Eurofins Scientific : Announces Availability of Real-Time PCR Assay for the Identification of the Mpox Virus
Announces the availability of its innovative PCR assay for the simultaneous qualitative detection of the mpox virus and its differentiation from other viruses from the orthopox family (smallpox, cowpox, buffalopox, etc.) - the Mplex Mpox, Orthopox assay.
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control Director Pamela Rendi-Wagner has noted that the 2024 outbreak of mpox in several African countries, which WHO has declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, is likely to lead to "more sporadic imported cases to the European continent", which will require monitoring, testing and diagnostics support.
Early detection, surveillance and data is essential to efficient infectious disease control. Mplex Mpox, Orthopox real-time PCR assay was developed by Gold Standard Diagnostics Frankfurt GmbH, part of the international network of Eurofins companies, in response to the 2022 mpox epidemic. The PCR assay has been evaluated and validated by the Institute of Health Carlos III (ISCIII) in Spain and the French National Reference Center (CNR-LE) and is immediately available as an RUO assay.
This 2024 outbreak is linked to the MPXV Clade I sublineage, a virus variant that carries a genome deletion affecting binding sites for primers and probes in certain real-time PCR assays, potentially leading to assay failure. The Gold Standard Diagnostics Mplex Mpox, Orthopox assay remains unaffected by this deletion based on bioinformatic analysis.
Cover:
-Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted the Democratic nomination for president, pledging to build the middle class as a defining goal. If she succeeds in her campaign, it could be seen as a political miracle and repudiate the idea that the voting public is seething over economic slights. If elected, Harris will likely see it as a mandate to extend and expand Biden's economic agenda, rather than a call to redirect the course of the nation. Biden's legislative efforts focused on spending for infrastructure and green energy. Harris may put a more progressive twist on Bidenomics and use tax and spending powers to favor lower-income workers and disfavor the savings of the affluent. However, it is unclear how far she will go to implement these ideas, as she has been employing "strategic ambiguity" to avoid getting pinned down on specific policy commitments.
Interview:
-Samantha McLemore, founder and chief investment officer of Patient Capital Management, attended a value-investing conference for the first time in a long time. Despite the rise of the Magnificent Seven, value-investing gatherings and investors have become harder to find. McLemore, who began her career in 2002 working for Bill Miller, focuses on undervalued and unloved stocks. She co-managed the Miller Value Partners Opportunity Equity strategy for many years, which has returned an average annual 10% in the past five years. However, the fund's 30% return in the past 12 months has beaten 95% of its peer group, according to Morningstar. Before the market's steep selloff in early August, McLemore spoke with Barron's about her favorite stocks - including Nvidia, General Motors - and her thoughts on Bitcoin's future.
Tech Trader:
-Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, has been criticized for his unfiltered views on remote work. He claimed that Google was losing the AI race to start-ups due to a focus on work-life balance and remote work. However, after media outlets discovered the video, Schmidt retracted his comments and claimed he misspoke about Google's work hours. Schmidt's connections to senior tech executives, investors, and government officials make him well-positioned to discuss the future of AI. Schmidt's time as CEO of Alphabet from 2001 to 2011 allowed him to witness the internet's cultural and economic impact. With a net worth of $24B, Schmidt is no longer affiliated with Google. He mentioned four key points about AI agents, which he believes will soon be available, capable of taking simple directions and generating complex output. These agents would be able to read through chemistry texts and understand chemistry's workings, providing insights into other concepts.
The Trader:
-Utility stocks have been performing better than the market's hottest names, with the Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF up 6.1% and the Roundhill Magnificent Seven ETF down 4%. This shift in the economy's sleepiest sector indicates a significant shift, and utilities can continue to rise. They appeal to coupon-clipping investors who enjoy steady dividend yields and protection from economic uncertainty. Hedge funds have increased their net long position in utilities over the past month, according to a survey by Evercore. Utility stocks have gained momentum due to their attractive dividend yields, which are more attractive in a world where yields on other safe investments like Treasury notes have been falling in anticipation of the Federal Reserve cutting rates. The average utility stock has a 3% dividend yield, while the 10-year Treasury note has a 3.9% yield, down from 4.7% in April. Utility stocks are also benefiting from a market rotation away from the most popular stocks, with an S&P 500 index that tracks stocks on an equal weight basis outperforming the market-cap weighted index. With job growth falling and recession odds rising, utility stocks offer more safety than most other sectors. Independent power producers, such as Vistra and Constellation Energy, have seen their stocks rise over 50% this year, as they don't need permission to earn high returns and benefit disproportionately when demand rises.
-Wolfe Research's chief investment strategist, Chris Senyek, has created two baskets of stocks based on the possibility of a Donald Trump victory and Republicans gaining control of both the House and Senate. The GOP Trifecta Long portfolio, which would benefit from a potential "Red Wave," and the GOP Trifecta Short basket, which could drop if Trump wins, are based on the pro-Trump group of stocks. The pro-Trump group of stocks surged after the presidential debate on June 27 and the assassination attempt on Trump on July 13. However, there should be more volatility between now and November.
The GOP long portfolio includes industrial giant 3M, defense contractor General Dynamics, oil services leader Halliburton, and big financials Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. The long portfolio also includes crypto leader Coinbase and online broker Robinhood, a potential nod to the Republican Party’s newfound appreciation for digital currencies. If Harris wins, Senyek expects her short basket to outperform stocks in the days after the election, even if Congress is divided. Renewable energy firms First Solar and Clearway Energy, retailers like Dollar General, Ralph Lauren, and e.l.f Beauty, and Tesla also make the GOP short list.
Features:
-Stocks rose on Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell announced plans to lower interest rates as the labor market cools and inflation approaches the Fed's annual target of 2%. Tesla gained 4.6% due to lower interest rates, making vehicles more affordable. Workday's second-quarter earnings and revenue exceeded analysts' expectations, and the stock surged 12%. Workday's management expressed confidence in growth over the next few years, forecasting 15% annual subscription growth for both fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2027. Ross Stores reported earnings that beat expectations and raised fiscal-year guidance, raising the stock by 1.8%. Ross Stores posted adjusted earnings of $1.59 a share and revenue jumped 7% to $5.3B, while same-store sales rose 4%, higher than estimates of 2.9%.
