The ECB was even more aggressive than expected in its moves to “head off a downturn before it gained momentum,” cutting a key interest rate and reviving “a money-printing program.” At the same time, the central bank “issued an unusually strong call for eurozone governments to do more of the economic heavy lifting” – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
Not all ECB governors were on board—especially with the resumption of QE – Bloomberg
The U.S. and China are each cautiously giving a bit ahead of the next round of planned talks in October in an effort to “ease tensions that have pushed the bilateral relationship to its rockiest point in decades.” China announced yesterday that it would give some exemptions to its tariffs on American goods, and the White House said it would delay enforcing the next tariff increase by two weeks – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and Law360
Critics be [mostly] damned, WeWork is plowing ahead with its planned IPO. The office-sharing startup will list on Nasdaq in the next 10 days, and will also start in on “sweeping changes in its governance” in hopes that it can assuage its skeptics – WSJ and Bloomberg
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggested that the U.S. is carefully considering issuing a 50-year Treasury bond in an effort to “take greater advantage of low interest rates to slow soaring borrowing costs.” His department had previously considered (and dropped) the idea of more-than-30 year bonds in 2017 – WSJ
State and local governments have already gotten in on the long-bond craze – WSJ
All major attention related to California’s new contractor law has been focused on Uber and Lyft. But what of the thousands of other businesses potentially affected by the new law? Well, there’s a good deal of confusion on that front – NYTimes
Early subpoena requests indicate that the coalition of state AGs targeting Google are starting with “the search company’s dominant presence in the digital advertising market” with requests that include information about its “business rationale” for several acquisitions it made in 2008-2011 – WSJ
Britain’s done the math on a no-deal Brexit. And it’s so ugly that you’ll likely want to look away – NYTimes
Two months after pulling a planned IPO of its Asia business, Anheuser-Busch InBev is “shopping a slimmed down version of its Asia business to investors” in Hong Kong in hopes of raising $5 billion in an IPO “that could be completed by the end of September” – MarketWatch
French finance minister Bruno LeMaire has promised that he’ll block Facebook’s Libra crypto project in Europe, arguing that it “threatens the monetary sovereignty of European governments” – Law360
GE CEO Larry Culp told a Morgan Stanley investor conference this week that he expects continued asset sales to bring in nearly $40 billion in cash to help the downsizing conglomerate attack its debt load and streamline its operations – WSJ
America’s first Taco Editor is starting things off with a bang, delivering the “controversial” hot take that his new gig covers burritos, too – NewYorker
Have a great weekend.