates into even more negative territory. Further negative rates cuts just mean falling deeper into the trap of ineffective policy, and it also could cause banks to hoard cash or invest abroad. Of course, this could boost demand for U.S. assets, which is good for domestic stock strategies.<\/p>\n India has a New Central Bank Governor in Town<\/strong> \u2013 while on the subject of central banking, we turn to India, where there has recently been a closely watched changing of the guard. India\u2019s departing governor, Raghuram Rajan, was widely regarded as one of the best India has seen. He implemented and executed a number of policies from a redesigned monetary framework to bringing inflation down, raising Foreign Currency Non-Resident (B) deposits to bolster foreign exchange reserves, introducing transparent licensing for new universal and niche banks, and developing a large loan database to better map and resolve the extent of system-wide distress. In other words, he did a lot of reform work in the right direction. He\u2019ll be missed, but now the market has turned all eyes to India\u2019s newly appointed central bank chief, Urjit Patel. Many see this hire as a sign of New Delhi’s commitment to Rajan\u2019s inflation-fighting policies, and the business community and market generally view it as hopeful. Mr. Patel is currently a deputy governor in charge of monetary policy at the Reserve Bank of India, and he has been appointed for three years at his new post.<\/p>\n Uber Losses \u2013 <\/strong>the ride-hailing behemoth that is seemingly taking over the world is actually just bleeding cash. According to a conference with the head of finance, Gautam Gupta, in Q1 2016 Uber lost about $520 million before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and in the second quarter those losses mounted even further\u2014significantly exceeding $750 million, including a roughly $100 million shortfall in the U.S. Taken together, it would mean that Uber’s losses in the first half of 2016 totaled at least $1.27 billion. Uber is still a private company, so there\u2019s really no investment implication here just yet. But onlookers shouldn\u2019t think about the company in a negative light or as just another dot.com that\u2019s bleeding cash and going nowhere. Most of the losses came from China operations (which Uber has now exited) and because of subsidies for Uber’s drivers as they essentially pay to accumulate market share. Case in point, if you just look at U.S. operations Uber was profitable in Q1, and bookings grew tremendously from the first quarter of this year to the second, from above $3.8 billion to more than $5 billion. Net revenue, under\u00a0generally accepted accounting principles, grew about 18 percent, from about $960 million in the first quarter to about $1.1 billion in the second.<\/p>\n With so many changes affecting the market, we are reminded of the turbulent state of the Stock Market. The question on many investors\u2019 minds is, which sectors are likely to perform best in the current market conditions. Before making any moves, you may want to consult Zacks just-released\u00a0Stock Market Outlook\u00a0report. Filled with important facts and eye-opening forecasts, this report gives a sector by sector overview. Click on the link below to download the report now\u2026<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It seems as the week comes to a close that change is in the air from India\u2019s new Central Bank […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-private-client-group","category-steady-investors-week"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11221,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446\/revisions\/11221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zacksim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}