Prospective homebuyers are on the outside looking in. [Bloomberg](
This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a fixed-rate, long-dated bond of Bloomberg Opinionâs opinions. [Sign up here](. Todayâs Agenda - [Interest rates]( arenât always bad for business.
- Biden shouldnât copy [Xiâs mistakes]( (free read!).
- How the [hype machine]( swallowed fintech.
- Fukushimaâs lesson for the [nuclear renaissance](. The Rich Get Richer Illustration: Jessica Karl The SparkNotes version of [A Tale of Two Housing Markets]( goes something like this: Once upon a time, during Covid, Wannabe Homeowner No. 1 managed to [lock in]( a low, fixed-interest [mortgage rate](. They can now ârelax on the veranda as their money-market fund investments pay off,â Chris Bryant writes. Then there is Wannabe Homeowner No. 2 , who did no such thing. Now, if they go to [buy a house,]( they have to deal with the giant sucking sound coming from [this]( evil chart: At the heart of the [mortgage market]( meltdown sits the [inflation-fighting]( Federal Reserve. The bank has âraised interest rates by 525 basis points since March 2022,â Jonathan Levin [explains](. Soaring mortgages have been an unfortunate byproduct of that rate-hiking campaign: The 30-year-fixed rate jumped to almost 7.5% on Tuesday â the highest since 2000. Maybe youâre thinking: Iâve read this book a million times! The story of the housing market is old hat to me. That may be true, but I bet you havenât read the sequel, [A Tale of Two Corporations](. This story takes place in the same universe with the same doom-and-gloom scenery: Interest rates are [sky-high](. Everyone wonders whether thereâs going to be [a recession](. GDP is sitting in the corner with [a question mark]( over its head. And the two main characters, Corporation No. 1 and Corporation No. 2, couldnât be any less alike. Their story goes something like this: The CEO of Corporation No. 1 is I-Take-a-[Corporate-Jet](-to-[Dinner]( rich. This company was âable to lock in low interest costs during the pandemic via fixed-rate, long-dated bonds, and since then earnings on their cash deposits have soared,â Chris explains. Naturally, they â and many of their Fortune 500 frenemies â now have buckets and buckets of cash. The company could pay its bills âtil kingdom come! Or it could invest it all. Or return it to shareholders â whichever lands the CEO a book deal for their self-titled memoir, The Secret to Earning $1 Billion? Do Nothing. But for the CEO of Corporation No. 2 â a [small-cap]( company â itâs an entirely different ballgame. Ever since the interest-rate hikes, theyâve been feeling the [squeeze]( of floating-rate loans. Last year, the corporate retreat was at the Ritz-Carlton. This year, itâs at the Ramada Inn. Calling the companyâs cash balance âmodestâ would be generous, like saying August is [Pumpkin Spice Latte]( Season. Itâs clear that they â and most of their Russell 2000 brethren â are staring down a financial black hole that some have the audacity to call a â[death cross](.â Sound familiar? Like many a YA novel on Goodreads, this sequel is [not unlike]( its predecessor: Itâs also about the haves and the have nots, just on a corporate scale. Most people expected interest-rate hikes would be a wet blanket on the entire economy. They failed to realize that so far, the blanket has managed to cover only the unlucky half of society: the small-cap stocks and the wannabe homebuyers. But for the FAANGs and the fortunate ones who locked in a low mortgage rate, itâs all water under the bridge. [Obsessed]( Last night at the GOP debate, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum declared China to be âthe No. 1 threat to our country.â What he failed to mention is that China is the No. 1 threat not because China is Americaâs rival, but because China is Americaâs [obsession](. âLook no further than [this recent study]( from the Pew Research Center, which shows that around four in 10 Americans describe Beijing as an enemy of the US,â Karishma Vaswani [writes](. Not only does the China-Is-Evil narrative give rise to harmful anti-Asian sentiment, as Karishma writes, it can also cause economic damage. âWhen President Joe Biden [signed the CHIPS and Science Act]( a year ago, he did not [talk just about]( how it would revive the USâs manufacturing base and enhance its national security, he [also emphasized]( how it would help America compete with China,â Allison Schrager [says](. While Washington was busy trying to emulate Beijingâs large-scale industrial policy, China began to creep closer and closer to the brink of a financial meltdown, which Minxin Pei [warns]( could be a disaster for Xi Jinping. But why was Biden putting China on his economic policy Pinterest board in the first place? âThe US is a fully developed market; it never made sense to compare its growth rates to Chinaâs when the latter was in catchup mode. Sustaining growth is a different challenge. It requires coming up with new industries, not bringing back old ones,â Allison argues. The twin [obsessions]( with Belt and Road and Build Back Better are proving to be financially dire for both countries, as Shuli Ren [observes](: âUS and Chinese banks are in a horse race to see who spirals to the bottom first.â Telltale Charts Digital payment startups Adyen, PayPal and Block were once valued more highly than the average European bank. Today, the fintech darlings are down more than 70% from two years ago, Lionel Laurent [writes](. âAdyen, one of Cathie Woodâs ARK Innovation [fintech picks](, has had a brutal hit, its shares down 50% in the space of one week, wiping around $25 billion off its market capitalization,â he notes. While itâs a painful tumble to watch, you can hardly call it a business failure: âTheyâve developed a lot of genuinely clever tech to improve choice and simplify digital payments,â Lionel says. But the reality is that the overhyped valuations werenât warranted for a sector thatâs still ultimately about volume. Contrary to the rumors you [may]( [have]( [heard](, Tokyo is not embarking on a program to poison the regionâs water supply. Its decision to discharge contaminated wastewater from an abandoned nuclear plant has attracted mass hysteria, all of which is [unscientific nonsense](. âDrinking a glass of the cleaned-up water direct from Fukushimaâs outflow pipe would expose you to about as much radiation as youâd get from eating a dozen bananas,â and âthe effect when diluted in the waters of the Pacific is infinitely smaller,â David Fickling [writes](. Over the past 60 years, the atomic power industry has worked tirelessly to develop extensive safety protocols to quell the fears around nuclear advocacy. Those regulations are âfundamental to the social license that nuclear power requires if itâs to exist at all, let alone expand,â he says. Further Reading Putinâs Prigozhin nightmares may be over, but the [ruble's slide]( still haunts him. â Bloombergâs editorial board Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson: [A bromance]( made in conspiracy heaven. â Timothy L. OâBrien Indiaâs [moon landing]( is a wake-up call for smug businesses. â Andy Mukherjee Londonâs rental market is about to be [squeezed]( into oblivion. â Marcus Ashworth The World Cupâs [unwanted kiss]( offers a lesson for all organizations. â Bobby Ghosh The stock market has already found [a culprit]( for Mauiâs deadly wildfire. â Liam Denning [Brain-to-text technology]( could change lives, and not just Elon Muskâs. â Lisa Jarvis ICYMI A lot of people took [a sick day]( today. Trump is mixing up his [legal team](. Korean Air wants to [weigh you](. Sam Bankman-Fried wonât get his [Adderall](. [Hum-to-search]( has finally arrived. Kickers NYCâs newest [fine dining]( eatery, hidden underground. Miamiâs roaming [monkey problem](, a concern to all. Europeâs ancient [village](, submerged beneath a lake. TikTokâs [egg-cracking]( trend, a medical emergency. New Jerseyâs [power outage](, blamed on a fish. No kissing [small turtles](, itâs a salmonella risk. Notes: Please send pumpkin spice lattes and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox.
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