Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Cheap gas for Christmas

Gasoline prices across America have fallen for 60 consecutive days. It’s the longest downward streak in more than a year and one which has arrived just in time for the holiday shopping season. Now that drivers aren’t forking over so much cash at the pump, retailers are hoping they’ll hand over the savings at the mall instead. A gallon of gasoline now costs $3.25 on average, more than 60 cents below the year’s peak in mid-September and about 30 cents cheaper than this time last year, according to data from the American Automobile Association. In 14 states, average prices are now less than $3 a gallon. Cheaper pump prices aren’t exactly good news in the struggle to slow global warming, but they’re likely welcome by President Joe Biden, whose reelection campaign has been based in part on the economy’s resilience through the pandemic, record low unemployment and steadily slowing inflation. While some polls indicate that last bit has yet to register with most consumers, lower gas prices are about as high profile as it gets. And one sign that cash is already flowing from gas stations to PlayStations came this weekend: US consumers spent a record $9.8 billion online during Black Friday. —Natasha Solo-Lyons 

To be sure, Americans are still feeling the pinch of high prices regardless of good news at the pump. After years of inflation, US consumers are still shouldering a burden unlike any seen in decades. It now requires $119.27 to buy the same goods and services a family could afford with $100 before the pandemic. Since early 2020, prices have risen about as much as they had in the full 10 years preceding the global health catastrophe. Here’s a look at how much living in the US costs has changed in the past few years.

Efforts to refill the US emergency oil reserve are being slowed by companies that are delaying the return of oil they borrowed. Shell, Chevron and TotalEnergies were among nine companies that borrowed government oil as part of an exchange program over the past two years. Though they were due to repay the crude this year and next, the three companies received US approval to delay about 5 million barrels in returns until 2024 and 2025.

Israel and Hamas agreed Monday to extend a cease-fire in their war until Thursday morning, following negotiations over the release of more hostages held by the militant group in Gaza and Palestinians imprisoned in Israel. The Biden administration and other governments are hoping to transform the temporary halt in fighting, which authorities say have killed more than 15,000 Palestinians and more than 1,200 Israelis since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, into a permanent peace.

Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman said his firm is eyeing a bevy of buying opportunities in real estate across Europe as central banks become less aggressive with rate hikes, allowing deal volumes to begin to bounce back.

Steve Schwarzman Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Reeling from last year’s bear market, beaten-up investors sent more than $60 billion to exchange-traded funds focusing on dividends. Eleven months later, the trade is misfiring. Rather than give shelter in a storm, the largest dividend ETFs have been left behind by a tech-obsessed market.

TikTok owner ByteDance is to cut hundreds of jobs in gaming and wind down its showpiece brand Nuverse in a major withdrawal from the sector, handing a victory to rival Tencent Holdings. ByteDance will fire several hundred people, unwind projects under development and weigh potential sales of existing titles.

Fashion designer and TV personality Jenna Lyons is joining forces with a Blackstone executive to launch a new brand agency. Jonny Bauer, who led the private equity giant’s brand strategy group, is spinning out his entire team to start FundamentalCo. Lyons, a former president of J. Crew, will join as executive creative director.

Jenna Lyons Source: Blackstone Group Inc.

• Bloomberg Opinion: It’s time scientists admitted their Covid mistakes.
• Amazon once inspired fear in the health-care industry. No longer.
• Castlelake, a firm that manages $22 billion, is exploring a sale.
• China’s remote deserts are hiding an energy revolution. 
• Sodium in batteries is a shift that may herald another shakeup. 
• Bloomberg CityLab: The other housing crisis is sick, aging homes.
• Why this luxury property executive dropped London for Dubai.

Some 99% of global banana exports are Cavendish bananas, but the Cavendish has a problem—it’s highly susceptible to a fungus. And that fungus is on the march. Tropical Race 4, also known as fusarium odoratissimum or TR4, tore through banana plantations in Southeast Asia for years. Then in 2013, it was found in Jordan. Soon after, it spilled into Africa. Now, to save the bananas, companies are turning to genetic modification to increase the Cavendish’s resilience before it’s too late.

Cavendish bananas in Colombia Photographer: Laurent Vautrin/Dole

Bloomberg Green at COP28: World leaders will gather in Dubai on Dec.4-5 in an effort to accelerate global climate action. Against the backdrop of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Bloomberg will convene corporate leaders, government officials and industry specialists from NGOs, IGOs, business and academia for events and conversations focused on creating solutions to support the goals set forth at COP28. Register here.