TRAFFIC Comes to Fresh York in Perilous Times
TRAFFIC hits Fresh York next week during a rough time for the city.
Fresh York City is the center of the financial universe, and life isn’t grand right now. This September has been very rough for the financial markets and firms headquartered just across the Brooklyn Bridge from the Marriott where TRAFFIC will take place.
What will the mood be at the show? The domain market isn’t as hot as last time the show rolled into Fresh York, but will the stock market crash and thousands of lost jobs in the area weigh in?
Fresh York City is surely feeling the pain. Its tax base has been obliterated and it wasn’t doing so hot even ahead of the events of this month. Thousands of million-dollar-a-year employees have lost their jobs.
It’s not just NYC that’s feeling the pain. Make no mistake that people across the world have been staying up late at night wondering when this fiasco will end. The latest edition of The Economist shows the YTD returns for worldwide stock markets. I saw only one market that was up for the year — Venezuela — but that was in the local currency. In U.S. dollar terms it’s down nearly 30%.
People have less money in their pockets. Worse, they are concerned regarding what will happen next. This means they’ll try to horde as much cash as possible. Their stock holdings, much of which is for retirement, have eroded.
I’m curious how this might affect the four auctions taking place at TRAFFIC next week. If the auctions turn out anything like the stock market this stretch, it won’t be pretty.
