ECONOMY

China's Feeling on Top of the World

Yesterday, in the best turnaround since True Detective Season 3, China announced its economy grew 4.9% annually for the quarter spanning July to September. It's an achievement made all the more impressive by the fact that no other G20 economy is expected to grow this year. 

How Beijing did it 

Having been ground zero for Covid-19, China was also the first to make it out the other side. In March, as other countries installed pandemic storm shutters, the Communist Party declared its outbreak under control and began reopening businesses. In Q2, it logged 3.2% economic growth. 

While Q3's numbers still came in slightly under expectations, economists say the recovery reflects a stable economy:

• Retail spending passed pre-pandemic levels for the first time.
• Foreign demand for medical supplies, electronics, and household items have pushed China's share of global exports to a record high.

As some countries face resurgent caseloads, China's strict lockdown, testing, and tracing programs have tamped down subsequent outbreaks and kept the coronavirus under control. 

Zoom out: China still has a migraine of a Q1 to recover from. Even with Q3's stats, it's only expected to eke out 1.8% growth this year, according to the IMF.

But 2020’s not over yet

China's National Bureau of Statistics acknowledged it's hard to be #thriving while the global economy remains in tatters. The IMF predicts the U.S. economy will shrink 4.3% this year and the eurozone's 8.3%. 

Other recovery storm clouds include future outbreaks, rising tensions with the West, and a growing debt load among businesses and households. 

• Consumer confidence could also use a pep talk. China hasn't extended much direct aid to its citizens, even though it's lost as many as 130 million jobs this year.

Big picture: China's Communist Party meets next week to work out its five-year economic plan. Two quarters of steady recovery puts the world's second largest economy on better footing than most. 

ENERGY

"Be Greedy When Others Are Fearful"

—Warren Buffett and ConocoPhillips, probably. 

In the worst year for the fossil fuel industry since the Prius was invented, ConocoPhillips, the largest oil producer in Alaska, announced a deal to buy shale oil company Concho Resources for $9.7 billion yesterday. 

Despite this year's collapse in oil demand and a broader push toward renewable energy sources, ConocoPhillips couldn't stay away from the clearance rack. 

• The deal prices Concho, which has a Hummer-sized footprint in the West Texas oil fields known as the Permian Basin, at $10,700/acre. Land in the Permian Basin was valued at $40,000/acre pre-Covid, according to Raymond James.

Besides the discounted price tag, Concho is an attractive target for ConocoPhillips because:

1. It doesn't do much drilling on federal lands, which would insulate ConocoPhillips should Joe Biden win the presidency and ban fracking permits on government property, as he's promised. 
2. More scale = lower costs. ConocoPhillips estimates it can lower the average cost of supply to $30/barrel, well below the current market price of $40.

AVIATION

In Air Travel, We're Back to 7 Figures

On Sunday, TSA screened more than 1 million people at U.S. airports for the first time since March 16.

On the same day last year, the agency asked 2.6 million to please remove their shoes. But in these pandemic times, a 60% drop means the glass is 40% full. 

• In April, TSA screenings dropped over 90% year-over-year. 
• In recent weeks, though, airline execs have taken a cautiously optimistic tone. United CEO Scott Kirby told CNBC last Thursday that while a recovery is still a "long way off," he thinks the company has "turned the corner." 

One lucrative segment that probably won't turn the corner for years: corporate travel. With Zoom calls replacing Las Vegas offsites, Delta's revenue from business customers dropped 86% in Q3. CEO Ed Bastian predicts it will take up to two years for around 80% of those customers to return...and the remaining 20%? Maybe never, experts say.  

End on a positive note: A new Dept. of Defense study found low risk of coronavirus infection in modern airplane cabins.

SPONSORED BY THE MOTLEY FOOL

Don’t Dilly Dally on This Double Down

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The Motley Fool has actually invested $500k of its own money in this stock that counts Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet as customers.

Other Motley Fool picks like Nvidia (up 3,511%) and Baidu (up 1,416%) have soared, and this one has the potential to be no different.

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COMMUNICATIONS

The Moon Is About to Have Better Cell Service Than You

NASA announced it’s teaming up with Nokia’s Bell Labs to install a 4G network on the moon, because no one likes getting a "Call Failed" notification when they're 239,000 miles from home.

The backstory: The goal of NASA’s Artemis program is to build lunar infrastructure capable of supporting human life. In other words, by 2028 NASA wants astronauts to be able to live on the moon.

• The agency is doling out various contracts to private companies, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, and now Nokia, as part of its “tipping point” investments focused on lunar exploration. These contracts are worth $370 million in total.

Nokia’s handy work would give astronauts on the moon the ability to make voice and video calls, as well as transfer important data. 

Bottom line: If you’re an astronaut who just pre-ordered the new iPhone 12, don’t worry—NASA says the moon network will eventually be upgraded to 5G. 

MARKETS

Decoding the Brew's Markets Section

Are you a Brew reader who opens up this newsletter, sees words like "DJIA" and "10-Year" in the Markets section, and scrolls right past because that's basically gibberish?

Here's the good news: You don't need an MBA, PhD, or fleece vest to understand what they are, how they work, and why they matter. We put together a brief summary of each of our six market indicators, from the S&P 500 to the price of oil, that translates those wonky terms into information you might find useful or interesting.

Learn about the markets here. 

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Fed Chair Jerome Powell didn't commit to the central bank launching a digital currency, but talked up private sector projects in the space like Facebook's Libra.
• President Trump labeled Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, "a disaster" in a campaign call and said Americans were tired of hearing about Covid-19. He then proceeded to attack Fauci on Twitter. 
• AMC shares soared nearly 16.5% after New York State said movie theaters could begin to reopen Oct. 23.  
• IBM’s total revenue fell last quarter, but it still topped expectations thanks to growth in its cloud unit. 
• Target will spend more than $70 million on additional employee bonuses ahead of the holiday shopping season.

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Tech Tip Tuesday: Google Voice lets you set up a secondary phone number and sync up all your mobile communications. It’s great for when you lose your phone, need a work number, or want to read your voicemails instead of listening to them (it transcribes them for you). It was created in ’09 but got some updates this summer that put it back on our radar.

Let’s talk about money: Sometimes the most important subjects are the least spoken about—like how people spend their money. Check out Refinery29’s Money Diaries to learn how individuals spend their hard-earned dollars. 

Two unnecessary but awesome deep dives: 1) The ultimate Halloween candy power rankings and 2) building a moving basketball hoop that won’t let you miss.

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FROM THE CREW

Whoops

In What Else is Brewing yesterday, we incorrectly wrote that billionaire investor Robert Smith paid off student loans for students at Morehead College. 

We should have written Morehouse College. Morehead College = Morehead State University in Kentucky. We regret the error.

GAMES

Apple, Microsoft, Google, or Facebook

We talk about these companies as a group so often—let’s see how well you know them. 

1. The oldest
2. The youngest   
3. The one originally based in Albuquerque, NM
4. The one with the most FY 2019 revenue
5. The one cofounded by Paul Allen
6. The one with a moonshot factory named “X”

ANSWER

1. The oldest: Microsoft (1975)
2. The youngest: Facebook (2004)
3. The one originally based in Albuquerque, NM: Microsoft
4. The one with the most FY 2019 revenue: Apple ($260.2 billion)
5. The one cofounded by Paul Allen: Microsoft
6. The one with a moonshot factory named “X”: Google (well, technically its parent company Alphabet)