02282024 BUSINESS

‘Cut out of the deal’

By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

FORMER employees of the Lyford Cay Club say that they were “cut out of the deal” struck by the Bahamas Hotel, Catering and Allied Workers Union (BHCAWU) and the Bahamas Hotel and Restaurant Employers Association.

Nebra Russell, a former employee of the Lyford Cay Club, said she and other previous employees were left out of the hotel union’s recently negotiated industrial agreement.

The previous industrial agreement expired in 2013 and Ms Russell said that workers that were laid of in 2020 were an active part of the union’s negotiations for seven years and that it is unfair that they are not receiving

the benefits that current employees will reap from the agreement. She said: “It’s not a handful of us that were laid off, it’s like 200 of us and all of us are on the same

grounds that they think that we should be paid and it’s not fair that they cut us out of the deal.

“We were a part of the deal and you can’t go rewrite a contract and

you separate these people, these people no longer work there, but these people were always in the bargain from you was bargaining in 2013 and this is 2024 and you just get it solved. We should have gotten the same benefit as everybody else.”

She explained that she was an employee at the Lyford Cay Club for over 20 years she said that they were a part of the bargaining process from the contract first expired in 2013 and they are not at fault for the negotiations dragging on for over a decade.

She said: “I was working for Lyford Cay Club for almost 21 years and during the time that we were there we had a contract that was pending that the union couldn’t get signed. COVID came along and we got laid off from

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Agreement signed to help farmers to obtain loans

By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Agricultural Industrial Cooperation (BAIC) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bank of the Bahamas yesterday to provide loan facilities to farmers that wish to expand their businesses and acquire land.

Leroy Major, chairman of the BAIC, said the agreement will help aspiring entrepreneurs in the field to operate and noted that the agricultural organisation has signed agreements with the Bahamas Development Bank and The Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) to achieve this goal.

He said: “Today, it is my esteemed pleasure to affix my signature to this memorandum of understanding

with the Bank of the Bahamas limited as they join us in this quest to help aspiring entrepreneurs realise their dreams of owning and operating their own businesses.

“BAIC and the SBDC signed a MOU to assist

entrepreneurs with much needed financial assistance almost seamlessly. SBDC is now playing a critical role in providing perspective small and medium-size business loan applicants with seed money to assist in

developing entrepreneurship in the country.

“We have also entered agreement with the Bahamas Development Bank to assist farmers, food processors, handicraft and light

manufacturers with fundings for their projects.”

Mr Major said the board has decided to help tenants that have not started farming projects to get their projects off the ground instead of revoking their property. He announced that a symposium with tenants and financial institutions will be held this month so that they can discuss obtaining financing through government guaranteed loans and other financing options. He said: “The board of directors has made a determination that rather than revoke land from those who have not started their projects to go one step further in our quest to render assistance.

“Towards this end, BAIC has arranged a symposium

for our tenants with representatives from government agencies and financial institutions like the bank of the Bahamas, the Bahamas Development Bank, Small Business Development Centre, the National Insurance Board, Inland Revenue, Department of Physical Planning, and BAIC to come face to face with our tenants in New Providence and via zoom with our tenants in the Family Islands to inform them about opportunities possible for assistance with government guaranteed loans, and other services.”

Earl Beneby, corporate manager at the Bank of the Bahamas, said both government agencies have “interests in national economic development” and that they are pleased for

‘Impossible’ to find funds for Bahamian farming

By FAY SIMMONS Tribune Business Reporter jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

FARMERS say that they continue to face issues with obtaining financing - with a number of obstacles in their path.

Cindy Pinder, owner of Abaco Big Bird Poultry Farm, said accessing financing for her business is “impossible”.

She said that the past five years have been “hard” due to obstacles such as Hurricane Dorian, the pandemic and a chicken shortage that exhausted her businesses capital, and that accessing funding from lending institutions has been difficult due to them only offering cash-secured loans.

She said: “Getting financing is impossible, everything they want is cash-secured.

