Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - The inflation see-saw

Bloomberg Evening Briefing

The see-saw continues. The first half of the week brought warnings of resurgent inflation and bigger rate hikes along with fresh reasons to support them. A report showed America’s job market continuing to crush it, keeping wages high despite the Fed’s best efforts. Well it’s Thursday and we’ve flipped to the other side. Applications for US unemployment benefits last week rose to the highest since December, blowing past all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The numbers suggest some softening in the still-tight labor market, and will likely go into the pot as the Fed cooks up its next rate hike. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell to the lowest since Jan. 19 with financial companies plunging more than 4%. Here’s your markets wrap.  

Here are today’s top stories

How big a toll is work-from-home taking on the biggest commercial landlords? Big. As borrowing costs soar and downtowns are left half empty, even the titans are quickly realizing they miscalculated. Some are even skipping payments.

Visa and Mastercard were planning on creating a new merchant code that anti-gun violence advocates hoped would help slow America’s drumbeat of firearm-fueled killings. But then Republicans in several state legislatures started drawing up bills targeting the new  code. Now Visa and Mastercard have postponed its implementation.

Ukraine has been getting good at knocking down Russian missiles, but not so much on Thursday. The Kremlin, in its latest deadly attack on residential areas and infrastructure, relied on more of its expensive, high-end missiles, and most of them got through, Kyiv authorities said. They included Kinzhals, a nuclear-capable supersonic missile, KH-22 anti-ship missiles and S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. At one meter in diameter and eight meters long, the Kinzhal travels at Mach 5 and carries a 1,058 pound payload. It was likely developed to target ships and command centers in the event of conflict with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 

Missiles launched towards Ukraine from Belgorod region of Russia on March 9. Photographer: Vadim Belikov/AP

German authorities said they searched a vessel that may have transported explosives used in the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year. This comes just days after several news organizations reported intelligence indicating a pro-Ukrainian group may have been behind the explosion.

This week, the influential sister of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un threatened the US with unspecified consequences if it goes ahead with joint military drills with South Korea. It’s true that Pyongyang has been making a show of testing missiles for so long that one could forgive South Korea and the US for taking the saber-rattling with a grain of salt. But a look at the numbers shows that, since the beginning of last year, the pace of launches has radically accelerated.

The world is getting hotter. Rising incomes across the Global South mean more people can afford air conditioning—and they understandably want it. One problem with A/C though is that it sends large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, perpetuating the cycle of warming. Making matters worse is that soon temperatures will rise so high that some regions will become unlivable. On the latest episode of Getting Warmer With Kal Penn, he explores both novel and tried-and-true cooling strategies being employed to help keep the planet livable.

One of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds has a new boss. Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan will become chairman of Abu Dhabi’s
$790 billion sovereign wealth fund. He’s already the United Arab Emirates’ national security adviser and head of its largest bank. His brother, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, will lead the emirate’s Mubadala Investment Co., which has only $272 billion.

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan Photographer: Vahid Salemi/AP

Bloomberg continues to track the global coronavirus pandemic. Click here for daily updates.

 What you’ll need to know tomorrow

Your Data Has Been Weaponized. Is That Bad?

The threats posed by the digital world to you, your family, companies and nations have been growing for years. As humans live their lives on the internet, even the tiniest details can be exploited. The conventional wisdom has been that the death of privacy wrought by 21st century technology will leave us more exposed to hackers as every day passes. But as renowned mathematician Hannah Fry reveals on this episode of The Future With Hannah Fry, maybe that’s not the case after all.

Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins and Hannah Fry. Bellingcat is an open-source investigative journalism organization that uses internet data to expose wrongdoing ranging from assassinations to possible war crimes. Photographer: Bloomberg

  

Older messages

Affirmation for the Fed

Wednesday, March 8, 2023

Bloomberg Evening Briefing View in browser Bloomberg As if on cue, Jerome Powell's warning about inflation on Tuesday received the imprimatur of the job market on Wednesday. New numbers showed

Bigger hikes

Wednesday, March 8, 2023

Bloomberg Evening Briefing View in browser Bloomberg The Fed is responding to all that recent data about a stout US job market and sticky inflation. Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank is likely

Fighting for your money

Monday, March 6, 2023

Bloomberg Evening Briefing View in browser Bloomberg US banks are being forced to do something they haven't done for 15 years: fight for your money. After years of earning next to nothing,

No clear path

Saturday, March 4, 2023

Bloomberg Weekend Reading View in browser Bloomberg It's anyone's guess where the global economy is headed. This has been the case for some time, and is especially true these days, given the

China leans in

Friday, March 3, 2023

Bloomberg Evening Briefing View in browser Bloomberg Chinese internet moguls are being replaced by chip researchers and engineers on key lawmaking and advisory bodies, a potential sign of Beijing's

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