Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Bears eat memes

Here we go again. Bed Bath & Beyond’s spectacular rally is drawing in record cash from retail investors as they talk up bets on social media and in trader chatrooms. The Wall Street at-home team have bought an all-time high of $73.2 million of the stock on Tuesday, bringing their total net purchases in three weeks to $171.4 million. What’s more, the most actively traded derivative for the stock is betting on it to soar another 50%, up to $45, by the end of the week. While this latest meme stock rally may gain traction for a while, everyone knows by now how this usually ends. “Meme stocks rallies in a bear market are generally not sustainable,” said Vanda Research Head of Data Giacomo Pierantoni. Retail traders, he said, “can’t cope with additional losses.” —David E. Rovella

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

Twenty years ago, HSBC bankers began moving into their gleaming new global headquarters in Canary Wharf. Designed by Norman Foster, the building was one of two new towers to spring up on the City’s skyline. The other was home to Citigroup, whose employees had moved in a few months earlier. The skyscrapers reflected the confidence of their occupants: each vying to be the biggest, most imposing bank in the world. Today, Marc Rubinstein writes in Bloomberg Opinion, those London buildings are monuments to a bygone age for both banks.

Canary Wharf Source: Bloomberg

A lot has happened since, but US Federal Reserve officials agreed in late July on the need to eventually dial back the pace of interest-rate hikes. They also wanted to gauge how their monetary tightening was working toward curbing inflation, minutes from the meeting show. Here’s your markets wrap.

US consumers are standing firm in the face of inflation and rising interest rates, new data shows. Retail sales (excluding the drop caused by falling gasoline prices and slowing car purchases) rose more than expected in July. Building-materials outlets, electronics and appliances stores and online merchants were among those with firm gains in receipts. With China’s economy slowing and Europe heading toward recession, the resilience of the American consumer is arguably a global bright spot. “The most important takeaway is that consumer spending on goods is continuing to increase, even as the bulk of their energies have shifted to services,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities.

Trump appointee Joseph Cuffari, the Homeland Security official at the center of a growing scandal over potential Jan. 6 evidence destruction by the DHS and Secret Service, is reportedly blocking cooperation by government employees with Congress as it probes the insurrection. Members of Congress have repeatedly asked Cuffari, a former adviser to two Republican governors, to step down and called for a criminal investigation by the Justice Department after it was revealed he failed to alert them to the erasure of Jan. 6 text messages for months. Meanwhile, former Vice President Mike Pence said he would give “due consideration” to testifying before the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol and criticized Republicans for attacking the FBI over the search of Donald Trump’s Florida home. 

Joseph Cuffari Source: Senate Homeland Security Committee

Having lost a primary election to a Trump-backed rival, US Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming said she wants to break the embattled ex-president’s grip on an increasingly far-right GOP. So she’s setting up a political action committee and mulling a run for the White House. 

The head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced an overhaul of the agency meant to revamp everything from its operations to its culture, saying it’s failed to meet expectations during the Covid-19 pandemic. Deaths attributed to the coronavirus, which had dipped below 9,000 per week worldwide in June, have been slowly rising again, reaching 16,000 last week. There have been almost 6.5 million confirmed Covid-19 deaths since the pandemic began in 2020, though the true number is likely much higher.

For weeks now, Ukrainian forces have methodically targeted the supply lines for Russian troops who overran the strategically important southeastern region of Kherson at the start of the war. Though still outgunned by occupiers there and in nearby Crimea, Kyiv has so far avoided a major assault on the city of Kherson. Instead, its forces are more focused on a policy of attrition.

• Bloomberg Opinion: Putin’s war is how the USSR really ends.
• China’s secret summer comes to an end has Xi Jinping reappears.
• Bluebird’s game-changing blood disorder therapy cleared by FDA.
• Monkeypox vaccine maker seeks partners in race to meet demand.
• Water at key Rhine waypoint may rise back above critical level.
• Junior bankers suddenly have lots of time to kill—and they’re worried.
• Glazer family said to consider selling a stake in Manchester United.

Apple is aiming to hold a launch event on Sept. 7 to unveil the iPhone 14 line, rolling out the latest version of a product that generates more than half its sales. The new gadgets kick off a busy fall product season, with multiple new Macs, low-end and high-end iPads and three Apple Watch models in store. But the usual Apple buzz comes amid significant turmoil in Cupertino, as the company fires 100 contract workers while demanding an end to full work-from-home. Those terminated workers were responsible for recruitment.

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IBM Automate—Singapore: From relocations to resignations to major changes in work processes, the future of work continues to change rapidly. Join Bloomberg Live on Sept. 13 virtually or in-person in Singapore for the IBM Roadshow on Intelligent Automation: Creating the Workforce of the Future. We’ll talk with business and IT executives to explore how automation helps companies meet these challenges. Register here.