Month: July 2023

How can financial disclosures support sustainable business?

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In the arena of corporate sustainability, there is a wide variety of language and jargon when discussing sustainability standards. How can a company reconcile these different languages as it embarks on its journey of financial reporting? 

In this GLF Live on 8 August at 14:00 UTC, find out how a robust set of standards for sustainability disclosures could help highlight opportunities for investors and how various financial reporting standards can work together to achieve sustainable food systems. 

This discussion will highlight the role of transparency, how to instigate change by redirecting financial flows and disclosing to find alternatives, and the goal of developing a unified language to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Agreement goals. 

This conversation will feature David Craig, co-chair of the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and Jingdong Hua, vice-chair of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), moderated by Nicoletta Centofanti, general manager of the Luxembourg Sustainable Finance Initiative (LSFI).

GLF Live with Nicoletta Centofanti, Jingdong Hua and David Craig

David Craig is co-chair of the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). He has 30 years of experience in financial market data and technology and sustainable markets. David is the founder and former CEO of Refinitiv, one of the largest data and technology platform providers to financial markets. He was previously founder and CEO of the Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) business and head of strategy at Thomson Reuters and Reuters plc. He spent eight years as a partner at McKinsey focusing on technology and financial services clients.

David is an executive fellow at the London Business School Strategy and Entrepreneurship faculty. He is co-chair of the India UK Financial Partnership for TheCityUK, member of the City of London Competitiveness Advisory Board, member of the MAS ITAP (Monetary Authority of Singapore International Advisory Panel), and on the advisory board of the

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Business Financial News

Bolivia Is the Latest South American Nation to Use China’s Yuan for Trade in Challenge to the Dollar

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LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivia is now using the yuan to pay for imports and exports, becoming the latest country in South America to regularly use the Chinese currency in a small but growing challenge to the hegemony of the U.S. dollar for international financial transactions in the region.

Between May and July of this year, Bolivia conducted financial operations amounting to 278 million Chinese yuan ($38.7 million), which accounts for 10% of its foreign trade during that period, Economy Minister Marcelo Montenegro said on Thursday.

“We’re already using the yuan. It’s a reality and a good start,” Montenegro said during a news conference. “Banana, zinc, and wood manufacturing exporters are conducting transactions in yuan, as well as importers of vehicles and capital goods.” These electronic transactions are carried out through the state-owned Banco Unión.

“The amount being used in yuan is still relatively small, but it will increase over time,” Montenegro said.

With these transactions, Bolivia joins other countries in South America, most notably Brazil and Argentina, which are using the yuan. The three countries are ruled by leftist or left-leaning governments.

Political Cartoons

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the use of the yuan is growing especially “in those countries that are looking to establish stronger ties with China, that view themselves as in some way politically aligned on this particular objective on decreasing their overall reliance on the dollar and on the U.S. in general,” said Margaret Myers, director of the Asia & Latin America Program at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue.

The use of the yuan comes at a time when China’s footprint in the region is increasing with rising trade and investment.

“There is a lot of anxiety in Washington about threats to the special role of the dollar in regions like Latin America,” Benjamin

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American Business News

TC Energy splitting into 2 companies by spinning off liquids business

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Transaction expected to be completed in second half of 2024

The Canadian Press

Amanda Stephenson

Published Jul 27, 2023  •  Last updated 1 day ago  •  3 minute read

TC Energy Corp. oil storage tanks in Hardisty, Alta.
TC Energy Corp. oil storage tanks in Hardisty, Alta. Photo by JASON FRANSON/BLOOMBERG files

CALGARY — TC Energy Corp. has announced plans to split into two separate companies by spinning off its crude oil pipelines business.

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Business Financial News

Here’s what inflation’s slowdown has meant for US businesses

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Washington, DC
CNN
 — 

American businesses are expected to fare better in the coming months, according to a survey of economists and analysts released Monday.

Inflation’s steady slowdown this year has boosted Americans’ confidence in the economy. It has also improved the odds of the Federal Reserve pulling off a so-called soft landing, or a scenario in which inflation returns to the central bank’s 2% target without pushing the economy off a cliff.

Americans haven’t felt this optimistic since September 2021, according to the University of Michigan’s latest Surveys of Consumers. US businesses have also grown more optimistic as hiring has become slightly easier and prices at the wholesale level have slowed.

A survey from the National Association for Business Economics released Monday showed that businesses have rejoiced in better economic conditions.

“Results of the July 2023 NABE Business Conditions Survey reflect an economy of rising sales and profits, as material costs decline and stabilizing wages prove less challenging,” said NABE president Julia Coronado in a release.

The latest survey showed that the percentage of respondents reporting rising sales continued to outpace the share reporting falling sales, with the index edging up to 33 from 30 over the past three months.

