Apple Turn iPhone into Payment Terminals

MARKET MOVERS

• Share of homes available to buyers is falling fast as the mortgage rate climbs. If mortgage rates rise to 3.9% by the end of 2022, homes valued above $383,000 would fall out of reach for the typical American couple on a $2K monthly mortgage budget, according to Redfin. Read more here.

• Florida home goes up for auction as an NFT. The winning bidder will take home an NFT of an LLC that owns the home. A house in Gulfport, FL, will be auctioned off as an NFT tomorrow in what is claimed to be the first US real estate NFT transaction. Bidding starts at $650,000 in Ethereum. Real estate tech company Propy is handling the sale, which would be its second NFT real estate transaction.

• Canadian protesters temporarily block the bridge connecting the US and Canada. The Ambassador Bridge that links Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, carries more than 40,000 people and $323 million worth of goods each day. Accounting for roughly 25% of all US—Canada trade, it is one of the most important border crossings in the world. Read more here.

• Pfizer expects a record $100 billion in revenue this year from COVID vaccines and treatments. The company said it expects Comirnaty revenue of $32 billion and Paxlovid revenue of $22 billion this year. This means that Pfizer expects to generate revenue of $98 billion to $102 billion this year.
  Read more here.

• Homebuyer demand for mortgages drops 10%, as higher interest rates price some people out. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($647,200 or less) increased to 3.83% from 3.78% applications to refinance a home loan fell 7% for the week and were 52% lower than the same week one year ago.

• Beijing’s digital currency push at winter olympics puts Visa in a bind. For decades, America’s largest card network has been the exclusive electronic-payments provider at the world’s largest sporting event. At this year’s Beijing Games, however, Visa finds itself having to share the spotlight with China’s new digital currency, the e-CNY.

WHAT TO WATCH

• Apple will let businesses use iPhones to take customer payments via a tap-to-pay feature. Payment processor Stripe will be the first platform to offer the feature to its customers, which includes Shopify’s point-of-sale app. Other payment platforms and apps will start offering the feature later this year, the company said.  Read more here.

• Maersk expects supply chain problems to ease in the second half of this year. They expect a normalization of the situation and a fall in freight rates as Covid restrictions are lifted and infection rates fall, leading to a likely easing of congestion in ports such as Los Angeles and Long Beach on the US west coast. The company also unveiled a $1.7bn logistics acquisition.

• Facebook’s shares are going to struggle to recover for a long time, according to Josh Brown. The Ritholtz Wealth Management CEO said that Facebook has never taken on a competitor as big as TikTok. You have to go back to 2008 when they’re fighting MySpace to ever see Facebook in this position when they’re not the incumbent.

• Buyers may see a whirlwind year, says Danielle Hale, realtor.com®’s chief economist. If January housing trends are any indication, 2022 competition is already heating up. Homes sold at a record-fast January pace, suggesting that buyers are more active than usual for this time of year. The typical U.S. home spent 61 days on the market before being sold in January. Read more here.

• Amazon's stock price can surge to $4,000 by 2023, says Motley Fool's John Ballard. The two segments investors should watch are Amazon's cloud services business (Amazon Web Services) and digital advertising. Both segments continue to look strong moving into 2022. This momentum should continue, as more corporations shift their data systems over to the cloud.
  Read more here.