Author: admin

It’s the wee hours of the morning. Pitch-dark sky, hardly a murmur on these urban streets. Most of Kansas City tucked in their cozy beds.

But inside this tiny brick building on 12th Street earlier this week, the lights are bright, R&B music is buzzing, and the oven is blazing — ready to finish off freshly-made dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls, cakes and pies.

Owner Joyce Watts had a long stint serving up such treats with her sisters under Big Momma’s Bakery-Cafe and then as a home-based business as Boujee Baker KC.

Seven months ago, she opened a bakery and retail shop at 2311 E. 12th St.

“People say they are nostalgic. ‘This reminds me of my grandma, my mom,’” Watts said of her brand of baking business. “They say, ‘It just warms my heart.’”

When Watts was a youngster, she would pretend to bake, making mud pies outside, and “hosting” a cooking show. But she left the cooking to a sibling and her mother. It wasn’t until she picked up a church cookbook that she delved into cooking for her family, which includes her three children.

“It just spoke to me. The recipes were clear and easy. I would see one and want to taste it,” she said.

At the time, Watts worked at DST in accounting, billing and programming — experience that later helped as an entrepreneur.

Watts and her husband, Richard, usually start their business day about 4 or 4:30 a.m. — hours before Richard leaves for his full-time job. The business’ one full-time employee, Chesni Bivens, is her son’s friend from fourth grade. One of her granddaughters, Anya Handy, is on call.

Along with sweets, Boujee offers breakfast (breakfast sandwiches, biscuit and sausage gravy, quiche, breakfast panini, and more), and lunch (sandwiches, soup, salads, and wraps). Some customers — employees of the water department — requested the chicken taco soup be on the menu daily. Now there’s a big pot full simmering beside two rotating flavors — such as zuppa toscano, loaded baked potato, chicken noodle, chicken pot pie, steak, and lasagna.

Richard makes the melt-in-your-mouth corned beef and smoked chicken for the sandwiches and panini. Other meat choices include ham, chicken salad and roast beef.

Third party delivery orders have surged, and surrounding businesses often send new customers.

“They come in and they love seeing a Black-owned, woman-owned business,” Watts said. “People have been so gracious.”

Baking a full-circle confection

Watts started Big Momma’s two decades ago with her sisters — Jackie Buycks and Jill Arnold. The siblings took over a former Raytown doughnut shop where they whipped up homespun recipes that had been favorites in their family for decades. They named it after Arnold’s mother-in-law.

They expanded in Raytown, adding indoor seating. Watts said Jill left the business when she and Jackie relocated to the Crown Center Shops in 2009. The high-traffic location drew customers from across the metro, as well as tourists. One year, they sold 1,500 dozen buttery dinner rolls just for Thanksgiving.

But when they were renewing their lease five years later, Jackie decided she wanted to be a fulltime minister.

“I hated it when they left me. I begged them to stay,” Watts said. “I couldn’t be mad. But I was.”

Watts went on to open a church daycare before reopening Big Momma’s on Bannister with her former husband in 2018. They later divorced. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

Watts started Boujee Baker KC as a homebased business in 2020.

She signed a lease for the 12th Street spot in January, and after renovations, opened the brick-and-mortar location in May next to Wing Lovers USA and near Gates Bar-B-Q.

(In a full-circle note, a previous cupcake tenant, Cupcakin’ Bakery, moved into the former Big Momma’s space in Crown Center Shops three years ago.)

Refining the business recipe

She misses her sisters and the skills they brought to the business — such as marketing, hard for Watts who likes to be behind-the-scenes. But being the sole owner gives her the final say for introducing new items.

She spent several years perfecting her cheesecake recipe and only recently felt it was good enough for her customers. Now the goodies are Boujee’s bestsellers — strawberry, cherry, Oreo, Turtle, brownie, strawberry crunch, banana pudding and more.

She’s tweaked some of the longtime recipes and also has introduced new breads to sell as loaves and for her sandwiches — a white bread, an onion bread, strawberry cream cheese, Italian, and jalapeño cheddar.

Breads are baked in house, except for its sourdough which is made by her niece, Shyla Jones, known as The Bread Lady in Raymore.

Watts also has a new garlic Parmesan butter for the panini.

Boujee Baker is open for breakfast, and lunch from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.

The mainstays are sweet potato bars, dinner rolls and cinnamon rolls (large, medium and mini sizes).

The bakery also sells a variety of cookies, including chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, strawberry lemonade, banana pudding, Ooey Gooey Butter, and peanut butter ($1.25 each or $15 a dozen).

Cupcakes are mostly by order. Flavors include chocolate heaven, banana pudding, and strawberry shortcake. Boujee also sells brownies, cakes, parfaits, muffins, peach cobbler, sweet potato pie and lemon meringue pie.

Watts also is expanding her catering operation for corporate meetings, birthday parties and showers, and other events. She also wants to do more pop-ups.