Meanwhile, a majority of respondents reported that wages at their firms were unchanged — the first time more economists reported no wage gains than rising wages since 2021.

And the net share of respondents reporting better profit margins rose to 0, which was “the first non-negative result after four consecutive surveys.”

The newfound optimism reflected in a number of sentiment surveys comes amid slowing inflation and a resilient job market.

The Consumer Price Index rose 3% in June, a much slower pace than the four-decade high of 9.1% in June 2022. Employers added a robust 209,000 jobs last month,

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American Business News

Investors in First Business Financial Services (NASDAQ:FBIZ) have seen stellar returns of 151% over the past three years

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The worst result, after buying shares in a company (assuming no leverage), would be if you lose all the money you put in. But when you pick a company that is really flourishing, you can make more than 100%. For example, the First Business Financial Services, Inc. (NASDAQ:FBIZ) share price has soared 131% in the last three years. How nice for those who held the stock! Also pleasing for shareholders was the 19% gain in the last three months. But this could be related to the strong market, which is up 10.0% in the last three months.

So let’s investigate and see if the longer term performance of the company has been in line with the underlying business’ progress.

Check out our latest analysis for First Business Financial Services

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. One imperfect but simple way to consider how the market perception of a company has shifted is to compare the change in the earnings per share (EPS) with the share price movement.

First Business Financial Services was able to grow its EPS at 25% per year over three years, sending the share price higher. In comparison, the 32% per year gain in the share price outpaces the EPS growth. This suggests that, as the business progressed over the last few years, it gained the confidence of market participants. That’s not necessarily surprising considering the three-year track record of earnings growth.

The company’s earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

earnings-per-share-growth

earnings-per-share-growth

It’s probably worth noting we’ve seen significant insider buying in the last quarter, which we consider a positive. That said, we think earnings and revenue growth trends are even more important

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Business Financial News

American Airlines to make ‘accelerated’ distribution changes

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The changes American Airlines this year began to make to its distribution strategy are having a measurable effect, according to the carrier. About 70 per cent to 75 per cent of the carrier’s revenue is now being booked through direct channels, American chief commercial officer Vasu Raja said during an earnings call on Thursday (20 July). And he anticipates that figure will grow.

“We are encouraged by this, and we actually are going to accelerate the changes,” Raja said.

“By the end of the year, 100 per cent of what we sell, customers will be able to service online through our app or our dot-com. We’ll roll out those features over time for new distribution technology. But as this happens, we’ll make increasingly less and less of our fare content available through traditional technology where customers are not able to get that quality experience they are looking for from us.”

American in April pulled as much as 40 per cent of its fares from EDIFACT channels, making them accessible only in New Distribution Capability channels.

Raja made those comments in the context of comparing booking trends among travellers who are members of its AAdvantage loyalty programme versus others, rather than comparing business with leisure customers. Non-members during the second quarter travelled 5 per cent less year over year, but revenue from that group grew by 5 per cent, he said. 

For loyalty members, transactions grew by 8 per cent and revenue grew 13 per cent.

“That is certainly above what we had expected,” Raja said, adding that not only do these loyalty member customers bring in additional revenue and come with a lower cost of sale but American also found that about “25 per cent to 30 per cent of calls through reservations are bookings a travel agency originated and

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American Business News

What to know on new artificial intelligence company

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AUSTIN, Texas − Elon Musk has formed a new company focused on artificial intelligence.

Musk, who also runs Tesla and SpaceX, announced the company’s launch on Twitter Wednesday afternoon, saying the company, xAI, was formed to “understand reality.”

The company is expected to work closely with Tesla and Twitter, which Musk also owns, according to xAI’s website.

According to the company’s website, the entity is considered separate from X Corp, but will work closely with Twitter, Tesla and other companies “to make progress towards (its) mission.”

Here’s what we know so far about the newly announced venture from one of the world’s richest people.

Komando:AI ChatGPT-powered smart toys are coming for the holidays. How to keep your kids safe.

What is xAI? What will it focus on?

The website provides little detail into the artificial intelligence company’s goals but does say the team will answer questions on a Twitter Spaces on Friday, July 14.

The website also said the team includes alumni from Tesla, OpenAI and Microsoft, and lists a 12-person team, noting that team members have worked on AI including AlphaCode, Inception, GPT-3.5, GPT4, and Minerva.

Elon Musk, CEO of Austin-based Tesla is launching a new company focused on artificial intelligence called xAI.

In a tweet, Greg Yang, one of the co-founders said the company would work to “develop the ‘theory of everything’ for large neural networks” in order to take AI to the next level. His tweet also said the company will get into the mathematics of deep learning, which is an aspect of AI. Yang said the AI will also enable everyone to better understand the mathematical universe.