“We were completely out of business after Hurricane Dorian. We started to rebuild from Dorian and COVID hit, which slowed down tremendously. And then we were just ready to get back on our feet, we’ve had a worldwide shortage of chicken so we’ve struggled through that and we’re just trying, again to grow our market and expand but capital problems… it’s been a really hard five years but we’re moving forward.”

She said she needs access to funding to replace

equipment and continue the installation of a solar power generation system so that she can reduce her electricity bill which increased by almost $5,000.

She said: “My backhoe broke down many months ago and I took it to a mechanic here so that they can fix it. He hasn’t fixed it, he took it apart and now there’s nobody fixing my backhoe and I don’t have money to buy a new one.

“Every day, I need a backhoe desperately, I can’t borrow money for that. I’m trying to put in solar. I got partial government grant, and I need money for the rest of it.

“Power bills went up almost $5,000 a month for the last eight or ten months so all my excess capital went into my power bill.”

She said that her business is “cash strapped” as the financial institution that she did business with for 30 years has her land papers and took her credit card.

She said: “We did business with one bank for 30 years, had paid off probably millions in loans and overdrafts and we had to have our land papers released. They took away my $15,000 credit card I can’t have a credit card with them anymore, because I don’t have my land papers. “I don’t have an overdraft, I don’t have a credit card, so I’m cash strapped, it’s terrible.”

Jane Braynen, owner of HomeAway Farm, said it is difficult for her to obtain the funds necessary to employ sufficient labour. She explained she has tried to expand her coconut and banana farm into other produce and even pig farming but was unsuccessful due to the market.

She said: “With resources we always need all types of things, but I find that mostly I need labour. I don’t find it hard to find them but that just comes with money. If I had a payroll of $3,000 my farm would have been right where I wanted so it’s not finding labourers so much as having to pay them.

“We are just a small level farm and our lease is based on coconut. We have hundreds of coconuts planted on our farm, which I lease as coconut farm and banana. We did go into the vegetable planting part of it, but we were unsuccessful, we even went into pigs and we were unsuccessful because of the market and who you sell your products to. “

Lincoln Deal, owner of Eeden Farms indoor hydroponics farm, said farmers have “struggled” to access funding and noted the level of funding needed for each venture differs significantly.

He said: “Historically farmers have struggled and are still struggling to raise capital for various types of products, whether you’re in

livestock farming, aquaculture, hydroponics, whatever it is, it is difficult.

“The next issue is the level of funding, the type of funding that is needed goes beyond the small grants and depending on the scale and the size, the needs are quite significant. So we just

want to ensure that we’re not just providing funding, but we’re providing enough funding for a lot of these farmers to really get their projects off the ground and take off.”

THIRTY-ONE security

officers of the Department of Environmental Health Services successfully completed a 40-hour Security Officers Course at the Police Training College of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, and are pictured with their certificates on February 23 at the college.

Zane Lightbourne, State Minister for the Ministry of the Environment, ACP Dr Hanna and the leadership team of the Police Training College were on hand for the event and offered congratulations to the graduates. The officers will return to their respective postings and put their new skills to work.

‘Cut out of the

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Lyford Cay Club and some of us didn’t return.

“The contract being finalised dragged out took quite a long time. This contract was from 2013 and we were working at the club at that time and it was not our fault that the contract did not get sign.

“They rewrite the contract and because we were no longer there then we were no longer included in the $2,500 pay out and it’s supposed to be another one. When they were bargaining for the money from this contract came up, we were there.”

deal’

Ms Morris, a former employee at the Lyford Cay Club, maintained that the former employees are “entitled” to the $2,500 payout negotiated by the union under the new trade agreement.

She said it “doesn’t make no sense” that new employees and employees that recently returned to work will be paid while former employees that were a part of seven years of negotiations will not be.

She said: “We are entitled to the money but they are saying that we aren’t entitled to it.

“We were working there in 2013, we left the club in

2020. If the contract was supposed to be signed from we were working there and it didn’t get signed all them years from 2013 and we were there all that time up to 2020 in the pandemic, and it still wasn’t signed so why aren’t we entitled to the money.

