Tag Archives: Food/Beverages/Tobacco

Health

These healthy diets were associated with lower risk of death, according to a study of 119,000 people across four decades

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Eat healthy, live longer.

That’s the takeaway from a major study published this month in JAMA Internal Medicine. Scientists led by a team from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that people who most closely adhered to at least one of four healthy eating patterns were less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, cancer or respiratory disease compared with people who did not adhere as closely to these diets. They were also less likely to die of any cause.

“These findings support the recommendations of Dietary Guidelines for Americans that multiple healthy eating patterns can be adapted to individual food traditions and preferences,” the researchers concluded, adding that the results were consistent across different racial and ethnic groups. The eating habits and mortality rates of more than 75,000 women from 1984 to 2020 over 44,000 men from 1986 to 2020 were included in the study.

The four diets studied were the Healthy Eating Index, the Alternate Mediterranean Diet, the Healthful Plant-Based Diet Index and the Alternate Healthy Eating Index. All four share some components, including whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes. But there are also differences: For instance, the Alternate Mediterranean Diet encourages fish consumption, and the Healthful Plant-Based Diet Index discourages eating meat.

The Alternate Mediterranean Diet is adapted from the original Mediterranean Diet, which includes olive oil (which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids), fruits, nuts, cereals, vegetables, legumes and fish. It allows for moderate consumption of alcohol and dairy products but low consumption of sweets and only the occasional serving of red meat. The alternate version, meanwhile, cuts out dairy entirely, only includes whole grains and uses the same alcohol-intake guideline for men and women, JAMA says.

The world’s ‘best diets’ overlap with study results

The Mediterranean Diet consistently ranks No. 1 in the U.S. News and World Report’s Best Diets ranking, which looks at seven criteria: short-term weight loss, long-term weight loss, effectiveness in preventing cardiovascular disease, effectiveness in preventing diabetes, ease of compliance, nutritional completeness and health risks. The 2023 list ranks the top three diets as the Mediterranean Diet, the DASH Diet and the Flexitarian Diet. 

The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) Diet recommends fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, poultry, fish and low-fat dairy products and restricts salt, red meat, sweets and sugar-sweetened beverages. The Flexitarian Diet is similar to the other diets in that it’s mainly vegetarian, but it allows the occasional serving of meat or fish. All three diets are associated with improved metabolic health, lower blood pressure and reduced risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and co-author of the latest study, said it’s critical to examine the associations between the U.S. government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans and long-term health. “Our findings will be valuable for the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which is being formed to evaluate current evidence surrounding different eating patterns and health outcomes,” he said.

Reducing salt intake is a good place to start. In 2021, the Food and Drug Administration issued new guidance for restaurants and food manufacturers to, over a two-and-a-half-year period, voluntarily reduce the amount of sodium in their food to help consumers stay under a limit of 3,000 milligrams per day — still higher than the recommended daily allowance. Americans consume around 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day, on average, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people consume less than 2,300 milligrams each day.

Related: Eating 400 calories a day from these foods could raise your dementia risk by over 20%

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Health

Eating 400 calories a day from these foods could raise dementia risk by over 20%

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Talk about food for thought.

A growing body of research suggests that ultra-processed foods like frozen pizzas and breakfast cereals high in sugars, fats and empty calories are bad for your health. Now, a new large-scale study presented at the 2022 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in San Diego this week offers more evidence that people who get a high percentage of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods are also at a higher risk of cognitive decline.

A team of researchers from the University of São Paulo Medical School in Brazil followed a diverse sample of more than 10,000 Brazilians for up to 10 years. The subjects filled out food frequency questionnaires to note how often they were eating foods including: unprocessed or minimally processed ingredients (aka whole foods like fresh, dry or frozen fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meat, fish and milk that underwent minimal processing, like pasteurization); processed foods (canned fruits, artisanal bread and cheese, and salted, smoked or cured meat or fish); and ultra-processed foods (industrial formulations of processed food substances like oils, fats, sugars, starch, artificial flavors and colorings, but containing little or no whole foods). 

The subjects also took cognitive tests up to three times a year, including memory tests and word recognition tests, to monitor their cognitive functioning; aka, mental abilities such as learning, thinking, reasoning, remembering, problem-solving, decision-making and attention. They also took regular verbal fluency tests to track their executive functioning; aka the mental skills that help an individual plan, monitor and successfully meet their goals. 

