Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Biggest IPO of the year

Arm Holdings rose as much as 25% in its trading debut after raising $4.87 billion in the year’s biggest initial public offering, delivering a boost for both equity markets and SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son. The chip designer, still 90% owned by SoftBank, sold 95.5 million American depositary shares at the top of a marketed range of $47 to $51 each. Shares of the chip designer, still 90% owned by SoftBank, closed at $63.59 in New York trading Thursday, giving Arm a market value of more than $65 billion. Including restricted share units, Arm’s fully diluted valuation closer to $68 billion. —David E. Rovella

US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues may shy away from signaling that they’re done raising interest rates when they meet next week. With inflation still above its 2% target and economic growth solid, US central bankers are seen as retaining their bias toward tighter policy at their Sept. 19-20 meeting even as they hold rates steady. “There’s no way they’re going to signal they’re done here,” said Bruce Kasman, chief economist at JPMorgan. Wall Street remained optimistic that the central bank has the situation in hand, with stocks climbing on bets of a US soft landing. Here’s your markets wrap. 

The European Central Bank raised interest rates for the 10th consecutive time as President Christine Lagarde signaled a shift that could mean the peak has been reached. While economists and investors now see the 4% level set on Thursday as the high point for borrowing costs in the current tightening cycle, the ECB chief insisted that she can’t yet say if that’s the case. “With today’s decision, we have made sufficient contributions, under the current assessment, to returning inflation to target in a timely manner,” Lagarde said in Frankfurt. “The focus is probably going to move a bit more to the duration, but it is not to say—because we can’t say—that now that we are at peak.”

Walt Disney is said to have held exploratory talks about selling its ABC network and TV stations to local broadcaster Nexstar Media. Tom Carter, Nexstar’s former president and now an adviser to its CEO and board, told investors at a Bank of America Securities conference Wednesday that the company is interested in acquiring assets from legacy media owners like Disney that are looking to restructure. 

The shutdown of US trucking giant Yellow means close to 30,000 people will lose their livelihoods. But for the executives who led the company to collapse, its demise has been a cash bonanza. Just weeks before closing its doors, Yellow doled out millions of dollars in bonuses to those C-suite denizens so they wouldn’t leave during its chaotic unraveling.

China’s central bank cut the amount of cash lenders must hold in reserve for the second time this year, a move that will help banks support government spending to stimulate the slowing economy. The People’s Bank of China lowered the reserve requirement ratio for most banks by 25 basis points, according to a statement Thursday. The cut aims to boost banks’ lending capacity and “facilitate fiscal stimulus,” especially local government bond issuance, said Duncan Wrigley, chief China economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. China’s post-Covid recovery has been losing momentum since a rebound in the first quarter, with July data showing a large drop in property sales and slower consumer spending. 

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain is preparing to hit all three Detroit carmakers with targeted walkouts at strategic locations in several states—a play to both maximize the union’s strike fund and sow chaos at the companies. While a work stoppage could still be avoided altogether, the UAW and General Motors, Ford and Stellantis are approaching a deadline. The union’s current labor contract expires late Thursday night.

Populist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is poised to open a Hindu temple in January where a centuries-old mosque once stood, achieving a pledge made by his Hindu nationalist party just in time for elections next year. Modi, 72, is expected to preside over the installation of the god Ram’s idol in the northern riverside town of Ayodhya, which is widely believed by devotees to be the Hindu deity’s birthplace. It’s a full political circle for Modi, who in 1990 was one of the main organizers of a nationwide push to build a Hindu temple to replace a mosque on the site. The mosque’s destruction by a Hindu mob two years later sparked riots that killed 2,000 people—mostly Muslims.

Construction at the Hindu temple in Ayodhya, India, on July 9.  Photographer: Deepak Gupta/Hindustan Times/Getty Images

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Sam Altman has in many ways become the face of the artificial intelligence industry. Though formerly the head of Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator and backer of iconic startups such as Airbnb and Stripe, Altman is arguably famous thanks to his current role as co-founder and chief executive of OpenAI, maker of the ChatGPT chatbot. OpenAI’s technology has revolutionized expectations for AI—and how quickly it may spur radical change throughout the business world and society at large. As humanity struggles to make sense of the opportunities and risks posed by AI, Altman tells Azeem Azhar on the Bloomberg Originals series Exponentially that he remains cautiously hopeful for the technology and its long-term impact on humanity.

Azeem Azhar talks with OpenAI Co-Founder Sam Altman about the myths, promise and threats posed by AI in everything from politics to education and inequality. Photograph: Bloomberg

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