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    in Business

    Airbnb bookings for longer-term stays are growing, thanks to flexi work arrangements, CEO says

    “The pandemic has untethered millions of people from the need to be in office five days a week,” Chesky told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Wednesday.
    He said Airbnb’s average daily rate has been increasing because people are shifting away from booking cheaper one- or two-bedroom homes.
    Instead, more are now opting for larger homes in more expensive markets such as North America or Europe because they are travelling with their families.

    More people are booking longer-term rental stays because of flexible working arrangements as a result of the pandemic, says Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky.
    “The pandemic has untethered millions of people from the need to be in office five days a week,” Chesky told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Wednesday.

    “As people get more flexible, fewer people are going to be in permanent residences.”
    Chesky also noted that Airbnb’s average daily rate has been increasing because people are shifting away from booking cheaper one- or two-bedroom homes. Instead, more are now opting for larger homes in more expensive markets such as North America or Europe because they are travelling with their families.
    The average daily rate refers to the average price that a room or property is booked for per day.
    Leisure travel in the U.S. will push domestic air travel back to pre-Covid levels by early 2022, according to a report by Oliver Wyman in April.
    However, global air travel demand will take a bit longer to recover as travel limitations are still in place.

    The World Tourism Organization reported that international tourist arrivals increased by only 4% last year, and Bain & Company predicts that by the end of 2022, global air travel demand may reach only 84% of 2019 levels, before the pandemic hit.
    Nonetheless, Airbnb saw its strongest fourth quarter yet, Chesky said, with 2021 being the company’s best year.

    “Monthly stays were our fastest growing segment even before the pandemic,” he said. “And in the fourth quarter, we saw that 22% of our nights booked were for monthly stays, which is largely well ahead of what it was before the pandemic.”
    He added that nearly half of the nights booked were now for stays of a week or longer, which is “totally outside” the classical use case of travel.
    “We do think families are going to go away more and more for the summer as they are more flexible,” Chesky said. “So we’re seeing every length of stay increase.”

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    FAA chief Steve Dickson announces resignation midway through term

    Dickson began his five-year term in the wake of the Boeing 737 Max crashes.
    Other crises included a stand-off between the agency and 5G wireless providers.

    Stephen Dickson, administrator of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) nominee, speaks during a Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation confirmation hearing in Washington D.C., May 15, 2019.
    Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Federal Aviation Administrator Steve Dickson, who headed the agency in the wake of two fatal Boeing 737 Max crashes, resigned on Wednesday, effective March 31.
    Dickson’s announcement came halfway into his five-year term. In an e-mail to staff, Dickson said after long separations from his family “it is time to devote my full time and attention to them.

    “As I wrote in my letter to President Biden, it is time to go home,” he said. Dickson has been living in Washington D.C. leading the 45,000-person agency while his family has been in Georgia.
    “Although my heart is heavy, I am tremendously proud of everything we have accomplished together over the past several years,” he said. “The agency is in a better place than it was two years ago, and we are positioned for great success. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve alongside you.”
    Dickson, a former Delta Air Lines captain and head of flight operations, was appointed by President Donald Trump, days after the the second of two fatal crashes of Boeing’s best-selling 737 Max jetliners.
    The two accidents killed 346 people and plunged the FAA into crisis over its approval of the planes and its close relationship with Boeing. Dickson was tasked with improving the FAA’s reputation and improve its safety culture.
    In late December 2019, Boeing’s then-CEO Dennis Muilenburg was fired after stating that regulators would return the planes to service by the end of the year, prompting a dressing down in Washington by Dickson, people familiar with the matter said at the time.

