© 2020 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, November 16, 2020 |B1
RETAILERS FIND SHEDDING STORES DOESN’T ALWAYS PAY OFF B3
LastWeek:S&P3585.15À2.16% S&PFINÀ8.28% S&PITg0.40% DJTRANSÀ4.05% WSJ$IDXÀ0.31% LIBOR3M0.222 NIKKEI25385.87À4.36% See more at WSJ.com/MarketsBUSINESS & FINANCE
deep-pocketed investors. Re-
bekah Mercer, daughter of
hedge-fund investor Robert
Mercer, is among the com-
pany’s financial backers, ac-
cording to people familiar with
the matter. The Mercers have
previously financed a number
of conservative causes.
After The Wall Street Journal
reported on the Mercers’ ties
with Parler, Chief Executive John
Matze confirmed that Ms. Mer-
cer was the lead investor in the
company at its outset and said
that her backing was dependent
on the platform allowing users
to control what they see.
Some of the people familiar
with the matter said Parler was
a Mercer family investment. Ms.
PleaseturntopageB4As Facebook Inc. and Twit-
ter Inc. have taken a more as-
sertive role in curbing content
on their platforms, prominent
conservatives on both plat-
forms have responded with a
frequent retort: Follow me on
Parler.
Launched in 2018, the liber-
tarian-leaning social network
was the most downloaded app
on both Android and Apple de-
vices for most of last week, ac-
cording to data from Google
and analytics firm App Annie.
Its leaders envision it as a free-
speech-focused alternative to
the giants of Silicon Valley.
The platform also has someBYJEFFHORWITZ
ANDKEACHHAGEYMercer Cash Backs
Upstart App Parler
MEDIA
Content-hungry
streaming services
give a boost to anime
producers.B4MARKETS
Stocks in smaller
companies make
outsize gains on hopes
for the economy.B10cording to data from Citigroup.
That far surpasses returns from
junk bonds, corporate loans
and mortgage-backed debt and
isn’t far off the roughly 12%
posted by the far-riskier S&P
500 through Nov. 10.
Rising unemployment thisbonds linked to bundles of in-
dividual consumer loans.
The securities lost almost
14% in March but subsequently
returned about 21%, counting
price changes and interest pay-
ments, bringing the annual fig-
ure to 10% through October, ac-spring prompted consumer
lending firms like OneMain Fi-
nancial Holdings Inc. and
LendingClub Corp. to ratchet
up loss forecasts and roll out
large debt-deferral programs
for their customers this
spring.
“Given how dire the outlook
was...we assumed things would
be the same as we saw in 2008
and 2009—a 60% to 70% dete-
rioration in losses,” said Rich
Tambor, OneMain’s chief risk
officer.
But thanks to massive gov-
ernment assistance and re-
duced spending amid the pan-
demic shutdowns, the
expected surge of defaults
never came. Instead, many
PleaseturntopageB2coming days with data on re-
tail sales due Tuesday, along
with earnings from companies
including discount retailer TJX
Cos. A widely tracked con-
sumer-sentiment index re-
ported a decline last week,
with Americans’ outlook sour-
ing postelection as the pan-
demic worsens.
Household debt rose to a
record $14 trillion in 2019 as
Americans spent aggressively
in a tight labor market, using
personal loans to cover car
and home repairs, credit-card
consolidation and other ex-
penses. When the coronavirus
hit, lenders expected delin-
quencies to increase, as did
traders of consumer asset-
backed securities, complexPrices for the asset-backed se-
curities have soared as con-
sumers bucked expectations
and responded to the corona-
virus pandemic by paying
down debt rapidly.
“I don’t know if it will last,
but what’s happening now in
terms of the American con-
sumer, well, it’s downright un-
American,” said Paul Norris,
head of structured products at
investment firm Conning.
“We’ve had to throw out the
playbook of everything we’ve
learned about consumer behav-
ior.” Mr. Norris has been adding
consumer-loan asset-backed se-
curities to his $20 billion port-
folio throughout the year.
