News

Terence M. Smith, CEO, Smith's Research & Gradings has agreed to join President Biden's National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NAIC).

Smith's Research & Gradings believes the Fed is likely to raise rates by 25 bps at its June meeting.

David Hitchcock participated in S&P Global Ratings' Webinar on State Ratings and quietly retired at the end of the day. It was a silent send-off for a great analyst. Your correspondent checked in with him the very next day.

Ginny Housum, Senior Vice President, municipal bond workout specialist at UMB Bank in Minneapolis accepted Smith's High Yield Lifetime Achievement Award at Smith's High Yield Municipal Bond Conference.

While we were sleeping late Thursday night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act (IIJA) exactly as the U.S. Senate did in August. Now, it is going to the President for signature.

Grant Whitaker, President and CEO of the Utah Housing Corporation (UHC) will retire in April, after more than 40 years.

Smith's is issuing an Event Risk for Solar Flares (+1) The Solar Cycle 25 reached its lowest level in 2020 and it has started climbing higher in 2021. Forecasts predict the Solar 25 Cycle will peak in 2025.

The National Emergency has been extended according to a letter from President Joe Biden to The Congress of the United States.

Puerto Rico's elections were a mess. On Sunday, August 9, Puerto Rico was forced to partially suspend voting for primaries marred by a lack of ballots, as officials called on the president of the Commonwealth's elections commissioner Juan Ernesto Davila to resign. The primaries for voting centers that had not received ballots by early Sunday afternoon were expected to be rescheduled, while voting would continue elsewhere, the commission said.

Summary: Since the global outbreak of coronavirus in early 2020, there has been a move to stockpile food, increase prices, and in some cases, impose export restrictions. In the U.S., as the numbers of those infected and dying rises and unemployment rapidly rockets upwards, consumer behavior has turned more cautious and food distribution centers are swamped by hungry families. This situation is not helped by the closure of restaurants and concerns over distribution systems and the health of drivers who transport food and other household items. There are also increasing questions over food cultivation and the labor needed to bring crops to harvest. Although it is too early to be sounding the alarm regarding a food security crisis, which could lead to social turmoil, the seeds for such a development are possibly being planted. The risk is the creation of a food crisis when there really isn’t one – yet. This issue is likely to become more significant if the pandemic continues through the summer, dimming hopes of economic revival and raising the specter of food shortages.

Summary: Since the global outbreak of coronavirus in early 2020, there has been a move to stockpile food, increase prices, and in some cases, impose export restrictions. In the U.S., as the numbers of those infected and dying rises and unemployment rapidly rockets upwards, consumer behavior has turned more cautious and food distribution centers are swamped by hungry families. This situation is not helped by the closure of restaurants and concerns over distribution systems and the health of drivers who transport food and other household items. There are also increasing questions over food cultivation and the labor needed to bring crops to harvest. Although it is too early to be sounding the alarm regarding a food security crisis, the seeds for such a development are possibly being planted, which could lead to social turmoil. The risk is the creation of a food crisis when there really isn’t one – yet. This issue is likely to become more significant if the pandemic continues through the summer, dimming hopes of economic revival and raising the specter of food shortages.

In voting conducted by institutional investors, The 2018 All-Star Deal of the Year was awarded to the New York Transportation Development Corporation for the Delta Airlines, Inc - LaGuardia Airport Terminals C&D Redevelopment Project.

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Tesla founder Elon Musk both agree when it comes to California's $77 billion high-speed rail project—the project is going to jump the tracks.

This joint public/private venture between NASA and SpaceX begins a new chapter in space exploration. How will this effect future commercial demands in space?

Summary: It is difficult to escape coronavirus. Between the major cable networks running scoreboards numbering the infected and dead and the barrage of stories on social media, the virus dominates the news flow. The only other major story beyond coronavirus is the oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, which is causing a considerable amount of discomfort in the U.S. and Canadian oil patches. The virus and the oil price war are a one-two punch to the global economy and are reshaping the world. As 2020 plays out, our approach to cross-border economic relations, travel, urban planning, healthcare and the structure of daily life is changing. The bottom line is that coronavirus is the black swan that most of us failed to see.