‘Collision course’

One giant options transaction may have sparked the S&P 500’s huge midday bounce Wednesday. The trade, which involved buying and selling call options tied to the index at a cost of around $31 million, may have helped fuel a recovery that saw the benchmark gauge erase a 1.8% decline. After warnings that the positive bounce in markets of the past few days was an anomaly, more optimistic views are surfacing—this despite indices closing down. One Bank of America strategist says the two-day rally triggered a bullish signal that could lift the S&P 500 by at least 3% over the coming weeks. Here’s your markets wrap. —David E. Rovella

Russian forces are still being pushed back in parts of Ukraine’s east that the Kremlin has illegally claimed as its own. In Moscow, Vladimir Putin may be seeking to mollify domestic criticism by pledging to reoccupy Ukrainian territory it has ceded in recent weeks, and perhaps take more. In order to do this, military observers say, the hundreds of thousands of civilians and reservists Russia has called up will first need to be sent into combat. Then there’s the question of Russian ally Belarus.

The US and Russia are waging the most intense contest in great-power coercion since the height of the Cold War, Hal Brands writes in Bloomberg Opinion. Putin is using nuclear threats in a bid to avoid humiliation. Washington is wielding its own array of pressures to force him to accept just that outcome. The good news, Brands writes, is that both strategies have so far been carefully calibrated. The bad news is that America and Russia may still be on a collision course, because only one of these strategies can succeed.

Inflation watchers have focused on pulling back the labor market, but tenants blinking in the face of higher rents might be the first step toward cooling off the economy, Conor Sen writes in Bloomberg Opinion. What if the rental market is the first to break?

Virgin Atlantic Airways is pulling out of Hong Kong for good, canceling flights and closing its offices in the Asian financial hub, ending a 30-year history in the city. Part of the reason, the company said, is the closure of Russian airspace.

OPEC+ and its allies agreed on Wednesday to reduce their collective output by 2 million barrels a day in a bid to keep oil prices high. The move was defended by ministers from the producers group as necessary to protect the oil industry and their own economies from the risk of a global slowdown. The White House slammed the decision and indicated it would respond. Brent crude, the international benchmark, jumped as much as 2.4% to a two-week high of $93.96 a barrel. Meanwhile Russia, which has been holding access to natural gas over the heads of European nations, resumed shipments to Italy via Austria.

Credit Suisse Group’s deputy wealth management head for Asia is leaving after about two decades with the bank, joining a wave of departures from the embattled firm. The Swiss lender, contending with a near-record low share price, is facing an erosion of talent in Asia.

Taiwan warned it would treat any Chinese incursion into its airspace as a “first strike,” as Taipei seeks to deter Beijing from ratcheting up military pressure. Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told lawmakers the ministry was taking such incursions more seriously after a recent spate of closer flights by Chinese warplanes and drones. Pressed on whether any warplane’s violation of Taiwan’s airspace would be viewed as a first strike, Chiu said, “Yes.”

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Lynsey Addario has spent her career covering major conflicts and humanitarian crises. On several occasions, the renowned photojournalist and war photographer came within a hair’s breadth of being killed. On this episode of Emma Barnett meets…, she explains the circumstances surrounding what may be one of the most powerful photos of Putin’s seven-month war on Ukraine, and what was going through her mind as she encountered the scene of slaughter.

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