Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Is the bull market real?

The S&P 500 entered bull market territory last week after gaining 20% from an October low, driven by investors betting on America’s resilient economic growth and an expected pause in interest-rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve. All of this good news has left some of Wall Street’s top strategists split on what to do now—and what happens next. David Kostin of Goldman Sachs says he expects the gains to continue as other sectors catch up with a searing technology rally. But Michael Wilson of Morgan Stanley, one of the biggest bears out there, points instead to the bear market of the 1940s, when the S&P 500 rallied 24% before plummeting to a new low. “More are declaring the bear market officially over,” Wilson wrote in a note. “We respectfully disagree.” On Monday though, markets were with Kostin. Here’s your markets wrap. —Natasha Solo-Lyons

Sunny thinking is gaining adherents. With a year of downturn predictions filling the dustbin, many dues-paying members of Team Recessionary are coming around to the possibility that any threat of recession has eased, if not passed. But not everyone: From Fidelity International to Allianz Global Investors, the world’s biggest bond managers consider such optimism a potentially grave error. They’re sticking to their forecasts for a recession and advise hedging any bets on risk assets. 

Fed officials are rethinking their view that wage gains are fueling inflation, a key intellectual shift that bolsters the case for a pause in their tightening campaign this week.

JPMorgan is said to have agreed to pay $290 million to settle a lawsuit alleging it knowingly benefited from former client Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking. The deal would settle a proposed class action filed by an unidentified Epstein victim late last year, according to the bank.

Mary Callahan Erdoes has remained part of JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon’s inner orbit—and the bank’s powerful operating committee—longer than anyone aside from Dimon. Now the bank’s ultimate survivor is facing a challenge like none before. She’s been contending with a drip-drip of unearthed emails from JPMorgan’s dealings with Epstein.

Mary Erdoes  Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg

UBS completed its acquisition of Credit Suisse, sealing the biggest merger in banking since the 2008 financial crisis and creating a global wealth-management titan. The closing of the deal ends Credit Suisse’s independent existence after 167 years, and allows UBS to move forward with the integration. Thousands of people could lose their jobs as a result. 

Google is set to be hit with a formal antitrust complaint from the European Union that could pave the way for massive fines. It could strike at the heart of advertising technology that drives most of the US tech behemoth’s revenue.

The last Indian journalist in China has been asked to leave, as Beijing and New Delhi eject each other’s reporters in a tit-for-tat fight. Chinese authorities are said to have instructed a Press Trust of India reporter to exit this month. His departure will eliminate India’s media presence from the world’s second largest economy as ties continue to deteriorate.

• Impeached twice, indicted twice: Trump heads back to court Tuesday.
• Oil traders are daring to defy market kingpin Saudi Arabia.
• Goldman Sachs expects “L-shaped” recovery in China property market.
• Reddit blackout begins as forums protest charges for developers.
• Bloomberg Opinion: Erdogan and Orban, let Sweden into NATO already.
• Bloomberg Opinion: Fentanyl and politics a toxic mix for US, Mexico
• Britain’s post-Brexit policy drift alarms world’s executives.

The summer holiday season is upon the Northern Hemisphere and airlines are clapping their hands with glee. But the working assumption that everyone is going on vacation is wrong. That’s because many travelers will be on a so-called “workation,” part of a growing trend that may take the idea of hybrid working a bit too literally. Billed as part of “work from anywhere” slots, which are increasingly cropping up, they prove that an unhelpful blur is developing between paid and unpaid leave. And it’s happening for three reasons. 

Photographer: Nicola Muirhead/Bloomberg

Get the Bloomberg Evening Briefing: If you were forwarded this newsletter, sign up here to receive it in your mailbox daily along with our Weekend Reading edition on Saturdays. 

Technology Transformation & the Strategic C-Suite: Join us in London on June 29 and New York on Nov. 2 as CFOs and senior leaders in corporate finance and operations gather for a special briefing on the C-suite’s increasingly strategic role in their organization’s technology transformation. We’ll dive into the ways finance and operations executives can transform and amplify the impact of their departments. London: Register here; New York: Register here.