Investors will get a fresh
look at consumer health inInvestors who bet U.S. con-
sumers would keep paying
debts this year are reaping a
windfall as households spend
less and save more against the
backdrop of a still-ailing na-
tional economy.
Bonds backed by consumer
loans returned about 10%
through October, according to
data from Citigroup Inc., mak-
ing them one of the top-per-
forming investments of 2020.BYMATTWIRZBond Investors Win With Consumer Bets
Increased saving
makes debt securities
backed by loans among
year’s top performersTotal return, year-to-dateNote: Returns are through Oct. 31
Source: CitigroupConsumer asset-backed securities 10.1%
7.9 Investment-gradebonds
3.6 Agencymortgagebonds
3.4 Municipalbonds
3.3 High-yieldbonds
0.3LeveragedloansWarren Buffett has been qui-
etly making a huge bet on a
well-known conglomerate with
thousands of employees around
the world:Berkshire Hatha-
wayInc.
While Mr. Buffett has in-
creasingly faced pressure this
year to use his nearly $150 bil-
lion cash pile to purchase signif-
icant stakes in or the entire
business of a company, the
world’s most famous investor
has seemingly made few acqui-
sitions. Among the few deals he
did make are Berkshire’s pur-
chase ofDominion EnergyInc.’s
midstream energy business and
its investment of $6 billion in
five Japanese companies.
Berkshire also invested $250
million in the initial public of-
fering for data-warehousing
companySnowflakeInc.
But none of these 2020 in-
vestments have risen to the “el-
ephant” scale, Mr. Buffett’s
term for a big buy, relative to
the conglomerate’s size and
available cash.
In fact, the biggest purchase
that the Omaha, Neb., company
has made is to purchase its
own stock. Berkshire bought $9
billion of its own shares in the
third quarter, bringing total
buybacks for the first three
quarters of 2020 to $15.7 bil-
lion. These buybacks mean that
Berkshire Hathaway stock is
now one of Berkshire Hatha-
way’s biggest investments ever.
It is a contrast to decades of
thinking from Mr. Buffett, who
for years refused to buy back
Berkshire stock.
Analysts said that one main
reason Mr. Buffett has done a
buyback is that big acquisitions
are a taller order these days.
For a corporation of Berkshire’s
size and depth, with railroads,
food manufacturers, insurers,
furniture companies and jew-
elry retailers among the com-
pany’s varied subsidiaries,
there are fewer companies that
PleaseturntopageB2BYJENNATELESCABerkshire,
In Shift,
Turns to
Buybacks
INSIDE
ing: Is there something they
have done that might jeopar-
dize the workforce?”
Until recently, the biggest
Covid-19-related question was
whether to bring back micro-
waves pulled from the lunch-
room and access to lockers.
Ramsay SignsInc., a maker
of custom electrical signs in
Portland, Ore., created a pen-alty system to ensure mask-
wearing by staff. Employees
get a friendly reminder for
their first offense, then a stern
warning from supervisors. A
third offense triggers a formal
write-up indicating that work-
ers will be suspended without
pay if they don’t follow com-
pany rules.
None of the sign maker’s130 employees has been sus-
pended or terminated, but
write-ups were common in the
early days of the pandemic,
Ramsay President Wendy Gib-
son said. With Covid-19 cases
back on the rise in Portland,
workers are now taking the
pandemic more seriously, she
said.
“The last thing they need tobe worried about is being fired
for not wearing a mask, but
sometimes you need to make
these threats,” Ms. Gibson said.
Adding masks, partitions
and other safety measures
means higher costs for small
businesses, many of which
have been struggling with
slower sales because of the
PleaseturntopageB5Small-business owners are
grappling with how to manage
their workers as the numbers
of new coronavirus cases in
the U.S. surge. The questions
include everything from re-
opening the office lunchroom
to policing employees’ per-
sonal lives.