-Social media has been circulating a Biden-Harris proposal to tax unrealized capital gains, which would only apply to the wealthiest Americans. President Joe Biden's 2025 revenue proposal would impose a minimum tax of 25% on total income, including unrealized capital gains, for all taxpayers with wealth greater than $100M. This is part of Biden's longstanding effort to make the rich pay their "fair share." Kamala Harris, the vice president, supports all revenue-raising proposals in Biden's 2025 budget. However, online commentators mistakenly interpret the proposal as a 25% tax on all unrealized capital gains, and some of the administration's intended targets, such as Silicon Valley venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who criticized the proposal and affirmed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's support for their concerns. The current tax code only taxes gains on appreciated assets when the asset is sold and the gains are realized. The current tax regime often allows the very wealthy to pay a lower effective tax rate than the middle class, a reversal Warren Buffett has long lamented.
European Trader:
-UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, known as "Britain's Bill Gates," went missing after a luxury superyacht they were aboard sank off the Sicilian coast. The yacht had 22 people aboard, including Lynch, one of his daughters, two other British nationals, two Americans, and one crew member. Fifteen were rescued, including a one-year-old baby girl and Lynch's wife, Angela Bacares. Lynch founded software company Autonomy in the 1990s, which was bought by American tech company Hewlett Packard for $11B in 2011. The company's software relied on Bayesian mathematics, named after 18th-century British statistician Thomas Bayes. Lynch has run Invoke Capital, a venture-capital investment firm, and has also been an executive at Darktrace, a portfolio company that used artificial intelligence to detect cyberattacks. His Autonomy acquisition led to HP's write-down of $8.8B, including more than $5B attributed to inflated data.
Emerging Markets:
-no update
Commodities:
-Gold prices have surged by over 20% this year, reaching a record high above $2,560 an ounce. Investors are betting on Federal Reserve interest rate cuts to push gold up further, as gold tends to do well during times of dollar weakness. Geopolitical uncertainty and the upcoming US election could also give gold a further lift. Gold is viewed as the safest of haven trades, and emerging markets like China, India, and India have been boosting their gold holdings to lessen their dependence on the US dollar. The VanEck Gold Miners ETF, which owns stock in Newmont, Agnico Eagle Mines, and Barrick Gold, has seen a 25% increase this year. Profits and sales for miners tend to spike during times of higher gold prices. Gold and gold miners have also been rallying along with the stock market, which has rapidly recovered this month following a brief fear-induced selloff on Aug. 5.
Streetwise:
-The fiscal mudslinging of the past 30 years has left many nostalgic for the past. In 1992, Bill Clinton accused President George Bush of nearly doubling the debt, a claim he later denied. However, the debt under Bush did not double, but grew by 72% to just over $4T. Clinton's proposed tax increase was smaller, around $46B after some targeted tax cuts. The backdrop was a $290B budget deficit, the largest ever in nominal terms and equal to 4.4% of gross domestic product. The next year, Clinton won, and Republicans flipped both houses of Congress. Federal spending fell as a percentage of the economy, and deficits eventually turned into surpluses, causing the debt to shrink over three years ending in 2000. Both parties can claim credit, and external factors like stock market gains contributed to the shrinking debt. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan predicted that the resulting surpluses would allow the Treasury debt held by the public to be paid off.
The price of F1’s US success
Antitrust investigation hangs over F1
Formula One is back. The season break is over and racing teams are gearing up for the Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday, but troubles are brewing off the track, far away in the US, where antitrust authorities are investigating
Since acquiring F1 in an $8bn deal in 2017, Liberty Media, the US group chaired by billionaire John Malone, has elevated the sport’s profile by focusing on personalities rather than just the technical aspects of racing, notably through Netflix’s Drive to Survive series.
As readers of Scoreboard know, those efforts have paid off handsomely in the US, a country where F1 long struggled to gain traction.
These days, American celebrities flock to grand prix races not only in Austin, but in Miami and Las Vegas too. Advised by Lewis Hamilton and backed by Apple, Brad Pitt is starring in an upcoming F1 film. US sponsors, from Google to Goldman Sachs, have flocked to the sport.
But one American wasn’t welcomed with open arms. Michael Andretti, a member of the US racing dynasty, was rejected by F1 in January after applying to add a new team to the grid. Andretti, whose father won the F1 championship, is backed by Guggenheim Partners chief Mark Walter’s Group 1001 and had already met “stringent criteria” set by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, which governs the sport.
“Our assessment process has established that the presence of an 11th team would not, in and of itself, provide value to the Championship,” F1 said in January. “The most significant way in which a new entrant would bring value is by being competitive. We do not believe that the applicant would be a competitive participant.”
Some existing F1 teams have concerns about the financial impact of splitting revenues with an 11th member of the grid. One argument is that Andretti should just buy an existing team so as not to dilute revenues, while F1 has left the door open for an entry in 2028 rather than 2026.
But scrutiny has ramped up. Earlier this month, Liberty Media disclosed that the US Department of Justice’s antitrust division is investigating “Formula 1’s conduct concerning the application by Andretti Formula Racing to enter the FIA Formula One World Championship”.
“We intend to fully co-operate with this investigation, including any related requests for information”, Liberty Media chief Greg Maffei told analysts this month. “We believe our determination, F1’s determination, was in compliance with all applicable US antitrust laws, and we’ve detailed the rationale for our decision vis-à-vis Andretti in prior statements,” he said.
“We are certainly not against the idea that any expansion is wrong,” he said. “And we’re certainly open to new entrants making applications and potentially being approved if those requirements are met.”
Just a few years ago, F1 was fighting for attention in the US. Now, the sport’s owners might have a little too much.
