- Asian Stocks Fluctuate as Traders Weigh Trump Win: Markets Wrap
(Bloomberg) — Asian stocks fluctuated in a narrow range as traders weighed the possibility of another Donald Trump presidency in the wake of his debate with Joe Biden last week. Shares in Japan were mixed while those in Australia and South Korea were little changed. Hong Kong’s stock market is set to reopen after a holiday. - Oil Trades Near Two-Month High on Israel, Hurricane Concerns
(Bloomberg) — Oil traded near a two-month high after breaking out of its recent trading range on an escalation in tensions in the Middle East and concerns over the rapid start to the Atlantic hurricane season. Brent crude traded near $87 a barrel after a 1.9% gain on Monday, while West Texas Intermediate was above $83. - World’s Most Volatile Big Stock Is Rocking Indonesia’s Market
(Bloomberg) — Its share-price chart resembles that of an emerging-market penny stock: a 1,200% surge punctuated by two crashes of more than 40% — all in the span of less than nine months. But PT Barito Renewables Energy is Indonesia’s biggest company by market capitalization – an $85 billion geothermal power producer controlled by one of the country’s richest tycoons. - Barry Diller Explores Possible Paramount Bid, NY Times Says
(Bloomberg) — Barry Diller, who led Paramount Pictures decades ago and lost a bidding war for the company, is considering making an offer for control of its parent, the New York Times reported. Diller, chairman of the digital media company IAC Inc., has signed nondisclosure agreements with National Amusements Inc., the controlling shareholder of Paramount Global. - Trump Immunity Ruling May Push Election Trial to 2025 or Beyond
(Bloomberg) — The criminal trial over Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election could be delayed for a year or more after the US Supreme Court ruled Monday that presidents have some immunity for their “official” acts. The case will return to US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who previously ruled Trump had no immunity from the charges. - Big Take: ‘Upflation’ Frenzy Hits Shoppers Buying Everyday Items
(Bloomberg) — Procter & Gamble Co. is charging $14 for all-over body deodorant — double the cost of a standard stick. Gillette sells a $15 intimate razor specifically for “tricky areas” for $5 more than the regular Venus. And Carefree’s newest pads are meant to catch all sorts of leaks. Those cost more than the old version, too. - Fed Officials Latch Onto ‘Scenarios’ as New Way to Communicate
(Bloomberg) — There’s a new buzzword in central banking: scenarios. A growing chorus of Federal Reserve officials is discussing the advantages of communicating how they would respond to various economic outcomes different from their baseline forecast. The post-pandemic recovery has repeatedly surprised economists on Wall Street. - Democrats Weigh Mid-July Vote to Formally Tap Biden as Nominee
(Bloomberg) — The Democratic National Committee is considering formally nominating Joe Biden as early as mid-July to ensure that the president is on November ballots, while helping to stamp out intra-party chatter of replacing him after last week’s poor debate performance. A potential date for Biden’s nomination is July 21, when the Democratic convention’s credentials. - Biden Slams Court Decision on Trump in Effort to Shift Age Focus
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden called on voters to “render a judgment” on Donald Trump, after a Supreme Court ruling paved the way for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to potentially escape prosecution for his role in the Jan. 6 US Capitol riot. - Vanguard Sees Yen Sliding to 170 If BOJ Bond Policy Disappoints
(Bloomberg) — Vanguard sees the yen at risk of falling toward 170 per dollar if potential Bank of Japan policy changes this month fail to boost the country’s bond yields. That would be the next big milestone for the currency after it slid through 161 in recent days, a level not seen since 1986. - BlackRock Aims to ‘Index the Private Markets’ After Preqin Deal
(Bloomberg) — BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said its acquisition of data provider Preqin will allow the firm, best known for its index funds, to apply the format to fast-growing assets. “We believe we could index the private markets,” Fink said on a call with investors and analysts on Monday after the New York-based money manager announced the £2.55. - Marathon Asset Management, Webster in Private Credit Tie-Up
(Bloomberg) — Marathon Asset Management and Webster Financial Corp. are forming a private credit joint venture focused on direct lending to private equity-backed middle-market companies, according to a statement. Monday’s announcement confirmed a Bloomberg News report about the partnership, the latest in a string of tie-ups between direct lenders and traditional banks. - Bridgewater Launches $2 Billion Fund Run by Machine Learning
(Bloomberg) — Bridgewater Associates launched a fund that uses machine learning as the primary basis of its decision-making. The vehicle debuted with almost $2 billion of capital from more than a half-dozen clients and began trading Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing the strategy. - Hedge Funds Sold TMT Stocks by Most on Record, Goldman Says
(Bloomberg) — Hedge funds are rotating out of winning technology bets and piling into the underperformers amid elevated positioning in the biggest US stocks and mounting global risks. Technology, media and telecom stocks were sold by the most on record in June, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s prime brokerage desk report that cited data going back to 2016. - Northern Data Weighs AI Unit US IPO at Up to $16 Billion Value
(Bloomberg) — Northern Data AG is speaking with potential advisers about a US initial public offering of its combined artificial intelligence cloud computing and data center businesses that could fetch a valuation of as much as $16 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. - Market Chatter: Amazon Web Services, Other Tech Giants, Seeking to Secure Power from Nuclear Plants
Amazon’s (AMZN) Amazon Web Services is among tech companies attempting to secure deals to power AI data centers from US nuclear reactors, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The owners of roughly a third of US nuclear reactors are in talks with tech companies to provide electricity. - A fire at Anglo American Plc’s biggest metallurgical coal project in Australia halted production, with the miner saying it may take months for it to be extinguished. Anglo, which is seeking to sell the mine as part of a turnaround plan, fell 2.8%.
