Markets sold off around the world on mounting signs the global economy is weakening just as central banks raise the pressure even more with additional hikes to interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at its lowest point of the year Friday. The S&P 500 fell 1.7%, close to its 2022 low. Energy prices also closed sharply lower as traders worried about a possible recession. Treasury yields, which affect rates on mortgages and other kinds of loans, held at multiyear highs. U.K. government bond yields snapped higher after that country’s new government announced a sweeping plan of tax cuts.
(AP) Stocks tumbled worldwide Friday on more signs the global economy is weakening, just as central banks raise the pressure even more with additional interest rate hikes.
The S&P 500 fell 2% in afternoon trading, adding a dismal cap on what’s already been a rough week. It’s close to its low point of the year in mid-June.
European stocks fell just as sharply or more after preliminary data there suggested business activity had its worst monthly contraction since the start of 2021. Adding to the pressure was a new plan announced in London to cut taxes, which sent U.K. yields soaring because it could ultimately force its central bank to raise rates even more sharply. …
Donald J. Trump, sitting on a huge campaign war chest, is eyeing a raft of television ads to help Republican candidates in the midterm elections, people familiar with the talks say.
Former President Donald J. Trump is considering launching a raft of television ads to bolster Republicans in key races around the country, signaling a shift in political strategy as campaigns head into the final stretch of the midterm elections, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
Mr. Trump’s team has looked most closely at airing ads in Georgia and Pennsylvania, but Republicans involved cautioned that no decisions had been made.
Trump advisers have also debated whether television spots would be the most effective use of the former president’s political war chest, in part because the cost would be significantly greater than for candidates themselves with just six full weeks left in the midterm campaigns. While federal law keeps ad rates low for political candidates, those same protections are not afforded to political action committees. …
The Russian president has rejected requests from commanders in the field that they be allowed to retreat from Kherson, a vital city in Ukraine’s south.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has thrust himself more directly into strategic planning for the war in Ukraine in recent weeks, American officials said, including rejecting requests from his commanders on the ground that they be allowed to retreat from the vital southern city of Kherson.
A withdrawal from Kherson would allow the Russian military to pull back across the Dnipro River in an orderly way, preserving its equipment and saving the lives of soldiers.
But such a retreat would be another humiliating public acknowledgment of Mr. Putin’s failure in the war, and would hand a second major victory to Ukraine in one month. Kherson was the first major city to fall to the Russians in the initial invasion, and remains the only regional capital under Moscow’s control. Retaking it would be a major accomplishment for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. …
“The situation in Ukraine is clearly dynamic,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview on Friday. “It’s too early for a full assessment, but it is clear to me that the strategic initiative has shifted to the Ukrainians.” But he cautioned that there remains a “long road ahead.”
Mr. Putin’s disagreements over battle lines in Kherson illustrate how critical the war in Ukraine’s south is to both sides, American officials said. Despite Ukraine’s recent advances in the northeast, the area around Kherson is a critical theater in the war, with profound strategic implications for Kyiv and Moscow.
Some American officials said they saw trouble ahead for the Russian military in the southern theater. A senior U.S. official said this week that Ukraine was well on its way to repeating in the south the gains its forces had managed during a lightning offensive in the northeast earlier this month. If Ukraine pushes Russian forces back farther, Mr. Putin’s hard-fought-for land bridge to Crimea, the territory it captured from Ukraine and annexed in 2014, could eventually be threatened, American officials said. …
Britain’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, gambled on Friday that a heavy dose of tax cuts, deregulation and free-market economics would reignite her country’s growth — a radical shift in policy that unnerved global investors already rattled by an energy crisis, surging inflation and the specter of widespread recessions.
The British announcement came as markets around the world have been tumbling for weeks in response to higher interest rates and recession fears. The slide continued on Friday with the S&P 500 index falling close to its lowest point of the year and markets across Europe tumbling.
The move by Ms. Truss’s government indicated a sharp break with the previous prime minister, Boris Johnson, and with a generation of more fiscally minded Conservative governments.