Siemens Healthineers boosts cancer imaging with €200mn Novartis deal
German healthcare group buys business that specialises in producing radioactive chemicals used in scans
Siemens Healthineers has agreed to buy part of a Novartis business that specialises in producing radioactive chemicals used for cancer scans, in a further boost to the healthcare group’s biggest line of business.
The German group will pay more than €200mn for the diagnostic arm of Advanced Accelerator Applications, according to two people briefed on the deal. The companies separately confirmed the transaction.
AAA, which was bought by Switzerland-based Novartis in 2017, operates Europe’s second largest network of cyclotrons. These are used to manufacture the radioactive compounds that allow cancer, heart disease and neurological disorders to be detected on positron emission tomography (PET) scans.
Siemens Healthineers, which was spun out of parent company Siemens in 2017, said the deal would allow its US-based PET radiopharmaceuticals business — the world’s largest — to expand into Europe.
The transaction is expected to close in the last quarter of the year, pending regulatory approval and negotiations with Novartis’s works council. Novartis put AAA’s diagnostics division up for sale last year, in an effort to divest low-growth parts of its business.
Compared with other types of medical techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), PET scans tend to be more expensive and capacity is more limited in state-run European health systems. But they are becoming a standard tool to diagnose certain cancer types.
The scans are typically used to detect solid tumours, such as lung, breast and cervical cancer. They are also used to discover where cancer has spread in the body and to monitor how patients are responding to treatment.
Selling imaging equipment is the biggest part of Siemens Healthineers’ business, and the deal secures a supply of critical radioactive materials, the people briefed on the details said. Siemens Healthineers’ imaging division generated nearly €3bn in sales, more than half of quarterly group revenues, in the three months to the end of June this year. Its market value was €58bn at close of trading on Friday.
The company said it was important to produce the materials near patients because the radioactive compounds have a short half-life and need to be used on the day they are manufactured.
PET scan capacity more than doubled in at least a dozen European countries between 2010 and 2020, according to data from the European Commission, pushing up demand for the radioactive compounds manufactured by AAA.
Novartis bought AAA for $3.9bn to access radiopharma drugs being developed by the French biotech. Radiopharma drugs, otherwise known as radioligand therapy, are a promising new field in cancer treatment. The drugs are designed to deliver a targeted form of radiotherapy that kills cancerous cells but with much less damage to healthy tissue.
AAA’s lead drug Lutathera was approved for use to treat neuroendocrine tumours in 2018 and is expected to generate $704mn in sales this year, according to analyst consensus estimates.
Novartis decided to sell AAA’s diagnostics arms — the much smaller part of the business — after concluding that “the growth of the molecular imaging business would be best supported under the ownership of a dedicated diagnostics shareholder”, the pharma group said.
As part of the deal with Siemens Healthineers, Novartis will also work with the German company to increase its supply of the nuclear isotopes used in radiopharma drugs such as Lutathera, the people added.
Italy opens manslaughter probe into Lynch superyacht sinking
Prosecutors say Bayesian went down stern-first after ‘rapid, sudden’ storm struck
Italian prosecutors are investigating charges of manslaughter and “negligent shipwreck” over the sinking of a superyacht in bad weather in which UK tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and six others died.
Ambrogio Cartosio, Italian public prosecutor in the Sicilian town of Termini Imerese, told a news conference on Saturday that the investigation was targeting “persons unknown”. But he said that could change to named individuals and would not depend on the recovery of the 540-tonne wreck of the Bayesian from the seabed near Porticello off the coast of Sicily.
“It could be that we add someone to the list of people being investigated even way before the recovery of the boat,” he said. “It seems to me likely that offences of negligent shipwreck and manslaughter have been committed. It’s about establishing who they can be ascribed to.”
Bayesian was anchored off Porticello and sank at about 4am on Monday after being hit by exceptionally violent winds. Of the 22 passengers and crew on board, 15 were rescued by a boat that had been anchored nearby, six died trapped inside the boat and another was found dead in the sea. The last body, that of Lynch’s daughter Hannah, was recovered by divers from a cabin on Friday.
Investigators found “the boat sank stern-first, not bow-first”, Cartosio said. The finding followed analysis of the position of the vessel on the seabed, interviews with survivors and the testimony of skipper Karsten Börner, whose yacht was anchored near Bayesian when the storm hit.
Börner, who rescued Bayesian survivors after they had fired a red distress flare from a life raft, told the Financial Times that he and his passengers saw something in the sea, including what seemed to be a triangle during a flash of lightning, while he worked to keep his boat in position during the storm.
“I think they saw the ship capsize and when I turned around I saw the bow, then it went down,” he said.
The stern-first sinking suggests water may have flooded into the aft, or rear, compartments of the boat, tipping its bow upwards. It is not yet known whether a large hatch in the stern just above the waterline was open and prosecutors did not comment on the issue.
The weather forecast, issued at midnight on Sunday for the 12 hours until noon on Monday, warned of isolated thunderstorms but not of any extreme weather systems, according to Admiral Raffaele Macauda of the Palermo coastguard.
But Raffaele Cammarano, deputy prosecutor, said the storm that struck the boat was “truly rapid, sudden”. He said: “From the information that we have obtained, it is more likely that it was a downburst.’’
Borner said the wind was “violent, very violent” and estimated it reached force 12 on the Beaufort scale — hurricane strength. “It was tonnes of water coming down. I never saw that before, there was a water tornado,” he added.
The prosecutors said the first five bodies to be extracted from the wreck, recovered on Wednesday and Thursday, were found in one cabin on the port side. Hannah Lynch’s body was found in another cabin on the same side.
Cammarano said the gathering of the bodies in one cabin did not necessarily indicate that the passengers were trying to escape, as they could have been pushed there by the inrushing water. “Probably they were asleep,” Cammarano said.
Investigators said the luxury yacht gave its last position electronically at 4.06am, suggesting this was when it finally sank beneath the waves, while the survivors fired their flare from the life raft at 4.38am. Prosecutors are examining how all the crew except the chef managed to escape while all six victims whose bodies were found in the hull were passengers.