A methane explosion on Saturday caused the fire at the Grosvenor underground mine, which accounts for about 30% of the company’s annual production of coking coal in Queensland state, Anglo said in an emailed statement Monday. No one was injured. “The mine team is working with specialist teams from the Queensland Mines Rescue Service and the regulatory authorities to extinguish the underground fire, prior to being able to assess the steps toward a safe re-entry into the mine,” Anglo said in the statement. - Tesla shares rose 6.1% after Chinese peers Nio and Li Auto reported vehicle delivery data for June that showed increases versus the same period a year ago.
The move marks Tesla’s fifth-straight day of gains, which would be the longest winning streak in almost a year. Tesla is set to report its sales data this week. Both Nio ADRs and Li Auto ADRs gained 6.7%. Nio reported deliveries for June of 21,209 vs. 20,544 m/m and 57,373 vehicles in 2Q, up 143.9% year-over-year. - Boeing Co. agreed to buy back Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. for $37.25 a share in an all-stock deal that values the supplier at $4.7 billion, unwinding a two-decade separation as the embattled US planemaker tries to fix its manufacturing defects.
The total transaction value is about $8.3 billion, including Spirit’s last reported net debt, according to a statement early on Monday. Rival Airbus SE will also take over parts of Spirit that make components for its aircraft, and the European planemaker will pay a nominal price of $1 for the assets, while receiving $559 million in compensation, according to a separate release. Spirit rose 3.3% while Boeing gained 2.6%. The price that Boeing is paying is 30% above Spirit’s closing stock price on Feb. 29, the day before the companies confirmed they were in merger talks. - Shares of airline, cruise and hotel stocks were trading lower as record-breaking Hurricane Beryl rushes toward the Caribbean.
Hurricane Beryl’s winds reached 150 miles (241 kilometers) per hour as it came ashore at 11:10 a.m. New York time on Carriacou, the second largest of Grenada’s islands, the US National Hurricane Center said. A Category 4 hurricane, Beryl is just 7 mph below the threshold for becoming a Category 5 storm at the top of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. The storm rapidly intensified from a tropical depression Friday to a major Category 4 hurricane Sunday night before temporarily losing some power as it spun toward the Windward Islands. Beryl, a looming humanitarian disaster, became the earliest Category 4 storm in the Atlantic, said Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane forecaster at AccuWeather Inc. - UK polls point to a massive win for Labour. The party doesn’t want voters to think victory is a done deal
There’s been one main narrative since the U.K.’s Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election back in May that the opposing Labour Party would win the vote by a landslide. UK voter polls have more or less pointed in one direction, giving the center-left Labour Party around a 20-point lead on the Conservatives.The party has been reluctant to reference the polls, telling CNBC it did not comment on projections, as they “vary and fluctuate.” - Iran faces runoff election between reformist and ultra-conservative presidential candidates amid record low turnout
Iran is headed for a runoff election on Friday, July 5, that will see an ultra-right-wing hardliner compete against a reformist during a time of intense economic, social, and geopolitical challenges. Amid record-low voter turnout of around 40% in the election’s first round Friday, two dramatically different candidates came out on top. Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian came out ahead with 10.4 million of 24.5 million votes cast, while hardline former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili came out just behind with 9.4 million votes. - Stock futures fall after S&P 500 rises to kick off back half of 2024
U.S. stock futures fell Tuesday morning after the major averages closed higher to start the second half of 2024, as tech stocks outperformed. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell 57 points, or 0.14%. S&P 500 futures slipped 0.21%, and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.37%. Wall Street is coming off a positive session for the benchmarks. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite. gained 0.83% to close at a record, while the S&P 500 rose 0.27%. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 50.66 points, or 0.13%. - Gold holds ground as investors await U.S. jobs data
Gold prices edged higher on Monday, buoyed by some short covering from investors with focus turning to U.S. jobs data due later this week that could offer more cues around interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. Spot gold was up 0.2% at $2,329.79 per ounce. Prices registered a more than 4% gain in the second quarter. - Manhattan is now a ‘buyer’s market’ as real estate prices fall and inventory rises
Manhattan home price declines are a result of rising inventory of apartments for sale, which are also taking longer to sell. The gap between buyer and seller expectations is narrowing, and more deals are closing. High rents in Manhattan are also helping sales as many potential buyers who were waiting out the sales market in rentals are finally deciding to buy.
Menu