No end in sight.

Housing paralysis engulfs US buyers with prices starting to fall. Photo: Jeremy Erickson | Bloomberg

This week’s blitz of interest rate hikes is unlikely to mark the end of a campaign by central banks to crush inflation even as they run the risk of driving their economies into recession. The biggest movers included Sweden’s Riksbank, which surprised with a mammoth 100 basis-point hike. Indonesia was more aggressive than expected and Vietnam surprised with a rare tightening. In the US, the Fed’s aggression has brought an abrupt end to the pandemic housing boom, with prices in decline and a looming paralysis in the market. Here’s what’s happening in housing markets in other parts of the world.

SEC panel advances plan to force investor focus on rulemaker

The US Securities and Exchange Commission needs to make investor-focused oversight changes to the group that sets accounting rules for US companies, the SEC's Investor Advisory Committee voted Wednesday. The panel forwarded to the Wall Street regulator a slate of recommendations to improve how the rulemaker crafts accounting standards so new rules focus on the information investors need to make investment decisions. (Bloomberg Law | Sep 21)

Loans are cheaper than bonds for some highly rated companies

Some highly rated companies are turning to term loans instead of bonds for their financing needs, taking advantage of cheaper pricing as banks adjust more slowly to rising interest rates than the credit markets. With the Federal Reserve approving a 0.75-percentage-point interest-rate increase Wednesday, finance chiefs are doing the math as they weigh alternative instruments to pay for maturing debt, mergers and acquisitions or other transactions. (The Wall Street Journal | Sep 21)

US debt buyers brace for Fed to hike 'until something breaks'

US corporate debt markets fluctuated between losses and gains after Federal Reserve officials raised interest rates by 75 basis points for the third consecutive time and stoked expectations among debt investors for even tighter policy ahead. Credit risk gauges whipsawed as the market digested Fed Chair Jerome Powell's message, and the high-grade primary market muted as borrowers remain cautions. (Bloomberg Markets | Sep 21)

Fund managers pitch 'alts' to retail investors as institutions max out

A saturated market for institutional clients is pushing asset managers to pursue another business: selling so-called alternative investments to rich individual investors. Alternatives stray outside mainstream portfolios of stocks and bonds into such asset classes as credit, private equity and real estate. Harder to trade and often walled off by accreditation requirements, they have historically been the domain of large investors such as pension funds and endowments. (Financial Times | Sep 19)

Rising bond yields change the calculus for stocks

Bond yields are trading at their highest levels in more than a decade. That poses yet another threat to a stock market that has struggled to find its footing this year. When interest rates were at rock bottom, as they were after the 2008 financial crisis and then again after the pandemic, it was easy for investors to justify putting money in the relatively risky stock market. The returns they would get from stocks would almost always beat what they could get from government bonds yielding close to nothing — leading Wall Street to declare “there is no alternative” to stocks. (The Wall Street Journal | Sep 19)

Ransomware is still on the rise despite companies' cyber spending

Despite increasing company budgets for cybersecurity, ransomware attacks still affected nine in 10 US, UK and Canadian organizations in the last year. Cybersecurity company SpyCloud released a report today based on a survey of 310 IT professionals at organizations with at least 500 employees. The survey was conducted between September 2021 and August 2022.

— SpyCloud

What's behind the different names for hacker groups

No matter how confusing it gets to refer to the same Russian hacker group by a handful of different names – Cozy Bear, Nobelium, APT29 and so on – don't expect the private companies behind those monikers to give them up anytime soon. Naming conventions for state-backed hacking groups vary from technical, advanced persistent threat (APT) group numbers to whimsical, animal-based names, making it difficult for people outside of cybersecurity research to understand which hackers do what.

— Axios

DTCC warns of hacking threats posed by rise of quantum computing

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation warns that quantum computing has potential to generate significant new risks for financial services companies by making their computer systems more vulnerable to hacking attacks. In the report, DTCC advances a series of recommendations that firms may follow to address these securities threats.

— Securities Finance Times

Photo: Noel Hendrickson | Getty Images

How your company can encourage innovation from all employees

Companies around the world benefit from the ideas and innovations of their frontline employees to improve their products and processes. The kaizen approach to this, which originated from the Toyota Production System, has been instrumental in driving performance through frontline employee idea generation and implementation. The basic notion behind kaizen is that a continuous stream of hands-on improvements translates into substantial productivity and quality gains over time.

— Harvard Business Review

Business class for $20,000 means flying coach 

Flying business class has always been beyond the means of most fliers. Now even companies can’t afford fares that have soared as the world tries to reconnect in the wake of Covid. A return business-class flight on the longest routes, between New York and Sydney, for example, can cost more than $20,000, about double the price from pre-pandemic days.

— Bloomberg Pursuits

The 12 best portable chargers for all of your devices

Portable devices have a Murphy's law-like ability to run out of power at the least convenient moment: as you step on the bus, right in the middle of an important meeting, or just as you get comfortable on the couch and press Play. If you keep a battery-powered portable charger handy, all those situations are a thing of the past.

— Wired