A coastguard official said a timeline for extracting the diesel from Bayesian’s fuel tanks — it can carry up to 50 tonnes — had not yet been decided. However, he said recovering the vessel from the seabed was a priority, because it would help the investigation and make the bay safer for the local community.
The vessel now lies 49 meters below the surface. Its owner will cover the costs of its recovery, according to Macauda. Records indicate that Lynch’s family owned the yacht.
FINANCIAL TIMES
-US Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell has signaled his readiness to cut US interest rates in September, warning that "downside risks" to the labor market have increased. Powell said the time has come for policy to adjust, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks. US Treasuries rallied and the dollar fell as investors bet on larger Fed rate cuts this year. The remarks at the Kansas City Fed's annual symposium were the US central bank chair's strongest signal yet that it will soon cut interest rates from their current 23-year high of 5.25-5.5%.
-Robert F Kennedy Jr. has suspended his White House campaign and endorsed Donald Trump, accusing the Democratic party of dismantling democracy and conspiring to keep him out of the race. Kennedy, son of Robert F Kennedy and nephew of John F Kennedy, stated that he is not terminating his campaign but suspending it. Trump emphasized the connection between the two candidates, Trump through his recent assassination attempt and Kennedy through the killings of his father and uncle. If elected, Trump would establish a commission on assassination attempts to release all remaining documents and review the assassination attempt on his own life.
-Dutch skipper Karsten Börner, who anchored near Mike Lynch's superyacht Bayesian off Sicily, believes the vessel capsized due to its extremely high mast. Börner believes the center of gravity is too high with the mast, which is the tallest aluminum boat mast in the world. He rejected the initial assessment by the Italian coastguard that Bayesian was in the wrong spot at the wrong time, stating that both boats had masts 28 and 29 meters above deck.
-Yemen's Houthis has blown up a Greek-owned oil tanker and its crude oil cargo in the Red Sea, posing a significant pollution risk. The Iran-backed group posted videos showing their forces' deliberate blowing up of the tanker, whose crew had been forced to abandon after a series of attacks by the Houthis. The EU's Operation Aspides naval force warned that the drifting vessel and its cargo of 150,000 tonnes of crude oil represented a "navigational and environmental hazard" and urged against any action that would worsen the risk. The group has not previously deliberately blown up an abandoned ship. The UK's Maritime Trade Operations office reported three fires on the ship before the video was posted.
-Israel's government has reportedly escalated into infighting after the defense minister accused a far-right cabinet colleague, Itamar Ben Gvir, of putting the nation's security at risk. The incident follows reports that Shin Bet intelligence agency head Ronen Bar warned about the risk of "bloodshed" from Ben Gvir's actions and the growing phenomenon of "Jewish terrorism". Ben Gvir, a key coalition ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has increased settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and greater Jewish control over Jerusalem's al Aqsa mosque compound. Defense minister Yoav Gallant accused Ben Gvir of endangering Israel's national security and creating internal division.
-German authorities have launched a large manhunt after an unknown attacker stabbed three people to death at a festival in Solingen. The incident occurred around 9.40pm on Friday, with the man attacking several people with a knife. As of now, three people were killed and eight injured, five of them seriously. A large contingent of officers is searching for the perpetrator and questioning victims and witnesses. Heavy-armed special forces from North Rhine-Westphalia have converged on Solingen, a town about 150,000 north of Cologne. Interior minister Nancy Fraser expressed shock and grief for the victims.
-The US is warning countries trading with Russia that they risk secondary sanctions if they allow Russian banks to set up local branches to finance the supply of goods for Vladimir Putin's war machine. The move aims to close workarounds Russia has used to circumvent sanctions, such as finding obscure means to pay for dual-use goods needed to make arms for its invasion of Ukraine. US deputy Treasury secretary Wally Adeyemo said Washington is prepared to pursue countries that let Russian banks set up branches in their jurisdictions to evade western sanctions, even if the bank itself was not under sanction.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
-The World Health Organization (WHO) has slowed access to Mpox vaccines in Africa, despite the country having requested the shots two years ago and manufacturers claiming they have supplies. The vaccines are trapped in a byzantine drug regulatory process at the WHO, which has not officially approved the vaccines or issued an emergency use license that would speed access. This is necessary for UNICEF and Gavi, the organization that helps facilitate immunizations in developing nations, to buy and distribute mpox vaccines in low-income countries like Congo.
-Ten states have ballot measures to establish a right to abortion in their state constitutions, but pushback has already begun. The strategy has succeeded beyond expectations, enshrining a constitutional right to abortion and restoring access to the procedure in red and purple states. It has also converted a voter mobilization advantage for Republicans into one for Democrats. Now, the strategy faces its biggest test ever, with 10 states asking voters whether to establish a right to abortion in their constitutions. Nebraska became the final state to certify, becoming the only state with two measures, one sponsored by abortion rights supporters and the other by opponents.
-Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his independent presidential bid, was embraced by former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Arizona. The union's political impact remains unclear, as it was unclear what the union's impact would have on the 2024 race. Kennedy endorsed Trump in a speech in Phoenix, followed by a rally in Glendale, Arizona, where he spoke in front of the largest audience since he began his third-party run last year. Kennedy was briefly the star of the show, a new attraction for the Trump campaign. However, it was unclear what impact, if any, Kennedy's endorsement of Trump would have on the 2024 race. The union's political impact remains unclear, as it is unclear what the union's political impact would have on the 2024 election.
-Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, is shifting from a 33-day sprint to the convention to preparing for a debate and pivoting to getting out the vote. After accepting the nomination, Harris plans to fly back to Washington for a weekend respite before returning to the campaign trail next week. She will begin preparing for her first national interview, which she has said will take place by the end of August, and for the Sept. 10 debate with Donald J. Trump. Campaign officials briefed on her plans who were not authorized to reveal them before they are formally announced.
