Market Snapshot: Week of Aug. 13 – 20

We believe that knowledge is power and we want you to have more of it. The best realtors can engage their customers in conversation on a wide range of topics, from business trends and shifting political landscapes to the latest happenings in the world of sports, art, and pop-culture. We've summarized the biggest happenings from these sectors so that you don't have to.

Elysee Miami developers closed on a $138M construction loan, Michael Cohen is facing possible criminal charges, Venezuela just created a new currency and Khabib vs. McGregor is set for next month. Here's what people in the world of real estate should have on their radar.

Real Estate

• Two Roads Development just secured a $138 million construction loan from┬áJPMorgan Chase┬áfor its 57-story luxury condo tower Elysee in Miami's East Edgewater neighborhood. The developer has secured nearly 50 percent in presales, gaining equal interest from both foreign and domestic buyers. Construction of the 100-unit tower at 788 Northeast 23rd Street began last year and went vertical last month. Cervera Real Estate is handling the exclusive sales and marketing of the project, which is expected to be completed in 2020.
• State of the Miami Real Estate Market: Alicia Cervera Lamadrid, managing partner for Cevera Real Estate, talks Miami real estate cycles, emerging markets, dirty money, sea level rise, and more during a candid Q&A on the Miami Real Estate podcast. Click the audio player below to listen.┬á

• Prime Biscayne Property LLC has submitted plans to construct a 13-story mixed-use hotel at 3047 Biscayne Blvd., at the southeast corner of the intersection with Northeast 31st Street. The city's Urban Development Review Board voted June 20 to recommend approval of the project with conditions. The proposed hotel would have 137 rooms. The plan includes 6,872 square feet of commercial uses, and about 10,575 square feet of office space.┬á
• Wynwood is about to become the unlikely home of a slew of new offices, built by developers who want to capitalize on the neighborhood that was recently named┬áone of the hippest in America┬áby TripAdvisor, The Miami Herald reports. The hope is that the new office spaces ÔÇö with amenities such as 12-foot ceiling heights, open floor plans, artsy facades and proximity to┬áPanther Coffee┬áand┬áThe Salty Donut┬áÔÇö will attract more of the young creatives and professionals who already work at the 400+ businesses located within the 50-block district.
• Florida Department of Transportation has received a green light to move forward with the Signature Bridge project. In total,┬á$802 million is being spent, including: I-395 reconstruction; SR 836 improvements; a SR 836 westbound connector, and I-95 pavement reconstruction. As a result, traffic flow on the highways, including on the Dolphin Expressway, will be significantly improved with a complete rebuild adding more capacity and better ramps. Highlights include a viaduct that will allow eastbound drivers on the 836 to bypass the Midtown Interchange altogether, while another lane will be added for those connecting to northbound I-95 ' a problem area for decades. Confusing left-hand exits will be eliminated altogether.
• Forget the discreet mesh screens or the shy, glowing neon curtains that barely manage to conceal some other garages. The new, block-long Museum Garage in Miami's reborn Design District that opened recently is nothing less than a hallucinatory visual carnival ÔÇö five wildly disparate facades yoked together in a surreal architectural collage, says The Miami Herald. And inside? Seven stories of clean, functional space for 800 cars. (The garage may be extravagant but the parking rates are not -- just $3 for up to four hours.) Click here to read more.┬á

Business

Market Snapshot (August 20, 2018)

• Dow Jones: 25,669 (+1.41%)
• S&P 500: 2,850 (+0.60%)
• Nasdaq: 7,816 (-0.29%)
• Bitcoin: $6,512 (+2.96%)
• 10-Year Treasury:┬á2.867%

Market Winners:

• Corona-brewing beer-glomerate Constellation Brands upped its investment in Canopy Growth by $3.8 billion. Its hefty investment into the medical marijuana industry also lit up shares of other cannabis stocks such as Tilray and Cronos.
• Nordstrom shares rose as its quarterly sales gained 4%. That was almost as nice as Macy's 23% jump in and Walmart's 40% surge in online sales. These retailers are looking very strong and profitable as we head into the holiday season.

Market Losers:

• Uber is on its way to being publicly traded; it's planning on IPO'ing next year. Given its ambitious plans, the rideshare company shared quarterly earnings as a sign of good faith. Sales growth slowed, and it turns out self-driving cars are an expensive research habit, with the company having spent $2 billion on autonomous vehicle research so far (and made $0).
• Unlike many retailers who have figured out how to circumvent the online shopping world we now live in JCPenney continues not to know what kind of a store it is. Shares plummeted to a record low because it only has $182 million in cash left -- 40% less than a year ago.
• John Deere is feeling the heat of recent geopolitical trade wars. Steel tariffs upped the costs for the farm equipment maker. Moreover, the retaliatory tariffs from China are making things more expensive for its farmer customers who are cutting back.

Other Market News:

• Overnight, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.4 percent while Japan's Topix index closed 0.3 percent lower as the yen held most of Friday's gains against the dollar. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index was 0.6 percent higher at 5:45 a.m. Eastern Time as cyclicals and miners bounced back amid optimism over U.S.-China trade talks. S&P 500 futures pointed to a gain at the open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 2.859 percent, and gold was higher, according to Bloomberg.┬á

Politics

United States:

• Criminal charges are being prepared against Michael Cohen, and federal prosecutors could announce them by the end of the month, according to CNN. Cohen, President Trump's longtime "fixer," is being investigated for possible fraud and campaign finance violations related to the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. The New York Times also reported last night that investigators are also looking at more than $20 million in loans Cohen received for himself and his family's taxi business.

South America:

• Venezuela announced a new currency today called the sovereign bolivar that will be based on the Petro ' a kind of cryptocurrency backed by the country's oil reserves. The net effect of the move is a 95 percent plunge in the official rate of the bolivar, which will fall from about 285,000 per dollar to 6 million. The real world effect on the ground in Venezuela seems to mostly be confusion, with many shops closing over the weekend. To find out more click here.

Africa:

• South African officials have begun the process of seizing land from white farmers. Local newspaper City Press reports two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo are the first to be targeted for unilateral seizure after negotiations with the owners to purchase the properties stalled. The government says it intends to pay. Landowners wanted 200 million rand ($18.7 million)ÔÇö they're being offered just 20 million rand ($1.87 million) for the land.

Sports

College Football:

• Alabama will begin its quest for a second consecutive national championship with a rare three-peat. The Crimson Tide is just the second team to be ranked No. 1 in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll for three straight seasons. Alabama received 42 out of 61 first-place votes, its safe to say you will hear "Roll Tide" this upcoming college playoff.

UFC 229:

• The UFC Lightweight Championship bout between current champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and former featherweight and lightweight champion Conor McGregor will be held on October 6, 2018, at T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada, part of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area. This is a highly anticipated fight, tickets for the match sold out last week 10 minutes following their release. For more on the fight, click here.

Entertainment

• Harvey Weinstein accuser and outspoken voice of the #MeToo movement Asia Argento has handled her own sexual assault case on the down-low, making an arrangement to pay Jimmy Bennett, who accused her of sexually assaulting him in 2013. This is an excellent example of the blatant hypocrisy that plagues Hollywood.┬á

Quote of the Week

All the opinions expressed by Juan Artiles in this newsletter are solely his opinions. You should not treat any opinion expressed by his as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinions.