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Hottest month ever.

July is set to become the world’s hottest month on record. The first 21 days of the month were the hottest three-week period on record, with July 6 seeing the highest-ever global average temperature, according to the European Union’s Earth observation agency Copernicus. 

Following the hottest-ever June, that puts 2023 on course to be the warmest year. Heat waves have baked North America, Asia, and Europe this summer, with a record temperature for China recorded last week and California’s Death Valley approaching the global high of 56.7C set 110 years ago. That’s threatening the health of millions, while triggering thousands of wildfires from Greece to Canada.

— Bloomberg Green

Photo: Dreamstime

Wall Street trading desks face sweeping changes from Basel rules

Top banking regulators are plotting changes to the way banks account for the risk tied to everything from credit-default swaps to corporate bonds, part of a sweeping set of proposals that will force large lenders to boost the capital cushions they use to absorb unexpected losses. Examples in the 1,000-plus-page plans included changes to how lenders will calculate the risk tied to trading certain types of derivatives, repos, commodities, investment-grade corporate bonds, and option contracts. (Bloomberg Law | Jul 27) see also Big banks will need to hold more capital to guard against risk under new Fed proposal (Associated Press | Jul 27)

Fed staff no longer predict recession as inflation cools

After a year’s worth of warnings around a nationwide economic downturn, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday said the central bank’s staff is no longer forecasting a recession, as the Fed aims to stem inflation by raising interest rates without causing an economic downturn. (Forbes | Jul 26)

Wall Street's use of AI and data analytics faces new SEC rules

The US Securities and Exchange Commission approved a plan on Wednesday to root out what Chair Gary Gensler has said are conflicts of interest that can arise when financial firms adopt the technologies. The agency also adopted final rules requiring companies to disclose serious cybersecurity incidents within four business days after they’re deemed significant. (Bloomberg Markets | Jul 26)

Economists counter market bets of soft landing

Economists are at odds with markets over investors’ optimistic bets that the global economy is set for a soft landing and interest rates are close to their peak. Markets have rallied on both sides of the Atlantic in recent weeks, as the UK followed the US and eurozone in showing headline inflation is declining at a sharper-than-expected pace. (Financial Times | Jul 24)

Bond traders bet on 'nirvana' in new decoding of yield curve

Listen to Wall Street’s top economists and you’ll hear the same message again and again: The risk of a recession is fading fast. And yet, in the bond market, the traditional warning that a downturn is near — an inversion of the yield curve — keeps getting louder. (Bloomberg Markets | Jul 24)

Photo: Leon Neal | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Many firms not prepared to bounce back from a cyberattack

The FBI advises companies to refuse to pay ransoms to hackers who encrypt their systems but evidently few companies take such a hard line. More than 90% of 3,409 tech and cybersecurity managers said their companies would consider paying a ransom — and 74% said they would pay — if it meant unlocking their business systems faster, according to a new survey from cybersecurity company Cohesity. Some companies aren’t prepared to recover back from a cyberattack: 41% of executives said it would take more than a week for their companies to recover.

— The Wall Street Journal

SEC sets 4-day deadline for public companies to report hacks

Companies hit by cyberattacks face a four-day deadline for publicly disclosing significant impact under controversial new rules approved Wednesday by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Those rules, proposed last year and vigorously contested by trade organizations and businesses, would require publicly traded firms to file details of a cyberattack within four days of identifying that it has a material impact.

— Bloomberg Technology | Cybersecurity

What to know about the SEC's new rules on cybersecurity disclosures

The new SEC rules set a new standard for communicating about cybersecurity to investors and the public, and all companies should be not only aware of the changes but actively preparing to meet the requirements. There are three key elements in the new rules that corporate leaders should know.

— Brunswick Group

Sign up for CISA Alerts

Report a Cybersecurity Incident: Report anomalous cyber activity and/or cyber incidents 24/7 to report@cisa.gov or (888) 282-0870.

• Report an incident
• Report phishing
• Report a vulnerability

Contact CISA: https://www.cisa.gov/about/contact-us

Photo: Timo Lenzen | The Wall Street Journal

How workers really spend their days

Remote-work die-hards like to brag about how they get more work done from home. Truth is, it’s often their downtime that’s so much more productive. At the office, we kill time by surreptitiously staring at our phones. Working from home, we make breaks about more than mental distraction.

— The Wall Street Journal

A survival guide to help demystify corporate jargon

A Haystack glossary comes loaded with industry-specific dictionaries and allows employees to share their own definitions of office lingo. Workers can also upload the meaning of acronyms, buzzwords, and ambiguous phrases that populate workplace language to a virtual glossary, either for personal or company-wide reference. The tool is slated to launch on July 27.

— Bloomberg Work Shift

‘Flash Boys’ exchange IEX has criticized rebates. Now it's adopting them.

IEX, the upstart stock exchange made famous by Michael Lewis’s book “Flash Boys,” has adopted a controversial practice that it previously criticized as harmful to investors. The New York-based exchange will start paying rebates to brokerages and trading firms that publicly post new orders on its marketplace, a way to encourage them to quote prices for more stocks.

— The Wall Street Journal