Pause: Federal Reserve officials voted to hold interest rates steady at a 22-year high but signaled they were prepared to raise rates once more this year to combat inflation (WSJ)
Fewer interest rates cuts ahead: The Fed’s new projections indicate that policy makers expect to cut rates by far less next year than they thought before. In June, they forecasted a year-end 2024 rate of 4.625%; Now, they forecast, that the federal-funds rate will be 5.125% at the end of next year (Reuters)
Global debt hits record $307 trillion: Global debt reached a record $307 trillion, driven by markets like the United States and Japan, increasing by $10 trillion in the first half of the year and raising the global debt-to-GDP ratio to 336% (Reuters)
American made: The Biden administration awarded $238 million from the Defense Department to establish eight U.S. hubs for semiconductor industry innovation, as part of an initial disbursement from nearly $53 billion allocated to bolster the domestic sector weakened by years of offshoring (NYT)
Nobody wins in a strike: General Motors and Stellantis said they have already laid off ~2,000 additional workers because of consequences related to the United Auto Workers strike; Tesla now best selling EV (CBNC)
UK’s green U-turn: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that the 2030 ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars – and gas boilers – would be pushed back to 2035, sparking fierce criticism from MPs, environmentalists and other industry leaders (The Independent)
Football merger: To compete with the NFL, alt football leagues the USFL (owned by Fox) and the XFL (owned by Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia, and Redbird Capital) may merge (Axios)
Shopify scores quick win: Klaviyo (KVYO) shares jumped 23% in the marketing automation company’s IPO. Shopify (SHOP), an early investor, stands to gain a quick $295 million from a deal it struck with Klaviyo just last year (The Information)
Alexa gets a facelift: Amazon (AMZN) has unveiled a slew of gadgets and an update to its popular voice assistant Alexa, infusing it with more generative AI features to better compete with other tech companies who’ve rolled out flashy chatbots (AP) | 