August 16 2024

1 Walmart Boosts Sales Forecast as U.S. Retail Sales Surge, Consumer Health Remains Strong
2 Surging Power Demand Slows U.S. Coal Plant Shutdowns
3 Mortgage Refinancing Spikes 35% as Rates Hit Yearly Lows
4 Sharp Shift Among Americans Views of Alcohol: Moderate Drinking Increasingly Viewed as Unhealthy
5 Ukraine Update: Ukraine Gains Ground in Kursk, But Loses Ground on Eastern Front
8/16/2009 Usain Bolt sets 100‑meter dash world record

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1 Walmart Boosts Sales Forecast as U.S. Retail Sales Surge, Consumer Health Remains Strong

U.S. consumers are shrugging off recession fears, flocking to Walmart stores for low-cost groceries and even splurging on electronics and new cars in July. The country’s largest retailer on Thursday posted strong quarterly sales and its executives said they don’t see signs of fraying demand. “We have not seen any incremental fraying of consumer health,” said John David Rainey, Walmart chief financial officer. Walmart executives said shoppers are gravitating to deals as well as the convenience of online order pickup and delivery, which led to customer gains, especially among higher-income shoppers. In a sign of confidence, they raised their sales and profit targets for the remainder of the fiscal year.
WSJ

Retail sales in the US soared 1% month-over-month in July 2024, following a downwardly revised 0.2% drop in June and way better than forecasts of a 0.3% gain. It is the biggest increase since January 2023,
Trading Economics

Article Source: WSJ, Trading Economics

2 Surging Power Demand Slows U.S. Coal Plant Shutdowns

Coal is the electricity sector’s largest and dirtiest source of emissions. As of 2023, the U.S. was expected to take offline 133,000 megawatts of coal power by 2035, or about 70% of its remaining coal capacity. By 2024, that projection had fallen to 105,000 megawatts, a decline of about 21%. After 15 years of relatively flat power demand, projections of electricity use are surging. Companies are extending aging fossil-fuel plants to accommodate the expected hike in demand, which is undermining U.S. goals to cut carbon emissions. Most power companies raised their demand forecast in 2023, and some have indicated higher revisions are expected. Projected annual growth almost doubled from 2022 to 2023. Artificial-intelligence data centers, manufacturing, and broader electrification are the primary drivers behind this projected increase, with data centers accounting for 30% of the expected growth, according to a Goldman Sachs report in April.

Article Source: WSJ

3 Mortgage Refinancing Spikes 35% as Rates Hit Yearly Lows

It appears to have taken a few weeks for current homeowners to realize mortgage rates had dropped dramatically. And when they did, they acted. Applications to refinance a home loan surged 35% last week, compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. They were up a whopping 118% when compared with the same week one year ago.

While [mortgage] rates dropped just 1 basis point last week, they were down 33 basis points in the past four weeks. They were also 62 basis points lower than the same week a year ago.

Article Source: CNBC

4 Sharp Shift Among Americans Views of Alcohol: Moderate Drinking Increasingly Viewed as Unhealthy

Article Source: Gallup

5 Ukraine Update: Ukraine Gains Ground in Kursk, But Loses Ground on Eastern Front

As Ukrainian troops poured into Russia’s Kursk region last week, five Russian assault troops on motorbikes were zipping toward Ukraine’s front line hundreds of miles to the east. Two of the bikers were gunned down. Another turned back and fled. But the last two escaped into the trees, looking for a place to hunker down and await reinforcements. This is one of the tactics Russia is using to take advantage of its vastly larger number of troops in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Russia’s primary target and the site of intensified assaults this week despite Ukraine’s incursion into Russia. Ukraine’s threadbare troops are struggling to hold them back. Ukraine’s Kursk operation has embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin and given Kyiv the tactical initiative in one area for the first time in nearly a year. But it transferred troops and weapons from its already-creaking front lines to pull it off, a gamble that risks making a bad situation worse. “We don’t have enough people to do our job properly,” said the commander of the 21st Battalion of the Separate Presidential Brigade, which faced the Russian assault last week at the edge of the contested town of Krasnohorivka. Russian forces have gained territory at a faster rate this summer than at any point since the first weeks of the war and are now pushing toward the logistical hub of Pokrovsk.

Sending troops to Kursk, then, means taking them away from the Donetsk region. Troops in the east said they loved seeing the videos of Ukraine hitting Russian columns, but they weren’t yet convinced that sending Ukrainian troops into Russia would pay off. “We could really use 1,000 men here,” Kucher said.
WSJ

For those arriving on the lunar, pockmarked terrain of Ukraine’s eastern front lines, life is often short. “The experienced soldiers fear getting to know the newcomers,” says “Artem”, a soldier once attached to the 59th brigade south of Pokrovsk, in the province of Donetsk. “Your fate is decided in the first few hours. Five, ten minutes, that’s really all it takes.”

Russia’s summer offensive, unlike Ukraine’s counter-offensive last year, was never announced. Its most intense phase has been going on in the Donbas region and Kharkiv province for three months now. Beset by a shortage of weapons and men, Ukraine has steadily lost ground since falling back from Avdiivka in February: a village here, a bungled rotation there. It is now retreating by up to 1km a day. Fighting has intensified all along the front line. 

Russia’s advance has been piecemeal and has come at a high price. At this rate it will be years before it completes its seizure of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, its long-stated aim, if it can do it at all. Its losses, dead and wounded, run at several hundred a day, five to ten times Ukraine’s. Its armoured vehicles are being methodically destroyed by drones. It has thrown everything it has at the Donbas, leaving vulnerabilities elsewhere—a fact that seemed to trigger a raid by Ukraine at least 10km into Russia’s Kursk region on August 6th that it is struggling to repel. But Russia’s tactics are working. Relentless waves of soldiers, thrown at Ukrainian guns, get through by sheer weight of numbers. Glide bombs and a 4:1 superiority in artillery shells demolish positions. Drones imperil supply roads. “They attack our weak spots all along the front line,” says Serhiy Tsikhotsky, an officer in the 59th brigade. The Russians appear to be targeting units with low morale or command tensions, using disinformation and guns to weaken them further. 
Economist

Article Source: WSJ, Economist

8/16/2009 Usain Bolt sets 100‑meter dash world record

Sources

1. https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/walmart-wmt-q2-earnings-report-2025-0aecea83?st=71955dfprtg9nb9&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/retail-sales

2. https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/electricity-demand-coal-gas-retirement-charts-dd07029a?st=y38tv1gjhscz9jr&reflink=article_copyURL_share

3. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/14/mortgage-refinancing-surges-35percent-in-one-week-as-interest-rates-hit-lowest-level-in-over-a-year.html

4. https://news.gallup.com/poll/648413/alcohol-consumption-increasingly-viewed-unhealthy.aspx?utm_source=gallup_brand&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=front_page_august_2_08132024&utm_term=information&utm_content=full_story_textlink_2

5. https://www.wsj.com/world/as-ukraine-invades-russia-kyivs-troops-are-in-trouble-on-the-eastern-front-8a7b1686?st=gec15ur87nbjkcv&reflink=article_copyURL_share; https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/08/06/russias-bloody-summer-offensive-is-hurting-ukraine