The daily business briefing: June 17, 2019

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1. Caravans of Americans head to Canada seeking cheaper insulin
2. Multiple glitches slow payment systems at Target stores
3. Bitcoin passes $9,000 for first time in more than a year
4. Power outage exposes weaknesses in South American energy infrastructure
5. U.S. stock futures climb ahead of Federal Reserve meeting

published 17 June 2019

1. Caravans of Americans head to Canada seeking cheaper insulin

Caravans of Americans are heading to Canada to purchase affordable life-saving drugs, The Washington Post reported. Insulin, which can cost hundreds of dollars per vial in the U.S., can be purchased for one-tenth of the price and without a prescription in Canada. Lija Greenseid, a "rule-abiding Minnesota mom" and the mother of a 13-year-old daughter with Type 1 Diabetes, guided five other Americans on a drug run to Canada, where they purchased about $12,000 worth of analog insulin for $1,200. The price of insulin in the U.S. doubled from 2012 to 2016, and the cost can be unpredictable on different insurance plans. Canada is able to keep costs low through a combination of price caps, negotiations with drug manufactures, and other policies. The caravans to Canada may be illegal, but the organizers want to make other Americans aware of these trips to highlight the rising drug prices.

Target stores had multiple processing issues over the weekend, bringing shopping to a standstill on Saturday and causing card payment issues at some stores on Sunday. An hours-long shortage on Saturday affected shoppers in several states, including Iowa, California, Minnesota, and New York. The outage left many customers frustrated, and resulted in many Target employees gifting snacks, samples, and discounts to waiting customers. Target said the cause was "an internal technology issue" and did not result in any customer data being breached. Sunday's issue was unrelated to Saturday's glitch, Target Corp says, and left some stores unable to process certain card payments for about 90 minutes. Target said its payments vendor NCR experienced a problem at one of its data centers.

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Bitcoin surged to over $9,000 on Sunday for the first time in 13 months. Peaking at $9,385, this was the highest rate for the volatile cryptocurrency since May of 2018. Bitcoin has seen a 22 percent increase in value over the last 30 days, following trends in the crypto market that have boosted several other digital currencies. Bitcoin's rally comes as Facebook is expected to launch a new cryptocurrency this week. The currency, reportedly called Libra, is expected to receive endorsements from Visa, Uber, and Paypal, and would allow users to make purchases on websites outside of Facebook. While Sunday's surge in value bodes well for bitcoin, it's still a far cry from its all-time peak at above $19,000 in 2017.

Tens of millions of people were without power on Sunday in Argentina and Uruguay after an unprecedented blackout. The massive outage halted public transit, closed stores, and forced some people voting in local elections to cast their ballots with a flashlight in hand. The blackout exposes weaknesses in Argentina's electricity infrastructure, which suffered from under-investment after utility tariffs were frozen in the wake of the country's economic crisis in 2001 and 2002. Smaller-scale blackouts were more common before Argentina's President Mauricio Macri increased electricity tariffs several years ago. Marci, who did not rule out the possibility of a cyberattack in causing the outage, said the incident began with an unexplained fault in Argentina's power grid.

U.S. stock index futures were high Monday morning ahead of Federal Reserve meetings due to start Tuesday. Dow futures pointed to a positive open of more than 45 points, with the S&P and Nasdaq also showing positive signs. This is in contrast to last week's finish, when Wall Street ended with modest losses. Market watchers do not expect the Fed to announce interest rate cuts this week, but they do anticipate a potential announcement of cuts next month. President Trump warned over the weekend of potential market repercussions if he does not win re-election, saying there will be "a market crash the likes of which has not been seen before."

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