Pandemic Financial News

The furniture retailer Malouf sells beds and bedding in a fraction of the colors it did a few years ago. Newell Brands, the Sharpie maker, has retired 50 types of Yankee Candle. Coca-Cola offers half as many drinks.

COVID-19, while the number of active cases of the infection have increased to 4,394, the health ministry said on Monday. Three new fatalities due to Covid-- two from Kerala and one from Tamil Nadu — have been reported in a span of 24 hours, according to the ministry's data updated at 8 am.

China's first domestically built cruise ship set sail on its maiden voyage from Shanghai on Monday, a sign of the nation's growing prowess in sophisticated construction as it seeks self-sufficiency in key technologies. The Adora Magic City left port on its first commercial cruise late afternoon, en route to South Korea and Japan.

Lower interest rates will likely drive the growth in affordable housing finance in 2024, say bankers. Last week, State Bank of India Chairperson, Dinesh Khara said that lending rates may fall from middle of next year.

To gain a glimpse of the kind of strains many countries will face in 2024, it can help to focus on the challenges facing a single country. Consider Egypt’s recent experience. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the sharp global increase in grain and fertilizer prices disrupted the Egyptian economy, which was already worn down by the covid-19 pandemic, water shortages, and debt.

The Great Escape, which tells the story of how human life improved over the past 250 years, particularly in terms of longevity and material living standards. But the past decadeHI has been unkind to my overwhelmingly positive account. My observation that “life is better now than at any time in history" may have been true in 2013, but it probably is not today, even for the typical person.

Shimla had recorded more than 80 per cent occupancy on New Year. The hotel and allied industries were pinning hopes on 'white New Year' but chances of snowfall appear very bleak.

Maharashtra on Sunday recorded 131 fresh COVID-19 cases after testing 12,405 samples at a positivity rate of 1.05 per cent, the state health department said. No fatalities are reported. A day earlier, the state had logged 172 COVID-19 infections.

In the last days of Credit Suisse, plenty of decisions were taken where perhaps the best you can say of them is that they might have looked like the only available option at the time.  The brand was melting down, and the best bankers were leaving every day.  In order to try to hold on to some of the rainmakers in strategically important franchises, CS decided that it was going to pay what were called “upfront cash awards”.

A few years ago I moved to Dubai. After spending my career in London, where I worked for 15 years, I was ready for a change. The pandemic in particular made me want to seek an opportunity somewhere else – living with my partner in a cramped London apartment wasn’t great for my mental and physical health and I was keen to get out of London.

FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) companies have a lot going for them: rising disposable incomes, rapid pace of urbanisation, growing aspirations and lower penetration of branded products. However, despite a vast growth opportunity, the FMCG companies struggled with various challenges in 2023 and hope to have a better 2024. Weaker-than-expected festive demand, rainfall deficit that hampered rural growth, unseasonal rains that dampened sale of beverages and higher commodity prices constituted a daunting landscape for India's FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) companies in 2023. When inflation was at a record high, the FMCG industry had a high price-led growth in the last five-six quarters, though the volume was under stress. However, the trend has started reversing with the cooling of commodity prices. While volume growth for the FMCG industry in urban India has been on a positive trajectory since April-June last year, rural markets have grown marginally this calendar year, according to market researcher NielsenIQ. In the September quarter, urban markets grew 10.2% year-on-year while rural grew 6.4%, it said. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, rural markets were driving overall growth, growing twice as fast as urban markets. But the demand has slowed down in the current quarter. Overall sales of apparel and electronic products have been languishing for over a year now, while those of mass-segment electronic products have been low since the pandemic outbreak. According to researcher GfK, there was a slight pick-up in mass segment during Diwali. Below are some of the challenges faced by the FMCG companies that attracted attention in 2023:

Mumbai Trans Harbour Sea Link: All you need to know The engineering marvel will take off at Sewri in south Mumbai, crossing over Thane Creek and terminating at Chirle in the distant outskirts of Navi Mumbai. It has been in the making since 2018. Originally expected to be completed in 4.5 years, the infrastructure project was delayed by eight months due to Covid-19 pandemic.

India had recorded 865 new days on May 19. The number of daily cases had dropped to double-digits till December 5, but cases have again gone up after emergence of a new variant and cold weather conditions.

WWE legend who faced off against iconic wrestlers like Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, passed away at the age of 76. Known by his ring name Killer Khan, he succumbed to a ruptured artery after being rushed to the hospital around 10pm on Saturday, as per reports in Japan.

Jamie Dornan shared a disturbing encounter with a stalker, revealing that a fan of Fifty Shades of Grey appeared at his doorstep before the pandemic. The Irish actor described the incident as «scary,» emphasizing the unsettling nature of the situation, especially with his children present at home.

Lorraine ‘Lo’ StomskiSVP, Walmart Associate Learning & Leadership Furner met Stomski at company events after she joined Walmart in 2016 from a human-resources consulting firm. She suggested an “interesting, smart blend of using science and performance data," to make personnel decisions, he said. When Furner became CEO of Sam’s Club, he frequently turned to Stomski for data-driven advice on filling out what he thinks of as his “team roster." At a company with 2.2 million employees, “you can miss a lot," said Furner.

How premiumisation gathered pace Premiumisation is a trend that continues from the pandemic times when locked-in affluent people splurged on large TVs and washing machines and expensive food and liquor. But in 2023, the crack in India's consumer demand seemed to widen into a split, as companies struggled to sell low-priced goods while luxury, high-priced items flew off the shelves.

Mumbai, within the BMC jurisdiction, witnessed a notable surge in real estate activity with a total of 127,139 property registrations recorded from January to December in 2023. According to an official release by Knight Frank India, this marked the successful year for property sales (both primary and secondary) in the region since 2013, surpassing the previous year's peak by 4%.

Despite hardening property prices and home loan interest rate hikes in early 2023, it has been a superlative year for Indian residential real estate. Latest ANAROCK Research data indicates that housing sales in the top 7 cities have created a new peak in 2023, breaching the previous high of 2022.

The EMI (Equated Monthly Instalment) to income ratio for households has improved in 2023 after the brief decline in affordability in 2022, according to Knight Frank India’s proprietary Affordability Index.

What to do about smoking in the casinos, and how to keep gamblers coming to the resort are among the challenges that Atlantic City faces in the new year