The findings? Those who ate 20% or more of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods had a 28% faster rate of cognitive decline, and a 25% faster rate of executive function decline, compared to the subjects in the study who ate the least amount of processed foods. In other words, someone following a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet who consumed 400 of their daily calories from ready-to-eat frozen meals, processed meats, breakfast cereals and sugar-sweetened beverages each day saw a faster rate of cognitive decline. 

Opinion: Your diet isn’t just making you obese, it could be speeding up cognitive decline

And many of us are fueling ourselves with these ultra-processed foods. The researchers noted that a whopping 58% of the calories consumed by U.S. citizens come from ultra-processed foods. We’re not alone; 56.8% of the calories consumed by British citizens, 48% of the calories consumed by Canadians, and up to 30% of the calories eaten by Brazilians also typically come from these ultra-processed foods, the researchers added. And despite the rise in plant-based alternatives (some of which are highly processed, themselves) and poultry consumption — and a dip in buying and eating unprocessed red meat — another recent report noted that Americans are still eating as much processed food as they did two decades ago, particularly deli meats, sausage, hot dogs, ham and bacon.

Related: Putting less sugar in packaged foods could prevent millions of Americans from getting sick — and save the U.S. over $160 billion

But there was an interesting catch in the cognitive decline study: If the overall quality of a subject’s diet was otherwise very high (meaning they ate a lot of unprocessed whole foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean proteins), then this association between ultra-processed foods and dementia disappeared. So the good news is, you can counter consuming these often cheap and easily-accessible ultra-processed foods by cooking more at home (which can also save you money) and preparing your food with whole foods like fresh or frozen produce, whole grains and lean meats and proteins. 

“Limiting ultra-processed food consumption, particularly in middle-aged adults, may be an efficient form to prevent cognitive decline,” the researchers wrote in their findings published in the journal JAMA Neurology this week. Indeed, this aligns with what health officials such as the American Heart Association have been saying: rather than calling out “good” or “bad” individual foods, folks should focus on eating an overall healthy diet that is high in fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean/high-fiber proteins that are minimally processed. 

Read more: No more ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ foods: 10 healthy eating ‘patterns’ to prevent heart disease and death

But brain health isn’t the only concern when it comes to ultra-processed foods. Here are four other ways that these ready-made meals and snacks can hurt your health. 

Processed foods raise your risk of heart disease

An analysis of almost 30,000 people published in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal in 2020 suggested that eating two servings of red meat and processed meat each week – such as two hot dogs or four pieces of bacon – was “significantly associated” with heart disease.

“It’s worth trying to reduce [consumption of] red meat and processed meat like pepperoni, bologna and deli meats,” wrote senior study author Norrina Allen, associate professor of preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Researchers from the University of Paris collected data on the diets and health of more than 105,000 people aged 18 and up over the course of five years for a 2019 report. They found that those who ate the most “ultra-processed” foods had a greater risk of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular issues.

The American Heart Association also released a new scientific statement last year focusing on overall healthy eating habits to protect your ticker, which included choosing minimally-processed foods (such as a bag of salad or roasted, unsalted nuts) rather than ultra-processed foods (such as sugary cereal, potato chips or smoked sausage) as much as possible. The dietary guidelines also recommended limiting the consumption of food and beverages with added sugars. And it suggested choosing or preparing foods with little or no salt.

Processed foods increase cancer risk

People who had a 10% higher intake of ultra-processed foods saw more than a 10% increase in risk for cancers including breast cancer, according to a 2018 study published in the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal.

So when the American Cancer Society updated its diet recommendations to prevent cancer in 2020, cutting out processed foods was high on the list – along with curbing the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks, red meat and alcoholic beverages. The American Cancer Society recommended piling your plate with a variety of whole, unprocessed foods and vegetables, instead; particularly dark green, red and orange veggies, as well as fiber-rich legumes like beans and peas. The guide also promoted whole grains, whole fruits in a variety of colors, and overall foods that are “high in nutrients in amounts that help achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.”

Processed foods lower life expectancy 

So considering the reports suggesting processed foods are associated with a host of chronic health conditions like cancer, heart disease and dementia – not to mention obesity, as those who follow an ultra-processed diet could consume up to 500 more calories per day compared with those who consume whole foods – it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that research has also found a link between eating these foods and early death.

