Wednesday morning news drop
How are the Big Sanctions hurting Russia so far? Let’s take a look at the two most important areas that Russia will feel the pain: Consumer lifestyles and defense manufacturing. (Noahpinion)
McDonald's, Starbucks, Coke, Pepsi join companies suspending business in Russia There are growing calls to boycott companies not taking a stand against Russia (CBC)
From Apple to Visa, the business world is imposing its own sanctions on Russia: Most private companies aren’t legally bound to exit Russia, but the PR is terrible if they stay. (Los Angeles Times)
Investors Started Dialing Down Expectations Long Before Ukraine The Russian invasion intensifies fears of slowing growth and rising inflation. (Businessweek)
War in the time of crypto In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which side is crypto helping? Both. (Vox)
Why the Chinese Internet Is Cheering Russia’s Invasion As the world overwhelmingly condemns the assault on Ukraine, online opinion in China is mostly pro-Russia, pro-war and pro-Putin. (New York Times)
As Russia’s isolation grows, China hints at limits of friendship Chinese state-owned financial institutions have been quietly distancing themselves from Russia’s beleaguered economy. (Al Jazeera)
TikTok is Russia’s newest weapon in arsenal for anti-Ukraine propaganda Across the internet, there’s been a rapid uptick in suspicious accounts spreading anti-Ukrainian content, according to a report from Cyabra, an Israeli tech company that works to detect disinformation. (USA Today)
There’s Blood in the Streets Tech stocks are getting vaporized. Amazon fell 5.6% today, wiping out all the gains going back to July 2020. Netflix and Facebook are trading at the same level they were at in 2018. The three strongest names in the group, Apple, Google, and Microsoft, are finally losing their bids. All are in correction territory. (Irrelevant Investor)
The Coder Supply Chain Runs Through Ukraine Big tech (Apple and Google), big banks (Citi and JPMorgan) and carmakers (Daimler and BMW) all rely on Ukrainian code.(Bloomberg)
Overcharge Car Buyers Now, and the Industry Will Pay Later Automakers finally have pricing power. As Rivian discovered, that doesn’t mean they should use it. (Bloomberg)
Affordability cracks long term trends The year to date single family average price is $1.4M, which pushes affordability measures well above the long term trend for detached properties. As you know, we would expect single family homes to get less and less affordable over time in a growing and densifying city, no matter what happens to the market or interest rates in the short or medium term. We’re not exactly sure at what rate detached homes should be getting less affordable, but if we try to eyeball the trend from the last three cycles we seem to have moved above it. (House Hunt Victoria)