-The Secret Service has assigned five agents to administrative duties as part of an investigation into the failures that led to the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on July 13. The agents have been relieved of their operational duties, such as planning protective details for candidate rallies, and are still being paid. The agents have not been fired and are still being paid. The agency declined to comment on the matter, citing rules against publicly discussing personnel matters. Four agents placed on administrative duties are from the Pittsburgh office, and one is from Trump's personal detail.
-Ukraine's incursion into western Russia has led to discussions about establishing a buffer zone, but the extent of Ukraine's advance and its long-term plans remain unclear. Ukrainian forces have pushed out in different directions after breaking through thinly manned border defenses early this month, setting the contours of a defensible buffer zone to protect Ukrainian towns and villages. After the first week of fighting, Ukraine claimed to control almost 400 square miles of Russian territory, an area roughly the size of Los Angeles. However, American officials are not convinced that Ukraine intends to hold its position in Russia long term. Ukrainian forces have not been digging extensive trenches to protect soldiers and equipment from enemy fire, laying minefields to slow down counterattacks, or constructing barriers to slow down Russian tanks.
-Russia has quashed a deadly prison mutiny by Islamist inmates, marking the latest in a series of terrorist attacks in Russia claimed by Islamic militants. Inmates claiming to be motivated by radical Islam and armed with makeshift knives and an explosive vest briefly took control of Penal Colony No. 19 in the southern Volgograd region. The Russian prison service reported four guards killed and three injured in the attack. Four of the attackers were killed by snipers as the Russian commandos stormed the prison late Friday afternoon, ending the mutiny. It was unclear how many inmates had joined the revolt.
-American-led peace talks at a Swiss resort ended after 10 days with agreements to deliver food and medicine to millions of starving Sudanese in the country's most famine-stricken areas. However, the mediators failed to broker a cease-fire or get both sides around the table, as Sudan's military refused to show up. The breakdown exposed the disarray and internal divisions in Sudan's weakened military, which are a major obstacle to ending Africa's biggest war. The United States hoped the talks in Villars-sur-Ollon could break an eight-month diplomatic deadlock. The military and its foe, the Rapid Support Forces, have not held direct talks since January, leading to a widespread humanitarian crisis and a rare declaration of famine
-Prosecutors in the federal case accusing former President Donald Trump of trying to overturn the 2020 election are unlikely to seek a public courtroom hearing before Election Day, according to two people familiar with the matter. The special counsel pursuing the case, Jack Smith, is leaning against requesting a hearing in the next few months in which he could set out the evidence behind his indictment of Trump. The prospect of a courtroom hearing this fall in which the prosecutors would present their evidence in something resembling a "mini-trial" was one possible result of the Supreme Court's landmark ruling that former presidents enjoy broad immunity for official actions they took in office.
-A knife attack in Solingen, Germany, killed at least three people and injured eight others during a festival celebrating the city's 650th anniversary. The attacker, who escaped, also wounded eight others, five of them severely. The attack took place in a central square in Solingen, about 14 miles east of Düsseldorf, where the city fair was underway. The motive for the attack was unclear, but the police are interviewing witnesses and those who could talk for details that could help catch the attacker. The area quickly emptied of visitors as the police tried to catch the assailant and set up barriers. Videos from the scene showed a strong police presence. The city canceled the rest of the festival after the attack. The motive for the attack remains unclear, but it is the second knife attack in Mannheim in three months.
THE NEW YORK POST
-Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made his first appearance at a rally for former President Donald Trump, hours after ending his campaign and endorsing the Republican nominee. Trump, 78, described Kennedy as an "incredible champion" for American values and a "highly respected" and "great person." Kennedy discussed issues such as having safe food and ending the chronic disease epidemic, and shared values with Trump, such as keeping the US out of foreign wars, ending censorship, and protecting America's freedoms from totalitarianism. Trump predicted that Kennedy would have a "huge influence" on his campaign and asked supporters to join him in building a coalition. Kennedy bowed out of the 2024 race earlier on Friday and decried the Democratic Party for holding a "sham primary" and installing Vice President Kamala Harris "without an election." Trump announced a commission on assassination attempts as a tribute to JFK, releasing all federal records related to the murder. He also pledged to establish a panel of experts investigating the cause of chronic health problems and childhood diseases. Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called Trump's decision to suspend his campaign and endorse him "agonizing."
-US Central Command has confirmed the killing of senior leader Abu-‘Abd al-Rahman al-Makki, a leader of the terrorist group Hurras al-Din, in Syria. Al-Makki was a council member and senior leader of Hurras al-Din, aligned with Al-Qaeda in Syria. CENTCOM remains committed to the enduring defeat of terrorists who threaten the US, its allies, and regional stability. US military forces will be re-positioned across the Middle East in support of Israel.
-The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against real estate tech firm RealPage for allegedly allowing landlords to collude to raise rents for tenants nationwide. The lawsuit, filed jointly with eight states, alleges that RealPage helped fix prices that increased monthly rents for millions of tenants. The Justice Department claims that RealPage executives acknowledged their role in dampening competition in the rental housing market.
-Wall Street analysts criticized the federal government for releasing the largest downward revision of jobs data in 15 years, causing chaos across stock and bond markets. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' annual "preliminary benchmark revision" revealed 818,000 fewer jobs created in the 12 months through March, causing higher scrutiny as Wall Street sought signs of a cooling labor market, which could prompt the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates sooner.
The Little-Known Company Holding the Key to a $20 Billion Grocery Deal
Federal judge to examine whether C&S could be a new supermarket contender after Kroger-Albertsons deal
The largest supermarket merger ever hinges on a little-known grocery distributor.
C&S Wholesale Grocers, a 106-year-old company based in New Hampshire, is set to play a key role in an antitrust trial that will decide whether Kroger KR -0.52%decrease; red down pointing triangle can move ahead with its planned $20 billion purchase of rival Albertsons ACI 0.87%increase; green up pointing triangle. The case is scheduled to begin Monday in a federal court in Oregon and expected to last about three weeks.
The Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal in February, saying that combining the two biggest U.S. supermarket companies would eliminate the fierce rivalry in markets where Kroger and Albertsons have competing stores, leading to higher prices for shoppers.
That is where C&S comes in. To neutralize antitrust concerns, the two chains have agreed to sell 579 stores to the closely held grocery distribution company, which supplies more than 100,000 different products to retailers across the country. C&S also owns or franchises around 160 grocery stores, including Piggly Wiggly and Grand Union.
The companies first will have to convince a federal judge in Oregon that C&S can credibly operate so many stores and compete with its larger rivals. Together, Kroger and Albertsons run around 5,000 U.S. locations.
C&S executives say the company is ready to join the supermarket big leagues. The FTC says C&S won’t be able to compete and can’t replace the benefits of lost competition if Kroger absorbs Albertsons.
The roughly $3 billion divestiture deal with Kroger and Albertsons would boost C&S’s store total to 744, on par with Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. C&S would become the eighth-largest U.S. grocer by revenue, with more than $40 billion in estimated sales, according to investment firm Solomon Partners, which is working with Kroger and Albertsons.
“We will be a leader in the industry,” said Eric Winn, C&S’s chief executive.
The deal would give C&S the primarily West Coast chains QFC, Haggen and Carrs, along with Mariano’s in Illinois. C&S would also receive licensing rights to the Safeway banner in Colorado and Arizona and the Albertsons banner in California and Wyoming.
Besides its own stores, C&S supplies about 7,500 grocery customers. Adding the locations from Kroger and Albertsons, the company said, would give C&S greater leverage with food companies and other suppliers, benefiting C&S as well as its other supermarket clients.
The FTC said C&S’s record as an acquirer is poor. Over the past two decades, the agency said, C&S has acquired hundreds of stores and wound up selling or closing many of them.
As recently as 2021, the FTC said, C&S stated that it didn’t intend to enlarge its retail operations or run grocery stores long term, and instead expected to divest stores as opportunities arose.
A C&S spokeswoman said it is committed to expanding its retail footprint and that the company has an experienced management team and the financial strength to invest in the business.
Piggly Wiggly goes to market
C&S has said it is the largest wholesale grocery supply company in the U.S. It is owned by Rick Cohen, whose grandfather founded the company in 1918 in Worcester, Mass. Privately held C&S doesn’t disclose its financial results.
S&P Global analysts said C&S’s sales dropped 27% from nearly $30 billion in 2017 to less than $22 billion in its fiscal year ended September 2023, largely because of the loss of Ahold Delhaize, a major customer, which they said moved to a self-distribution model.
Some grocery industry executives said C&S has a problematic reputation as a distributor, and is ill-equipped to absorb hundreds of new stores.
Errol Schweizer, a former vice president at Amazon’s Whole Foods who advises consumer brands and grocery stores, said some stores C&S is affiliated with are in rough shape. Schweizer said that on a recent visit to several Piggly Wiggly stores in Georgia, he saw dark, dirty facilities that smelled like rotten produce. Freezers stood empty and extension cords dangled in the aisles.
“It’s a real red flag for C&S as a retail operator,” Schweizer said.
A C&S spokeswoman said most Piggly Wiggly stores in Georgia are independently owned and operated under a licensing agreement, using the Piggly Wiggly name.
Frank Puleo, a retired C&S vice president of retail marketing and services, said the company is a credible supermarket operator and is reinventing itself.
C&S already provides thousands of independent grocery stores with marketing programs, payment software, accounting and assistance laying out stores, Puleo said.
“This is a Goliath,” Puleo said, “with deep pockets and very profitable that has operated for 100 years.”
The Haggen factor
Kroger and Albertsons have said their deal with C&S is better than an earlier grocery divestiture that went sideways. In 2015, the FTC blessed Albertsons’s $9.4 billion acquisition of supermarket chain Safeway, conditioned on Albertsons selling 168 stores to Haggen, a little-known West Coast grocer.
Haggen about a year later went bankrupt, costing some workers their jobs and neighborhoods their stores. Albertsons reacquired dozens of its former stores. The episode was an embarrassment for the FTC.
Current Biden administration antitrust enforcers say failures like Haggen’s show why divestitures are a poor solution for flawed mergers.
The role of divestiture buyers such as C&S has become more important as the FTC and the Justice Department, which share antitrust enforcement authority, challenge more deals. Kroger and Albertsons argue the store sales to C&S are a central part of the deal and demonstrate the merger won’t result in a loss of competition. The FTC is seeking to limit how much the divestiture can be considered in the litigation.
Courts can block mergers if they decide a deal may substantially lessen competition. In the hearing set to begin Monday, the FTC is asking a judge to issue a preliminary injunction that would stop the companies from closing their deal so that a separate proceeding, in the FTC’s in-house court, can decide the fate of the merger.
Most companies abandon their merger if a federal judge grants the preliminary injunction.
C&S has agreed to hire Albertsons’s chief operating officer, Susan Morris, to take over as its head of grocery retail if the deal goes through, it said in July.
Jose Tamez, managing general partner for Austin-Michael, a Colorado-based executive recruiter focused on food retail, said Morris would bring continuity and familiarity with Albertsons managers, reducing the odds of potential turnover at the stores and in the corporate offices.
“Hiring Susan sends a positive message,” said Tamez, whose firm isn’t doing work for Kroger, Albertsons or C&S.
Kamala Harris Tells a New Story About the Economy. Where It Matters Most.
Beating Donald Trump in November would flip the idea that the Biden years have brought nothing but pain.
Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president in Chicago on Thursday evening, pledging that building the “middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.”
If Harris manages to succeed in her lightning campaign to win the presidency after President Joe Biden’s stumbles, it will be seen as a kind of political miracle. But it would also go some way to repudiating the idea that the voting public is seething over economic slights. After 1968’s disrupted Chicago Democratic convention, Richard Nixon drew on the chaos to claim the silent majority was on his side. More than 50 years later, it could be a Democrat’s turn to claim that mantle.
