💼 Commuting like it’s 2019

WFH Fridays... a distant term from a distant time, when Zoom wasn't a verb and doing spreadsheets in your bedsheets was special. Pre-pandemic, just 4% of employed Americans worked fully remote. By May 2020 it was nearly half. But as the number of Covid cases wanes across the US, employees are returning to fluorescent cubicles.

• Conference-room donuts: Office occupancy reached a pandemic peak of 40% in December, then dipped on Omicron. Now it's rising again, hitting 38% this month.
• Couch cupcakes: Last year 90% of remote workers said they wanted to stay at least partly remote. And 75% said their employer would allow at least some remote work post-pandemic.
• FYI: 50M Americans are frontline workers (think: nurses, grocery workers), most of whom couldn’t work from home.

Reviving rush-hour podcasts… Employers aren’t taking a one-size-fits-all approach. On one end, companies like Apple, Netflix, Citi, and Goldman have set deadlines for full office returns (many this spring). Then there are hybrids like Meta, Disney, and Lyft, which are offering flexibility to retain talent. Google’s spending billions on new offices to lure hybrid-ers back to kombucha taps. Finally, there’s remote-first companies like Shopify, Coinbase, and Slack. Some pros and cons:

• Banks, law firms, and others bullish on RTO must’ve decided that remote life dampens productivity — or invested too much in pricey leases.
• Others are happy to save on rent and catered meals, and like the option of dipping into a wider talent pool (aka: nationwide).

The human cost of war… Millions of Ukrainians are fleeing their country as death counts rise, and some are getting support from Western employers. In recent years, Ukraine has become a thriving tech hub: Microsoft, Cisco, and Google have teams there, as do an estimated 20% of Fortune 500 companies. As the crisis has escalated, tech companies have tried to help their workers: Wix chartered planes to evacuate the third of its workforce that’s in Ukraine. In a tragic case, a Silicon Valley tech worker, her children, and their friend were killed as they tried to flee the conflict.

Going for (literal) gold… Gold prices hit $2K/ounce last week, approaching 2020’s all-time high. As prices soar, investors are shifting $$ from riskier assets like stocks to “safe haven” assets like gold, bonds, and cash. That’s been bullish for the two largest gold miners, Barrick Gold and Newmont: their shares are up around 30% this year while the market’s down 10%. Smaller Orla Mining’s stock is up 21% this year.

Stimmy season’s officially over... The Fed is set to start raising interest rates this week — for the first time in three years. Typically, higher rates help curb sky-high inflation that drives up the cost of everything from groceries to gas. But Fed Chair Powell said the war in Ukraine could spook the US economy in unforeseen ways, partly why Goldman Sachs has cut its US growth forecast for the year. All the uncertainty is why Powell is signaling a quarter-point rate hike on Wednesday, instead of the half-point predicted just a month ago.

It’s all in the delivery… There’s a race to deliver your latest Revolve impulse buy. Despite labor and supply strains, sales boomed for FedEx and UPS last year as shoppers kept ordering online post-lockdown. UPS profits tripled last quarter thanks partly to its stable union workforce. Meanwhile, despite record holiday deliveries, FedEx’s profit fell as it splurged on hiring extra workers. Still, FedEx is buying $5B of its shares and underscored its “confidence” in its biz. We’ll see if it’s still optimistic when it reports Thursday.

• Slice: Amazon’s splitting its shares 20 for 1, its first stock split in 20+ years. Thanks to fractional shares, splits are mostly for show now — but they’re also a sign the Zon thinks its $3K stock can keep rising.
• Canola: US Big Foodies like McDonald’s and Coke halted biz in Russia after peer pressure and Twitter #boycotts. The fast-food exodus is symbolic: McD’s was one of the first US chains to open in Russia post-Soviet Union.
• Gassy: Gas prices spiked even higher last week after the US banned Russian oil imports to punish Putin. Sanctions also sent grain and metal prices soaring, hurting Kellogg, General Mills, BMW, and Boeing.

• Raise: It’s an ideal job market for a raise, but asking can be stressful. Watch a money mentor share tips on negotiating for your worth — from making “brag” sheets to researching salaries.
• Club: DAOs — blockchain-based communities co-owned by members — have become a $13B biz. Thousands of community-run groups have invested in crypto projects, like private social clubs for coin holders.
• Salty: There’s a new starting salary for some college grads: entry-level bankers and consultants are raking in six-figure salaries, miffing coworkers who made 30% less when they started a few years ago.

• Monday: Earnings expected from XPeng, Vail Resorts, GitLab, and Del Taco
• Tuesday: Earnings expected from Lennar, SentinelOne, Smartsheet, and Dole
• Wednesday: Fed’s interest-rate decision. Earnings expected from Pinduoduo, Cintas, MillerKnoll, Williams-Sonoma, and Lands' End
• Thursday: Weekly jobless claims. St. Patrick’s Day. Earnings expected from Accenture, FedEx, Dollar General, Warby Parker, and Scholastic
• Friday: Earnings expected from Orla Mining
• The weekend: SXSW ends Saturday

Authors of this Snacks own: shares of Netflix, Twitter, Starbucks, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Disney

ID: 2078158