Wall Street gets confused

The Federal Reserve has made no bones about its commitment to driving a stake through inflation, even if it means playing chicken with a possible recession. The Fed’s updated economic projections appear to assume high inflation will stick around a little longer than Wall Street expects, and while the central bank and its European counterparts moderated rate hikes this week, their fight looks far from over. Still, fresh data this week showed progress, with the US economy slowing but employment remaining strong. The latter however is a double-edged sword, as Fed officials warned workers are still too hard to find—bad news when it comes to wage inflation. None of this of course is good news for the thousands of Americans who have already been fired by a growing list of technology companies and Wall Street firms, a list that will soon include the biggest name of all. The market reaction to these wild cross-currents was, as one would expect, a “world of confusion,” writes John Authers in Bloomberg Opinion, and “more or less encapsulated the financial dramas of 2022.”

Russia is running out of missiles, according to Ukraine’s top defense official. But that doesn’t mean Vladimir Putin won’t try a second time to take Kyiv, despite his stunning failure in the spring. European Union leaders threw their weight behind a quick agreement on a natural gas-price cap as a way to cut utility bills that have soared since Putin decided to punish Europe over sanctions. A price cap on Russian oil of $60 a barrel took effect this month. Nevertheless, peak oil demand—like fusion energy and asteroid mining—is perpetually 10 years away, Javier Blas writes in Bloomberg Opinion.

Xi Jinping staked his personal prestige on “Covid zero.” But as China’s economy faltered and its people erupted in fury over years of lockdowns, the Chinese leader retreated. His pandemic rules were unwound last week, and now Covid-19 is rapidly spreading across the world’s most populous country. The sudden pivot has left ill-prepared hospitals unable to deal with the surge, and may mean a million more people will die from the virus.

Elon Musk suspended multiple Twitter accounts—including those of a few journalists who cover him—that use public data to track the locations of private jets like his. Musk appears to be running his new social media platform like everything else he owns: impulsively, loudly and vindictively. As for former Twitter fan Donald Trump, whose latest Republican presidential campaign is off to a bumpy start with white supremacist dinners and NFTs, Musk could end up being a huge obstacle.

After months of sounding off against TikTok, the world’s most popular social media platform, a bipartisan group of lawmakers are pushing a bill to ban the China-owned app. They’re concerned Beijing’s authoritarian government can access American user data or influence the content they see in their feeds. Child exploitation watchdogs meanwhile are condemning the app for encouraging what they contend is the hypersexualization of young girls.

While mortgage rates skyrocketed this year, some high net-worth individuals still snapped up pricey New York City real estate. Overall, this year’s top 10 sales totaled $640.8 million. All took place above Manhattan’s 56th Street, with six of 10 located on, or adjacent to, Billionaire’s Row on 57th Street. Looking to drown your real estate sorrows? Here’s our roundup of the best new booze of 2022.

Savills is one of the UK’s largest and oldest real estate companies. The firm, part of an industry already with a reputation for bad behavior, came under public scrutiny in 2021 when an employee’s racist tweets about the England football team’s Black players went viral. This year, the company was in the headlines again, this time for having one of the country’s worst gender pay gaps.

Get Bloomberg’s Evening Briefing: If you were forwarded this newsletter, sign up here to get it every Saturday, along with Bloomberg’s Evening Briefing, our flagship daily report on the biggest global news.

New for subscribers: Free article gifting. Bloomberg.com subscribers can now gift up to five free articles a month to anyone you want. Just look for the “Gift this article” button on stories. (Not a subscriber? Unlock limited access and sign up here.)