Record-breaking Friday

Wall Street ended the week on a landmark note with the S&P 500 hitting a record high for the first time in two years. Fueled by hopes the artificial-intelligence boom will keep powering the market higher, the benchmark topped 4,800. Also helping sentiment along was another batch of data pointing toward a soft landing for the US economy and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s war on inflation, with a mix of high consumer confidence and lower inflation expectations. Art Hogan at B Riley Wealth says “we’re seeing a plausible path to inflation continuing to ease gradually, an end to Fed rate hikes and a re-acceleration of economic growth in the back half of 2024.” —David E. Rovella

The news for China stocks is less pleasant. They just capped another dismal week, with a gauge of mainland firms listed in Hong Kong languishing at the bottom of global equity index rankings. Tokyo has overtaken Shanghai as Asia’s biggest equity market while India’s valuation premium over China hit a record. Locally, a meltdown in Chinese shares is wreaking havoc on the nation’s asset management industry. This “is a continuation of what we saw last year,” said John Lin, AllianceBernstein’s chief investment officer of China equities. “These squeezing-the-toothpaste type of stimulus policies so far haven’t been able to turn around the underlying bottom-up fundamentals of areas like the property sector.”

America is seeing more and more of its most fertile land snapped up by China and other foreign buyers, yet problems with how the US tracks such data means it’s difficult to know just how much. Foreign ownership and investment in property such as farmland, pastures and forests jumped to about 40 million acres in 2021, up 40% from 2016.

American Healthcare REIT is said to be seeking to raise about $700 million in an initial public offering. The Irvine, California-based senior housing and assisted living property owner could start gauging investor interest in the listing as soon as next week. The self-managed real estate investment trust’s IPO is set to be among the first batch of listings testing the still-nascent rebound in the IPO market.

Microsoft said a Russian-linked hacking group attacked its corporate systems, getting into a “small number” of email accounts, including those of senior leadership and employees who work in cybersecurity and legal. The group that Microsoft deemed responsible, also known as “Nobelium,” is a sophisticated nation-state hacking group that the US government has tied to Russia. The same group previously breached SolarWinds, a US federal contractor, as part of a massive cyber-espionage effort against US federal agencies.

Ford said it would cut the number of workers making its F-150 Lightning truck as US demand for electric vehicles continues to weaken. In another sign that traditional gas-powered vehicle demand remains strong despite the accelerating climate crisis, Ford also said it was hiring nearly 900 new employees and adding 700 employees from its Rouge Complex for a third shift at its Michigan Assembly plant. “It’s pretty clear there’s been some slowdown in EV adoption,” said David Lefkowitz, head of consumer equities for UBS Global Wealth Management. “We’re getting to the part of the market where it may take a little more effort to penetrate.”

US President Joe Biden is forgiving nearly $5 billion in additional student debt as the administration seeks to deliver on one of his signature initiatives. Almost 74,000 student loan borrowers will see debt canceled as a result of administrative changes by the US Education Department in the latest round of relief. Those affected include borrowers enrolled in the government’s income-driven repayment and public-service loan forgiveness programs.

Liz Cheney, the former Republican representative and burr-in-the-saddle of her party’s far-right base, said recently that the GOP had devolved into such a “cult of personality that it’s very hard to imagine that the party can survive.” After 2024, Cheney said, “we’re going to have to have something else. Something new.” Francis Wilkinson writes in Bloomberg Opinion that, despite Cheney’s desire for a new democratic, conservative party that can “engage” with the Democratic Party on a rational, public-spirited basis, the current GOP seems unlikely to fill that role anytime soon.

As challenges go, here’s a welcomed one—where to invest $1 million? Unless you park it all in broad index funds, the world of possible investments can be bewildering. Are AI stocks too pricey? Is private credit becoming too hot? What’s the right call on Treasury bonds? Should you stay in US markets or look abroad? For timely ideas on how to deploy a seven-figure sum, Bloomberg asked four investment experts for their best ideas. Here’s what they said.

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