Inside information

So the question now is, if the Fed is in pause mode when it comes to changing interest rates, how long will that pause last? If Friday’s data is any sign, it could be awhile, and certainly longer than hoped for by wishful thinkers on Wall Street who have been crossing their fingers for rate cuts. The unexpected rise in both US hiring and wages last month increase the chances the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates high for longer—and potentially keep the door open to an 11th straight hike in June. The unemployment rate even fell back to a half-century low of 3.4%. The numbers are of course good news for American workers, the Biden administration, and potentially Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s position that a soft landing is more likely than not. But Jonathan Levin, writing in Bloomberg Opinion, takes a different tack on the issue. Despite the new data, downward revisions to earlier numbers suggest a broad cooling trend remains intact. Some of the under-the-hood numbers corroborate a clear slowdown that’s well under way, he says. The numbers now show the US added an average of 182,000 private sector jobs in the past three months, the fewest since January 2021. More importantly, the average has returned to the pre-pandemic “normal.” Despite all the handwringing about a tight job market, Levin writes that the labor trends may be Powell’s best friend. —David E. Rovella

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is said to be investigating the conduct of First Republic executives before the regional bank’s seizure and sale to JPMorgan. The regulator is looking into whether any members of the then-executive team of First Republic improperly traded on inside information. In equities Friday, several other regional banks that are under pressure rallied along with the broader market.

Investors and politicians are increasingly focused on whether the US government can defuse the growing debt-limit crisis triggered by House Republican demands for unrelated cuts to Biden administration priorities like climate and education. A potentially catastrophic technical default could ignite a recession and erase millions of US jobs. From Washington to Wall Street, here’s what to watch to gauge how worried you should be.

Warren Buffett’s ties to Bill Gates, whose charitable work has triggered criticism from conservatives, are putting investors in Berkshire Hathaway at risk, according to a right-wing activist shareholder group attempting a long-shot bid to remove the Oracle of Omaha as board chair at the company’s annual shareholders meeting Saturday.

The Biden administration is said to be pulling together a $500 million weapons package for Taiwan, using for the first time a fast-track authority that it has relied on to speed arms to Ukraine. The package will involve sending existing stockpiles of US weapons or support equipment to Taiwan under what’s known as a Presidential Drawdown Authority.

More than 20 million people have been killed by the coronavirus over the three-plus years it has afflicted humanity, wreaking unspeakable misery and sorrow upon the global population. Now, the World Health Organization has formally called an end to the emergency. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in making the announcement, noted that the disease is still deadly—especially to the elderly and immunocompromised—and that it continues to kill one person every three minutes. But in many countries, precautions that could protect the most vulnerable were long ago cast aside in favor of convenience and a return to normalcy, making the WHO’s statement rather symbolic.

Russia has accumulated billions of rupees in Indian banks which it can’t use, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday, pointing to a ballooning trade surplus with the South Asian nation. “This is a problem,” Lavrov said in India’s western state of Goa on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting. “We need to use this money.”

Mikhail Malyshev’s search for budding tech talent has taken his quant firm to the Armenian capital of Yerevan. And he’s not alone. Several quant houses have set up shop in the city as Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine fuels an exodus of Russians fleeing conscription. Quant funds have to compete with banks and asset managers to hire the astrophysicists, mathematicians and programmers who can turbocharge their algorithm-driven strategies. While some funds have scored talent from Silicon Valley tech giants, other founders with roots in Eastern Europe have turned to Armenia. “All of a sudden there is asupply-demand opportunity,” Malyshev says.

Aluminum used in the new all-electric model of America’s best-selling pickup truck, the Ford F-150, can be traced back from the automaker’s Rouge assembly complex in Dearborn, Michigan, through several middlemen, to the rainforests of Brazil. There, rust-colored bauxite is clawed from a massive mine whose owners have long faced allegations of pollution and land appropriation. Near where the Amazon River empties into the Atlantic, a refinery that processes the ore has been accused of sickening thousands of people who live in the surrounding area. In this episode of Bloomberg Investigates, we visit the communities directly affected by this part of the green transition, and the people who are fighting back against the companies they hold responsible.

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.

The Bloomberg Wealth Asia Summit returns on May 9. Join us in Hong Kong or online as we sit down with the region’s leading investors, economists and money managers to discuss the mindset of next generation investors, Web3 and investing in art. Speakers include top executives from Amundi, Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Sotheby’s. Register here.