“If we went back there to work we could’ve gotten it. They didn’t call everybody back when they pay us out they didn’t pay us out that money. Some people just gone back, it we had gone back then we could’ve gotten it.

“We didn’t go back so we are not entitled to it, that

Agreement signed to help farmers to obtain loans

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the opportunity to assist financially.

He said: “Obviously, we have common interests as a sister and brother, institutions with common interests in terms of ownership and

so we do have interests in national economic development. “We have an opportunity now to provide assistance to BAIC. We’ve been in support of BAIC for some time in terms of their philosophical and their moral

intents and what they want to do and so now we have an opportunity financially to see in which ways we can work together.” He said that more details about the agreement will be revealed at the symposium scheduled for March 21.

doesn’t make no sense to me.”

Darrin Woods, the BHCAWU president, disagreed with the former employee’s stance and explained that they were not entitled to any funds as they are not employees.

He said that although they were employees when negotiations began, they were not at the time it was concluded.

He explained that a contract is only valid for five years and as the agreement expired in 2013, eleven years or three contract cycles have already passed.

He said: “If we started negotiations with you being there and it is not concluded and you leave for whatever reason you leave and now that it has actually

come to fruition unless there is an agreement that should happen. “We cannot effectively say that an agreement that was in 2013 to 2018 and then from 2018 to 2023, it essentially the first year of the third agreement so we don’t see the basis in law for you to claim anything.

“If the agreement was expired 2013 and they signed the agreement in 2014 or 2015, still, if they were not there, they wouldn’t have been entitled to it.” He maintained that the union does not give lump sum payments to former employees and that they all received everything they were ‘entitled to’ inclusive of redundancy pay and $500 in pandemic assistance.

He said: “And notwithstanding that you can ask any trade union if anytime any lump sum was paid and or retroactivity payment if persons who are no longer employed has gotten it. The reality is the union has not done anything different than what was done in the past.

“We made sure that everything that they were entitled to until the club closed and they were made redundant. When they left, they got whatever they were entitled to and their redundancy pay and they received the assistance that the union negotiated for them during the pandemic.”

FAO pays courtesy call on Minister of Environment

OFFICIALS of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations including Alexis Bonte, FAO representative for Jamaica, Belize and The Bahamas, and in-country representative for Venezuela, along with Ambassador Winston Pinnock, Permanent Representative to the FAO in Rome, Italy, called on Vaughn Miller, Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources and Zane Lightbourne, State Minister for the Environment on February 22.

Their discussions included potential environmental projects that intersect with agriculture with the possibility of potential partnerships. Also present for the call were David Davis, Permanent

Secretary; Keith Philippe, FAO national correspondent; Precious Thompson, FAO national consultant; Shacara Lightbourne, FAO project manager; Fayne Thompson and Keino Cambridge, MENR consultants. Pictured from left: Fayne Thompson, MENR consultant; David Davis, Permanent Secretary; Vaughn Miller, Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources; Alexis Bonte, FAO representative for Jamaica, Belize and The Bahamas and in-country representative for Venezuela; Zane Lightbourne, State Minister for the Environment; Ambassador Winston Pinnock, Permanent Representative to the FAO in Rome, Italy; and Keino Cambridge, MENR consultant.

THREE REAL ESTATE AGENTS SHINE IN AWARDS

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Smith turns the attention away from himself to shine the light on the market he sells.

“There is still a strong demand for property, especially luxury waterfront property, in The Bahamas,” he said. “It has self-corrected to some degree, softening, it is not what it was during COVID, but it remains a very active market.”

The problem, he and others say, is inventory.

“There are a lot of buyers out there but there’s not a lot to buy in many of the high-end communities,” said Smith. Both Mr Smith and Mr Brown credit Mr Carey, declaring his leadership and team culture created the pathway to success.

