This is an amalgamation of the “best bits” of the daily weekday newsletter/blog woven together to form a concise and coherent view on the things that matter in the commercial and economic news of the week.
THE DAY IN BRACKETS REFERS TO THE EDITION WHERE THE STORY APPEARED IN WATSON’S DAILY. Clicking on the day will take you to the appropriate edition of Watson’s Daily.
THE US ELECTION JUST DRAGGED ON AND ON WHILE SUNAK PROVIDED RELIEF...
- We were treated to the sheer mind-boggling tediousness that is the US presidential election this week and it looks like Biden is going to win (Friday), although Trump will be kicking and screaming all the way to Trump Towers as he threatens to go through the courts, disputing the validity of the result in some swing states. In the meantime, a Biden win without a majority in the upper house is likely to result in a toothless leader unable to push through any drastic policies. Big Tech share prices were the first to rise on hopes they would be largely left alone as a result, but the rise became broader based (Friday) with banks and industrials joining them
- Fears are increasing about the prospect of a double-dip recession (Thursday) but Sunak and the Bank of England rode to the “rescue” (Friday) with a furlough extension and big stimulus respectively. Critics will say that this is just delaying the inevitable mass unemployment a sudden end to furlough would bring, but there is clearly a human (or PR, if you are being cynical!) aspect at work here as well. The news came on the day all of the UK went on lockdown for a month
ONLINE AND OFFLINE RETAILERS SAW SOME INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS...
- In ONLINE retail – Chinese e-tailer behemoth Alibaba said it was looking to invest $300m in British luxury apparel retailer Farfetch (Tuesday). This would be good for Alibaba as it would broaden its product range and good for loss-making Farfetch given that it is looking for better access to a potentially lucrative Chinese market. Ocado upped its full year forecasts by 50% (Tuesday) and bought two robot machinery companies to enhance its “robotic manipulation capabilities”. Mind you, there is a cloud hanging over this company in the form of a legal action being taken by AutoStore (Friday), so this is a story that we need to continue to follow!
- In OFFLINE retail – British retailers opened for as long as they could (Wednesday) before Lockdown 2.0 started and footfall increased 19% versus the previous week (Thursday) as shoppers had a final flourish. Footfall is expected to fall by 62% year-on-year (Monday) through to Boxing Day because of the lockdown. Ikea says it’s learned from original lockdown and is ready for this one (Wednesday) but Mike Ashley pulled out of the bidding to buy Debenhams (Thursday) although I still wouldn’t put it past him to pick up some bargains when it (potentially) gets liquidated
...FIN/TECH HAD SOME UNEXPECTED GLITCHES...
- Ant Group’s IPO got canned (Wednesday) and won’t go ahead until Ant Group complies with new capital requirements that came into force for financial companies from November 1st. It will have to hand back money to investors (Thursday). This looks like punishment for Jack Ma getting too mouthy and it could be a while before the IPO comes back (Friday)
- There is potentially a massive fly in the ointment for the proposed Nvidia purchase of Arm Holdings (Wednesday) as a disgruntled ex-head of Arm Holdings in China apparently controls 17% of the shares via an investment fund 😱! This sounds dodgy as!
AND THE GIG ECONOMY GOT A BOOST/KICK IN THE TEETH (DEPENDING ON WHICH WAY YOU LOOK AT IT)...
- Uber and Lyft celebrated a huge victory (Thursday) as their workers are now classified as contractors (cheap, don’t have to pay benefits) and not employees (more expensive, have to shell out for things like sick pay etc.). They campaigned for a vote – that they won this week – which gets around the Californian court judgement that classified workers as employees. This isn’t going to be the end of the battle and could set a precedent for other states (Friday)…
AND IN UPDATES FOR WATSON'S YEARLY...
- Watson’s Yearly updates: watch this space!
BANTER
My favourite “alternative” stories were the cautionary Gross images show why you should always close the toilet lid when you flush (The Mirror, Luke Matthews) and the hilariously named confection in Marks & Spencer accused of “ruining Christmas” with suggestive festive doughnut (The Mirror, Rosaleen Fenton). I actually went to M&S this morning and bought a pair of these yumnuts, but I can’t tell you what they tasted like because my two boys scoffed the lot! They are excellent, apparently…