The Federal Reserve's rate hiking campaign — it jacked up rates again Wednesday in its bid to bring inflation down — won't stop idiosyncratic price spikes that constantly occur in an economy.
Driving the news: Drought-related cutbacks in the projected supply of U.S. agricultural products prompted investors to place bets that prices for staples such as wheat, corn, eggs and butter will be higher in the future.
The island nation of Barbados is taking advantage of the market downturn.
Why it matters: As Barbados's debt price started to decline in the face of higher global interest rates, that gave the country the opportunity to buy it back at a discount, and to use the savings — some $50 million, over the next 15 years — to protect its precious oceans.
Very few companies would voluntarily try to go public in the current stock market. Yet two multi-billion-dollar household names, both of them profitable, are planning blockbuster IPOs right now.
Why it matters: The IPO market has flipped from favoring sellers to favoring buyers. In the case of Porsche and Instacart, that could be exactly what the companies' major shareholders are looking for.
Apple and Goldman Sachs have both made multi-billion-dollar bets on consumer finance — in one case, together. So far, the larger, less regulated tech company seems to be having more success than the systemically important bank.
Why it matters: Apple Pay was launched in 2014; Marcus, the consumer-facing bank from Goldman Sachs, in 2016. The companies' joint credit card, the Apple Card, came in 2019. But only now are we beginning to get a feel for how the two companies' strategies are faring.