Few economists expected that the country could avoid a recession by now, but buoyed by debt-financed support from the government, consumers have kept on spending, and businesses have continued hiring. Should Harris be elected on Nov. 5, she’ll likely see it as a mandate to extend and expand Biden’s economic agenda, rather than as a call to redirect the course of the nation—as her opponent does.
Biden’s legislative efforts focused on spending for infrastructure and green energy. While not as left-leaning as some of her former colleagues in the Senate, Harris may put a more progressive twist on Bidenomics and has signaled that she may use tax and spending powers to favor lower-income workers and disfavor the savings of the affluent.
It’s hard to know how far she will go to implement these ideas. Harris has been employing what a former Biden aide called “strategic ambiguity,” taking advantage of the rapid campaign to avoid getting pinned down on specific policy commitments. But it seems, based on what Harris has said so far on the campaign trail and in her convention speech, that her emphasis is on using government authority to ease concerns about the cost of living.
That may interfere with corporate profits. To investors, this might sound like a recipe for weaker stock market returns. But not so fast.
To implement her agenda, Harris will need the Democrats to control the Senate, and that seems unlikely at this stage. Plus, the growth of the U.S. debt will put constraints on what she, or any president, might be able to accomplish. And coming changes in interest-rate policy by the Federal Reserve are likely to be more consequential for the markets, at least in the near term.
Harris also has important allies in the investment community. “She’s always been supportive of business,” said John W. Rogers, Jr., chairman and co-CEO of Ariel Investments. He chairs the Economic Opportunity Coalition, a public-private partnership formed by Harris to help drive investments in underserved communities. “She is not off on some kind of Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders tangent,” Rogers said.
And it should be noted that Biden, too, has had his share of left-wing rhetoric, including calling in 2020 for the nation to “transition from the oil industry.” But under his presidency, oil and gas stocks have outperformed as the U.S. has become the greatest producer in the history of the world.
When markets and politics collide, the results aren’t always what you’d expect on the surface.
The Plan for the Middle Class
In her speech at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, former first lady Michelle Obama called Harris “one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency.” Harris, 59, has had a lengthy career in government, serving as San Francisco’s district attorney, then California’s attorney general and a U.S. senator, and since 2021, Biden’s vice president.
Absent from that resume, however, is business experience or direct management of economic policy. Nor has it been easy to determine where Harris stands on key economic issues. In the weeks since she became the Democrats’ presidential candidate, her campaign has signaled that she has dropped some of the more progressive positions she pushed for as a candidate. She no longer supports banning fracking or endorses Medicare for All. She has dropped a plan to raise taxes on people earning above $100,000 a year, joining Biden in putting that threshold at $400,000.
Harris’ initial foray into economics as the Democratic nominee elicited mixed reactions, even from some Democrats. In a speech in Raleigh, N.C., on Aug. 16, she detailed a set of economic-policy prescriptions, which read much like what might be expected from a former prosecutor: “Believe me, as president, I will go after the bad actors,” she said, promising new laws to crack down on price gouging by retailers.
Critics immediately wrote off her idea to impose restrictions on how groceries stores set prices in emergencies as price controls, although in practice what she is proposing is more limited than the wage and price limits Nixon famously imposed, and would need to be passed into law by Congress.
Her tax-related plans may be more consequential. Key parts of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a hallmark of the Trump era, expire next year, including lower marginal income-tax rates on most earners. Harris would extend those cuts below the $400,000 level. She would also impose new forms of wealth taxes—just as Biden had planned. Like him, she would propose to raise the corporate tax rate from 21%, where it was set in 2017, to 28%.
Harris has also proposed new benefits focused on housing and families with children. The housing plan would aim to improve regulation to spur production of new affordable homes, and would subsidize down payments for first-time home buyers. There aren’t enough details yet to fully assess that plan, though the nation urgently needs more housing supply. But handing cash to home buyers—in this case, a proposed $25,000 per home buyer—might serve to drive up prices.
The child-focused tax plan is clearer, in part because the Biden administration temporarily enacted parts of it during the height of the pandemic. The plan would establish a permanent $3,600 a year tax credit for families with children, and would create a new benefit of up to $6,000 for parents in the first year of a child’s life.
Harris describes this benefit as akin to a tax cut, but it is really something else, said Erica York, senior economist at the Tax Foundation, an independent think tank. “We’re talking about households that don’t even owe taxes in the first place. It’s providing them a net benefit from the federal government that just happens to be administered through the tax system,” she said.
Footing the Bill
How would the Harris administration pay for it? Asked that by a reporter on Aug. 18, Harris said, “I think it’s a mistake for any person who talks about public policy to not critically evaluate how you measure the return on the investment. When you are strengthening neighborhoods, strengthening communities, and, in particular, the economy of those communities and investing in a broad-based economy, everybody benefits, and it pays for itself in that way.”
For that to be remotely possible, the investment needs to be funded. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Harris’ new policies would cost roughly $1.7 trillion over 10 years. They would likely spur growth in the economy, although potentially at the risk of driving up inflation.
How that nets out for the deficit isn’t obvious. The deficit for fiscal 2024, ending Sept. 30, is expected to be roughly $2 trillion, or about 7% of gross domestic product. It will then stay in the 5-6% range indefinitely if nothing changes.
Biden had campaigned on a set of fiscal pledges that would in aggregate be roughly neutral for the budget, according to the CFRB. Now Harris is adding costs, which could push her further into the red. But because her campaign hasn’t said what other spending it’s committed to, it’s impossible to make a precise calculation.
Harris’ child-focused policies will be tempting for lawmakers. A version of this plan that was temporarily enacted under Biden cut child poverty in half. Still, the national debt now stands at 99% of gross domestic product. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that next president is likely to oversee a rise in the debt above its record set at the end of World War II.
Harris’ team could argue that the debt isn’t an acute crisis, and they would be right. The yield on 10-year Treasuries hit a 52-week low on Wednesday, and is 1.2 percentage points below its peak last fall. If the bond vigilantes are out there, they’re laying low.
