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

Good morning. The rally in stocks continues, Reddit shares jump and Apple gets a boost from China. Here’s what’s moving markets— David Goodm [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Good morning. The rally in stocks continues, Reddit shares jump and Apple gets a boost from China. Here’s what’s moving markets— [David Goodman]( Want to receive this newsletter in Spanish? [Sign up to get the Five Things: Spanish Edition newsletter](. Market calm US futures held gains on Wednesday while European stocks edged higher [as May’s rally in equities continued]( amid a clutch of solid earnings reports. The dollar advanced for a third session as Treasury yields rose. Later today the focus will be on comments from Fed officials, including Lisa Cook, and earnings from Uber, Arm and Airbnb. Reddit gains Reddit shares are [jumping in pre-market trading](, climbing more than 16% after after improvements to the social media platform’s advertising system helped push quarterly sales higher than expected in its first results as a public company. Lyft is [also on the move](, rising 6% after its earnings showed it has increased active riders at the fastest pace since 2022. Apple improvement Apple is rising in early trading after data showed [Chinese iPhone shipments](jumped about 12% in March after the firm slashed prices, suggesting efforts to arrest an accelerating decline in sales is paying off. Apple’s performance in China has been a [source of uncertainty]( for investors, with the company posting better than expected revenue there in the first quarter, despite overall lower shipments. China warning Staying in China, Morgan Stanley is warning investors [should be wary of chasing one of the world’s biggest stock rallies.]( The bank’s strategists write that the momentum behind the recent surge in Chinese stocks will likely abate, and they should instead pursue single-stock and thematic opportunities given improved investor sentiment. Phantom debt Wall Street investors are growing increasingly concerned by [a source of credit they can’t track.]( As Paulina Cachero and Paige Smith write today, consumers have embraced ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ products that allow them to pay for purchases in installments, but it’s not clear how many of these loans are out there. Some worry that masks the complete picture of the financial health of American households, which is crucial for everyone from global central banks to US lenders and multinational businesses. What we’ve been reading This is what’s caught our eye over the past 24 hours. - FTX has billions more than needed to [pay bankruptcy victims.]( - Mnuchin says strong dollar helps, for now, in [financing US debt.]( - Rents set to be[last domino to fall]( in global inflation battle. - Riksbank kicks off easing with [first rate cut since 2016](. - JPMorgan [limits Segantii exposure](amid insider-trading case. - BOJ’s Ueda tweaks yen remarks in [possible rate hike hint](. And finally, here's what Joe’s interested in this morning Good morning. The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude is falling again today, and at least as of the time I'm typing this it's right around $77. Just a month ago, it was above $85. Just from a simple macro standpoint, the line should help ease some of the "inflation overheating" narrative. Not only is this probably good news for gasoline costs, etc. but, since oil is an input into almost everything else one way or another, the decline should ease general pressures. Also The White House's oil trading operation continues to look pretty good. [Back on April 2](, the US canceled a plan to buy oil to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. [Then yesterday](, the administration said it planned to buy the dip, seeking as much as 3.3 million barrels. So yeah, the trading isn't bad. But more importantly, we may be watching the full transformation of the SPR into its logical new purpose. When the US was a major oil importer, whose economy could be brought to its knees by the lack of imports, there was a very good case for a huge stockpile of crude to serve as a buffer against that external risk. But for awhile now, the US has been producing oil like crazy. Thus the same facility, which previously was a geostrategic hedge, can now be used for more conventionally macro purposes. Oil can be released when prices get intolerably high, and oil can be bought when the price gets low enough, such that further US production growth becomes impaired. The idea seems to be working both in theory and in practice. Oil is famously boom-bust, which is why historically and globally, organizations like OPEC (or the early version of the Texas Railroad Commission) have played a role in allowing producers to coordinate. (There's a [great piece in Phenomenal World]( by [Greg Brew]( which walks through the history of oil market control and decontrol.) Obviously oil is going to be an important commodity decades to come, but the question now is whether this new SPR model can be used for other critical commodities. Last week the company Albermarle, a major lithium producer, said it could [slow its pace of capital investment]( due to low spot prices for the metal. That may be a fine move for the company, but if you accept the premise that we're going to need a lot more lithium for EVs in the future, it's not great for long-term supply and capacity. Hence you see [rising calls]( for the DOE to engage in SPR-like logic for these other commodities: Build up infrastructure (both physical and financial) to keep prices bid up, such that it doesn't slow down the pace of mining and production, which an then serve as a buffer when prices are creating a crunch. Joe Weisenthal is the co-host of Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast. Follow him on X [@TheStalwart]( Like Bloomberg's Five Things? [Subscribe for unlimited access]( to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. [Bloomberg Markets Wrap: The latest on what's moving global markets. Tap to read.]( Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? 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