Researchers at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain documented the dietary habits of more than 20,000 Spanish college graduates between 1999 and 2014. They found that people who frequently consumed heavily processed foods (as in, more than four servings of each per day) had a 62% increased risk for early death compared to those who indulged in these foods less often.

And the 2020 study that noted eating two servings of red meat and processed meat each week was linked with heart disease also found that consuming these tasty but risky foods was also “significantly associated” with death. In fact, people who ate two servings of red meat or processed meat a week — but not poultry or fish — were linked with a 3% higher risk of all causes of death.

Processed foods hurt the planet – and come back around to bite you  

Favoring the growth and production of processed foods – which often rely on the same handful of staple ingredients such as sugar cane, corn, rice and wheat – has resulted in killing off more diverse plant offerings. This impacts agrobiodiversity—or the variety and variability of animals, plants and microorganisms used directly or indirectly for food and agriculture, which affects soil health and farming’s long-run profitable resilience, according to research published in BMJ Global Health earlier this year. What’s more, producing ultra-processed food uses large quantities of land, water, energy, herbicides and fertilizers, which hurts the environment by emitting greenhouse gas and creating tons of packaging waste.

Read more: Processed foods like ramen packets and frozen pizza can hurt your heart — and the globe, study says

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Business

He nailed three big S&P 500 moves this year. Here’s where this strategist sees stocks headed next, with beaten down names to buy.

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A Wall Street hat trick may not be on the cards, with stocks in the red for Wednesday.

A two-day rally was never a guaranteed exit out of the bear woods anyway, as some say signs of a durable bottom are still missing.

Enter our call of the day, from the chief market technician at TheoTrade, Jeffrey Bierman, who has made a string of prescient calls on what has been a roller coaster year for the index thus far. He’s also a professor of finance at Loyola University Chicago and DePaul University.

Bierman, who uses quant and fundamental analysis to determine market direction, sees the S&P 500
SPX,
-1.62%
finishing the year between 4,000 and 4,200, maybe around 4,135. “Fourth-quarter seasonality favors bulls following a weak third quarter.  Not to mention most stocks are priced for no growth,” he told MarketWatch in a Monday interview.

In December 2021, he forecast the S&P 500 might see a 20% decline within six months, toward 3,900 — it hit 3,930 in early May. In June, he forecast a rally and recovery to 4,300 — the index hit 4,315 by mid-August.

Speaking to MarketWatch on Aug. 25, Bierman saw a retest of around 3,600 for the index, citing an often rough September for stocks. It closed out last month at a new 2022 low of 3,585.

“I think we’re going to end up for the quarter. [The market is] deeply oversold and some stocks are completely mispriced in terms of their valuation metrics,” said Bierman, who is looking squarely at retail and technology sectors.

“The valuations on half the chip stocks are trading below a multiple of seven. I’ve never seen that ever…but what that means is when the semiconductor sector comes back, the multiple expansion is gonna be like a volcanic eruption to the upside,” he said of the sector known for its boom/bust cycles.

For example, he owns Intel
INTC,
-2.53%,
which hit a five-year low on Friday. Eventually, the company that has invested $20 billion in a new U.S. plant will come roaring back alongside rivals like Advanced Micro
AMD,
-4.65%.
“People will look back on this and go ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe Intel was at five times earnings,’ which is insanity for this stock.”

For the S&P 500 as a whole next twelve months price/earnings is currently 16.13 times, so Intel’s would be less than half of the broader index, according to FactSet

As for retail, he’s been looking at Urban Outfitters
URBN,
-1.06%,
Macy’s
M,
-1.94%
and Nordstrom
JWN,
-0.67%,
all places where millennials don’t shop, but the middle class does, with the all-important holiday shopping period dead ahead.

“There are 100,000 people being hired to work part time at these companies, and their margins are not coming down at all,” with no markdowns and decent sales, he said, noting those companies are being priced at a multiple of 5 times forward earnings.

“It means that you don’t think that Macy’s can put together for the Christmas quarter a comparative quarter, year over year of greater than 5%? If you don’t then don’t buy it, but I do,” said Bierman. “That’s why I’m willing to stick my neck out and buy these things. I bought Abercrombie & Fitch
ANF,
-3.78%
at 10 times earnings…I’ve never seen it that low.”