    The approvals didn’t come until a year later. Dickson oversaw the Max’s return to service in late 2020, ending a 20-month worldwide flight ban on the planes, months later than Boeing executives had estimated. He flew the plane in September 2019 after he had said he wouldn’t clear the planes for service unless he flew the jet himself.
    Dickson also managed the agency through the last two years of the coronavirus pandemic when passenger numbers dropped and airlines faced record losses.
    Earlier this year, the agency was locked in a standoff with wireless providers Verizon and AT&T over concerns that new 5G service could interfere with some jets’ altimeters.
    The dispute resulted in 11th hour deals to pause rollouts near airports as the FAA worked through approving aircraft types though some carriers were forced to cut flights.
    “Steve has been the FAA’s steady and skilled captain, and his tenure has been marked by steadfast commitment to the FAA’s safety mission and the 45,000 employees who work tirelessly every day to fulfill it,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “We are grateful for his years of service to our country and his lifelong dedication to making sure our aviation system is the best and safest in the world.”

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    in Finance

    Global investors snap up Chinese stocks despite market declines

    International investment inflows to mainland Chinese stocks have increased since the fourth quarter, according to EPFR Global.
    The positive turn on sentiment comes as investment banks upgrade Chinese stocks.
    However, the data shows global emerging markets funds have increased their allocations more to India than mainland China, amid uncertainty about regulation and economic growth.

    A public screen displays the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the Hang Seng Index figures in Shanghai, China, on Monday, Feb. 7, 2022.
    Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    BEIJING — International investors are putting more money into Chinese stocks, even as local investors have remained cautious on the mainland markets.
    Mainland Chinese stock funds saw net inflows of $16.6 billion in January — only the fourth time since the pandemic that monthly inflows have exceeded $10 billion, according to research firm EPFR Global. That followed nearly $11 billion in net inflows in December, the data showed.

    “Investor interest in China has actually strengthened coming into the fourth quarter of last year,” Cameron Brandt, director of research at EPFR, said in a phone interview last week. “The driver there I think is a perception — especially among institutional investors — that in the emerging markets space, China is, for a variety of reasons, something of a safe play this year.”
    The latest wave of buying is from institutions, rather than retail investors whose interest in China dropped off since early last year, Brandt said.
    The divergent interest comes as global investment firms have turned increasingly positive on mainland Chinese stocks in the last several months.
    Analysts are betting, in part, that Beijing wants to ensure growth in a year the ruling Chinese Communist Party is set to choose its next leaders at a national congress in the fall. At the same meeting, President Xi Jinping is expected to take on an unprecedented third term in power.
    “Everything will need to look quite to perfection for [such] a monumental event,” Jason Hsu, chairman and CIO of Rayliant Global Advisors, said in a phone interview last week. “For anyone who is a rational investor, this is probably as favorable a sentiment as you’re going to get.”

    China has also become “a good contrarian play” this year because the local market is entering a period of stimulus and easier policy, while the U.S. Federal Reserve embarks on a tightening cycle, Hsu said.

    Goldman Sachs and Bernstein are so optimistic that they each released lengthy reports in the last few weeks recommending mainland Chinese stocks, also known as A-shares.
    The upbeat calls come despite worries about how regulatory uncertainty may have made those stocks “uninvestable.”
    “We believe China A shares, a US$14tn asset class, have become more investable given the ongoing liberalization and reform measures in the Chinese capital markets,” Goldman’s chief China Equity Strategist Kinger Lau and his team said in an 89-page report Sunday.
    In the last 18 months, Beijing has cracked down on alleged monopolistic practices by Chinese internet companies and property developers’ high reliance on debt, among other issues. The sometimes abrupt policy changes have surprised global investors.
    Global emerging markets funds have turned to India in the meantime, EPFR data showed.
    “Managers of funds who run diversified funds, they’re less enthusiastic about China, certainly relative to other markets,” Brandt said.
    Average allocation to China has fallen from 35% of the portfolio in the third quarter of 2020 to 27% as of Jan. 1, according to Brandt. During the same period, he said the funds’ allocation to India rose from 8.5% to 12.7%.

