Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - No quick recovery

There’s no quick recovery in sight for stocks and bonds, which are having their worst year in at least three decades, according to strategists at BlackRock. Russia’s grinding war in Ukraine and supply bottlenecks from labor shortages will keep the pace of price growth elevated, they said, and central banks will tighten policy until economic pain forces them to shift direction and live with inflation. Constrained by the “hyper-politicization of everything,” policymakers will struggle to tackle the fallout. The Fed, the strategists contend, “is likely to choke off the restart of economic activity and only change course when damage emerges.” Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George, who dissented last month against the central bank’s 75 basis-point rate increase, cautioned that rushing to tighten policy could backfire. “Communicating the path for interest rates is likely far more consequential than the speed with which we get there,” she said Monday. Meanwhile, US Treasury yields have risen rapidly this year, but billionaire investor Leon Cooperman thinks they’re still too low and said he’d choose stocks over bonds. “I’d rather be in a common stock than I would be in a bond any day of the week, given the relative price of bonds versus equities,” he said. As for the Fed’s battle with inflation, Cooperman said he’s “shocked that interest rates are as low as they are.” —Natasha Solo-Lyons

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

Twitter shares fell Monday after Elon Musk walked away from his $44 billion deal to buy the company, setting the scene for a disruptive legal battle. 

Stocks slumped with traders positioning for a hot inflation reading and the start of a key earnings season that may provide clues on whether the economy is headed toward a recession. The dollar climbed. A rout in megacaps like Tesla and Apple weighed heavily on trading. Here’s your markets wrap. 

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

Morgan Stanley picked two of its top bankers to lead the dealmaking group in a leadership shuffle atop one of the biggest banking franchises on Wall Street.

Nearly all industrial scale Bitcoin miners in Texas have shut off their machines as the companies brace for a heat wave that’s expected to push the state’s power grid near its breaking point. 

The US housing market saw a rise in the percentage of deals canceled in June as rising mortgage rates made homes more expensive, pushing some buyers to walk away from deals. Across the country, nearly 60,000 home sales fell through, according to Redfin. That was equal to 15% of transactions that went into contract that month.

The housing market slowdown is having ripple effects across the industry and mortgage lenders are forecasting a slump in business. Photographer: Jeremy Erickson/Bloomberg

Romanian prosecutors said they’re starting an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed by Russia in its war on Ukraine.

US power plants are poised to reap their best summertime profits in almost two decades thanks to soaring electricity prices that are outpacing the high cost of natural gas and coal.

• Bloomberg Opinion: Europe's natural-gas crisis is worse than it looks.
• Russia is accused of trying to damage Ukraine’s grain harvest.
• Wuhan University discovers a cholera case, fueling fears it will spread.
• Three Arrows founders’ whereabouts are unknown, foiling liquidators.
• Richard Branson reshapes fortune with SPACs as investors are torched.
• F1’s Ecclestone faces fraud charges over £400 million in overseas assets.
• Sequoias more than 2,000 years old are at risk as Yosemite fire rages.

It took about a month for brokers to realize that Aspen’s white-hot market had cooled. “Over the last two years it was busy through May and June. This year it was quiet,” said Jennifer Banner, a broker at Christie’s International Real Estate Aspen Snowmass. That was her first indication of a return to a normal market rhythm, as the pandemic moves further into its third year. 

A ski lift in Aspen, Colorado Source: Bloomberg

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