For those who aren’t comfortable picking stocks, he says they can still get exposure through exchange-traded funds, such as SPDR S&P Retail
XRT,
-2.58%
or the Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF
XLK,
-1.70%.

Bierman adds that investors need to be careful not to be overly concentrated in the top stocks, given “10 stocks accounted for 45% of the Nasdaq and the fact that 25% of the S&P almost accounted for about 50% of the S&P movement.”

“Everbody’s concentrated in 10 stocks that can still fall another 30% or 40%, like Apple and Microsoft. The idea of concentration risk is that everybody owns Apple, everybody owns Amazon,” he said.

And that could force the hand of passive and active managers heavily invested in those big names, driving a 10% drop for markets that “washes away all other stocks.”

The markets

Stocks
DJIA,
-1.21%

SPX,
-1.62%

COMP,
-2.19%
are in the red, and bond yields
TMUBMUSD10Y,
3.783%

TMUBMUSD02Y,
4.199%
are up, along with the dollar
DXYN,
.
Silver
SI00,
-5.00%
is retracing some of this week’s big gains, and bitcoin
BTCUSD,
-2.62%
is also off, trading at just over $20,000. Hong Kong stocks
HSI,
+5.90%
surged 6% in a catch-up move following a holiday. New Zealand’s central bank hiked rates a half point, the fifth increase in a row.

The buzz

Oil prices
CL.1,
-0.02%

BRN00,
+0.28%
are flat as OPEC+ reportedly agreed to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day. Some say don’t be too impressed by any output reduction.

Amazon
AMZN,
-2.34%
will reportedly freeze corporate hires in its retail business for the remainder of 2022.

Mortgage applications fell to the lowest pace in 25 years in the latest week.

The ADP private-sector payrolls report showed 208,000 jobs added in September. The trade deficit narrowed, which should be good news for third-quarter GDP. The Institute for Supply Management’s services index is due at 10 a.m. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will also speak.

Expect the spotlight to stay on Twitter
TWTR,
-2.53%
after Tesla
TSLA,
-5.16%
CEO Elon Musk committed to the $44 billion deal. But will it feel like a win once he owns it?

Plus: Elon Musk’s legal battle with Twitter may be over, but his war with the SEC continues

EU countries agreed to impose new sanctions on Russia after the illegal annexation of four Ukraine regions. Those moves will include an expected price cap on Russian oil.

South Korea’s missile fired in response to North Korea’s weapon launch over Japan, crashed and burned.

Best of the web

Russians fleeing Putin’s mobilization are finding haven in poor, remote countries.

Consumers are throwing away perfectly good food because of ‘best before’ labels.

The CEO of an election software company has been arrested on accusations of ID theft.

Top tickers

These were the top-searched tickers on MarketWatch as of 6 a.m. Eastern:

Ticker Security name
TSLA,
-5.16% 		Tesla
GME,
-7.59% 		GameStop
AMC,
-9.56% 		AMC Entertainment
TWTR,
-2.53% 		Twitter
NIO,
-5.92% 		NIO
AAPL,
-1.77% 		Apple
APE,
-8.40% 		AMC Entertainment preferred shares
BBBY,
-8.52% 		Bed Bath & Beyond
AMZN,
-2.34% 		Amazon
DWAC,
-0.64% 		Digital World Acquisition Corp.
The chart

More market-bottom talk:


Twitter

Random reads

All about the investment manager who caught Yankees’ superstar Aaron Judge’s record-breaking home run.

An iPhone in a 162-year old painting? The internet is stumped.

Need to Know starts early and is updated until the opening bell, but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box. The emailed version will be sent out at about 7:30 a.m. Eastern.

Listen to the Best New Ideas in Money podcast with MarketWatch reporter Charles Passy and economist Stephanie Kelton

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Business

Why is the stock market falling? Dow drops nearly 900 points as investors weigh Fed’s policy path, earnings

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U.S. stocks fell sharply Friday, as investors continued to weigh hawkish comments on interest rates by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell a day earlier, as well as a fresh batch of corporate earnings that largely disappointed.

How are stocks trading?
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA,
    -2.18%
    was down 879 points, or 2.5%, at 33,914.
  • The S&P 500
    SPX,
    -2.18%
    fell 107 points, or 2.4%, to 4,286, and was on track for a third straight weekly fall.
  • The Nasdaq Composite
    COMP,
    -2.03%
    shed 298 points, or 2.3%, to trade at 12,875.