    Market pessimism in China

    Although the mainland Chinese stock market is the second largest in the world by value, it differs significantly from that of the U.S., the world’s largest.
    Speculative retail investors rather than institutions dominate the mainland market, which for years has drawn comparisons to a casino.
    But there have been signs of progress.
    In a sign of how the market is maturing, index giant MSCI decided in 2018 to add some China A-shares to the benchmark MSCI Emerging Markets Index. The move forced international funds tracking the index to buy more A-shares. But retail investors still dominate the mainland market by far.

    Our overall view is this year, [the] China market is not an easy bull market. It’s more likely to be buying on hope and selling on fact and results.

    China equity strategist, Bank of America Securities

    Weak onshore sentiment, along with better opportunities in developed markets, have contributed to J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s neutral view on Chinese stocks since early last year, Sylvia Sheng, global multi-asset strategist at the firm, said in a phone interview Monday.
    She said if growth improves in the second quarter, sentiment could turn as well, noting: “We are actually looking to get more positive on Chinese equities.”
    The Shanghai composite is up about 3% for February to-date after a week-long closure for the Lunar New Year holiday. The index had kicked off the year with a decline of 7.65% in January — its worst month since October 2018. Last year, the index posted relatively muted gains of 4.8%.
    Everyone’s sentiment on investing in A-shares has dropped significantly, Schelling Xie, senior analyst at Stansberry China, said in a phone interview Friday. He pointed to uncertainty about the degree of change on regulation and economic growth.
    Although some economists have said the worst of China’s regulatory crackdown is over, they also said it doesn’t mean a reversal or an end to new rules.
    It will take time for the market to rebuild confidence, but it is not appropriate to be overly pessimistic right now, Xuan Wei, chief strategist of China Asset Management, said in a note. He added that there are opportunities in new energy and technological growth stocks.

    China opening to foreign finance

    While analysts assess Chinese stock performance, the mainland market increasingly offers business opportunities for international investment firms.
    The financial industry is one of the few areas in which Beijing has relaxed ownership restrictions in the last few years. The policy changes have allowed BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and UBS among others to buy full control of their local securities or mutual fund operations.
    “One of the reasons why we’re bullish is we work in an area where China has really opened up in a big, big way,” said Brendan Ahern, chief investment officer of KraneShares. The firm sells one of the primary U.S.-listed exchange-traded funds that tracks Chinese internet stocks, KWEB.

    Read more about China from CNBC Pro

    “In general, I think there’s this disparity between what the Chinese think about China and what foreign investors think about China,” Ahern said.
    KWEB is up 3.8% for the year so far after dropping by more than 50% in 2021. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index is up about 5.5% year-to-date, while the Shanghai composite is down about 4.7%.
    Overseas investors generally “like to buy China for growth” rather than banks and other industries with many state-owned enterprises, said Winnie Wu, China equity strategist, Bank of America Securities.
    However, she noted the state-owned businesses have led recent outperformers, a trend she doubts can lead to sustained gains for the market.
    “Our overall view is this year, [the] China market is not an easy bull market,” she said. “It’s more likely to be buying on hope and selling on fact and results.”

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    Fed up with the rise in thefts and shoplifting, small-biz owners across U.S. are taking action

    Shoplifting and theft continue to hurt big retailers and chain stores, but it’s even harder for small businesses still trying to recover from the pandemic.
    A spokesperson for the National Retail Federation said if someone comes into a store and steals below that state’s federal theft threshold, it’s highly unlikely that law enforcement will go after them.
    Some small-business owners say they’re losing thousands of dollars each month and won’t submit every claim to insurance out of fear of being dropped.
    They’re taking matters into their own hands, charging a 1% crime spike fee on all transactions, stepping up security and, as a last resort, shutting down completely.

    They are brazen, aggressive and seemingly acting without a care in the world.
    Shoplifters are hurting big retailers and chain stores, even reportedly forcing some locations in New York City and San Francisco to close up. But unlike many big retailers that can absorb the loss, some small-business owners say the crime wave is devastating to their business, especially now, with many still recovering from a global pandemic. 

