The Federal Reserve’s “first-ever foray into the corporate bond market” will wrap up by the end of the year, with the central bank pledging to sell off all of the ETF-investments and direct bond holdings it began purchasing in March 2020 as a Covid-prompted exercise of its emergency lending powers. That move into the corporate debt market—aimed at “unfreez[ing] the flailing bond market,” worked “almost instantly, restoring investor faith in the market and helping it to begin functioning again” - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
The activist investors who successfully placed two “dissident board members” on Exxon Mobil’s board of directors last week have claimed a third seat and named Alexander A. Karsner—known for his “strong environmental credentials”—to fill it. The slate of new directors intent on forcing Exxon to adapt to a rapidly changing global climate was pushed along by Engine No. 1, a “small hedge fund” that has “sought to push Exxon to move toward cleaner energy and away from oil and gas” - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
A wild mix of “consumers with trillions in extra savings, businesses eager to hire and enormous policy support” is making the U.S.’s 2021 economic recovery “unlike any in recent history,” with businesses and workers “poised to emerge from the downturn with far less permanent damage than occurred after recent recessions” - WSJ and NYTimes
All of which is excellent news; still, the International Labor Organization released a new assessment of employment and social trends that predicted it would take years to recover the nearly 144 million jobs globally wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic, a timetable that could be lengthened by uneven vaccine distribution - NYTimes
Chicken giant Tyson Foods has named longtime company veteran and COO Donnie King interim CEO after Dean Banks stepped down this week for “personal reasons” after just 8 months on the job - WSJ
Touching base with Treasury Secretary Yellen and her quest to sell the Biden Administration’s plan for a global minimum tax on big corporations to an international scene still set on undercutting neighbors and allies in an effort to attract global investment - NYTimes and Marketplace
Elsewhere in international economic relations, U.S. trade rep Katherine Tai announced on Wednesday that America will impose (but immediately suspend to ease negotiations on a broad-based resolution) tariffs on the U.K and five other countries “in response to their taxes on U.S. technology companies” over digital-services offerings - WSJ and Law360
Your Daily Dose Word of the Week: “DeFi,” as in “decentralized finance,” the “umbrella term for financial services offered on public blockchains” that are both incredibly hot right now and quite risky - WSJ
Federal authorities have confirmed that Russian cybercriminal group REvil—“one of the most prolific of the roughly 40 ransomware organizations that cybersecurity experts track”—is responsible for the ransomware attack that shut down many JBS meat processing facilities this week - NYTimes
Because we love a good callback here at the Daily Dose, let’s see how John Oliver’s Big Cereal campaign is playing out, shall we? - HuffPost
Stay safe and get vaxxed,
MDR
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