Today’s the day, and you KNOW that Wall Street will be watching. In a few hours, Fed Chair Powell will take the stage at the Kansas Fed’s annual Jackson Hole conference and provide “an update on the economic outlook that could detail how the central bank is thinking about inflation and the path ahead for interest rates” - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
A new wrinkle for Powell and his Fed friends: word Thursday that U.S. gross domestic income, adjusted for inflation, continued to rise in Q2. Though down slightly from Q1, the upward trend should “eas[e] fears that the United States is entering a recession” while also “adding to confusion about the state of the economy.” Why? In part because the Commerce Department also announced that inflation-adjusted GDP fell .1% in Q2, an odd result because “the two measures, in theory, should be identical,” as they “measure the same thing, economic output, from opposite sides of the ledger” - NYTimes and Bloomberg
Peloton’s dismal quarterly performance (that likely prompted its recently announced deal with Amazon) included a $1.2 billion loss, with revenue falling 28% from a year before and restructuring charges hitting $415 million - NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch
Dollars General and Tree both “upgraded their sales guidance for the year” based on anticipation that “consumers will continue to flock to lower-priced retailers to cope with inflation woes” - NYTimes and WSJ
After initially hoping to sell its retail and local commercial banking services in Russia (following the country’s invasion of Ukraine), Citigroup changed course this week and announced that it would wind down those operations altogether—a decisions that will mean the closure of 15 branches and layoffs or moves of some 2,300 workers - NYTimes
OPEC’s president is helping prime membership among the oil-producing nations to “cut crude production to stabilize the market,” the mere suggestion of which “pushed the price of a barrel back over $100 earlier this week” and “threatens to keep energy prices elevated despite Biden administration efforts to get the members to pump more” - WSJ
Your Daily Dose phrase of the week: “The Merge,” the upgrade to Ethereum (which provides the “technological backbone for thousands of crypto projects”) that will shift the platform “to a more energy-efficient infrastructure.” It’s scheduled for September 15th, is 8 years late, and comes with major risks - NYTimes
Novartis will spinoff its Sandoz “generics-and-biosimilars division” with plans to list it independently in Switzerland. The drug giant intends the move to help it focus more on “innovative medicines” - WSJ
U.S. mortgage rates hit 5.55% this week, a two-month high, “adding pressure to the fast-cooling housing market.” Though still under highs hit in June, that average 30-year-fixed rate clocks in at “nearly double the rate on offer a year ago” - WSJ and Bloomberg
Your MNSF new-food roundup. 10 days left. Plenty of time for you out-of-towners to grab a last-minute flight to MSP to experience this scene for yourselves – StarTribune
Stay safe, have a good weekend, and see you at the Fair,
MDR