    “[When] you see … several thousand dollars just walk out the door — there really aren’t words that you can put to a situation like that. It’s just tough. It’s very, very difficult,” said small-business owner Derek Friedman.

    Small business owner Derek Friedman

    Friedman, who owns two retail clothing chains in Colorado and Texas – Sportsfan and Sock Em’ Sock Emporium – said four out of his 10 stores in the Denver area have seen a significant increase in theft since mid-2019, with losses totaling more than $200,000 in less than three years.—

    I didn’t even turn [some claims] into insurance because we would have [been dropped] – and a small business can’t afford to operate without insurance.

    Derek Friedman
    Denver-based small-business owner

    “Our average losses to theft before the beginning of the spike in 2019 were $2,000-$3,000 per month,” Friedman said. Since then, the retail value of stolen items has “averaged about $8,000 a month,” he said.

    Exterior of Sportsfan store in Denver, Colorado

    “We had to delay pay increases … [and] for almost two years, I took no income and just lived off of retirement as we tried to crawl out of Covid and try to recover from all the losses from the brazen theft,” Friedman said.
    He’s not alone. According to a recent survey of 700 small-business owners by Business.org, 54% reported an increase in shoplifting last year, with one in four saying they’re dealing with the issue on a weekly basis.

    In one surveillance video Friedman shared with CNBC, a shoplifter picks up a jersey and hat, then threatens employees with a 2-foot-long machete and walks out of the store with stolen merchandise. Friedman said he reported the incident to police, but to his knowledge, no one was apprehended.
    Friedman said he was on the brink of losing his insurance because of the number of incidents his businesses were enduring.
    “I didn’t even turn [some claims] into insurance because we would have [been dropped] — and a small business can’t afford to operate without insurance,” he said.
    Last week, Friedman implemented a 1% crime-spike fee to help offset his losses at four of his hardest-hit Denver stores, which will be added to all transactions indefinitely. And that may be just the starting point.
    “Hopefully, we don’t have to raise it,” he said. “I understood that [shoplifting was always a part of doing business] when I bought retail stores … but not at this level. We didn’t sign up for that, and it’s not right,— and it needs to change.”

    I’ve been here for 12 years. It was never like this – never.

    Peter Panayiotou
    owner, Cellar 53 Wine & Spirits

    Peter Panayiotou, the owner of Cellar 53 Wine & Spirits in New York City, said he is always the first one in and last one out. He is so concerned about the rise in theft, he said, that he doesn’t remember the last time he took a day off.

    Cellar 53 Wine & Spirits owner Peter Panayiotou

    “I come in before my guys and … I don’t leave the store until I close at 10 p.m. Why is that? Because I don’t want to leave them alone here,” Panayiotou said.
    In one surveillance video the shop owner shared with CNBC from last month, a man grabs a bottle of liquor and races out the door. Panayiotou chases after him, but the man gets away. That scene, he said, is playing out now more than ever before.
    “[I’ve been] here for 12 years. It was never like this — never,” he said, recalling a man who was coming into the store each day to swipe two bottles of Jack Daniels off the shelf.

    Exterior of Cellar 53 Wine & Spirits in New York City

    Panayiotou said he is securing his most expensive wine bottles to shelves with zip ties he bought on Amazon. Meanwhile, he’s also acting double duty as a security. And when he spots a thief, he immediately locks the door. 
    “I tell them, ‘put it back — it’s not worth it.’ If they put it back and they leave, it’s fine. If they don’t, I lock the door until I take back what they got from me.” Panayiotou said. “I can’t depend on the police anymore. I just have to protect my business.”
    According to Jason Straczewski, the National Retail Federation’s vice president of government and political affairs, if someone comes into a store and steals below that state’s federal theft threshold, it’s highly unlikely that law enforcement will go after them — unless it’s part of a frequent occurrence or it’s a group that law enforcement is tracking.
    “Several states are looking at ways to aggregate multiple crimes so that when an individual does go above the felony theft threshold, it will be easier to bring charges against that individual — or group of individuals — as well,” Straczewski said.

