Markets Tank Again As Recession Fears Join Inflation Worries

As expected, traders’ initial exuberance at the Fed’s big rate hike was short-lived, and markets resumed their recent dismal performance on Thursday, as recession fears joined inflation concerns to make for a rough day on global markets - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch

A suddenly uncertain U.S. housing market is facing serious headwinds, with mortgage rates climbing “at their fastest pace this week since 1987.” 30-year fixed rate mortgages averaged 5.78% as of Thursday, up more than half-a-percent from just a week earlier - NYTimes and WSJ

Fresh off his first Q&A with Twitter’s 8,000 employees on Thursday, we’re seeing a slightly new version of Elon Musk—less the troll and more an actual owner. Musk, in his “effusive and at times rambling address,” addressed topics “as varied as growth, potential layoffs, anonymity, Chinese apps, the existence of alien life-forms and even the cosmic nature of Twitter.” Musk also dropped casually that he hopes to “expand the service to more than one billion users across the world,” more than 4 times Twitter’s current count - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and Barron’s and TechCrunch

Speaking of Muskworld, Tesla has announced big price hikes—as much as $6k per vehicle for some models—as the e-car company reckons with “surging costs” - WSJ

More bad news for U.S. parents (and for Abbott Labs), as severe storms have caused flooding affecting parts of the Sturgis, Michigan facility that “went offline in February over contamination concerns, exacerbating a nationwide formula shortage” - NYTimes and WSJ and NPR

Checking in with the first post-Bezos CEO at Amazon, Andy Jassy, who has spent much of his first year on the job “working to cut back the excesses of an e-commerce operation the company expanded at breakneck pace during much of the Covid-19 pandemic” while also hoping to “resuscitate languishing sales in that business and drive growth in other divisions.” Other than that, not much going on for AJ - WSJ

Meta, Twitter, and other social media platforms have “agreed to abide by tougher European Union standards for policing online postings, offering a preview of the type of rules big tech companies will face under a coming digital-content law” - WSJ

BuzzFeed News, the Pulitzer Prize-winning division of the digital media company that’s been struggling through newsroom cuts in recent months, has named Karolina Waclawiak as its new EIC. Waclawiak has served as the site’s executive editor of culture - NYTimes

World Cup 2026 is going to be a North American affair. FIFA dropped the host cities on Thursday, so let the kvetching commence (much of it warranted, to be fair. We are talking about FIFA here) - AP and NYTimes

We’re out for a spell early next week. Enjoy your Father’s Day and Juneteenth celebrations, and we’ll catch up with you soon,

MDR

The Robins Kaplan Financial Daily Dose features top stories and latest news headlines in financial markets, banking, securities and technology topics.