Bonds & Stocks
Stocks rose on hopes that a narrower group of Washington negotiators will help break a deadlock on raising the debt ceiling to avoid a US default. The S&P 500 rebounded from a late-day slide on Tuesday as President Joe Biden and lawmakers struck a cautiously optimistic on finding bipartisan middle ground, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy telling CNBC he’s confident there will be no debt default. Treasuries stabilized.
Economy
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.
World
One man thought he’d beat the system of South Korea’s notoriously competitive hiring market: He allegedly got his twin brother to take a job entrance exam under his name. The candidate applied to work at the Bank of Korea and the Financial Supervisory Service last year, but both entrance tests were on the same day. So he got his twin brother to take the exam at the FSS — Korea’s financial watchdog tasked with identifying wrongdoing at other institutions — under his name, according to a BOK and FSS joint statement Wednesday.