Delta SystemsInc., a maker
of components for outdoor
power equipment, thought it
had all the proper safety mea-
sures in place. The Streetsboro,
Ohio, company gives workers
the option of cloth masks or
plastic face shields. It checks
employees’ temperatures daily
and asks a handful of ques-
tions—about out-of-state
travel, exposure to someone
diagnosed with the virus and
changes in their own health.
But after cases jumped
again in Ohio and two of
Delta’s roughly 200 employees
tested positive for the virus in
recent weeks, executives have
begun looking at next steps.
“We have to winterize our
Covid plan,” Chief Executive
Elizabeth Barry said.
Delta is now weighing
whether and how to ask em-
ployees if they have associated
with people outside their bub-
ble when they aren’t at
work. As a manufacturer, the
company doesn’t have the lux-
ury of shutting down or send-
ing production workers to do
their jobs from home, Ms.
Barry said.
“It is probably none of my
business what people do out-
side of Delta,” she added. “The
other side of it that I have to
make them think every morn-BYRUTHSIMON
ANDRENATAGERALDOIssues of Masks, Bubbles Test Small Firms
Ramsay Signs, a maker of custom electrical signs in Portland, Ore., created a penalty system to ensure mask-wearing by staff.MASON TRINCA FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNALCEO John Matze says the platform encourages free speech.BRIDGET BENNETT FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY|By Nicole Nguyen and Joanna Stern
Look Your Best on Video Calls
With or Without a Webcam
If your signature Zoom
look is early-’90s home
video, you’ve come to the
right place. This is a guide to
looking your best at the vir-
tual office—whether or not
you wear sweatpants every-
day.
During the pandemic,
cloud-based video calling en-
abled everything from all-
hands meetings to workout
classes to weddings—and it
doesn’t look like our Zoom
life is going to stop soon.
In a test comparing the
newest Mac and Windows
machines, we found the com-
puters’ cameras produce
poor, grainy footage, espe-
cially if you aren’t in a room
with ideal lighting condi-
tions.
Oh, so you figure you’ll
just pick up an external web-
cam? Except, the Great Web-
cam Shortage of 2020. Popu-
lar models are still hard to
come by. But an iPhone or
digital camera connected to
your laptop can be even bet-
ter. It’s on a second device
that won’t make your laptop
go into overdrive.
Here are gadgets and apps
to help you up your virtual-
meeting game.Use a dedicated device
Video-chatting is hard on
your computer’s processor
and memory. Sluggish perfor-
mance? Hot surface? Noisy
fan? That’s your laptop strug-
gling to send and receive
real-time video and audio
streams.
Try a second device, like
an iPad orFacebook’s Portal,
dedicated to running your
chat app. It reserves your lap-top’s CPU for the dozens of
browser tabs you have open.
Smart displays with built-
in cameras are one option, if
you want to spend a bit and
your Wi-Fi can handle yet an-
other device. Video-calling
boxes were originally in-
tended for catch-ups with
Grandma, but the pandemic’s
work-from-home demands
have given them a new 9-to-5
rationale, too. In August,Zoom announced plans to ex-
pand to the Portal, along with
Google’s Nest Hub Max and
Amazon’s Echo Show, by the
end of the year.
We tested Zoom on Face-
book’s $129 Portal Mini, and
Google Meet on the $229
Nest Hub Max. (Displays from
Google and Amazon don’t yet
support Zoom.)
The Portal was the winner.
The image quality was bright,
crisp and clear. The smart
camera’s “Focus on Me” fea-
ture pans and tracks you
around the room.
Sure, it’s creepy. But when
you’re sitting, it keeps you
nice and centered.
On the Nest Hub Max, the
image on the call recipient’s
laptop appeared pixelated,
no matter the quality of Wi-
Fi and speed of the internet
connection. That’s because
Meet on the Hub Max sets
video resolution at a low
360p by default. A Google
spokeswoman said a high-
definition option is in the
works.
The Portal has more op-
tions: Not just Zoom and
Facebook’s video-calling apps
Messenger and WhatsApp,
PleaseturntopageB4An iPhone or digital
camera connected to
a laptop can be better
than a webcam.