All posts by James Cannon

About James Cannon

James Cannon is an experienced hedge fund analyst. He has served on the advisory boards for various different Fortune 500 companies as well as serving as an adjunct professor of finance. James Cannon has written for a variety of Financial Magazines both on and off line. Contact James at james[at]businessdistrict.com

University of Illinois Opening Real Estate Department in its Business School

Education, , , , ,

The Stuart Handler Department of Real Estate is the fifth and newest department of the University of Illinois Chicago’s College of Business Administration. The school is considering creating a Bachelor of Science major and minor, and even a master’s degree in the new department.

The department was created with funding from Stuart Handler, the CEO of TLC Management, a Chicago-based leasing and management company. It is not known how much Handler donated, but officials at the university said that his gift made the new department viable.

Handler stated that he hopes to give UIC students “a chance to have a stake in the real estate in their neighborhoods.” It is also his goal to give students more opportunities to find jobs in the real estate industry.

The head of the department will be UIC professor of finance Daniel McMillen, who is also a consultant for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Americans on a Shopping Spree Rebound As Corona Lockdown Eases

Economy, ,
Courtesy Jernej Furman

The month of May posted a record increase in-store buying as people begin to come out of their homes where they were under lockdown for the better part of two months.

Retailers saw an increase in shopping by 17.7% in May as compared to April, helping revitalize a devastated economy that saw an 8.3% and 14.7% drop in spending in March and April, respectively. The renaissance has not completely reversed the negative trend, however. Spending is still down by 6.1% since this time last year.

Other indicators show a slow recovery from the mayhem the coronavirus caused to the US economy. Two and a half million jobs were added to the economy in May, but it is not clear if the trend is upward, or the economy will reach a low steady-state that becomes the country’s new normal.

“This may very well be the shortest, but still deepest, recession ever,” said Jennifer Lee, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. But she added that it’s “not likely that we’ll see a repeat in June as this is pent-up demand unleashed in one month.”

The surge in buying was fueled in large part by the $3 trillion the government sent out to individuals and businesses as a rescue package to keep the economy and households from complete ruin.

The possibility of a real recovery during the reality of a worldwide pandemic will depend on how willing people will be to shop, travel, mingle in crowds, and how many businesses stay open and hire or rehire workers.

“While the big increase in retail sales in May is encouraging, there is still a huge amount of uncertainty about the strength of the rebound,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services. “It depends on a lot of factors outside of the economics.”

BoF Holds Summit on Making Fashion a More Responsible Industry

Lifestyle, , ,
Fashion Show Finale

Entitled “How to Build a Responsible Fashion Business,” Business of Fashion (BoF) held a professional summit broadcast live on June 17, 2020. On the agenda were such pressing subjects as racial equality, workers’ rights, and climate change.

The impetus for the summit was, as a huge industry, the fashion community has a moral obligation to take a good hard look at how it contributes to the crisis wreaking havoc in the world today and can be a force for change towards better practices and improvement.

The summit considered all aspects of the industry: from the expectations of shareholders to employees, garment workers, the greater society, and finally the entire world.

During 2019 the global fashion industry created 114 billion clothing pieces. Most of those were cheap, disposable garments, made in huge numbers, using a seemingly endless amount of natural resources. Add to this excessive use of resources also the burden on workers who toil under poor, and worse conditions at a gigantic social and environmental cost.

In addition to this challenge is that of racism found within the fashion industry. Although the industry has been making money off black culture, the power structure of the industry is overwhelmingly white. The only two black creative directors of major global brands are Olivier Rousteing and Virgil Abloh. There is an equal lack of black representation among CEOs as well.

The BoF Professional Summit was a half-day of conversations, workshops, keynote addresses, and panels all to address the profound issues affecting the industry and the world.

Surprise Uptick in Employment Boosts Stock Market

Economy, , , ,
Image by FrankundFrei from Pixabay

Beginning in September 2010 until March 2020 the United States added more than 22 million jobs to the economy. Then came the historic COVID-19 pandemic that wiped almost that entire 10-year gain in a mere 6 weeks. In only a little more than one month the unemployment rate skyrocketed from about 3.5% in February to a high of 14.7% in April. The trend for May has reversed that free-fall, with unemployment dropping to 13.3%, less than many were expecting.
The re-opening of the economy, including a return to work of employees to the leisure and hospitality, construction, education, health services, and retail sectors, has lifted the total number of employed during the month of May.


The good news about employment caused a rise in the stock market, with the NASDAQ almost reaching a record high. The S&P went up more than 2% and is now only 1% shy of where it was at the beginning of 2020, and less than 6 percentage points short of where it was in February, before corona burst onto the planet, to devastating effect.


The NASDAQ, which weighs towards hi-tech companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, is protected to a certain degree from economic downturns down-turns. The sheer size of these companies is protective, but in addition, lockdowns necessitated by the coronavirus did not affect tech companies as much since workers can more easily pivot to working from home than traditional companies that require a human workforce to interface with consumers. Even more, the dependence consumers had on e-commerce during the lockdown boosted the strength of these types of companies.


During May employers added 2.5 million jobs to the job market, despite the prediction by economists that the government was going to report the loss of 8 million jobs during the month.

Apple Stores Coming Back After Corona Lockdown

Consumerism,

Apple Inc., the mega consumer-tech company, will be reopening 25 of its stores in the United States during the week of May 18. This is a continuation of a re-opening process that is beginning slowly at Apple, and all over the country, to bring commerce back and get the economy back in gear. As of mid-May, Apple has re-opened about 20% of its stores worldwide.

The innovative company closed all its stores outside of Greater China in mid-March in response to the coronavirus pandemic that was wreaking havoc throughout the world.

“Our commitment is to reopen our stores when we are confident the environment is safe,” wrote Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s head of retail, on the company’s website.

Although the stores will re-open, they will not go back to business the way it was before the pandemic started. Stores will limit the number of customers in at any one time; social distancing—maintaining a distance of at least 2 meters between customers—will be enforced, and some stores will have only curbside or storefront pickup.

Apple openings began last week with five stores in the US. Customers and employees were required to wear masks and have their temperatures checked before entering the stores.
The company has 271 stores in the United States and 239 outside the US. It was reported that Apple will also open 10 stores in Italy, beginning on May 19.