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The World
Global markets closed out their most bruising first half of a year in decades, leaving investors bracing for the prospect of further losses. Accelerating inflation and rising interest rates fueled a monthslong rout that left few markets unscathed. The S&P 500 fell 21% through Thursday, suffering its worst first half of a year since 1970, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Investment-grade bonds, as measured by the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond exchange-traded fund, lost 11%—posting their worst start to a year in history. Stocks and bonds in emerging markets tumbled, hurt by slowing growth. And cryptocurrencies came crashing down, saddling individual investors and hedge funds alike with steep losses. (Wall Street Journal)
Big technology stocks like Tesla, Amazon and Microsoft just finished their worst quarter in years. (CNBC)
U.S. household spending slowed in May as Americans faced historically high inflation and elevated interest rates, raising the prospect that the economy has contracted for a second consecutive quarter this year. Consumer spending cooled to a 0.2% advance in May, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That was the smallest monthly gain this year, and down from the revised 0.6% increase in April. (Wall Street Journal)
The Supreme Court ruling in the Environmental Protection Agency case was a substantial victory for libertarian-minded conservatives who have worked for decades to curtail or dismantle modern-style government regulation of the economy. In striking down an E.P.A. plan to reduce carbon emissions from power plants, the court issued a decision whose implications go beyond hobbling the government’s ability to fight climate change. Many other types of regulations might now be harder to defend. The ruling widens an opening to attack a government structure that, in the 20th century, became the way American society imposes rules on businesses: Agencies set up by Congress come up with the specific methods of ensuring that the air and water are clean, that food, drugs, vehicles and consumer products are safe, and that financial firms follow the rules. (New York Times)
Voting patterns in major rulings of 2022 reflect conservative ascendance: An emboldened 6-to-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court rolled backed abortion rights, expanded the rights of gun owners and strengthened the role of religion in public life. (Washington Post)
California sets nation’s toughest plastics reduction rules: Companies selling shampoo, food and other products wrapped in plastic have a decade to cut down on their use of the polluting material if they want their wares on California store shelves. Major legislation passed and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom aims to significantly reduce single-use plastic packaging in the state and drastically boost recycling rates for what remains. It sets the nation’s most stringent requirements for the use of plastic packaging, with lawmakers saying they hope it sets a precedent for other states to follow. (Associated Press)
Hong Kong's John Lee sworn in as city leader by Xi Jinping on day 2 of president's visit for 25th handover anniversary. Xi will deliver a keynote speech, in which he is expected to lay down Beijing’s future direction for the 'one country, two systems' governing formula over the city. President described Hong Kong as having 'risen from the ashes' after overcoming various severe challenges since his last visit in 2017 (South China Morning Post)
After days in which the West has sought to present a muscular and united front in the face of Russia’s challenge to the international order, leaders were facing a longer-term dilemma: how to maintain public support for a grinding war whose economic costs are stoking exhaustion. In a sign of the challenges of maintaining pressure on Russia despite fuel price shocks and wider economic pain, President Biden said at the close of the NATO summit in Madrid that Americans should be prepared to pay higher gasoline prices for “as long as it takes, so Russia cannot in fact defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine.” (New York Times)
Russia withdrew forces from the strategic Black Sea outpost of Snake Island in what the defence ministry described as a “gesture of goodwill” to help restore Ukrainian grain shipments, but which Kyiv claimed was a humiliating retreat. The ministry on Thursday said its troops had “finished fulfilling their tasks” and “demonstrated that Russia is not blocking the UN’s efforts to organise a humanitarian corridor to export agricultural goods from Ukraine”. (Financial Times)
USC and UCLA, two of the Pac-12's flagship programs, were notified that their application to join the Big Ten has been accepted. The schools will begin play in the conference in 2024. The Big Ten said in a statement that the vote was unanimous when conference presidents and chancellors met on the addition of the two schools on Thursday evening. (ESPN)
Economy
Mortgage rates declined this week but remain near multiyear highs, helping make it the least affordable time to purchase a home since before the financial crisis. The average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage fell to 5.70%, mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac said Thursday. That is down from 5.81% last week but up from 3.22% at the beginning of the year. (Wall Street Journal)
Rents Have Bounced Back to Prepandemic Levels in Most Major Cities. San Francisco Isn’t One of Them. Landlords and brokers point to sky-high prices before Covid, rent-control policies and a mass exodus of tech workers as some of the reasons behind the Bay Area city’s slow recovery. (Wall Street Journal)
France wants the EU to consider bypassing Hungary in its push to secure a minimum corporate tax rate for big companies after Budapest blocked the agreement, finance minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday. Le Maire told reporters in Paris that France would work on “alternative solutions” with Paolo Gentiloni, EU economics commissioner, to approve the deal negotiated last year by 137 countries at the OECD so that other EU members could implement the minimum tax without Hungary. (Financial Times)
Bitcoin just finished its worst month in the 12 years that it’s been available on exchanges, losing more than 38% of its value in June as of Thursday afternoon. Ether, the world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, ended the same period down by about 47%. (CNBC)
FTX, the digital-asset exchange co-founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, is nearing an agreement to buy BlockFi Inc. after extending a credit line to the beleaguered crypto lending platform, according to people familiar with the matter. CNBC reported earlier that FTX is paying roughly $25 million and that a term sheet is almost complete, citing unnamed sources. Zac Prince, chief executive officer of BlockFi, responded in a tweet, saying “I can 100% confirm that we aren’t being sold for $25M.” Prince didn’t comment in the tweet whether BlockFi was in acquisition talks. (Bloomberg)
Technology
Meta Platforms has cut plans to hire engineers by at least 30% this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Thursday, as he warned them to brace for a deep economic downturn. "If I had to bet, I'd say that this might be one of the worst downturns that we've seen in recent history," Zuckerberg told workers in a weekly employee Q&A session, audio of which was heard by Reuters. (Reuters)
General Motors Slowly Ramps Up Electric Hummer Production: Auto maker has a waiting list of 77,000 but is making about 12 a day, trailing pace of similar offerings from Ford, Rivian. (Wall Street Journal)
Elon Musk is on his longest stretch without posting on Twitter in nearly five years, a nine-day hiatus that comes in the midst of tumultuous efforts to complete his planned $44 billion deal to buy the platform. The billionaire chief executive of Tesla last posted on June 21, marking Thursday as the most extended silence since October 2017. Normally a serial tweeter, he hasn’t gone more than six days without tweeting since January 2018, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of tweet data. Since then he has taken a few four-day breaks, most recently this past January, the analysis shows. (Wall Street Journal)
Chrome password manager update will let you manually add credentials on all platforms. (The Verge)
Zoom is returning to its business software roots to revive growth, after two years of trying to monetize consumers, many of whom stick with free 40-minute calls. (Bloomberg)
Smart Links
Columbia Won’t Participate in the Next U.S. News Rankings. (New York Times)
Singapore Airlines' North America service tops pre-COVID level. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Japan business mood dims for a 2nd quarter as costs rise: BOJ Tankan. (Nikkei Asia Review)
Apple eyes fuel purchases from dashboard as it revs up car software. (Reuters)