Two giants dance

Two Wall Street giants are taking a look at each other. BlackRock is said to be in talks with Izzy Englander’s Millennium Management to take a minority stake in his $70 billion hedge fund. Millennium, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, has never sold a portion of its business to a third party. Last year, it was in talks with Schonfeld Strategic Advisors for a partnership agreement, but they fell apart months later. BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, has expanded aggressively into alternative assets over the past year, an effort by Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink to transform the company into a one-stop shop for stocks, bonds and private strategies, as well as financial consulting for strategic and governmental clients. Private assets and alternative hedge funds still constitute a small fraction of BlackRock’s $11.5 trillion of assets and $4.2 trillion of exchange-traded funds, but they typically charge higher fees, boosting revenue and profits. —David E. Rovella

Amid the post-US election cacophony, the Federal Reserve on Thursday stepped up to the mic and did what it does best: act in a predictable fashion, lowering rates by a quarter percentage point. Chair Jerome Powell also said he would not resign from his role if asked to do so by Donald Trump—and noted that (as some apparently misunderstood today) the president doesn’t have the power to fire him mid-term. Trump’s return to the White House, and more particularly his extreme policy proposals regarding tariffs and mass deportations, are seen as potentially altering the course the Fed takes in making sure inflation is dead. “We don’t know what the timing and substance of any policy changes will be,” Powell said. “We therefore don’t know what the effects on the economy would be, specifically whether and to what extent those policies would matter for the achievement of our goal variables: maximum employment and price stability.” Stocks hit another all-time high—here’s your markets wrap.

Trump demands loyalty, and Howard Lutnick is tasked with figuring out who fits the bill. As co-chair of Trump’s transition team, the billionaire Cantor Fitzgerald chief is drawing up shortlists for jobs across government and requires that candidates be exceedingly loyal to Trump. It’s those who have been by Trump’s side the longest—and who provided him with the most cash—who are poised to have the biggest sway as his administration takes shape, ranging from cabinet positions to unofficial advisory roles. Here are some of the bigger names who might make the cut, and one big role that was filled late Thursday.

President Joe Biden expressed hope Americans can “lower the temperature” and reaffirm their faith in the election system after a contentious campaign that saw Trump defeat Vice President Kamala Harris. “Yesterday, I spoke with President-elect Trump to congratulate him on his victory, and I assured him that I’d direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. That’s what the American people deserve,” Biden said in a speech from the Rose Garden. The president is in an unusual position as he congratulated Trump, who is both his predecessor in office and his successor. The speech’s reference to a peaceful transition evoked memories of the deadly attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s followers almost four years ago as they sought to keep him in power.

Mozambique’s ruling party said the opposition’s calls for ongoing protests against the outcome of last month’s elections are inciting an attempted coup. The southern African nation has been on edge since opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane, a fiery former lawmaker and pastor, called on his supporters to take to the streets en masse to back his claim that he won last month’s presidential vote. The official results showed the ruling party extended its 49-year rule. The standoff has left gas-rich Mozambique confronting what may be its most perilous period since a 16-year civil war ended in 1992.

This year will be the hottest on record, and the first to exceed the target set at the Paris climate conference in 2015. The temperature in 2024 will likely be more than 1.55C above the pre-industrial level, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said Thursday. The landmark Paris Agreement called for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the hope of limiting global warming to 2C (3.6F), and ideally 1.5C, above temperatures at the outset of the Industrial Revolution. But maintaining that threshold has been all but discarded as nations fail to move quickly. Scientists warn that the acceleration of global temperatures will lead to more and bigger climate disasters while pushing the planet closer to a series of tipping points from which there will be no return.

Bentley Motors is delaying a plan to offer only fully electric vehicles by 2030 as EV sales continue to disappoint projections across the industry. It will extend the target for its “Beyond100” business strategy (now called “Beyond100+) by five years to 2035, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Frank-Steffen Walliser said Thursday. “We all know the automotive market looks different,” said Walliser, the former Porsche motorsport guru who joined Bentley July 1. “Legislation for sure is driving electrification. We have to be honest there’s not a lot of demand—customers are kind of careful in considering something like that.”

When Trump ran for president back in 2016, one of the chief targets of his ire was China and what he considered its unfair trade practices—practices he said were coming at the expense of the American economy. Eight years later, Trump again is making China the bogeymen of blue-collar workers. But this time China is a very different rival, and it’s America that could end up the big loser.

Enjoying Evening Briefing? Check out these newsletters:

Explore all newsletters at Bloomberg.com.