As we anticipated, Fed Chair Powell—appearing virtually at the annual Jackson Hole gathering of Fed officials and watchers—signaled the possibility of central bank bond-purchase tapering as early as this year. More notable, perhaps, is that he did so adroitly enough to keep markets happy and assure nervous analysts that the U.S. recovery could slow in coming months due to the Delta variant and change the Fed’s plans - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
Also coming out of the Jackson Hole gathering, new research that questions the common wisdom that central bankers’ low-interest-rate policies are a driving force behind the “high wealth inequality” that marks the U.S. these days. Instead, there’s evidence to suggest that “high inequality is the cause, not the result, of the low interest rates and high asset prices evidence in recent years” - NYTimes
Peloton revealed on Friday in an annual SEC filing that the DOJ has “subpoenaed the company for information on its reporting of injuries related to its products” - WSJ
E-truck maker Rivian—best known for its backing from Amazon and Ford and for not being Lordstown Motors—has filed for an IPO “just weeks before it expects to deliver its first electric pickups to customers.” The company has already raised more than $10 billion from investors and hopes to achieve a valuation of $70 billion” - NYTimes
Baxter International, an Illinois-based med-tech company, is nearing a deal to acquire medical-equipment company Hill-Rom Holdings for roughly $10 billion. The talks “follow an earlier bid from Baxter worth $144/share that Hill-Rom rebuffed” - WSJ and Bloomberg
Amazon has reached a deal with Affirm, the “so-called buy now, pay later payment provider that allows customers to pay for their purchase in installments,” that will enable Amazon customers to use the service on purchase of $50 or more - NYTimes
China Huarong Asset Mgmt Co., the “top manager of distressed assets” in the country, published its 2020 results this weekend. The bad news: a net loss of $16 billion for the year. The good (and yes, it qualifies): even putting that number out in public is an important step in the right direction for Huarong, which “had rattled global investors earlier this year after it delayed the release of its annual results” - WSJ and Bloomberg
The Times’ media columnist takes us behind the scenes of the billion dollar deal that saw Germany’s Axel Springer acquire Politico last week, including some background on Politico’s Wesleyan-educated “billionaire publisher,” Robert Allbritton - NYTimes
There’s at least some indication that Elizabeth Holmes may cite a “decadelong abusive relationship with former Theranos President Ramesh ‘Sunny’ Balwani” as a mitigating factor as she faces criminal fraud charges at trial this week over the alleged fraud at her blood-testing startup - WSJ and Law360
Hard not to get a real kick out of Nandi Bushell performing onstage with Dave Grohl & Foo Fighters late last week, the culmination of a series of virtual drum-offs between the then-10-year old Brit and the rock legend during the throes of the pandemic a year ago - Mashable
Stay safe, and get vaxxed,
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