For Ms. Truss, the measures — which critics liken to the “trickle-down economics” of the 1980s — amounted to a breathtaking bet that Britain’s economy would return to robust growth before she faces voters in two years. But the tax cuts, on top of extensive state intervention to cap soaring household energy bills tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine, are likely to require tens of billions of pounds of new government borrowing, deepening anxiety about Britain’s public finances.
British stocks and bonds and the pound all plummeted after the announcement, with the currency falling to fresh lows against the dollar, levels not seen in nearly four decades. …
The market’s resounding rejection of the new British government’s plans for tax cuts and borrowing continued Monday as the pound briefly fell to its weakest level against the U.S. dollar on record.
After a historically bad day on Friday, the British currency plunged as low as $1.035 in the early hours of Monday morning, before recovering to about $1.08, down 0.5 percent for the day. It also weakened slightly against the euro.
On Monday, prices for British government bonds plummeted, and yields surged, sending borrowing costs to new highs. The 10-year yield, which influences mortgages, business loans and other types of debt, hit it highest level in more than a decade. …
An asteroid minding its own business not too far from Earth is about to get knocked about by a visitor from our planet.
On Monday, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, is set to collide with Dimorphos, a small asteroid that is the moon of a larger space rock, Didymos. While these two near-Earth objects pose no immediate threat to our world, NASA launched DART last year to test a technique that could one day be used for planetary defense. …
DART is set to crash into Dimorphos at 14,000 miles per hour at 7:14 p.m. Eastern time on Monday. …
In 2005, Congress set a mandate for NASA to find, by 2020, 90 percent of near-Earth asteroids that are big enough to destroy a city — those that are 460 feet or wider in diameter. But Congress never gave NASA much money to perform that task, so it remains more than half unfinished, with about 15,000 more of such asteroids to discover.
While the agency is searching the heavens for deadly space rocks, it also is developing methods for responding to a threat, should one emerge. …
If DART and Dimorphos connect as planned, the small asteroid’s orbit will get closer to the larger Didymos. The magnitude of the change will depend on the structure and composition of Dimorphos.
If Dimorphos is solid and DART carves only a small crater, then the change will follow the basics of a Physics 101 problem — two objects colliding and sticking together. Because DART is moving in the direction opposite to Dimorphos, it will sap some of the asteroid’s angular momentum, causing it to move closer to Didymos and speed up. …
(Arguably, one of the best tests of Newtonian physics ever.)
Dow hits 2022 low as markets sell off on recession fears
Boston Globe – Sep 23
Markets sold off around the world on mounting signs the global economy is weakening just as central banks raise the pressure even more with additional hikes to interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at its lowest point of the year Friday. The S&P 500 fell 1.7%, close to its 2022 low. Energy prices also closed sharply lower as traders worried about a possible recession. Treasury yields, which affect rates on mortgages and other kinds of loans, held at multiyear highs. U.K. government bond yields snapped higher after that country’s new government announced a sweeping plan of tax cuts.
(AP) Stocks tumbled worldwide Friday on more signs the global economy is weakening, just as central banks raise the pressure even more with additional interest rate hikes.
The S&P 500 fell 2% in afternoon trading, adding a dismal cap on what’s already been a rough week. It’s close to its low point of the year in mid-June.
European stocks fell just as sharply or more after preliminary data there suggested business activity had its worst monthly contraction since the start of 2021. Adding to the pressure was a new plan announced in London to cut taxes, which sent U.K. yields soaring because it could ultimately force its central bank to raise rates even more sharply. …
Amid GOP Cash Crunch, One Very Flush Ally May Soon Share the Wealth
NY Times – Sep 23
Meanwhile, over in Ukraine…
Putin Gets More Involved in War Strategy
NY Times – Sep 23
UK government goes full tilt on tax cuts and free-market economics
NY Times – Sep 26
British pound touches record low as investors dump UK assets
NY Times – Sep 26
Heads up, space cadets!
NASA Is About to Crash a probe Into an Asteroid
NY Times – Sep 25