“I am profoundly grateful to have achieved Platinum status, an achievement that would not have been

possible without the mentorship and support of my broker, Mario Carey. His leadership, sharp knowledge, sales skills, and unwavering work ethic have been instrumental in shaping my success,” said

Mr Brown, who was the firm’s top producer in 2023. Mr Carey opened the first international franchise of the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brand in 2017. The local office has walked away with honours

‘Impossible’ to find funds for Bahamian farming

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He said while many traditional farms face difficulties obtaining staff due to disinterest in the sector, many young people are gravitating to careers in technologybased agriculture.

He said: “Some of the traditional farmers do have issues finding people interested in farming, especially the younger generation in in, you know, full time, staffing opportunities. It’s been hard over the years convincing mainly young people to look at agriculture as an alternative career, or as something sustainable for them.

“But in our case, we’re finding that a lot of young

By MATTHEW DALY Associated Press

people are actually leaning into agriculture because it looks different. And the types of jobs are actually different in what we’re providing, because there are new jobs being created in the tech sector is what we call it because it’s agrotech. We’re emerging technology with agriculture and so they’re actually new opportunities for careers in agriculture.”

Mr Deal said that the Bahamas agriculture industry needs “continuous funding” in order to develop into a sector that is self-sufficient.

He said: “Food security should continue to be a priority especially as the world

continues to change. There’s wars and rumours of wars and pandemics and things of that nature. The reality is at any given moment the US or whomever we import most of our produce from can say at any point that we can’t ship to The Bahamas so we want to become a bit more self-sustaining and self-sufficient.

“We need continuous funding in the sector because the reality is we have a $1 billion food imports bill. And we need everyone on board right so that even farms and the other farms that are currently existing are still not enough to really make a dent in the market. We need

to encourage more farmers, we need to encourage more entrepreneurship in farming and agriculture and we need to promote more of the career opportunities in agrotech and in agriculture in general.”

every time they have been presented since.

“For one firm on a small island nation like The Bahamas to rank with top performers in major urban areas with robust markets speaks volumes about the both the desirability of The Bahamas and the ability of our MCR Bahamas team,” Mr Carey said. “I am proud of what Better Homes & Gardens MCR Bahamas team has done and equally proud to be Bahamian in a market that continues to draw those who could go anywhere but choose The Bahamas for where

they want to live or have a second home.”

Mr Smith agrees, calling the company ‘agile, constantly monitoring trends, analyzing and adapting.’

“When you consider what we are accomplishing locally and you put that in global perspective, we in The Bahamas stack up at the top of the list,” Mr Smith said. “That’s a lot to be proud of.” With a head office in Nassau, BHGRE MCR Bahamas is expanding its Family Islands network with new associates and estate agents.

What is the best indicator of nation’s financial health?

By Colina Financial Advisors Ltd (CFAL)

IN the week following Prime Minister Philip Davis’ accounting of the nation’s financial position up to the halfway point of the 2023/2024 fiscal year, there has been widespread discourse on the government exceeding its deficit targets for the entire year during that period.

The prime minister revealed last week that for the first half of the fiscal year the government’s net deficit was $258.7m, which exceeded the budgeted forecast by $127.6m.

He argued, however, that the Primary Balance – which improved from $3m in the first half of the 2022/2023 fiscal year to $42.4m for the first half of the 2023/2024 fiscal year

– was “the best measure of fiscal health”. Colina Financial Advisors Ltd (CFAL) seeks to provide perspective on which is a better measure of fiscal health, the Primary Balance or the GFS Deficit.

First, let us explain the difference between the two. The fiscal balance is the difference between a government’s revenues and its expenditures. It shows the extent to which expenditure each year is financed by the revenues collected in that year. When the government spends more than it collects as revenues, it has a fiscal deficit; when it spends less, it has a fiscal surplus.

The Primary Balance is the fiscal balance excluding net interest payments on public debt. That is, the primary balance is the difference between the

amount of revenue a government collects and the amount it spends on providing public goods and services.