On Thursday, the Dow shed 368.03 points, or 1.1%, reversing a gain of as much as 331.43 points in intraday trading. The more-than 700-point intraday swing was its biggest since March 8, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The S&P 500 fell 1.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite slumped 2.1%.

What’s driving the market?

Stock-market weakness picked up Friday where Thursday’s selloff left off, when equities tumbled into the afternoon after Powell added his support for moving faster on raising interest rates to cool inflation, measures that would include a possible 50 basis point interest rate hike in May.

“It would seem investors have been too complacent about the upcoming [Fed] meeting, which will need to change,” said Michael Kramer, founder of Mott Capital, in a note.

The Cboe Volatility Index
VIX,
+20.55%,
an options-based measure of expected volatility over the next 30 days, had been too low heading into the May 3-4 Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, meeting, Kramer said. It rose Thursday and was up another 19.5% at 27.1- on Friday, moving above its long-term average just below 20.

Powell’s remarks appeared to make a half percentage point rate hike the base case, with the central bank also likely to announce the beginning of the unwinding of its balance sheet, Kramer said.

Meanwhile, traders of fed funds futures have priced in a 94% chance that the Federal Reserve will deliver a 75 basis point rate hike in June, up from 70% on Thursday and 28% a week ago, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. 

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield 
TMUBMUSD10Y,
2.895%,
meanwhile, pulled back slightly to around 2.89% after climbing about 8.1 basis points to 2.917% on Thursday, the highest since Dec. 4, 2018.

Read: How to invest as inflation, higher interest rates and war roil markets

And some are warning that the Nasdaq is looking particularly vulnerable. The week has delivered some big earnings news for the technology sector, with investors cheering Thursday’s results from Tesla
TSLA,
-0.12%,
on the heels of deeply disappointing Netflix
NFLX,
-0.91%
results.

The Fed’s hawkish shift and the relentless rise in Treasury yields may be sapping the previous appeal of equities, which had previously been seen as the only viable avenue for many return-seeking investors.

“Investors appear to be moving away from the TINA (There is no Alternative) narrative as of late when it comes to equities,” said Brian Price, head of investment management at Commonwealth Financial Network, in a note. “This is the second straight week of significant outflows from equity mutual funds and days like today are unlikely to change the sentiment moving forward. The one positive takeaway may be that sentiment has become too bearish and we could see a countertrend rally at some point in the coming weeks.”

In One Chart: Investors just pulled a massive $17.5 billion out of global equities. They’re just getting started, says Bank of America.

All 11 major S&P 500 sectors fell Friday, with healthcare stocks dropping the most after a downbeat profit forecast from HCA Healthcare Inc.
HCA,
-20.47%
sent its shares tumbling. Other hospital operators, including Tenet Healthcare Corp.
THC,
-13.49%,
Community Health Systems Inc.
CYH,
-17.36%
and Universal Health Services
UHS,
-12.70%
also fell between 10.4% and 13.2%.

However, of the 99 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings for the first quarter, 77.8% of them have beat market expectations. Typically, 66% of companies beat estimates, according to Refinitiv data.

Next week will mark another big week for earnings, with 558 companies reporting, Saxo noted. “It is the big test of companies’ ability to pass on costs to their customers,” they said.

Investors may also be skittish ahead of the final round of France’s presidential election on Sunday. An upset victory by far-right candidate Marine Le Pen over incumbent Francois Macron would likely spark market volatility, analysts said.

See: Here’s how markets are positioned for Sunday’s presidential election in France between Macron and Le Pen