The gift shop at Children’s Mercy hospital recently ordered 1,500 of her treats for a two-day pop-up but sold out the first 750 by early afternoon. Watts had to bring in her two teenage granddaughters to make more.

“The flavors are great and I think the pricing is reasonable,” said Jennifer DiCarlo, director, gift shops. “We like to support local. And she was good to work with from a business standpoint, very professional.”

Watts called her husband her biggest cheerleader, “letting me shine,” she said.

She would tell others starting out to not get easily frustrated.

“Hang in there. Take on the task. Easier days are coming,” she said.

This story was originally published by Startland News, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.

US stocks had a stellar 2025, but global markets stole the show.

A major index tracking stocks outside the US, the MSCI All Country World ex-USA, gained 29.2% in 2025, handily outpacing the S&P 500’s gain of 16.39%.

The artificial intelligence boom has benefited markets in Asia, where tech companies and chipmakers have seen surges in demand. In Europe, markets received a boost from plans for government spending on defense and improved prospects for economic growth.

A weaker US dollar also provided a tailwind for international stocks. When the dollar weakens and other currencies strengthen, investments denominated in those currencies become more valuable when converted back into dollars.

The US dollar index, which measures the dollar’s strength against six major currencies, fell by roughly 9.4% in 2025, its worst year since 2017.

Heading into 2025, US stock valuations were already relatively expensive compared to the rest of the world, creating an incentive for investors to look for returns in different markets.

“A lot of things went right for international stocks in 2025,” Michael Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede, told CNN.

“After a couple years of lackluster fundamentals, foreign equities put together a strong year of earnings growth,” Reynolds said. “This was highlighted by fiscal stimulus in Europe and AI-related growth in Asia.”

Markets in Asia have been riding the wave of AI enthusiasm.

Tech companies and chipmakers in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and China all benefited last year from investor interest in AI.

South Korea’s Kospi index soared almost 76% in 2025 and posted its best year since 1999. Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 26%, lifted by gains in tech companies and chipmakers.

In Japan, shares of memory chip maker Kioxia surged 536%. And in South Korea, shares of tech giant Samsung surged almost 130%.

“The AI trade has broadened materially over the past year,” said Arun Sai, senior multi-asset strategist at Pictet Asset Management. “That optimism has increasingly been priced in beyond the US, extending globally, particularly into markets such as Korea and Japan.”

In Taiwan, shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) gained 46.54% last year and hit record highs. Meanwhile, shares of China-based Alibaba (BABA) soared 75.81% as the company embraced AI and launched its own chatbot.

Growth and defense

Stocks in Europe rallied in early 2025 as the German government enacted historic reforms to boost spending on defense. European defense stocks rallied last year, with German manufacturer Rheinmetall gaining 154%.

Meanwhile, improving outlooks for the economies in Greece, Spain and Poland benefited those countries’ markets. European banks like Santander (SAN) and Deutsche Bank (DB) also had standout years, each rising about 126% and helping lift markets.

Spain’s benchmark IBEX 35 index gained 49% and had its best year since 1993. Italy’s FTSE MIB gained almost 32% and had its best year since 1998. Germany’s DAX climbed 23% and Greece’s ATHEX Composite gained 44%, each posting their best year since 2019. Poland’s WIG index rose 47%.

“In a year when the falling dollar sent investors scrambling for global exposure, Poland offered a unique mix of growth and value,” said David Russell, global head of market strategy at TradeStation.

“Greece is finally recovering from a decade-long debt crisis,” Russell said. “The country recovered its investment-grade rating at Moody’s and enjoyed a tourism boom. It’s a classic comeback story following a period of bad loans and low multiples.”

The UK’s benchmark FTSE 100 index gained 21.51% and had its best year since 2009. The index then kicked off 2026 on a strong note, briefly rising above a record high 10,000 points on Friday for the first time ever.

For US investors, analysts say the dollar will be key to gauge international stocks’ returns.

“If the dollar continues to weaken, foreign stocks may continue to have the wind at their back,” Reynolds at Glenmede said.

While international markets had a year of outperformance, some investors say the fundamentals still support the United States.

“We still favor the US first and international second,” said Sameer Samana, head of global equities and real assets at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. “We feel the dollar will stabilize, which will help to dampen the advantage for emerging market equities.”

Wall Street remains optimistic about the outlook for US stocks as corporate profits have been resilient, and there is optimism that AI will continue to drive earnings growth. Still, investors last year looked overseas to diversify portfolios amid heightened uncertainty, and international — both developed and emerging — markets proved to be a strong pick.

“One of the biggest and most underappreciated surprises of 2025 has been the extraordinary outperformance of emerging market (EM) equities,” Lisa Shalett, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said in a December 15 note.

“Overweighting the US has served global investors well the past 15 years,” Shalett said. “That said, we believe shifting geopolitical, monetary and fiscal policy regimes amid technological upheaval and the constraints of developed world debt are creating a need for diversification beyond US stocks and bonds for long-term investors.”