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

Good morning. Donald Trump and Joe Biden sail through Super Tuesday, Bitcoin and gold send mixed messages and Jerome Powell heads to Capitol [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Good morning. Donald Trump and Joe Biden sail through Super Tuesday, Bitcoin and gold send mixed messages and Jerome Powell heads to Capitol Hill. Here’s what’s moving markets. — [Charlotte Hughes-Morgan](. Want to receive this newsletter in Spanish? [Sign up to get the Five Things: Spanish Edition newsletter.]( ‘Unsurprising’ Super Tuesday Donald Trump and Joe Biden edged closer to a [general-election rematch]( in November after racking up several wins on Super Tuesday. As expected, both Biden and Trump prevailed in nearly every Super Tuesday nominating contest. Nikki Haley clinched her second victory over Donald Trump but reports out this morning indicate Haley will shortly [exit the Republican presidential race](, leaving Donald Trump on course to become the Republican nominee. Here are the [key takeaways]( from the day. Separate reports suggest the Republican frontrunner also met with [Elon Musk]( recently as he seeks to woo donors. Find out why Bloomberg Opinion columnist Francis Wilkinson thinks an ‘unsurprising’ Super Tuesday is a [concern](. Mixed messages Price spikes for Bitcoin and gold are sending [mixed messages]( about global risk appetite. For a brief moment, nearly everyone who ever invested in Bitcoin was [profitable](, as the digital asset surged to $69,191 on Tuesday before [retreating](. But a simultaneous [record high for gold](, traditionally a safe-haven, makes for a jarring contrast — the two assets are typically driven by markedly different drivers. Bitcoin is generally considered a speculative play whereas a boost for gold suggests traders are taking a defensive position on concerns of geopolitical tension or a possible pullback in equities. What’s going on? Some say the twin spikes could be down to traders chasing short-term momentum across asset classes. It could also be that both bitcoin and gold are viewed as beneficiaries of expectations of looser monetary policy, with swaps markets now showing a 62% chance of a Federal Reserve interest-rate cut in June.  Powell heads to Capitol Hill And we’ll hear more from the Federal Reserve today as Chair Jerome Powell heads to Capitol Hill for his semiannual testimony before Congress. Unsurprisingly, the focus is on when those interest rate cuts are likely to come.[Stocks rose]( after a two-day selloff and [treasuries](slipped ahead of Powell’s testimony, in which he’s expected to reiterate that the Fed is in [no hurry](to cut rates, after hotter-than-expected [January prints](. The US central bank chief and nearly all of his colleagues have said in recent weeks that they can afford to be patient in deciding when to cut rates given underlying strength in the US economy. But lawmakers will likely press the Fed chief on why officials are keeping borrowing costs so high, risking damage to the economy, when they’ve made so much progress on inflation. Open AI hits back OpenAI has [fired back]( against a lawsuit filed against it by Elon Musk, using the billionaire’s own emails to show he backed the company’s plans to become a for-profit business. In a blog post on Tuesday, OpenAI said Musk insisted it raise “billions” of dollars to be relevant compared with Google. Musk [filed the lawsuit last week]( against OpenAI, alleging the startup had strayed from its mission to build responsible AI and that it had become beholden to its largest investor Microsoft. In the blog post, OpenAI said that Musk was lashing out after trying and failing to make the company part of Tesla. Coming Up... The Federal Reserve releases its Beige Book. We’re also due ADP employment change figures for February, as well as JOLTS job openings for January. These private-sector reports could rattle expectations for broader employment data to be released on Friday. We’ll also get MBA mortgage applications. The Fed’s Daly will give a keynote address and Fed official Kashkari is set to speak at a Wall Street Journal event. Foot Locker and Campbell Soup are among the companies reporting quarterly results. China's benchmark CSI 300 Index has logged three consecutive years of declines. Are China equities poised to suffer from decades of stagnation, like Japan's did in the 1990s and the first part of this century? How concerned are you that financial problems in China will have a significant spillover effect in the US or Europe? Share your views in the latest MLIV Pulse [survey](. What We’ve Been Watching This is what’s caught our eye over the past 24 hours. - There’s a new [financial crisis](brewing in US housing - Find out how [much it costs]( to win an Oscar - The largest US public pension fund is looking for a [new CIO]( - China’s[roaring bond market]( withstands 1 trillion yuan drag - The US is [turning its back](on the world with or without Trump, says Hal Brands - It’s [Budget Day]( in the UK and tax cuts are on the agenda - Meatless hot dogs and sausages are now coming from one of the US’s [most iconic brands]( And finally, here's what Joe’s interested in this morning So yesterday Bitcoin briefly hit a new all-time high, eclipsing its prior record in late 2021. In typical Bitcoin fashion, the price quickly dived after going above $69,000, but whatever, it's still a staggering rise from where it was a few months ago, and also those depths in late 2022 after FTX collapsed. Naysayers who call it all a big bubble have to acknowledge crypto hasn't behaved like bubbles typically do, where they bust and then everyone moves on and finds something else. This is not Beanie Babies. The coins behave less like bubbles that burst, and more like balloons that quickly inflate, deflate, and then reflate. All that being said, there is something about this upturn that's a little bit different than in the past. Typically there's some sort of story or pretense that rides alongside the price. In 2021 there was a lot of talk about "DeFi" and how the various chains had the opportunity to disintermediate finance in some novel way. Other things in past cycles you heard about where how gaming would all go on chain, with people being able to own their own characters or their character skins or whatnot. Tokens were going to replace frequent flyer miles. Ethereum was going to be the new World Computer. Real-world assets would all be tokenized, creating smoother more liquid markets for various things that are currently hard to trade. None of this has panned out so far. At all. But not only has none of this panned out, there's not some new "fundamental" story that's being told about this rally. There's not some new crypto use case that people are excited about that wasn't being talked about 3 years ago. The only thing people are talking about really is flows. There's the new inflows from the ETFs. There's the excitement about the upcoming halvening (not going to relitigate that convo). There's LOTS of excitement about various memecoins that have cute dogs as their mascots. And if you're a dogwifhat holder, well then congrats to you. And so this rally is actually super refreshing. Usually you have to nod along, as someone tries to tell about some revolution in finance or the internet underway. Remember Web3? This time nobody's really pretending that there's something else going on besides price going up. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal 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. Tell us what you want to see in the Five Things newsletter! Please [take our quick survey here]( [Bloomberg Markets Wrap: The latest on what's moving global markets. Tap to read.]( 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](. 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