Elon Musk on AI

The launch of xAI also comes as Musk makes mixed comments about the technology. The billionaire has said he believes AI will be key to Tesla’s future, but he has also said that he worries artificial intelligence could “eliminate” or

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Business Intelligence Homepage

Public pools are disappearing across America

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New York
CNN
 — 

Growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, Gerome Sutton looked forward all week for his chance to swim at Algonquin Park pool on the weekend.

“It was like Christmas in the summer time,” said Sutton, now 66 and a local minister. “It was the best time of the week.”

Louisville’s public parks were desegregated in 1955, a year before Sutton was born. This included the newly built Algonquin outdoor swimming pool on the West Side of Louisville.

It cost 35 cents to swim at Algonquin at the time, Sutton said. He and his seven siblings took turns going on alternating weekends because the family could not afford to send all eight children at the same time.

Adults take swimming lessons at Algonquin pool in Louisville during the summer of 2022. The pool is closed this summer.

“We would go swimming. That makes a big statement” against segregation, he said. “There was an organized effort on the part of government to keep children engaged with an activity.”

Public pools have played a critical role in American culture over the past century. But as climate change and extreme heat worsen, they are taking on an urgent public health role. Heat kills more Americans than any other weather-related disaster, according to data tracked by the National Weather Service.

Yet just as public pools become more important than ever, they’re disappearing from sight.

Pools have become harder to find for Americans who lack a pool in their backyard, can’t afford a country club, or don’t have a local YMCA. A legacy of segregation, the privatization of pools, and starved public recreation budgets have led to the decline of public places to swim in many cities.

“If the public pool isn’t available and open, you don’t swim,” Sutton said.

In the early 2000s, Louisville had 10 public pools for a population of around 550,000.

Today, the city has five public pools for

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American Business News

International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) shareholders notch a 10% CAGR over 3 years, yet earnings have been shrinking

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Investors can buy low cost index fund if they want to receive the average market return. But if you invest in individual stocks, some are likely to underperform. That’s what has happened with the International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) share price. It’s up 11% over three years, but that is below the market return. Zooming in, the stock is up a respectable 8.6% in the last year.

After a strong gain in the past week, it’s worth seeing if longer term returns have been driven by improving fundamentals.

Check out our latest analysis for International Business Machines

To quote Buffett, ‘Ships will sail around the world but the Flat Earth Society will flourish. There will continue to be wide discrepancies between price and value in the marketplace…’ One way to examine how market sentiment has changed over time is to look at the interaction between a company’s share price and its earnings per share (EPS).

Over the last three years, International Business Machines failed to grow earnings per share, which fell 35% (annualized).

Earnings per share have melted like a stack of ice cubes, in stark contrast to the share price. So we’ll need to take a look at some different metrics to try to understand why the share price remains solid.

Interestingly, the dividend has increased over time; so that may have given the share price a boost. It could be that the company is reaching maturity and dividend investors are buying for the yield.

The image below shows how earnings and revenue have tracked over time (if you click on the image you can see greater detail).

earnings-and-revenue-growth

earnings-and-revenue-growth

We like that insiders have been buying shares in the last twelve months. Even so, future earnings will be far more important to whether current shareholders make money.

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Business Financial News

US shale slowdown spreads to oil services industry

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Oilfield services groups are feeling the squeeze from a slowdown in activity in the US shale patch as companies scale back on oil and gas drilling.

The world’s biggest oilfield services providers, responsible for the industry’s grunt work from drilling wells to building roads, reported a hit to North American revenues this week amid dwindling demand.

“During the second quarter, we saw reduced frack activity that resulted in increased white space in our calendar,” said Chris Wright, chief executive of Liberty Energy, on a call with analysts.

Wright added that Denver-based Liberty, one of the country’s biggest providers of the hydraulic fracturing equipment used to blast open shale rock, could cut its number of fracking fleets in the second half of the year “if our customers’ scheduled work reductions become larger”.

The slide in business for oilfield services providers — seen as a bellwether for the health of the oil and gas industry — is the latest sign of a deceleration in activity in America’s energy heartlands that stretch from west Texas to North Dakota.

The tally of rigs and frack crews in the field has fallen consistently since late last year. Equipment has been offloaded at fire-sale prices and a recent survey carried out by the Dallas Federal Reserve reported the weakest sentiment since the depths of the coronavirus pandemic.

Each of the three big international oilfield services groups — SLB, Baker Hughes and Halliburton — this week reported a slowdown in their North American business during the second quarter.

Halliburton, which is the most exposed of the three to the US onshore market, saw North American revenues contract by 2 per cent

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American Business News