    So many people think you can walk out [with a pair of shoes], and not have to pay for it, and you won’t get prosecuted.

    Caroline Cho
    owner, Sneaker City

    In Seattle, Caroline Cho’s business, Sneaker City, has been in her family for three decades. But break-ins and brazen thieves — literally walking out with shoes in broad daylight — forced her to change the way customers tried on the merchandise. 

    Sneaker City owner Caroline Cho

    The solution she came up with? Allowing customers to try on only one shoe at a time.
    “[It was] the only way to protect my inventory,” said Cho. “So many people think you can walk out [with a pair of shoes], and not have to pay for it, and you won’t get prosecuted.”
    But her losses still added up. And when her landlord hiked her rent, she decided to liquidate her inventory and shut down for good, Cho said.

    Exterior of Sneaker City in Seattle, WA

    “It’s very bittersweet because you’re saying bye to something that you grew up with, that your family sacrificed a lot to make grow and that supported us,” Cho said. “But it’s also a little bit of a relief … because it was just getting to be too much.”
    Are you a small-business owner impacted by a surge in shoplifting? If so, we want to hear from you. Email us at [email protected].

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    in Finance

    Stock futures dip slightly as investors weigh earnings, Fed and geopolitics

    Stock futures dipped in overnight trading as investors digested corporate earnings reports, updates from the Federal Reserve and developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
    Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed about 35 points, or 0.1%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures each ticked down about 0.2%.

    A slew of companies reported quarterly results after the bell Wednesday. DoorDash surged more than 27% after hours. Cisco and Applied Materials both added more than 2% in extended trading.
    The S&P 500 in Wednesday’s regular trading session closed little changed, while the Dow shed nearly 55 points and the Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.1%.
    The major stock averages came off their lows Wednesday after the release of minutes from the Fed’s January meeting.
    The minutes showed the Fed is prepared to hike interest rates and reduce its balance sheet soon, as investors had already expected.
    “Marketwise it’s not the barn burner it could have been,” said Michael Schumacher, director of rates at Wells Fargo. “I think this tells us very little about Fed policy.”

    Ongoing tension at the Russia-Ukraine border continued to impact market sentiment.
    NATO officials on Wednesday accused Russia of increasing troop numbers at the Ukrainian border. U.S. and Russian aircraft in the Mediterranean Sea flew close to each other over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday
    Investors are awaiting quarterly reports Thursday from Walmart, Airbus, Autonation and Nestle.
    Weekly jobless claims numbers will also be released Thursday morning.

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    CDC wants to give people a break from wearing masks as pandemic improves, director says

    Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the CDC is focusing more on Covid hospitalizations as the guide to whether public health measures should be lifted.
    Walensky said the CDC is reviewing its mask guidance and may soon issue an update.
    The CDC currently recommends that people wear masks in indoor public places regardless of their vaccination status if they live in an area with high viral transmission.

    Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testifies during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to examine the federal response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and new emerging variants at Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S. January 11, 2022.
    Shawn Thew | Reuters

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reviewing its mask guidance, shifting its focus to Covid hospitalizations as a key measure of the severity of the outbreak and future guide for determining whether health safety protocols need to be tightened, according to the agency’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
    “We must consider hospital capacity as an additional important barometer,” Walensky told the public during a White House Covid update Wednesday. “We want to give people a break from things like mask-wearing when these metrics are better, and then have the ability to reach for them again should things worsen,” she said.

    The CDC currently recommends that people wear masks in indoor public places regardless of their vaccination status if they live in an area with high viral transmission. Nearly every county in the U.S. has high transmission right now, according to CDC data. People are required by federal law to wear masks on planes, buses, trains and other forms of public transportation.
    However, states have started easing public health measures as new infections from the omicron variant rapidly decline from their peak levels in January. New York and California have dropped mask mandates for businesses, while New Jersey has also gotten rid of its mask requirement for schools.
    Jeff Zients, White House Covid response coordinator, said the Biden administration is closely coordinating with state governors, public health experts and business leaders as the federal government plans for what the U.S. Covid reaction will look like as the wave of infection from the omicron variant subsides.
    “We’re moving toward a time when Covid isn’t a crisis, but it’s something we can protect against and treat,” Zients said during Wednesday’s briefing. “The president and our Covid team are actively planning for the future.”

