Hello! Joe Biden and fellow G7 leaders will hold a virtual conference with Volodymyr Zelensky to mark the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine today, with new US sanctions for Russia also in store. Our 3 charts for you today:
1 year on
It’s been exactly 365 days since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, with more than 8 million Ukrainian refugees recorded across Europe and thousands of civilian casualties, the war continues to take a tragic toll on the Ukrainian people.
Nations around the world have reacted by sending arms, financial assistance and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. President Biden’s surprise visit to Kyiv this week, traveling aboard ‘Rail Force One’, was a clear sign that US support is set to continue.
Russia has certainly suffered on the world stage, with over 1,000 companies announcing voluntary withdrawals from the country. Politically, sanctions of varying severity have been the medium of choice for many countries to exert pressure. In 2022, more than 11,000 new sanctions were implemented, leaving Russia as the most heavily-sanctioned country on Earth, causing the economy to shrink 3% last year. EU reliance on Russian coal, as just one example, decreased from nearly 40% in May 2022 to essentially nothing by the end of the year.
In addition to the loss of life, the displacement impact on Ukraine and its neighboring countries remains immense. Poland hosts more Ukrainian refugees than any other country and is still home to more than a million Ukrainians who, even a year on, are still unsure when it will be safe to return home. Indeed, data from the UNHCR shows that some 20,000 Ukrainians are still crossing the border every day in both directions.
Motivated sellers
Existing home sales in the US have dropped for the 12th month in a row, the longest consecutive decline on record, with the seasonally adjusted annual rate falling to just 4 million properties in January.
Even during the early days of lockdown, the housing market was more active than it is now, as higher mortgage rates continue to dent demand for would-be house-buyers. Indeed, you have to go all the way back to 2010 to find lower sales activity.
License to sell
Although existing home sales declined every month last year, it clearly wasn’t down to staffing issues at real estate agencies. At the end of 2022 there were nearly 1.6 million members of the National Association of Realtors, some 540,000 more than were registered in 2013.
However, signs are starting to emerge that slowing volumes are hurting the industry. Swathes of realtors who switched careers relatively recently, buoyed on by rising home prices in the pandemic years, have reportedly started returning to previous jobs and the January count from the NAR showed that realtor numbers had dropped 32,000.
With property exchanges down some 37% year-over-year and realtors competing for smaller slices of a shrinking market, we may have hit “peak realtor”... until the next property boom at least.
Flying high
Industrial engine giant Rolls-Royce reported this week that its underlying revenue hit £12.7bn in 2022 ($15.2bn), up from £11bn the year prior. The substantial 57% jump in underlying profit is a good start for new CEO Tufan Erginbilgic, with shares rising 20% on the news.
Although the Rolls-Royce name may be more synonymous with luxury vehicles, the brand is actually split between the engine-maker Rolls-Royce Plc and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd. — the latter of which has been owned by BMW Group since 1998.
New pilot at the helm
With roots back to 1906, the present-day Rolls-Royce Plc is actually by far the larger of the 2 companies and is a complicated entity in the business of propulsion and power.
Accounting for ~45% of the company's underlying revenue is its civil aerospace business, which sells passenger jet engines, making most of its money from long-term service arrangements. Those revenues depend partly on how many “flying hours” each engine racks up: more flying hours = more maintenance = more revenue. That business was severely dented during the pandemic, leading to the loss of some 9,000 jobs.
Beyond passenger jet engines, Rolls-Royce also has a huge power division, which makes engines for yachts and trains, as well as an enormous defense business. The division saw order intake more than double last year after winning major contracts with the US Army with “increased military activity and spending” helping to “underpin the long-term outlook” of the business.
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Off the charts: This week, the FDA ruled that plant based milk can be called milk. That's good news for oat, soy, almond and rice milk makers — but which is which on our chart below? [Answer below].
Answer here.