A country has a primary deficit if it is spending more on public goods and services than it collects in taxes. This means the government must borrow money to pay for the everyday public goods and services it provides for citizens, which may not be sustainable. The Primary Balance is therefore a critical indicator of the short-term sustainability of a government’s finances (OECD 2021).

Against this backdrop, the analysts at CFAL agree that the Primary Balance would be the best indicator of fiscal health for a government with zero debt or interest payments.

However, given that the government of The Bahamas has a national debt of $11.77bn; and total annual interest payments in excess of $600m, the GFS Deficit would be the best metric to indicate The Bahamas’ fiscal health.

Interest payments are one of the biggest line items in successive budgets, exceeding spending on education, social services, healthcare, capital expenditure and many other core services provided to citizens.

Because the government cannot stop paying its interest payments, it is futile to analyse the deficit without consideration.

During his presentation, Prime Minister Philip Davis referred to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA), which is an

FARMERS MARCH IN POLAND’S CAPITAL, CUT OFF ROADS IN SPAIN TO PROTEST UKRAINE IMPORTS AND EU POLICIES

By VANESSA GERA Associated Press

in Poland's capital and Spanish farmers cut off traffic on highways near the French border on Tuesday in the latest protests against food imports from Ukraine and the European Union's agricultural policies. The actions follow similar protests across Europe

in recent weeks, and come as the West is experience growing fatigue in helping Ukrainians as they try to push back Russia's invasion. Farmers and their supporters blew horns and burned smoke bombs in the white-and-red colors of the national flag in front of the Polish parliament in Warsaw before marching to the offices of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Warsaw city

hall estimated that 10,000 people took part. Protesters want a withdrawal from the EU's Green Deal, a plan meant to fight climate change and help the environment with measures that they say are too costly.

The protesters are also demanding a ban on the imports of Ukrainian grain and other produce and allege that poorer quality Ukrainian produce is harming the country's

alternate measure of profitability to net income.

It is a signature metric referenced by companies that do not post a profit; and is typically acceptable for startup companies.

However, all companies eventually seek to post a profit, or in the government’s case, a surplus to be noteworthy.

That the GFS Deficit does not account for principal repayments on debt is acceptable given that it is not common for governments to reduce levels of national debt, particularly in the post covid environment where significant debt levels were taken on to keep economies afloat.

Currently, interest payments consume one out of every six dollars in revenue that the government receives.

for a meeting of regional leaders on Tuesday. "But it cannot be done through actions that are lethal to whole areas of the economy."

It remains important for the government to manage its debt and keep it at sustainable levels, so that its debt servicing costs do not become overwhelming and consume too much expenditure.

In a perfect world, it would be good to run surpluses and pay down the debt, but in the 50 years since The Bahamas became an independent nation, we have yet to achieve this.

The analysts at CFAL do acknowledge progress in the improvement of the Primary Balance, however this should not be used to provide a false sense of security as the GFS deficit remains high and is significantly ahead of the government’s initial estimates.

especially for medium-size and small farm producers."

food supply and putting its important agricultural sector in jeopardy. They are angry at the EU for lifting tariffs on Ukrainian food imports while Ukraine — a major food producer — sought ways get its food to global markets with war hampering transport in the Black Sea.

The swell of protests across the 27-member EU have become a major challenge for leaders, most of whom strongly support Ukraine but are forced to respond to the rising social anger.

"We want to help Ukraine," Tusk said in Prague, where he traveled

"Nobody has the right to believe that the Czech Republic or Poland do not support Ukraine," he said, appearing alongside Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala.

"But at the same time, we soberly assess the negative impact of the decision on free trade with Ukraine, which has a negative impact on our economies. And we will work together in Brussels to make corrections that will protect the common European market against the negative effects of such a decision." Tusk also said the EU's Green Deal has praiseworthy climate goals but that some provisions are a "burden hard to shoulder,

Tusk also noted that EU food producers cannot compete with Ukrainians because "the standards that are required of European and Polish farm producers are very high. There are no procedural requirements, no standards required of Ukrainian foods." The mood at Warsaw's protest had anti-Ukrainian undertones.

