Chapter 1: Why are corporations expected to take on record debt in 2026?
On the program today, we'll do the corporate debt market. We'll do some beef and some wine. And we'll go back to Altadena. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Risdell. It is Tuesday today. This one's the 6th of January. Good as always to have you along, everybody.
We're going to note here right at the top the latest market and macroeconomic reaction to the events of this past weekend. Not crickets exactly, but certainly muted. Equities continue to be exuberant. More new records on Wall Street. Gold's at a record high, too. So there is some desire for a safe haven. U.S.
Treasuries, the bond market, basically same, same from yesterday, which is to say unchanged since the Venezuelan news broke in the wee small hours of Saturday morning. Bonds, as it happens, are where we actually begin today, not Treasuries. but debt of the corporate variety, because January is typically a busy month for companies trying to sell bonds.
And this January is shaping up to be one of the busiest yet. Corporate debt issuance is expected to hit a record this year, despite the uncertainty in this economy. And interest rates, while, yes, they've still been falling, are higher than they were just a couple of years ago. Marketplace's Justin Ho then has more on why companies are scrambling to pile on debt. and what they plan to do with it.
The last time that corporations piled on a lot of debt was in the wake of the pandemic. Maureen O'Connor with Wells Fargo says that's because borrowing money was cheap back then.
When you think about it from just the cost of debt capital perspective, 2020 and 2021 were very low interest rate years.
And O'Connor says much of that debt is about to expire this year.
They need to refinance their debt. So that is probably the primary driver of supply.
O'Connor says another reason companies are borrowing so much money is that many of them hope to purchase other firms this year, and companies often use debt to finance mergers and acquisitions.
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Chapter 2: How are companies planning to use the debt they are acquiring?
How are they holding up and...
Uh, you know, last month was kind of a bummer because, you know, while that rumor started that we were going into the Rite Aid, um, The employees heard that and were all excited. It just kind of coincided with I was going to have a meeting with them. Unfortunately, the meeting was to the employees that were still getting paid, letting them know that there was no... There's no future.
There's no temporary space. There's no temporary space. And then I had to then tell them that that's a lie. We're not going in where the Rite Aid was. And that Their last payroll will be in December.
That's 15 jobs, by the way. Insurance did cover payroll for a year. That included benefits for many of his employees. And while Jimmy is still able to do a small amount of business here in town, running deliveries here and there, it's not nearly enough to rehire people.
Obviously, we've been talking to Joey Galloway about this building, about knocking it down, about the insurance, about this and that. It's going to be a while yet, don't you think, Jimmy? Yeah.
Yeah.
And you just resigned?
When it happened, I figured it would be at least five years. Three to five was where I was thinking. From what I talked to Joey, he's talking about putting that building back the same exact way. And I'm all for that. This is a historic building. If it has to take more time, that's fine.
You're back in your house, right? You personally.
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Chapter 3: What challenges is a small business owner facing in Altadena after the LA fires?
I've got, you know, $12 for lunch, and that's all I can spend.
So he tries to get his customers excited about chicken.
Give it a whirl, you know? I mean, I'd be perfectly happy selling a little bit more white meat. You know, the margins are actually there.
But this is Texas, and brisket is what the people want. In Taylor, I'm Elizabeth Troval for Marketplace.
Costco is, of course, the king of the $1.50 hot dog. They do a pretty good and cheap pizza, too. But one of its locations up in Napa Valley has become a surprise favorite for the wine aware locals hunting for deals on difficult to find bottles. Georgia Wells had that story in The Wall Street Journal. Welcome to the program.
Thank you for having me.
So this Costco up in Napa is relatively new, a little bit more than a year, yet it rapidly became a favorite of the wine cognoscenti up there. How did that happen?
So there is trouble in the wine industry broadly, and consumers are the ones benefiting from all this. Baby boomers are not drinking the way they used to. In wine industry terms, they're sunsetting, so they're aging out, they're drinking less. And the number of wine cases sold in the U.S. has declined more than 20 percent since 2020.
So you've got an under demand for wine and an oversupply problem.
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