What companies are in focus?
  • HCA shares were down 19.6%, on pace for their largest percentage decrease since March 16, 2020, when they fell 19.02%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
  • Gap Inc.
    GPS,
    -18.51%
    stock tumbled nearly 19%, following a bigger-than-expected drop in sales and as the retailer announced the depature of Old Navy CEO Nancy Green.
  • Shares of Qualtrics International Inc.
    XM,
    -9.41%
    fell 9.5% after the experience-management software company reported fiscal first-quarter forecast-beating revenue.
  • Snap Inc.
    SNAP,
    -0.27%
    shares lost 0.7% after the social media group reported quarterly revenue that fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.
  • Shares of American Express Co.
    AXP,
    -1.87%
    fell 1.4% after topping earnings expectations Friday amid a continued rebound in travel and strong spending trends among younger consumers.
  • Verizon Communications Inc.
    VZ,
    -5.30%
    fell after its earnings report showed a net loss of postpaid phone subscribers in its latest quarter, calling out “competitive dynamics within the industry,” though it said it had its best quarter of broadband net additions in more than a decade.
How are other assets trading?
  • The ICE U.S. Dollar Index 
    DXY,
    +0.56%
     rose 0.7% to trade at its highest since March 2020.
  • Bitcoin 
    BTCUSD,
    -2.51%
    fell 2.4% to trade near $39,500.
  • The U.S. oil benchmark
    CL.1,
    -1.90%
     fell $1.72, or 1.7%, to settle at $102.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, falling 4.1% for the week.
  • Gold
    GC00,
    -0.60%
    fell $13.90, or 0.7%, to settle at $1,934.30 an ounce, leaving a 2.1% weekly fall.
  • The Stoxx Europe 600
    SXXP,
    -1.79%
    dropped 1.5% while London’s FTSE 100 
    UKX,
    -1.39%
    fell 1.4%.
  • The Shanghai Composite 
    SHCOMP,
    +0.23%
     rose 0.2%, while the Hang Seng Index 
    HSI,
    -0.21%
    slipped 0.2% in Hong Kong and Japan’s Nikkei 225 
    NIK,
    -1.63%
    fell 1%.

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Business

Craft beer icon Bell’s Brewery bought by global conglomerate

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Bell’s Brewery, one of the most iconic craft brewers in the U.S., is being acquired by a unit of global beverage conglomerate Kirin Group, adding to the long list of beer-industry consolidation in recent years.

Founder Larry Bell, who started the brewery in Kalamazoo, Mich., in 1985, is retiring and said Wednesday he is selling the company to Australia-based Lion Little World Beverages , which is owned by Japan’s Kirin
2503,
+0.85%.
The move will put Bell’s under the same corporate umbrella as Colorado-based New Belgium Brewery, which sold to Lion in 2019.

“This decision ultimately came down to two determining factors,” Bell said in a statement. “First, the folks at New Belgium share our ironclad commitment to the craft of brewing and the community-first way we’ve built our business. Second, this was the right time. I’ve been doing this for more than 36 years and recently battled some serious health issues. I want everyone who loves this company like I do to know we have found a partner that truly values our incredible beer, our culture, and the importance of our roots here in Michigan.”

The price of the deal was not disclosed, and no major changes or layoffs are expected for the time being. “Beer drinkers should expect no changes to Bell’s current beers,” the company added.

Bell’s Executive Vice President Carrie Yunker will continue to lead day-to-day operations, and will report to New Belgium Chief Executive Steve Fechheimer.

“In Bell’s, we see a likeminded group of people dedicated to making the world’s best beer — doing business in a way that improves the wellbeing of the people who power our success,” Fechheimer said in a statement. “We couldn’t be happier to welcome the entire Bell’s team.”

Bell’s is best known for its Two Hearted IPA, which in 2020 was named best beer in America for the fourth straight year by the American Homebrewers Association magazine Zymurgy. That same survey ranked Bell’s Hopslam the No. 5 beer, and Bell’s as the best brewery in America.

After enjoying boom years and rapid expansion in the late 2000s, the craft beer industry has sharply pulled back over the past decade, suffering from oversaturated markets, slower sales and competition from hard seltzers. Lion bought New Belgium, maker of Fat Tire, nearly two years ago for an undisclosed price, and Japan’s Sapporo Holdings Ltd.
2501,
+0.13%
bought San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing, which billed itself as the oldest craft brewer in the U.S., in 2017 for about $85 million. In 2019, Boston Beer Co.
SAM,
-2.99%
bought Delaware’s Dogfish Head Brewery for about $300 million, and Anheuser-Busch InBev SA
BUD,

bought Kona Brewing Co. and Redhook Brewery in a deal valued at more than $200 million.

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Business

Despite surging stocks and home prices, U.S. inflation won’t be a problem for some time

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When America’s amusement parks and baseball stadiums no longer must serve as COVID-19 mass vaccination sites, some investors believe that households pocketing pandemic financial aid from the government might start to splurge.

