Ukraine surprise

In one of the biggest turns of the table in Russia’s 2 ½ year war on its neighbor, not only has Ukraine taken a chunk of Russian territory, but it’s accumulating Russian soldiers at a quick pace. Ukrainian forces said they accepted the surrender of the largest single group of Russian fighters since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion, itself the culmination of eight years of hybrid war by Vladimir Putin. Kyiv has also claimed that its thrust into Russian territory continues to expand.

A Ukrainian Security Service unit operating in Russia’s Kursk region is said to have taken 102 Russian servicemen as prisoners-of-war. Ukraine now controls 444 square miles (1,150 square kilometers) of Russian territory, including 82 villages and towns, since the attack began 10 days ago, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi told President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a report posted on Zelenskiy’s Telegram channel Thursday. The claims couldn’t be independently verified. —David E. Rovella

The largest unwind in US equities since the Covid-19 pandemic is over. Now, trend-following quant funds are ready to return to the stock market. Over the past month, so-called systematic funds, which buy stocks based on market signals and volatility moves rather than company fundamentals, have sold the largest dollar-volume of equities in four years, according to Scott Rubner, global markets division managing director and tactical specialist at Goldman Sachs. But now that markets have calmed down, with the Cboe Volatility Index trading around 15 and economic data signaling the Federal Reserve may be close to sticking a soft landing, systematic funds are expected to buy stocks again.

Stocks climbed and bonds tumbled as data on US retail spending and the labor market underscored the strength of the world’s largest economy. The value of retail purchases, unadjusted for inflation, increased 1% in July and were helped by a sharp snapback in car sales, Commerce Department data showed Thursday. Excluding autos and gasoline stations, sales were up 0.4%. Here’s your markets wrap.

With all this talk of corporate price gouging amid slowing inflation, there’s some good news for consumers. In a bid to appease regulators, Kroger said it plans to lower grocery prices by $1 billion if its nearly $25 billion merger with Albertsons comes to fruition. That’s double the $500 million in cuts the grocery operator, which houses chains including Ralphs and Dillons, had previously committed to implement at Albertsons locations. Kroger agreed to acquire its rival Albertsons in October 2022 to compete more effectively against bigger rivals like Amazon and Walmart. Since unveiling their plans to merge, the grocers have faced pushback from elected officials and union groups over whether the deal would lead to higher prices for consumers and lower wages for workers. The merger is facing several legal hurdles, including a federal court challenge in Oregon, two state lawsuits and an administrative trial before the Federal Trade Commission. The grocery industry has been pulled into the presidential campaign as well, with US Vice President Kamala Harris calling for a federal ban on food and grocery price gouging.

Autodesk continued to use a controversial sales strategy after promising investors it would stop and ignored internal warnings about the risks of doing so, according to previously unreported internal documents. The yearslong strategy involved offering discounts to certain corporate customers willing to pay up front for large multiyear contracts. In an effort to provide more predictable cash flow and wean itself off of the discounts, the engineering software company in 2021 pledged to halt the practice. But Autodesk kept doing it in an effort to meet financial targets, according to the documents, which were reviewed by Bloomberg.

It’s getting complicated. Seagram heir Edgar Bronfman Jr. is close to making an offer for Paramount Global, setting off a potential bidding war for the film and TV company that owns CBS and MTV. As part of his plan, Bronfman is weighing making an offer for National Amusements, the Redstone family company that controls Paramount, as well as an investment in Paramount itself. Paramount agreed in July to merge with Skydance Media, the film production company founded by David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again called for a replacement of India’s religion-based laws with a uniform civil code, a move that’s been assailed by some minority groups as cover for his nationalist agenda. Currently, matters of marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance are governed by multiple religious and customary laws. A uniform civil code will erase any independent religious practices in the implementation of these laws and bring them under one common umbrella—a move that critics have said is part of Modi’s majoritarian social push.

Former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra’s daughter is set to become the Southeast Asian nation’s next prime minister. Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 37, the youngest of Thaksin’s three children, is the latest face of the influential Shinawatra clan that has dominated most Thai elections. She is set to become the second woman to become Thai prime minister after her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra.

As sports gambling in the US quickly turned into a multibillion-dollar business, a trend started to emerge: Americans yanking money out of their stock-brokerage accounts to fund their online betting. This is the key finding laid out in a recent working paper titled Gambling Away Stability: Sports Betting’s Impact on Vulnerable Households. It claims to have found evidence that for every dollar spent on such wagers—now legalized in most states since 2018—net investments in stocks and other financial instruments dropped by just over $2.

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