Unusual Covid-19 symptoms point to the Delta variant being more severe. China faces nationalist anger over a U.S. plane in Taiwan. An international tax plan is being crafted to include Amazon. Here's what you need to know to start your day.
Global policy makers are crafting an international tax plan to make sure Amazon.com is included, even though the U.S. company’s profit margin is below the 10% proposed threshold that would give other countries rights to collect revenue. G-7 finance ministers on Saturday voiced support for proposed rules. Amazon has estimated a global operating margin of 7.1% this year, but two people familiar with the negotiations said Amazon will be included. Amazon shares dropped as much as 1.1% to $3,172.20, briefly hitting a session low on the news, before closing the day little changed. Here’s an explainer on the broader plan. While an agreement is still far off, the momentum behind stopping sweetheart multinational deals is unmistakable, writes Bloomberg Opinion columnist Lionel Laurent.
Asian stocks are poised for a steady start as investors await more clues on the outlook for inflation and central bank stimulus amid the recovery from the pandemic. Global equities are at a record and cross-asset volatility has ebbed, but there are concerns about how long the calm can last. Futures rose in Japan, Australia and Hong Kong. The S&P 500 was little changed, while a biotech surge following approval of a Biogen Alzheimer’s drug helped the Nasdaq 100 to a small gain. The dollar dipped and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields climbed.
The coronavirus Delta variant that drove India’s devastating Covid-19 epidemic is the most infectious to emerge so far. Doctors now want to know if it’s also more severe, as unusual symptoms such as hearing impairment, severe gastric upsets and blood clots leading to gangrene have been linked to it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said all Indians above the age 18 will be vaccinated for free starting June 21, after criticism of his administration’s handling of India’s deadly second virus wave. Cases are rising in countries from Indonesia to Uganda, in a reminder that the pandemic won’t end any time soon. American and British airlines issued a joint plea for the resumption of travel between the two countries, saying government curbs on the world’s most lucrative air route are holding back an economic recovery.
China is facing nationalist anger over its muted reaction to a U.S. military plane arriving in Taiwan. The U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo plane made a three-hour stopover in Taipei on Sunday to carry a bipartisan congressional delegation visiting Taiwan. Local media reported that it was the first such visit since at least 1995, but Chinese state media including the official Xinhua News Agency didn’t report on the trip while the Chinese Foreign Ministry sidestepped a question about the plane. Some nationalist voices in China demanded a stronger reaction to enforce Beijing’s view that the island is part of its territory, underscoring the pressures on President Xi Jinping to follow through on heated “red line” rhetoric. Read more here on why Taiwan is the biggest risk for a U.S.-China clash.
Apple previewed its next-generation iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV and Mac operating systems at its its Worldwide Developer Conference, adding a slew of new privacy, health, smart-home, messaging, maps and digital wallet features. iPad software also got the biggest revamp to its Home screen since launching the device over a decade ago. The company focused heavily on how it has made FaceTime a better experience, clearly with an eye to taking the fight to Zoom. FaceTime is getting higher video and audio quality, the ability to schedule calls and, for the first time, people will be able to invite Android and Windows users to chat. Read about Apple’s other updates here.
What We’ve Been Reading
This is what’s caught our eye over the past 24 hours:
And finally, here's what Tracy's interested in today
I think one of the things we might learn this year is that economic data is not particularly good at dealing with a world bounded by supply rather than demand. That sounds like a weird thing to say given that one of the foundations of economics is, after all, the law of supply and demand, and an idea that these two factors should reach some sort of equilibrium. But in practice, economics does a terrible job of taking into account real-world constraints, and something that makes rational sense in theory might not always work out that way in practice. David Ricardo's 1817 theory of comparative advantage never took into account transport costs, for instance. So even if Portugal and England agree that they should trade, the whole thesis could be unsettled if the two countries can't find enough containers (or clippers) to ship their items.
That's something I've been thinking about as we discuss shortages and bottlenecks. In the latest episode of Odd Lots Joe Weisenthal and I speak to Zonda's Chief Economist Ali Wolf about the shortage of U.S. homes and the strength of the U.S. property market. I asked her whether the mismatch in supply and demand means that economists like herself need to re-evaluate what counts as “strong” or “weak” housing data. In a supply-constrained world, a softening in housing data could say a lot more about a shortage of supply than declining demand. Or, as Wolf put it: "The data's not going to really tell us the story about how strong demand is. The conversations we're having with people on the ground on a regular basis, [are] telling us that there's so much hunger and so much demand, but also so much frustration and, frankly, a price ceiling for some buyers. And you have to be able to adjust for that if possible."
You can follow Tracy Alloway on Twitter at @tracyalloway.
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Five Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day - Bloomberg
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