"Stop poisoned food from Ukraine in Polish stores," read a sign in front of the Polish parliament, while another said: "European policies destroy farmers. No to goods from Ukraine."

Tusk last week insisted that the Polish farmers are by and large not antiUkrainian, noting that many of them are the same people who have extended help to Ukrainian refugees.

$1B donation makes New York medical school

tuition free and transforms students’ lives

By MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press

FIRST year student

Samuel Woo had been considering a career in cardiology so he would be able to pay off his medical school debt until the announcement this week of a generous donation that will remove tuition fees at his New York City school.

Now, without the fear of crippling student debt, the 23-year-old from South Korea said Tuesday that he can afford to pursue his dream of providing medical services to people living on the streets.

"I was definitely very emotional and it changes

a lot," said Woo, who had been working as a tutor and at a cafe to help cover his costs.

Ruth Gottesman, a former professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the widow of a Wall Street investor, announced Monday that she is donating $1 billion to the school in the Bronx. The gift means that four-year students immediately go tuition free, while everyone else will benefit in the fall. Another first year, Jade Andrade, whose parents emigrated from the Philippines to rural Virginia, had a similar reaction. "A big wave of relief just came over me and, you

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that RICO SEMEXANT #26 Baldwin Chippingham, Nassau, The Bahamas applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 28th day of February 2024 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

NOTICE

days from the 28th day of February 2024 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

NOTICE

NOTICE is hereby given that

MIMOSE ETINNE Bahamas Avenue, Nassau, The Bahamas applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for Registration Naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/ naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 28th day of February 2024 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, New Providence, The Bahamas.

know, everyone surrounding me in the auditorium," Andrade said.

Both students expressed hope that Gottesman's generous gift would open doors for more low-income students from immigrant families who could not otherwise have afforded to pursue a career in medicine.

The donation is notable not just for its size — possibly the largest to any U.S. medical school, according to Montefiore Einstein, the umbrella organization for Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Montefiore Health System — but also because the school is located in one of the most impoverished parts of the city and the state of New York.

"There are people here in the Bronx who are first generation, low-income students who really want to be doctors and want to pursue medicine and want to practice here, but just

aren't able to have the opportunity, whether that's financial reasons or lack of resources," Woo said. "I'm hoping that the free tuition helps alleviate some of the pressure of those students and encourages them to think of medicine as, you know, a potentially acceptable field."

Andrade, 30, called the announcement liberating.

"Growing up in an immigrant household, there are very few life decisions that you make without thinking of the financial aspects of it in terms of, you know, 'Is this like a worthy investment of my time? This is something I want to do, but can I afford it?'" she said.

But once you remove the financial burden: "Anyone can dream bigger."

Astonished students and faculty rose to their feet, clapping, cheering, some crying, after Gottesman, 93, announced her donation. She has been affiliated

with the college for 55 years and is the chairperson of its board of trustees.

School officials said they hoped free tuition would attract a diverse pool of applicants, though it has no plans to change its admissions policy. They said the donation should last for perpetuity, since interest earned means the lump sum will continue to grow. All students will qualify for the free tuition.

Tuition at the school is currently $63,000 a year, leaving graduating students with mountains of debt that can take decades to repay. The Education Data Initiative says medical graduates on average leave school with $202,453 in debt.

Other schools in decidedly wealthier areas have also benefitted from generous donations.

In 2018, Kenneth and Elaine Langone gave $100 million to the NYU Grossman School of Medicine

that went to an endowment fund to make tuition free for all current and future medical students. And in 2023, the Langones gave $200 million to the NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine to endow a fulltuition scholarship program and guarantee free tuition for all medical students.

Kenneth Langone is a cofounder of Home Depot. UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine offers merit-based scholarships thanks to some $146 million in donations from the recording industry mogul. Gottesman credited her late husband, David "Sandy" Gottesman, for leaving her with the financial means to make the donation. David Gottesman built the Wall Street investment house First Manhattan and was on the board of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. He died in 2022 at age 96.

