Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Mariupol evacuation

The evacuation of civilians from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in the eastern port city of Mariupol has begun, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in an operation involving the United Nations and Red Cross. Ukraine said corridors to allow more civilians safe passage would soon open despite continued Russian shelling of the area. Moscow’s forces have been attacking along most of the so-called contact line that’s divided pro-Russian separatist areas in the east from the rest of Ukraine. European Union energy ministers are meeting to discuss Vladimir Putin’s decision to cut gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria as Putin deputy Sergei Lavrov reaffirmed payments must be converted into rubles, making it hard for Europeans to secure supplies without violating international sanctions. —Natasha Solo-Lyons

Bloomberg is tracking the coronavirus pandemic and the progress of global vaccination efforts.

Citigroup’s London trading desk was behind a flash crash in Europe that sent shares across the continent tumbling after a sudden 8% decline in Swedish stocks. The selloff was triggered by a large erroneous transaction.

Tesla said Monday in a securities filing that it needs more time to file a regular disclosure ahead of its annual shareholders’ meeting. The company may need to give another look at a closely watched section on Elon Musk’s pledged shares, which appears to contain out-of-date information. 

Musk’s biggest challenge with Twitter may emerge in Asia. Home to more than half the world’s population, it’s Twitter’s biggest growth opportunity and arguably a far thornier challenge than the U.S. If the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire completes his purchase of Twitter, and makes good on promises to loosen controls aimed at squelching hate speech and falsehoods, he’ll encounter a plethora of perplexing laws, authoritarian governments and an untold number of first-time internet users. 

Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Vanguard investors have been hit by surprise tax bills. One investor says he got slapped with a $30,000 surprise, and thousands more may have been affected after the company made a change to target-date funds. Now it faces a class-action lawsuit.  

Stocks closed higher at the start of a week that will likely see the Fed  deliver its biggest interest-rate hike in two decades. Dip buyers emerged to pick up the pieces from April, the worst month seen by the S&P 500 since the onset of the pandemic. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 outperformed amid a rally in giants like Microsoft and Tesla. Treasury 10-year yields traded near 3%, climbing alongside the dollar. Oil rose as surging refined-products markets led prices higher. Here’s your markets wrap.  

The stock selloff witnessed last month has a lot further to go, according to one of Wall Street’s most vocal bears. “We think the S&P 500 has minimum downside to 3,800 in the near term and possible as low as 3,460,” said Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. equity strategist Michael Wilson (the index closed Monday at 4,155). The gloomy forecast implies a drop between 8% and 16% for the U.S. benchmark from current levels, amid higher costs and increased recession risks, Wilson said. But over at JPMorgan, the view is brighter, with predictions that an equities rebound is coming.

Michael Wilson Photographer: Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg

The first major test of Donald Trump’s hold on Republican voters is set for Tuesday, when an acrimonious U.S. Senate primary that’s centered on the twice-impeached, de facto head of the GOP comes to a close. 

• Shanghai Covid infections stabilize as New York warning level rises.
• Investing wisdom from Buffett and Munger: avoid “evil” Bitcoin.
• Hydrogen is every U.S. gas utility’s favorite Hail Mary pass.
• Bloomberg Opinion: The ideal portfolio to survive a bear market.
• ApeCoin drops after Ethereum-crashing record virtual land sale.
• DeSantis says he won’t try to lure Twitter to Florida. This is why.
• Bloomberg Opinion: Twitter’s board gave up.

The Soviet Union and the U.S. never used nuclear weapons on each other in large part because of mutually assured destruction. Cyberweapons are different. Cyberattacks by governments and private hackers have exploded in recent years. Many are financially motivated, but others involve espionage or, in several high-profile cases, sabotage of physical infrastructure. There’s broad agreement that at some point a cyberattack would be considered an act of war, but no one knows where the line is.

Illustration by Andy Rementer.

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