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China fears.

Photo: Brendon Thorne | Bloomberg

Stocks in Asia were set for a mixed open, with optimism that the US will be able to avert a first-ever default being tempered by evidence that China’s economic activity is losing steam. Future contracts for Japanese shares advanced 1%, setting them on a course for their best week since October, after the S&P 500 hit a nine-month high. Hong Kong’s benchmark was poised to drop about 1% after Alibaba’s results. Treasuries sold off across the curve. The two-year bond yield, which is sensitive to imminent Fed moves, approached 4.3%, while the yen touched its lowest this year against the dollar.

Illustration: James Ferguson | Financial Times

Why is the US dollar so strong again?

If investors agree on one thing this year, it's that the dollar is going to fall. That's made the greenback's 2% bounce over the last month particularly confusing. US inflation is cooling and the Federal Reserve may pause its interest rate hikes next month. So the dollar should be on the way down, right? Analysts say a number of factors are probably at play. (Reuters | May 18)

Recession calls keep getting pushed back, giving soft landing believers hope

The small group of economists who’ve been maintaining that the US can avoid a recession, despite the most aggressive Federal Reserve tightening in decades, is starting to breathe easier. Many of their peers had expected surging interest rates — up 5 percentage points in just over a year — would’ve put a more material dent in hiring and personal consumption by now. Instead, the unemployment rate is hovering at a more-than-five-decade low, consumers are still spending, and the housing market is beginning to stabilize. (Bloomberg Businessweek - Economics | May 17)

Fund managers cut commercial property exposure to lowest since 2008

Fund managers have cut their allocations to commercial real estate to their lowest level since the 2008 global financial crisis, in the latest sign that investors are becoming concerned about the impact of rising interest rates and falling demand on the sector. (Financial Times | May 16)

How El Niño could scramble commodity markets

El Niño hasn’t even landed yet. That hasn’t stopped it from moving commodity markets around the world. The hard-to-predict climate pattern, when powerful, can usher in intense drought or rainfall, upend output from the world’s breadbasket regions, and whipsaw the prices of commodities. But the cyclical shift in ocean temperatures can just as easily be a dud. (The Wall Street Journal | May 15)

World leaders warily watch US debt-limit standoff

World leaders, already struggling with inflation and rising interest rates, now face the battle over raising the U.S. debt limit as the latest risk to their economic outlook. The impasse in Washington over raising the roughly $31.4 trillion borrowing limit is looming over a series of meetings of the Group of Seven advanced democracies this month. (The Wall Street Journal | May 15)

Cybercriminals don't merely work through expert understanding of computer networks. The biggst vulnerabilities they target are in our brains.

Bookshelf: Poltergeists in the machine

'You may not be interested in hacking," says Scott J. Shapiro, adapting a quote often attributed to Leon Trotsky, "but hacking is interested in you." But Shapiro isn't panicking: "Much of what is said about hacking is either wrong, misleading, or exaggerated." In Fancy Bear Goes Phishing, Shapiro, a professor of law and philosophy at Yale, makes the case that, despite its technological trappings, "hacking is about humans."

— The Wall Street Journal

SolarWinds board wins appeal over 2020 Russian cyberattack

SolarWinds Corp.‘s senior leaders prevailed on appeal Wednesday against shareholder litigation over a 2020 cyberattack by Russian hackers that compromised the systems of Fortune 500 companies and US government agencies. The lawsuit showed ‘inattention,’ not ‘intentional dereliction.’

— Bloomberg Law

Cybersecurity leaders suffer burnout as pressures of the job intensify

Relentless cyberattacks and pressure to fix security gaps despite budget constraints are raising the stress levels of corporate cyber leaders and their worries about personal liability. Chief information security officers must manage cybersecurity risks and, at the same time, educate C-suite colleagues and the board. Three in four CISOs in the US report feeling burned out, according to one survey, putting them at risk of quitting. 

— The Wall Street Journal

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A law aimed at telemarketers was named after 'Seinfeld' because... oh, just watch the video.

The 'Seinfeld Bill' becomes law

State your name and purpose. That’s the mandate that New Jersey is passing down to telemarketers who want to call NJ phone numbers. Governor Phil Murphy signed the so-called “Seinfeld Bill” into law on Monday. The legislation requires that over-the-phone salespeople provide the name, and phone number of the company or person they are calling on behalf of, as well as disclose the purpose of their call within the first 30 seconds of reaching a potential customer.

— Gizmodo

Jeffrey Epstein keeps haunting Wall Street long after his death

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partners swapped incredulous messages, traded theories, and fielded queries from puzzled clients after the revelation two weeks ago of its top lawyer’s ties with Jeffrey Epstein. But when the bank’s general counsel, Kathy Ruemmler, was hired in 2020, she had told its leadership about her past dealings with the disgraced financier, explaining that he offered the use of his network to help drum up business while she was in private practice.

— Bloomberg Wealth | Finance

Don’t show off, don’t lecture: how to negotiate with someone more powerful

Almost anyone who has ever worked in a workplace or shared a household faces a problem: how to negotiate from a position of weakness. How do you ask for something from someone more powerful? Here are a few case studies of how to do it, and how not to.

— Financial Times