Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Boris Johnson survives

Ukraine is in talks with the United Nations on ways to export grain from ports blocked by Kremlin forces, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, but Kyiv remains skeptical of a tentative deal between Turkey and Russia to restart shipments. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was prevented from visiting Serbia after that country’s neighbors banned his flight from their airspace. The UK plans to follow America’s lead and send rocket systems to Ukraine that will let it strike as far as 50 miles (80 km) away. The Biden administration declined to provide Ukraine with longer-range missiles and said Kyiv pledged not to use the new systems to strike inside Russia. Vladimir Putin has threatened to hit new, unspecified targets if longer-range missiles are delivered. —Natasha Solo-Lyons

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

Boris Johnson survived a challenge by members of his own party to remain leader of the Tories, keeping his job as UK prime minister. Johnson has been the focus of the so-called partygate scandal in which he and some associates flouted pandemic restrictions. But discontent among MPs goes far beyond the illegal gatherings, and Johnson’s leadership is likely to remain unsteady despite winning the vote.

The push and pull between bond yields and equities continued Monday, with stock gains kept in check by a drop in Treasuries. Amazon rose after implementing a 20-for-1 stock split, but Twitter fell after Elon Musk said he believes the company is breaching the terms of his proposed $44 billion takeover. Twitter reiterated that it will hold the Tesla CEO to the terms of the deal—despite his concerns about bots. Here’s your markets wrap. 

With half-point interest-rate increases all but certain for the next few months, Federal Reserve officials are shifting their focus away from a destination on hikes to something that’s trickier to figure: the broader impact of their policies on the economy.

US workers can’t quit quitting. Two years into the pandemic-fueled “great resignation,” which has seen an unprecedented number of workers change jobs, Wall Street sees the economy shifting gears. With inflation high and the stock market turbulent, some big names are talking recession. But others (like former Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein) say the fretting is overblown and a soft landing quite possible. Meanwhile, unemployment remains at impressive lows and workers continue to ditch their jobs in record numbers.

US inflation is running even closer to its 1980 peak, fresh analysis of historical price data shows, suggesting to authors of a new study that the Fed faces a task equal to that of then-Fed Chair Paul Volcker. 

Paul Volcker  Photographer: Brendan Hoffman

Most of Bitcoin’s pandemic gains came while stock markets were closed. A strategy that buys the coin at the equity-market close and sells it at the next day’s open would have yielded gains of roughly 270% going back to the start of 2020.

Apple unveiled the most significant overhaul to its popular MacBook Air laptop in more than a decade, bringing a fresh design, new colors and a speedier M2 processor from its homegrown chip line. 

• Bloomberg Opinion: The Fed risks future pain if it fails to curb inflation.
• Bloomberg Opinion: Putin can’t keep Russian mothers silent forever.
• Property tycoons lose $65 billion after China curbs excesses.
• Engineer who fled charges in US now thrives in China.
• Banks and tech giants are losing skilled staff to flexible fintechs.
• Oil tankers make rare mid-Atlantic switch of Russian crude cargo.
• Paramount sued for releasing new “Top Gun” without copyright license. 

Citigroup plans to hire more than 4,000 tech staff to help move its institutional clients online in the wake of the pandemic. More than 1,000 of the recruits will join the markets technology team as part of an aggressive growth strategy, Jonathan Lofthouse, head of markets and enterprise risk technology, said in an interview. “We’re trying to digitalize as much of our client experience as possible,” he said. “Those firms that can digitalize fastest are going to create competitive advantage.”

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