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The World
OPEC said it expected to see robust global oil demand growth in 2023 with potential economic upside coming from a relaxation of China's zero-COVID policies, which this year have pushed the country's oil use into contraction for the first time in years. World oil demand in 2023 will rise by 2.25 million barrels per day (bpd), or about 2.3%, the OPEC said in a monthly report. The forecast was steady from November, after a series of downgrades. (Reuters)
President Emmanuel Macron is pushing French companies to take an active role in Ukraine’s reconstruction effort after international donors he convened pledged €1 billion ($1.1 billion) in emergency aid to help Ukrainians through the winter. Before the war started in February, “France was already an economic partner for Ukraine,” Macron said in Paris. “The war won’t put that into question — quite the contrary.” (Bloomberg)
Battered by the war, Ukraine’s economy will shrink by nearly a third in 2022, according to the country’s central bank. But one sector has fared much better than most: software. The Ukrainian IT Association, a tech-industry body based in Kyiv, the capital, reckons that in the first six months of this year software exports grew by 23% compared with the same period in 2021. Only 2% of Ukraine’s 5,000 software companies have folded this year. (Economist)
Top appropriators struck a deal Tuesday night on a government funding framework critical to finalizing a mammoth year-end spending package. In a statement, retiring Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said appropriators have “reached a bipartisan, bicameral framework that should allow us to finish an omnibus appropriations bill that can pass the House and Senate and be signed into law by the president.” (Politico)
An experimental cancer vaccine being developed by the biotechnology firm Moderna and the drug giant Merck reduced the risk that melanoma would return after surgery or that patients would die by 44%, the company said. The data represent the first evidence of an effective individualized cancer vaccine based on mRNA, the technology used in the Covid shots. (STAT News)
Economy
The Federal Reserve is poised to moderate its aggressive tightening today while signaling that interest rates will ultimately go higher than previously forecast. The tricky part for Chair Jerome Powell will be convincing investors that this isn’t a dovish pivot and that officials won’t prematurely end their assault against inflation that’s running three times higher than their 2% goal. (Bloomberg)
Consumer prices rose last month at the slowest 12-month pace since December 2021, closing out a year in which inflation hit the highest level in four decades and challenged the Fed’s ability to keep the U.S. economy on track. The consumer-price index, a measurement of what consumers pay for goods and services, climbed 7.1% in November from a year ago, down sharply from 7.7% in October. The pace built on a trend of moderating price increases since June’s 9.1% peak, but it remained well above the 2.1% average rate in the three years before the pandemic. (Wall Street Journal)
Defaults on US junk loans expected to climb as rate rises squeeze earnings. (Financial Times)
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida faces rare open dissent from his cabinet over his call to raise taxes to fund an increase in defense spending, with ministers arguing that it is too soon to talk about putting such a burden on the public. Among the more outspoken critics has been his minister in charge of economic security, Sanae Takaichi, who recently tweeted that she "cannot understand the prime minister's intentions in making comments at this point that discourage wage growth." (Nikkei Asia Review)
Hong Kong's hybrid work spaces expand despite office glut. Office rents in financial hub were down nearly 30% from April 2019 peak in Q3 (Nikkei Asia Review)
The U.S. job market beat expectations again in November, adding 263,000 payrolls led by the service sector. Leisure and hospitality was the top category for job gains, according to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, adding 88,000 jobs. Roughly 62,000 of those jobs were in food and drink services, the report said. Health care and social assistance was the second-biggest category last month, adding more than 68,000 jobs. When those groups are combined in a broader category with education, as some economists do, the gains rise to 82,000. (CNBC)
Betsey Stevenson, a University of Michigan professor and former chief economist of the U.S. Labor Department, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that the strength of those sectors show how the economy is still reacting to the impact of the Covid pandemic. “If you look at where the job growth was in this report, 170,000 of those jobs were in two sectors, sectors where we need people: education and health services, which has barely recovered back to its pre-pandemic level, and leisure and hospitality, which has not recovered back to anywhere near its pre-pandemic level of employment,” Stevenson said. (CNBC)
Technology
Apple is preparing to allow alternative app stores on its iPhones and iPads, part of a sweeping overhaul aimed at complying with strict European Union requirements coming in 2024. Software engineering and services employees are engaged in a major push to open up key elements of Apple’s platforms, according to people familiar with the efforts. As part of the changes, customers could ultimately download third-party software to their iPhones and iPads without using the company’s App Store, sidestepping Apple’s restrictions and the up-to-30% commission it imposes on payments. (Bloomberg)
SpaceX is offering to sell employee-owned shares at a higher valuation than its last private funding round, a sign of conviction when a market rout has tanked the value of other U.S. startups. The Elon Musk-led space exploration company has started to market employee stock for sale, offering to sell the shares at $77 each, which would value the company around $140 billion, the people said. (Wall Street Journal)
Air New Zealand said it had partnered with four aircraft makers to develop zero-emission demonstrator flights by 2026, using electric, green hydrogen and hybrid technologies. (Reuters)
The global microchip race: Europe’s bid to catch up. (Financial Times)
Smart Links
Citadel founder Ken Griffin sues US tax agency over leak of records. (Financial Times)
United to add 2,600 jobs in Chicago as part of plan to replace its aging fleet. (Chicago Tribune)
The Arctic is getting warmer and stormier, and ship traffic is increasing. (CNBC)
YouTube Stars Cash In Video Rights for Millions of Dollars. (Wall Street Journal)