5 Things You Need to Know to Start Your Day

Good morning. Chinese property stocks tumble, oil rally entices hedge funds and a Nomura banker is barred from exiting China. Here’s what’s [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Good morning. Chinese property stocks tumble, oil rally entices hedge funds and a Nomura banker is barred from exiting China. Here’s what’s moving markets. —[ Kristine Aquino]( Property woes [China’s property stocks tumbled the most in nine months]( as investors fret over a possible liquidation of China Evergrande Group. A Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of developer shares fell 7.1% Monday, taking its loss in valuation this year to almost $56 billion. Evergrande shares dove 22%, following a last-minute decision to scrap meetings with creditors. That comes as a string of negative news hits the sector, with China’s securities regulator saying last week it launched an inquiry into Ping An Real Estate over an undisclosed overdue loan payment. Meanwhile, China Oceanwide Holdings on Monday disclosed it is facing liquidation after a Bermuda court issued a winding-up order. Oil rally [Hedge funds are piling in on the oil rally, boosting their bullish bets on West Texas Intermediate crudeÂ](to the highest since February 2022. Oil has soared by almost 30% since end-June, with prices set for the biggest quarterly gain since March 2022 thanks to supply curbs from OPEC+ linchpins Saudi Arabia and Russia and brighter outlooks in the two biggest economies, the US and China. There are plenty of signs of tightness in the physical market, too. Russia last week announced a temporary ban on diesel and gasoline exports, while US crude stockpiles fell again. Nomura banker [A senior banker at Nomura has has been barred from leaving China, the Financial Times reported.]( Charles Wang Zhonghe, chair of investment banking for China at the Hong Kong arm of the Japanese bank, has not been detained and is only restricted from exiting China, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the matter it didn’t identify. The travel restriction is linked to Wang’s time at ICBC, where he worked before joining Nomura in 2018, according to the report. The finance industry has been rocked by a clampdown on alleged corruption that started in late 2021 and has shown no sign of abating, leading to a fraught investment climate. Cautious markets S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures edged lower as of 5:46 a.m. in New York. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index climbed to the highest in six months, weighing on most Group-of-10 currencies. Treasury yields climbed across the board, mirroring moves in European and UK bond markets. WTI traded at $90/barrel, while gold and Bitcoin fell. Coming up… At 8:30 a.m., we’ll get the latest reading of the Federal Reserve of Chicago’s activity index, followed by figures on the Dallas Fed’s manufacturing activity gauge at 10:30 a.m. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari will participate in a Q&A at 6 p.m. Earnings include Thor Industries. What we’ve been reading This is what’s caught our eye over the past 24 hours: - Amazon will invest as much as[$4 billion in AI startup Anthropic]( - First impressions of [Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro Max]( - [Hollywood screenwriters reach a tentative deal](to end strike - China’s Golden Week set to [send more than 21 million people to the skies]( - [The pound is near a six-month low]( a year after Liz Truss’s tumultuous budget - [Private equity’s slow carnage]( unleashes a wave of zombie companies - [Ukraine remakes its army and economy]( to endure a long war And finally, here's what Joe’s interested in this morning In the last week, I had two experiences with tech that actually blew my mind. The first was the self-checkout system at the big clothing retailer Uniqlo. It's been around for awhile apparently, but it was new to me. Unlike most self-checkout systems at retailers (grocery stores, Target, pharmacies etc) this one didn't entail scanning each item one-by-one. Instead, I just dumped all of my clothes into a bin, and it instantly identified every single thing, at which point I just scanned my credit card and finished up. Incredibly simple. In theory, self checkout means great efficiency gains, but most experiences are kind of annoying and often require some kind of staff intervention. This one was a breeze. And then this weekend in Austin, Texas, I got my first ride in a self-driving car from Cruise. I hailed the car like an Uber. There was a bit of a wait. But then the car arrived. I got in. Buckled up. And then the car drove me home. The route was kind of circuitous. But it was an incredibly smooth ride, and at no point did I feel nervous or in danger. It definitely felt like an experience from the future. Anyway, one of the things I think about a lot is that while the 2010s are often seen as an era of "cheap money" it might be better to consider it as an era of cheap labor. A lot of the companies that grew up and boomed in that time essentially capitalized on slack. Uber is the big example, but also a lot of other so-called "gig economy" type companies. That's obviously not the macro environment we're in anymore. Labor markets are tight, and it's not obvious that that's going to change anytime soon. As such, it seems plausible that some of the big winners of this era will be companies and technologies that find ways to meaningfully create labor-saving efficiencies. And if you think about it, there's a huge push right now to decarbonize the economy. Build out new energy systems. Build domestic green infrastructure, and so forth. This will be incredibly labor-intensive work, which will put strain on other parts of the economy, accelerating the need to invest in technologies such as the ones above. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Twitter [@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. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Five Things to Start Your Day: Americas Edition newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. 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