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The World
Rising Rates Squeeze Stocks on Both Sides: The Federal Reserve is expected to sharply raise interest rates again Wednesday in a bid to curb inflation, raising concerns about corporate earnings and stock valuations. (Wall Street Journal)
Rents and other shelter costs are emerging as a major driver of overall consumer inflation, keeping it high at a time when many other sources are starting to ease. Economists expect housing inflation to strengthen further before cooling off in the coming months, but are unsure of when relief will appear. This creates another challenge for the Federal Reserve as it raises interest rates to reduce price pressures. (Wall Street Journal)
Nato has accused Moscow of escalating its war on Ukraine after Kremlin allies in occupied territories announced referendums to join Russia and the country’s parliament approved legislation that clears the way for military mobilisation. Russia’s Duma also passed a law on Tuesday to increase penalties for desertion and evasion of conscription in the event of mobilisation, a further sign of Moscow’s hardening stance. (Financial Times)
Moscow-installed leaders in occupied areas of four Ukrainian regions plan to hold referendums on joining Russia in coming days, a challenge to the West that could sharply escalate the war and which drew condemnation from Ukraine and its allies. In the apparently coordinated move, pro-Russian figures announced referendums for Sept. 23-27 in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces, representing around 15% of Ukrainian territory, or an area about the size of Hungary. (Reuters)
Blinken calls Russian referenda attempts a ‘sign of weakness’ and a ‘sign of Russian failure’. (CNBC)
A U.S. Navy warship and a Canadian frigate carried out a routine transit of the Taiwan Strait, an operation which comes amid heightened military tensions between Beijing and Taipei. (Reuters)
China-India relations remain chilly amid Jaishankar’s diplomatic barrage at UN. In New York, world leaders gather for the UN General Assembly and a BRICS foreign ministers meeting is scheduled, but the top Chinese and Indian diplomats have no plans to talk. (South China Morning Post)
Ecuador reaches $1.4bn debt restructuring deal with China: Beijing is increasingly offering bailouts to countries at risk of financial crises. (Financial Times)
Taiwan’s citizen army prepares for Chinese invasion. (The Times)
Liz Truss admits UK trade deal with US is not on the agenda: Prime minister’s assessment leaves hole in government’s post-Brexit trade strategy. (Financial Times)
Truss to cut stamp duty in push for prosperity. (The Times)
‘Polluters must pay’: UN chief calls for windfall tax on fossil fuel companies. António Guterres said money raised should be diverted to vulnerable nations suffering losses caused by climate crisis. (The Guardian)
The world is at a "positive tipping point" in the fight against climate change as surging oil and gas costs spur governments to decarbonise faster, former U.S. Vice President and co-founder of Generation Investment Management Al Gore told Reuters. He pointed to the Inflation Reduction Act signed in August, a $430-billion bill seen as the biggest climate package in U.S. history, as well as a pledge by Australia earlier this month to cut carbon emissions by 43% by 2030 and to net zero by 2050. (Reuters)
Number of global ultra high net worth individuals hits record high: Credit Suisse finds those with assets exceeding $50m total 218,200 after post-pandemic ‘explosion of wealth’. (The Guardian)
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is installing security cameras in all of New York City's subway cars. The plan is to install two cameras in each of 6,355 subway cars, building on a pilot program that saw cameras installed in 100 cars. The work should be completed by 2025, the MTA said. (Reuters)
Economy
Jamie Dimon warns capital rules pose ‘significant economic risk’: Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan, has warned US lawmakers that capital requirements for large banks pose “a significant economic risk” that is curtailing their capacity to lend to homebuyers and other customers. Dimon said “the continued upward trajectory” of capital requirements is making it harder for banks to meet customer needs just as “storm clouds” are gathering on the horizon for the US economy. (Financial Times)
Bank CEOs to Go Before Congress, With Economy and High Inflation in Focus: JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, Citigroup’s Jane Fraser and others face two days of congressional hearings starting Wednesday. (Wall Street Journal)
End of sub-zero: Europe ditches negative rates as inflation surges: Critics insist policy damaged bloc’s lenders while some central bankers say it boosted loan growth. (Financial Times)
Emerging Asia growing faster than China for 1st time in 30 years: China's COVID lockdowns mean its economic expansion this year will be slower than the rest of emerging Asia for the first time in more than three decades, the Asian Development Bank projected in a new report. In an updated Asian Development Outlook report published Wednesday, the organization downgraded its forecast for China's 2022 growth to 3.3% from 5.0% in April. The bank also cut its projection for next year to 4.5% from 4.8%. (Nikkei Asia Review)
‘Ideology is trumping the economy’, EU chamber in China warns foreign firms: The EU Chamber of Commerce in China does not expect the Chinese border to fully reopen until the second half of 2023, and says ‘China is losing the allure that it used to have’. (South China Morning Post)
Technology
Microsoft has greatly improved Windows 11 over the past year to the point where updates feel like they’re arriving monthly now. The Windows 11 2022 Update addresses a lot of the early complaints I had about Microsoft’s initial OS release, and it has improved enough parts that I’ve gone ahead and upgraded my main machine to Windows 11 after initially holding off. If you were also wary of upgrading, the Windows 11 2022 Update might just be the time to hit the big install button — that’s if your PC even supports it in the first place. The Windows 11 2022 Update is available today and includes features like Start menu folders, improvements to Snap Layouts, Live Captions across the entire OS, better touch gestures, and even a new Xbox controller bar. It also includes a number of meaningful accessibility improvements and marks a shift in the way Microsoft is thinking about new features. There’s something new here for almost every Windows user. (The Verge)
Apple said it will raise prices of apps and in-app purchases on its App Store from next month in all of the eurozone and some countries in Asia and South America. The new prices, excluding auto-renewable subscriptions, will be effective as early as Oct. 5, Apple said in a blog post. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Nvidia announces the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 GPUs; the $1,599 RTX 4090 is 2x-4x faster than the 3090 Ti, comes with 24GB of GDDR6X memory, and ships on October 12. (The Verge)
Twitch plans to prohibit streaming unlicensed gambling sites with slots, roulette, or dice games on October 18, amid the fallout from a streamer's gambling scam. (The Verge)
Smart Links
Gap to cut 500 corporate jobs across its global offices. (Financial Times)
Canada to drop COVID vaccine requirement to enter country on Sept 30. (Reuters)
CVS, Walmart reach $147.5 mln opioid settlement with West Virginia. (Reuters)
Vietnam's battle to climb the global value chain. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Google plans to integrate Google Tasks reminders across G Suite apps including Assistant, Calendar, Docs, and Sheets in the coming months, as opt-in at first. (The Verge)
Spotify launches a US audiobook service with 300K titles from major and independent publishers; users purchase and download individual books to play in its app. (The Hollywood Reporter)