While a consumer splurge could initially boost the parts of the economy devastated by the pandemic, a bigger concern for investors is that a sustained spending spree also could cause prices for goods and services to rise dramatically, dent financial asset values, and ultimately raise the cost of living for everyone.

“I don’t think inflation is dead,” said Matt Stucky, equity portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company. “The desire by key policy makers is to have it, and it’s the strongest it’s ever been. You will see rising inflation.”

Wall Street investors and analysts have become fixated in recent weeks on the potential for the Biden Administration’s planned $1.9 trillion fiscal stimulus package that targets relief to hard-hit households to cause inflation to spiral out of control.

Economists at Oxford Economics said on Friday they expect to see the “longest inflation stretch above 2% since before the financial crisis, but it’s unlikely to sustainably breach 3%.”

Severe inflation can hurt businesses by ratcheting up costs, pinching profits and causing stock prices to fall. The value of savings and bonds also can be chipped away by high inflation over time. 

Another worry among investors is that runaway inflation, which took hold in the late 1970s and pushed 30-year mortgage rates to near 18%, could force the Federal Reserve to taper its $120 billion per month bond purchase program or to raise its benchmark interest rate above the current 0% to 0.25% target sooner than expected and spook markets.

At the same time, it’s not far-fetched to argue that some financial assets already have been inflated by the Fed’s pedal-to-the-metal policy of low rates and an easy flow of credit, and might be due for some cooling off.

U.S. stocks, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.09%,
S&P 500 index
SPX,
+0.47%
and Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+0.50%
closed on Friday at all-time highs, while debt-laden companies can now borrow in the corporate “junk” bond, or speculative-grade, market at record low rates of about 4%.

Read: Stock market stoked by stimulus hopes — what investors are counting on

In addition to rallying stocks and bonds, home prices in the U.S. also have gone through the roof during the pandemic, despite the U.S. still needing to recoup almost as many jobs from the COVID-19 crisis as during the worst of the global financial crisis in 2008.

This chart shows that jobs lost to the pandemic remain near to levels seen in the aftermath of that last crisis.

Job losses need to be tamed


LPL Research, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday that he doesn’t expect a “large or sustained” outbreak of inflation, while also stressing that the central bank remains focused on recouping lost jobs during the pandemic, as the U.S. looks to makes serious headway in its vaccination program by late July. 

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday reiterated a call on Friday that the time for more, big fiscal stimulus is now.

“Broadly, the guide is, does it cost me more to live a year from now than a year prior,” Jeff Klingelhofer, co-head of investments at Thornburg Investment Management, said about inflation in an interview with MarketWatch.

“I think what we need to watch is wage inflation,” he said, adding that higher wages for upper income earners were mostly flat for much of the past decade. Also, many lower-wage households hardest hit by the pandemic have been left out of the past decade’s climb in financial asset prices and home values, he said.

“For the folks who haven’t taken that ride, it feels like a perpetuation of inequality that’s played out for some time,” he said, adding that the “only way to get broad inflation is with a broad overheating of the economy. We have the exact opposite. The bottom third are no where near overheating.”

Klingelhofer said it’s probably also a mistake to watch benchmark 10-year Treasury yields for signs that the economy is overheating and for inflation since, “it’s not a proxy for inflation. It’s just a proxy for how the Fed might react,” he said.

The 10-year Treasury yield
TMUBMUSD10Y,
1.209%
has climbed 28.6 basis points in the year to date to 1.199% as of Friday.

But with last year’s sharp price increases, is the U.S. housing market at least at risk of overheating?

“Not at current interest rates,” said John Beacham, the founder and CEO at Toorak Capital, which finances apartment buildings and single family rental properties, including those going through rehabilitation and construction projects.

“Over the course of the year, more people will go back to work,” Beacham said, but he added that it’s important for policy makers in Washington to provide a bridge for households through the pandemic, until spending on socializing, sporting events, concerts and more can again resemble a time before the pandemic.

“Clearly, there likely will be short-term consumption increase,” he said. “But after that it normalizes.”

The U.S. stock and bond markets will be mostly closed on Monday for the Presidents Day holiday.

On Tuesday, the only tidbit of economic data comes from the New York Federal Reserve’s Empire State manufacturing index, followed Wednesday by a slew of updates on U.S. retail sales, industrial production, home builders data and minutes from the Fed’s most recent policy meeting. Thursday and Friday bring more jobs, housing and business activity data, including existing home sales for January.

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