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After the first nine months of the fiscal year 2020, Porsche Automobil Holding SE (Porsche SE), Stuttgart is making money again, albeit only at €437 million after tax (prior-year period: 3.52 billion euro). After the first six months of the fiscal year 2020, this figure had been negative at minus -€329 million.
Porsche SE’s positive result after tax basically comes from the profit from an investment accounted for at equity in Volkswagen AG of €505 million (prior-year period: €3.58 billion. Porsche Se is the largest holder of VW common stock). The business of the Volkswagen Group was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in the first nine months of 2020 but made a recovery in the third quarter. Nonetheless both groups remain in difficult if not precarious financial positions. Continue reading
Grim Survey – a Nation of Broke and Broken Shopkeepers?
The health of small business under the vindictive and covid-denying Trump mis-administration is dire. Click to Enlarge.
Census Bureau data from its latest weekly pulse survey on small businesses are bleak. The survey came out just before Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin astounded the financial world last Friday by saying he would not extend after year end the Federal Reserve backing of corporate credit and the Main Street and municipal lending programs. Mnuchin asked for the Fed to return the roughly $455 billion of unused capacity to the Treasury. Mnuchin is likely trying to stop President elect Biden’s next Treasury secretary extending relief to state and local governments. It will make it harder for small businesses to borrow. (see AI – Federal Reserve President on Do Nothing Republicans – The Economy Goes Where The Virus Goes)
The Federal Reserve – in what AutoInformed says is the latest example of the ugly, vindictive politics of the defeated at the ballot box, impeached and lame-duck Trump – responded with a statement claiming it “would prefer that the full suite of emergency facilities established during the corona-virus pandemic continue to serve their important role as a backstop for our still-strained and vulnerable economy.” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said earlier in the week there was a need for the programs to continue.
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