The economy grew by 2.8% in the second quarter, and it’s conceivable that strong growth could eventually solve the debt problem—but only if political leaders make the difficult choice to stop adding to the spread between revenue and spending. At least in its early days, the Harris campaign shows little inclination to do that.
Even the commitments made thus far box her in on the deficit, said the Tax Foundation’s York. “If you’re not going to raise taxes on roughly 98% of taxpayers, and you’re limiting yourself to 28% on the corporate rate, there aren’t a lot of other places to go,” she said.
Barron’s asked the Harris campaign how it would square its commitments to reduce the deficit with the benefits and tax levels it has proposed, and it arranged an interview with Bobby Kogan, a former advisor to the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Biden-Harris who is now with the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.
“Harris’ agenda is presumably happening through budget reconciliation,” Kogan said, referring to a legislative process that allows fiscal policy to pass the Senate with just 50 votes but puts heavy restrictions on new spending. “Through reconciliation you can’t do long-term deficit increases.”
And Biden’s spending record is better than it seems when you look at the primary deficit, which strips out interest payments on the debt. “Every single year in the Biden-Harris administration the primary deficit got better,” Kogan said.
How Markets Could Be Hit
Meanwhile Harris’ policies could have other potentially troublesome consequences for the economy and markets.
A higher corporate tax rate could hurt stock market returns, said Aniket Shah, who leads Washington research for Jefferies Group. “If you run any scenario through a financial model and you change the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, there’s nothing more significant that we can talk about that would impact the stock market than that,” he said.
Higher corporate taxes could also trim wage and job growth.
Harris is also signing up for controversial elements of Biden’s tax plan, notably including a plan to tax some unrealized capital gains as part of an effort to ensure that the ultrawealthy pay their “fair share.” How that policy would work isn’t clear, such as what happens if gains that have been taxed later disappear. Critics argue that it could hurt start-ups in particular, which are prone to shifting valuations.
But saying something on the campaign trail isn’t the same as passing it into law. Tobin Marcus, a former Biden aide who is now head of politics and policy at Wolfe Research, sees the Harris campaign as being engaged in “strategic ambiguity.” It wants to show voters that it cares about their issues, while not committing to many policy specifics it might regret. “This means that Harris’ campaign policy agenda will offer investors unusually poor signals about the policy outlook if she wins,” Marcus wrote in a note to clients.
Analysts expect that the party that wins the presidency will also win control of the House of Representatives, although the Senate is likely to turn Republican either way. There are no obvious opportunities based on current polling for Democrats to win seats from Republicans, and at least two races—in West Virginia and Montana—where Republicans are likely to flip a seat. Democrats now have 51 Senate seats, so losing two would flip the chamber’s majority.
The makeup of Congress matters far more for policymaking than whatever Harris says in campaign mode, said Marcus. “Harris’ Office of Management and Budget in 2025 could write down whatever they want on taxes, and it doesn’t really make a difference,” Marcus said. “The question is, what can you get Congress to agree to? I don’t think that anything she will do in terms of either prioritization or negotiation is really going to change the likelihood that the 12th-most-centrist Republican senator is going to agree to raise the corporate tax rate.”
A team at Morgan Stanley has tried to puzzle through that question, said Michael Zezas, the company’s head of U.S. public policy research. They looked at what the median Democrat and median Republican would support in terms of fiscal policies in next year’s tax debate. “The rough number that we estimate in terms of deficit expansion in a Democratic sweep scenario would be about a $600 billion spread over 10 years. Contrast that to a Republican sweep, where we do the same exercise, and it’s about a $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion spread over 10 years,” he said. In other words, both would raise the deficit.
Harris’ new policy rollout doesn’t substantially change that, he said.
In the event of a Harris victory, Zezas said, investors can expect the status quo—and that hasn’t been all bad. Despite the black mark of inflation on the Biden administration’s record, it has overseen wage growth that is now outstripping the increase in costs, along with a healthy job market and a booming stock market.
There are few obvious policies that Democrats would want to enact through presidential executive actions that Biden hasn’t already taken, Zezas said. On trade, for example, “we wouldn’t expect to see incrementally any new tariffs that would be substantially disruptive to the economy. Immigration policy choices are probably relatively consistent, as well,” he said.
In other words, in Zezas’ view, “a Democratic win mostly means that investors largely should stay focused on the debate about where we are in the economic cycle and the interaction of growth, inflation, and the Fed, less so on political choices out of D.C., at least for 2025.”
Some prominent business leaders are endorsing Harris as the candidate of continuity. “Business requires stability and certainty,” former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault said at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday. “Kamala Harris understands that government must work in partnership with the business community. She understands that a market-based economy needs a strong and effective government.”
Rogers, of Ariel Investments, argues that Harris will improve a regulatory push that has often stumbled under Biden. “Her key appointees, I expect, would be moderate and not susceptible to the kind of drama that has occurred,” he says. “In particular, there have been a lot of court cases that have challenged some of the regulatory decisions that have happened during this administration.”
Given Harris’ experience personally prosecuting antitrust cases as California’s attorney general, Rogers expects her to do better at avoiding regulatory overreach.
The Biden-Harris administration’s theory has been that forcing large companies to compete would unleash economic gains, but as Rogers alluded to, that effort hasn’t notched up many major successes.
“As President,” Harris pledged in Chicago, “I will bring together labor and workers and small-business owners and entrepreneurs and American companies to create jobs, to grow our economy and to lower the cost of everyday needs like healthcare and housing and groceries.”
Harris is trying to say, essentially, that she’ll be Biden but better. She’ll use the power of government to help keep down the cost of living, after the administration she joined helped ignite the inflation problem.
That might seem like another era of big government, but to be sure, her opponent is offering one too. Trump is promising an aggressive version of economic populism that would hike tariffs in an attempt to give him global leverage while cutting taxes in ways that would outstrip Harris’ conceivable contributions to the deficit.
It will be for voters to decide which of the two they prefer.