Wall Street holds steady near record highs

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer

U.S. stocks held near their record levels on Tuesday after a quiet day of trading.

The S&P 500 added 8.65 points, or 0.2%, to 5,078.18 and is just off its all-time high set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 96.82, or 0.2%, to 38,972.41, and the Nasdaq composite rose 59.05, or 0.4%, to 16,035.30.

Macy’s climbed 3.4% after reporting better results for the latest quarter than feared. It also announced a sweeping reorganization as it tries to kickstart growth in revenue. It will close about 150 stores and focus on opening new Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury locations.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings steamed 19.8% higher for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after saying it’s seeing healthy demand from customers. It also gave a forecast for earnings this upcoming year that was bigger than analysts’ own.

AutoZone revved 6.7% higher after reporting

a stronger profit than expected. Much of its growth last quarter came from its stores in Mexico and Brazil. Zoom Video Communications climbed after topping analysts’ forecasts for profit last quarter. It rose 8% to $68.17, though it’s still well below its peak above $560 during the height of the pandemic. It also announced a program to buy back up to $1.5 billion of its stock, which would send cash directly to shareholders.

Those winners helped offset a 1.5% drop for Chevron, which warned that its pending takeover of Hess may be under threat.

The energy companies are in discussions with Exxon Mobil and China National Offshore Oil Corp. about a joint operating agreement for a project off Guyana’s shore. If they can’t come to an acceptable resolution, Chevron said in a filing with U.S. securities regulators that its merger with Hess may not close.

Chevron was one of the main reasons for the Dow

Jones Industrial Average’s slide. Hess fell 3.1%.

Nvidia was another weight on the market, dipping 0.5% to take a bit of shine off its jaw-dropping run. Its stock is still up nearly 59% so far this year after soaring nearly 240% last year amid Wall Street’s frenzy around artificialintelligence technology.

Moves for Nvidia’s stock pack an extra weight on the S&P 500 because it’s the third-largest stock on Wall Street by market value. It

and a handful of other Big Tech companies have been responsible for a huge, disproportionate amount of the S&P 500’s rally since its bottom in October 2022.

To see how top-heavy the market has become, consider how the S&P 500 would be behaving if it gave each stock’s movement the same weight regardless of size. The S&P 500 is beating that equal-weighted index on a one-year rolling basis by a wide margin, “just a whisker shy of the Dot.

com bubble record highs,” according to strategists at Barclays. Unlike that bubble, though, the companies driving the growth this time are actually making profits and not flying on just hype. “As such the investment case for continued outperformance remains intact, but arguably more vulnerable to occasional corrections, given ebullient sentiment,” according to the strategists led by Stefano Pascale and Anshul Gupta.

Along with tech stocks, cryptocurrency prices have also been running higher. Bitcoin rose above $57,000 before edging back below the threshold and is up by roughly a third so far this year already.

New exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin have made investing in the cryptocurrency easier, while also driving business for Coinbase and others who safeguard those ETFs’ bitcoins. Coinbase rose 2.7% Tuesday to bring its gain for the year so far to 14.5%.

Earnings reporting season is winding down for

the big companies in the S&P 500, and the hope is that a remarkably solid U.S. economy will help profits grow through this year.

A report in the morning showed orders for longlasting manufactured goods were weaker last month than economists expected, but they were better than forecast after ignoring airplanes and other transportation items.

A separate report said that confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly slipped. Confidence had been on the upswing, and it’s a closely followed figure on Wall Street because spending by consumers makes up the bulk of the U.S. economy.

On the upside for investors, the report also showed that expectations for inflation among U.S. consumers ticked down a bit.

Treasury yields were mixed but held relatively steady following the reports. Yields have been climbing this year as traders push back forecasts for when the Federal Reserve may begin cutting interest rates.

Exchange in

York, Friday, June 2, 2023. Photo:Seth Wenig/AP