    CNBC Health & Science

    The U.S. on Tuesday reported an average of about 136,000 new Covid cases per day over the last week, down 83% from the record high average of more than 800,000 cases per day set on Jan. 15, according to a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University. New infections are declining in nearly every state and D.C., according to the data.

    About 85,000 patients are in U.S. hospitals with Covid, according to a seven-day average of data from the Department of Health and Human Services as of Tuesday. That’s also down from a peak of nearly 160,000 on Jan. 20.
    “As we have fewer cases, people will become more comfortable with taking off their mask, but we will certainly want people to have the flexibility to wear one if they so choose,” Walensky said. The CDC director noted that people, regardless of transmission levels in their community, should wear a mask for 10 days if they have been diagnosed with Covid.
    Omicron spreads faster than past variants, but it generally doesn’t make people as sick as the delta or alpha strains. As infections soared to unprecedented levels in the U.S., hospitalizations and deaths did not increase at the same rate. However, hospitals have still faced tremendous pressure during the omicron wave because the variant can cause severe disease in the unvaccinated, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.
    White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Financial Times last week that the U.S. is heading out of the “full-blown pandemic phase of Covid-19.”

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    Stocks making the biggest moves after hours: Cisco, DoorDash, Fastly and more

    A DoorDash sign is pictured on a restaurant on the day they hold their IPO in New York, December 9, 2020.
    Carlo Allegri | Reuters

    Check out the companies making headlines after the bell: 
    DoorDash — DoorDash shares surged more than 32% in after-hours trading despite a wider-than-expected quarterly loss. The delivery company reported a loss of 45 cents per share while Wall Street expected a loss of 25 cents per share. However, DoorDash’s fourth-quarter revenue of $1.3 billion beat estimates.

    Fastly — The cloud computing services provider saw its shares plunge more than 22% after hours even after a better-than-expected earnings report. Fastly posted an adjusted loss of 10 cents per share on revenue of $97.7 million. Analysts expected a loss of 16 cents per share on revenue of $92.5 million, according to Refinitiv. The company guided to a wider-than-expected first-quarter loss per share.
    Cisco Systems — Shares of Cisco rose nearly 5% in extended trading after the company’s fiscal second-quarter report beat Wall Street expectations. The company posted adjusted earnings of 84 cents per share on revenue of $12.7 billion. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv expected earnings of 81 cents per share on revenue of $12.65 billion. Cisco also gave a sunny outlook for the rest of its fiscal year.
    Nvidia — Shares of Nvidia dipped more than 1% after hours despite a better-than-expected earnings report. The chipmaker posted an adjusted profit of $1.32 per share versus $1.22 expected. Revenue also topped the Refinitiv consensus estimate. However, first-quarter gross margin guidance came in slightly lower than analysts expected.

    Stock picks and investing trends from CNBC Pro:

    TripAdvisor — TripAdvisor shares retreated 7.5% after hours as the company missed top and bottom-line expectations in its latest quarterly results. The company posted an adjusted loss of 1 cent per share versus the Refinitiv consensus of 8 cents earned per share. Revenue also fell short of expectations.
    Fisker — Shares of the electric vehicle maker gained 4.3% in extended trading after the company’s quarterly financial results met Wall Street expectations. Fisker posted a loss of 47 cents per share.
    Applied Materials — The semiconductor stock rose 3.9% in extended trading after the company beat analysts’ earnings estimates. Applied Materials reported first-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.89 per share on revenues of $6.27 billion. Analysts had expected a profit of $1.85 per share on revenues of $6.16 billion.

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