American consumers aren’t feeling great. They’ve been feeling bad about everything from prices to the stock market. They’ve felt so bad, in fact, that Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment was stuck at one of its worst readings on record for two months this spring after plunging 29% in the first four months of 2025.

Over the 79 years of the survey, a drop this large this fast has almost always predicted a recession. Sentiment readings improved slightly at the start of June but still indicate Americans expect much higher prices and a much slower economy in the coming year.

It’s “dangerous to overlook” such negative consumer sentiment, says Joanne Hsu, the director of the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers. But that’s exactly what Wall Street’s been doing: As so-called soft indicators remain low, hard economic data like jobs are mostly holding up. Stocks have roared back from April lows.

It’s clear to Hsu that many investors and analysts don’t really understand the data they’re dismissing. And the survey is rarely wrong. In 1974, for instance, it spotted the worst recession since World War II, while ever-rising sales of TVs, cars and other consumer goods were tricking economists into thinking things were fine. When Wall Street eventually feels the negative vibes, more investors may find themselves in the mood to sell. —Jordan Parker Erb

What You Need to Know Today

While investors continue to go wild, pushing stock indexes to new records, US consumer spending grew at its weakest pace since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic on a sharp deceleration in outlays for a variety of services. Spending on services contributed 0.3 percentage point to gross domestic product in the first three months of the year, the least since the second quarter of 2020. That was down sharply from a previously reported 0.79 point boost. Overall consumer spending increased at a 0.5% pace, instead of the previously reported 1.2%. GDP declined at a downwardly revised 0.5% annualized rate in the first quarter as a result. The numbers indicate the economy’s woes early in the year weren’t entirely related to the deterioration in the trade balance related to the Trump administration’s tariffs. There’s likely more at work.

And it gets worse. Recurring applications for US unemployment benefits rose to the highest since November 2021, extending a sharp increase over the past month and a half, and signaling more people are staying out of work for longer. Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, increased to 1.97 million in the week ended June 14. That was above all estimates in a Bloomberg survey. Initial claims, however, decreased, to 236,000 in the week ended June 21, lower than economists anticipated. And the four-week moving average of new applications, a metric that helps smooth out volatility, also dipped.

BlackRock is launching a target-date fund that will include private credit, private equity and other investments, aiming to increase annual returns by 0.5% and potentially 15% over 40 years. The fund is part of Larry Fink's plan to give millions of Americans access to private markets through their retirement savings accounts, following BlackRock's $30 billion acquisitions in private-markets data, infrastructure and private credit. Other major asset managers, such as Empower, are also moving to offer private assets in retirement portfolios—despite concerns over higher fees, reduced transparency and liquidity constraints.

Health experts assailed a key Trump administration committee as it appeared to make vaccination decisions based in part on debunked theories and, almost, a study that doesn’t exist. After vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, fired the previous expert members of a vaccine advisory committee, he replaced them with several people with less-than-traditional qualifications.

On Thursday, Kennedy’s committee backed the use of only thimerosal-free flu shots for Americans, taking aim at an ingredient that’s considered safe by scientists but falsely linked with autism. The committee is usually staffed by vaccine experts, but Kennedy’s new panelists have relatively little experience in public health. The agenda also included a presentation on thimerosal from Lyn Redwood, a retired nurse who worked with Kennedy at an anti-vax group.

Members of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s advisory committee on immunization practices meet for the first time in Atlanta on June 25. Photographer: Ben Hendren/Bloomberg

Experts had feared the influential panel would reverse past decisions to back lifesaving shots, which have protected millions of Americans against disease and death. Those worries weren’t completely unfounded: The revamped panel has said it would reconsider current childhood immunization schedules.

Kennedy also said the US will cut funding to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, an organization responsible for vaccinating children in poor countries. It confirms a decision leaked in March and reverses a pledge made under the Biden administration to give at least $1.58 billion to the group. Experts warn the move will result in deaths that would otherwise have been avoided.

The news comes after recent modeling by Boston University said Trump’s effort to shut down the USAID agency has already likely resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly children and infants, who previously relied on America for critical medical assistance.

Russian banking officials warn of a credible risk of a systemic banking crisis in the next 12 months due to a growing number of corporate and retail clients failing to make loan payments. Bad debt on Russian banks’ balance sheets is estimated to be in the trillions of rubles, with borrowers deferring payments, and the true magnitude of the debt problem may be masked by official figures.

The economy is facing a worsening outlook, with a slowdown in growth, accelerating inflation and labor shortages, which could raise questions about Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's ability to sustain Russia’s three-year war on Ukraine, in which his forces have killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians.

Rescue services search the site of a Russian air strike on a residential building in Kyiv on June 23. Russia this week unleashed its latest wave of missile and drone strikes on civilians, killing at least seven people. Photographer: Andrew Kravchenko/Bloomberg

Former Barclays boss Jes Staley lost a legal battle to overturn his ban from UK finance over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, all but ending his attempt to rehabilitate himself in the British financial services industry. A London judge sided with the Financial Conduct Authority, ruling that the executive misled officials about the nature of the banker’s relationship with the late pedophile financier. “He has shown no remorse for his conduct which has led to the authority’s investigation,” Judge Timothy Herrington said in his ruling on Thursday.

What You’ll Need to Know Tomorrow

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