Notes From All Over -- From High-Interest Credit To BNPL To Instant Payments -- November 23, 2021

US home sales: on track for biggest year in 15 years. link to The WSJ.

• sales were well off expectations, but existing-home sales rose 0.8% in October, the highest pace since January this year
• sales were down 5.8% year/year

QR codes at POS:

• in less than a year we've gone from MasterCard and Visa to BNPL to QR codes at POS; link here;
• interestingly, I wrote something along this very line earlier this summer, from July 21, 2021, QR codes for all individuals at time of birth;
• "twitter" analysts suggest MC and V slumping due to this new technology;
  

Closed on Thanksgiving:

• Walmart, Target, others; link to The WSJ; others to close:
• Kohl's
• Macy's (except for the parade)
• Simon Property Group, the nation's largest shopping-mall operator will close 168 malls and outlets
• Foot Locker
• Best Buy
• Costco: has "always" been closed on Thanksgiving; nothing new this year;
• REI: will be closed on Black Friday, also
• to stay open: CVS; Big Lots; Dollar General;
• Target said holiday store closures would be permanent

Democrat presidential slate starting to line up:

• I had a post about this not too long ago;
• now, add a new contender; from Powerline.
• it looks like Pete Buttigieg could end up as strongest, most visible member of Biden's cabinet;

EVs and AVs: scorecard just went from three to four:

• Rivian: with Ford's announcement that it will go its own way, drop Rivian, I will be spending much of the morning updating recent posts;
• GlobalFoundries: did Jim Cramer miss one? Certainly sounds like it.
• GlobalFoundries is Ford's semiconductor partner and Wall Street's new darling; Barron's;
• from the TimesUnion: amid news of Ford partnership, GlobalFoundries stock up 40% since IPO;
• news here;
  
• AAPL: why AAPL surged yesterday; discussed on the blog; now Motley Fool confirms, but look at this --
• Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives estimating that there is a "75%, 80% plus chance" that Apple will build the car that Bloomberg reported on last week. Indeed, the analyst goes so far as to say that "this is a matter of when, not if."  
• this is basically the same thing that Bloomberg reported last week. But in Wedbush's opinion, Apple's electric, autonomous car might actually arrive as early as 2024, before Bloomberg's reported 2025 arrival date

More AAPL: posts longest rally since July as tech broadly falls; link here; 

And even more Apple, apparently no longer a secret: why Windows 11 is not yet available for Apple's M1 new supercomputers; 

• Microsoft has a secret agreement with Qualcomm to prevent that from happening -- but it's only temporary; link here; will be re-posted.
  

Supreme Court: won't intervene in New Jersey's move to leave port watchdog; link here to The WSJ;

The decision advances New Jersey's bid to withdraw from the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor.

The decision, a victory for New Jersey, leaves the door open for future legal tussles between the two states that share jurisdiction over the busiest container port on the East Coast.

The two governors share control of the port through the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The bistate authority has grown over the past century into a transportation juggernaut that also owns the region’s three major airports, six tolled bridges and tunnels, and the 16-acre World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan.

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Ford To Rivian

Go Your Own Way, Fleetwood Mac