Natural disasters take a physical toll on impacted communities, the most recent example being the severe flooding from Hurricane Florence in North Carolina. With destruction and devastation comes economic hardship, but according to Moody's Analytics, Hurricane Florence is expected to have a minimal impact on the U.S. economy. The latest hurricane h...

As the East Coast prepares for Hurricane Florence to make landfall late Thursday or early Friday, the construction industry is already seeing the storm's costly effects through lumber prices. According to Prosales magazine, the impending hurricane and any that follow are expected to bring a 10% lumber price hike that may last roughly two months. On...

Knowing when and where to start implementing new technology is tricky for any business. Costs and complications alone often steer businesses away from the latest advancements, but some experts believe electronic invoicing adoption is one of the best stepping stones for a gradual transition into 21st century technology. According to professional ser...

When credit managers are extending lines of credit, the size of their customers' business is a factor to weigh in the decision-making process. Just because a business is small doesn't mean it will never get credit, but both parties have to remain more alert. On Aug. 27, global fintech company Tide explained how micro-SMBs (small- to medium-sized bu...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Lining Up Behind the Chair For the most part, the Fed is a body that rules by consensus. The members of the Open Market Committee are the permanent members of the Board of Governors plus four of the regional heads of the Fed that rotate on and off the FOMC on an annual basis. The Chair represents the views of th...

In some way, shape or form, artificial intelligence (AI) is making a name for itself in the business community. The construction industry is no exception as recently seen in the United Kingdom, where a $4.5 million investment will fund a software company's latest technological endeavor to create real-world simulations of infrastructure projects. St...

A company is only as good as its employees, and if they don't have the proper skills to do their job, business becomes much more complicated. According to new research, a vast majority of Canadian corporate hiring managers in the technology sector said they are having trouble making "the right hire," specifically finding employees who have the skil...

Just as accountants experience a busy time of year during tax season, small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME) credit managers in the United Kingdom are finding their summers cut short to spend more time hunting down late payments. In fact, 60% of U.K. SMBs are exchanging summer holidays for more workdays dedicated to the task, according to Online P...

Technology is a blessing and a curse, and at the moment, it is more of the latter for Apple. On Aug. 3, one of Apple's suppliers suffered a computer virus outbreak, which CNBC reports may lead to shipment delays on behalf of the supplier. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) manufactures the chip processors used in Apple iPhones. According...

Suppliers for Tesla Inc. are scratching their heads after the electric car company sent an unusual memo to some of its suppliers last week asking for a partial cash refund to boost profitability. According to Bloomberg, less than 10 suppliers received the memo, which Morningstar Analyst David Whiston described as "troubling" in an interview with th...

Think twice before you open that unrecognizable email because it may cost you. Earlier this month, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) updated its data on business email compromise (BEC) scams, which have increased steadily around the globe in less than two years. In a public service announcement on July 12, the FBI stated the scams are ...

Canadian suppliers worried about retaliatory tariffs from the U.S. can breathe a sigh of relief, at least those working in the automotive industry. Tariffs on U.S. steel imports have raised costs across the sector; however, according to Reuters, Canadian government customs provisions are in place that could "reduce or refund import duties" to compa...

Inflation is becoming increasingly problematic for U.S. producers. Unanticipated gains in June's Producer Price Index (PPI), released July 11, have economists predicting rising costs for manufacturing and construction material in connection to the U.S. administration's tariffs on various imports. According to Reuters , the PPI reached an annual inc...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Housing and Labor Shortages The U.S. has an acute shortage of workers in a wide variety of fields. This has been made abundantly clear over the last few years. There are many factors that play into this issue—lack of training opportunities, lack of knowledge regarding these opportunities, personal issues that pr...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Business Investment Improves It would not seem to be the case given the latest data on durable goods, but the pace of business investment has started to improve; however, not quite at the pace that had been anticipated when the tax cuts were implemented. The big fall noted in this month's durable goods data is c...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Congress Gets Frustrated With Trump Tactics Traditionally, trade issues are the purview of Congress—at least there is an expectation that the legislators will weigh in. The president does not have the power to establish a trade deal without getting final approval of the plan from Congress. Likewise, the presiden...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Slight Rise in Jobless Claims For the second week in a row, the number of first-time jobless claims rose, but nobody is yet sounding the alarm as these numbers remain at historically low levels. The number this week was 234,000 and was not concentrated in any specific area. There was a slight rise in the number ...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy New Home Sales Fall As expected, the pace of new home sales fell off this month. Analysts expected this slide, many of whom were actually pleasantly surprised the decline was less than anticipated. The headwinds that everybody has been talking about all year are stiffening up and creating an increasingly hostile...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Kashkari Adds Voice to the Cautious Camp It's not that the other 11 regional Fed presidents are not men and women who bear the mantle of interesting in their own right, but the Minneapolis Fed head has a more varied background than most. Neel Kashkari was the "uber bureaucrat" charged with making the Troubled As...

Short Items of Interest—U.S. Economy Inflation Difference It seems that the death of the Philips Curve may have been announced prematurely. This was one of those economic laws that actually worked most of the time. Simply stated, it held that when the unemployment rate fell, there would be wage inflation. It seemed to make intuitive sense that when...