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The Coffee Break
January 16, 2024
1. MARKET SUMMARY 📈
Information as of 0730 UTC+8 on Jan 16, 2024. The US Markets were closed due to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
2. NUMBERS AT A GLANCE 🔢
Finding growth in retro — Fujifilm Holdings aims to grow sales of its Instax instant camera business to JPY150 bil (USD1.01 bil) in the coming fiscal year, marking the fourth consecutive year of record-breaking revenue for the product. This is more than 3x the level 10 years ago, driven by demand from Gen Z. Fujifilm estimates that roughly one bil photos are taken each year using its Instax camera compared to trillions taken with phones, creating an opportunity for untapped demand for printed photos.
USD869 bil — the collective wealth of the world’s five wealthiest men — LVMH’s Bernard Arnault, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, legendary investor Warren Buffett, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Tesla’s Elon Musk - more than doubled from USD405 bil in 2020. Translating this growth to an hourly basis, that’s USD14 mil per hour, according to Oxfam, an NGO that publishes its annual report on world poverty to coincide with the yearly World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland - a gathering of the world’s business elite to discuss global issues. On the other hand, those at the bottom of the pyramid, with nearly five bil people worldwide, have grown poor. This widening wealth disparity was caused by the pandemic, when rich countries pumped money into their economies, leading to an inflated value of assets held by the rich.
Read Oxfam’s report: Inequality Inc.
Not only did the world’s poor get poorer, but their countries saw their debt burden rising as well as developing countries spent a record USD443.5 bil (RM2.06 tril) on debt-service payments (including interests and principal), up 5% in 2022 and is expected to continue increasing, according to the World Bank. The world’s 75 poorest countries were hardest hit as debt service payments hit a record USD88.9 bil in 2022, and interest payments alone quadrupled since 2012 to USD23.6 bil.