5 Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day: Americas

Good morning. A winning run for stocks, gold at a record and an emotional speech from President Biden. Here’s what’s moving markets. — Sam U [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Good morning. A winning run for stocks, gold at a record and an emotional speech from President Biden. Here’s what’s moving markets. — [Sam Unsted]( Want to receive this newsletter in Spanish? [Sign up to get the Five Things: Spanish Edition newsletter](. Stocks streak Global stocks are on track for their [longest winning streak of the year]( as bets firm up that the Federal Reserve is readying to start cutting interest rates. The MSCI all-country benchmark is just about set to register nine days of gains in a row, the most since December. US stock futures are edging higher, Treasuries and the dollar are calm. Home improvement retailer Lowe's cut its sales and earnings forecast, blaming a frozen housing market. Gold record Gold prices [have settled above $2,500]( extending the record high notched up for the precious metal on Monday. It has gained by more than 20% this year, in part driven by the view that the Fed’s pivot toward cutting rates was nearing. Banks including UBS and ANZ say that there’s [scope for further gains too]( not just on the Fed’s policy but on central bank buying and demand for portfolio hedges. Torch passed President Joe Biden delivered an [emotional speech at the first night]( of the Democratic National Convention, passing the torch to Kamala Harris. The event involved about [200 social media influencers]( as Harris’s campaign looks to keep its momentum rolling. Donald Trump, meanwhile, downplayed criticism about [his comments on the Fed]( saying he should be able to freely share his views on interest-rate policy. Keep reading for Joe Weisenthal’s thoughts on political prediction markets. Media and airline M&A Two developments on the M&A front may ripple through markets. Edgar Bronfman Jr., the media executive and Seagram spirits heir, has [formally submitted an offer]( to take control of Paramount Global, attempting to quash a rival bid made by Skydance Media. And the proposed merger of airlines Alaska Air and Hawaiian has [moved a step closer]( after the US Justice Department decided not to challenge it. Price war A [price war is emerging]( in the Chinese new-home market as local governments dial back on intervening. A sudden 18% price cut at a project in Beijing in May has prompted more developments to follow suit, with a similar situation in Shenzhen. China is also considering [a new funding option]( that would allow local governments to buy unsold homes, after a series of rescue packages failed to turn the market around. What We’ve Been Reading This is what’s caught our eye over the past 24 hours. - Mike Lynch was [celebrating his acquittal]( before his yacht sank. - A [criminals’ paradise]( emerging in Laos. - [Black Myth: Wukong]( creates gaming history. - A possible [watershed moment]( for Japanese takeovers. - Apple’s first [India-made iPhone models]( coming this year. And finally, here's what Joe’s interested in this morning Yesterday on the [Odd Lots podcast]( Tracy Alloway and I interviewed Nate Silver and Maria Konnikova, the co-hosts of the [new podcast Risky Business](. Nate is, of course, the world's most famous election forecast and modeler. And both Nate and Maria are avid and accomplished poker players. So both have a deep understanding of and intuition for gambling and odds, and making decisions with uncertain or incomplete information. We talked about a range of things, but most predominantly, the booming world of political prediction markets, with seemingly everyone citing the latest odds on [Polymarket]( (which Nate consults for) as a way to get a temperature check on the Presidential race. Check out the episode on [Apple]( or [Spotify]( or anywhere else you get your podcasts. I've written a few times in the past about prediction markets, but I think the big thing to me right now is the degree to which they've become part of my news consumption. In other words, going back a few weeks, when there was still some question about who Kamala Harris would pick to be her VP candidate, it was interesting that the pundits and activists coalesced around names like Tim Walz, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear and so on. And all of those columns and tweets about those guys were interesting enough, but were the prediction markets useful for putting a number on the conventional wisdom? Was Beshear in the mix? Yes, he was, and at one point he got as high as 25% on Polymarket, but by the end of July he was clearly second-tier. To me, the rightness or the wrongness -- which people often focus on, because of the word "prediction" -- is kind of besides the point. What's useful is basically knowing where people's heads are at a given point of time. Or take another example. Prior to the debate on June 27, there was some chatter about whether Biden would be the ultimate Democratic nominee. But for much of the year, the prediction markets had the odds of him dropping out of the race at around 25%. Again, that's prior to the debate, which caused the odds to shoot higher. But 25% was always pretty high. The bettors recognized that there was a substantial chance of him dropping out. Was 25% "right"? It's hard to answer that question. But the market was right that the odds were non-trivial. And so to my mind, as a news consumer (which I am, in spades), prediction markets are additive to how I see the possibility of various events playing out. And of course, I should add that in traditional finance we use prediction markets all the time. Traders betting on short-term government debt or, more directly, Fed futures, are making bets on what the individual members of the FOMC will do, or how they will react to incoming data. But quite literally they are making bets on how these participants at Fed decisions will vote. And we talk about these odds, and what they mean for other markets, all the time. These markets are interesting to people who aren't directly participating in them, and so I see no reason why other event contracts can't be the same. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on X [@TheStalwart]( [Bloomberg Markets Wrap: The latest on what's moving global markets. 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