Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - Shorts run for cover

New names were added to the meme-stock frenzy as retail traders latched on to fresh favorites Wednesday. Prison operator GEO Group soared 60% and Clean Energy Fuels jumped at least 24%, making names like ContextLogic and Clover Health yesterday’s news. In Europe, Air Berlin climbed 138% after surging 54% the day before. But the Reddit crowd may want to heed this warning: the shorts are running for cover. Here’s your markets wrap. —David E. Rovella

Bloomberg is tracking the progress of coronavirus vaccines while mapping the pandemic worldwide. 

Here are today’s top stories  

The bad news for Bitcoin is getting worse. More crypto investors are dumping the asset, which is down more than 40% from its April record. They’re taking their cash and investing in a rival.

An unexpected jump in U.S. wages has given financial markets a new reason to worry that higher inflation may be here to stay. Consumer prices are rising quickly as the economy reopens amid a receding pandemic. A closely watched data release on Thursday is expected to show prices rose another 0.4% in May, pushing annual inflation above April’s 4.2%, the highest in more than a decade.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration intends to buy 500 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to share internationally, as the U.S. turns its attention to combating the pandemic globally. Virus variants arising from developing nations with insufficient access to vaccines could eventually circumvent existing shots, extending the pandemic indefinitely. Covid-19 sequencing in Singapore has revealed the emergence of the Delta variant, first detected in India, as the country’s major local virus strain, underscoring the highly infectious nature of the mutation that has proliferated worldwide. Even China just reimposed a lockdown. At least 368,000 new infections were confirmed on Tuesday, and at least 10,200 people died. Here’s the latest on the pandemic.

El Salvador has become the first country to formally adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, according to President Nayib Bukele. The 39-year-old politician has a Twitter profile featuring the “laser eyes” popular with devotees of cryptocurrencies.

Invesco is planning to launch a pair of cryptocurrency-focused exchange-traded funds, even as U.S. regulators have repeatedly delayed approval of a growing pile of Bitcoin ETFs.

Perhaps never before have the world’s biggest fund managers been so vocal about how they plan to vote in annual shareholder meetings. Given the pressure placed on Wall Street and Big Oil by investors worried about planetary catastrophe (and its effect on the bottom line), it’s probably not a coincidence.

Exxon has retreated and other oil majors are under pressure, but any whisper of a looming demise for fossil fuels would be premature. Oil companies owned by governments (National Oil Companies) don’t have the same concerns as the private sector, and they’re not going anywhere.

What you’ll need to know tomorrow 

• Why Covid-19’s Delta variant may be more dangerous than others.
• Retail prices are rising, but companies are keeping it quiet.
• Analytics startup Amplitude hit $4 billion in a new funding round.
• Colonial Pipeline slammed by Congress over cybersecurity lapses.
• Businessweek: The Fed is paying 0.00%. Depositors are flocking.
• The Latvian hacker known as Max is allegedly a 55-year-old woman.
• Key West in Times Square: Jimmy Buffett opens a $370 million hotel.

Where You Should Stay in Italy This Summer

For those who’ve spent the last year and a half mostly cooped up, laying eyes on the sun-dappled Tuscan hills is like rediscovering color. Thanks to loosened border restrictions that allow entry by travelers from across the European Union, the U.S., and elsewhere, it’s now possible to visit Italy freely, so long as you’re vaccinated or demonstrably Covid-free. Bloomberg Pursuits has the goods on exactly where you should stay.

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