All the hits—and let’s be honest . . . mostly inflation and its staying power—from Treasury Secretary Yellen’s trip to the Hill on Tuesday, including admissions that her and Chair Powell’s frequent use of the term “transitory” to describe rising prices last year was ill-advised - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
The World Bank’s latest report on projected economic growth globally was another exercise in pessimism, with President David Malpass noting that “the grinding war in Ukraine, supply chain chokeholds, Covid-related lockdowns in China, and dizzying rises in energy and food prices” will dramatically slow the 5.7 world growth seen in 2021 to an anticipated 2.9% for this year and beyond - NYTimes and WSJ and HuffPost
Still, despite the rough news nationally and internationally, stocks finished up on Tuesday after a wild day that saw markets jumping all over the place most of the day - WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
Oil giant Shell announced this week that it will “begin selling electricity generated from renewable sources to residents and businesses in Texas, a move that brings the European oil company’s shift to green energy to the U.S. market.” The shift further deepens the divide between European and U.S. oil companies, with the former expanding “into renewable energy, electric vehicle charging and other fast-growing businesses” while the latter have largely kept “their focus on oil and gas while investing in capturing carbon from industrial plants and biofuels” - NYTimes
Senators from Wyoming and New York have teamed up to propose the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, a “long-awaited” measure that “seeks to bring clarity to cryptocurrency regulation” and would “define most digital assets as commodities and enact rules governing stablecoins” – Law360
The FTC has opened an investigation of CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, Inc., and “other large pharmacy-benefits managers over what impact their business models have on the accessibility and affordability of prescription drugs” - WSJ
As you probably expected after reading here yesterday about the SEC’s plans to overhaul the plumbing of Wall Street, many in and around the markets aren’t thrilled with the proposed shift, and those “retail brokers and market-makers entrenched in the current system will fight Mr. Gensler’s changes, potentially even filing lawsuit to block any regulatory changes” - WSJ
The union train charging across America in the past year has arrived at Trader Joe’s - NYTimes
Phantom Ranch, anyone? If you want to spend a night in “the only lodging within” the Grand Canyon, be ready to wait for years and bring your hiking boots (as accommodations are “reachable only by mule ride or by trudging down nearly a mile into the crust of the earth”) - NYTimes
We’re on assignment for the next few days, so stay safe, and we’ll see you back here next week.
MDR
