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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has pushed back against concerns over rising government debt and bond market turbulence, arguing that the U.S. bond market has been the best-performing among global peers this year and that continued economic growth puts the country in a stronger position than many other advanced economies. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield ended Friday at around 4.73%, with Mr. Bessent attributing recent upward pressure on yields partly to higher energy prices and inflation stemming from the Iran conflict, which he expects to ease over time. He has also defended plans to at least double buybacks of longer-dated Treasury debt to $4bn per operation from September 10th, saying the measure is designed to reduce volatility and prevent disorderly market moves, rather than influence bond prices.

 

Reuters

Major U.S. companies with close ties to President Donald Trump are preparing for possible congressional investigations if Democrats win control of the House in the November midterms. Technology companies and other businesses that donated heavily to Trump-related projects are assessing potential vulnerabilities, hiring advisers, and developing plans for responding to information requests, hearings, and subpoenas. Meta and Palantir are among the companies whose executives and advisers have discussed potential scrutiny, while Amazon, Chevron, Pfizer, UnitedHealth, and others attended a U.S. Chamber of Commerce seminar on managing congressional investigations. Some companies are also strengthening relationships with Democrats. However, companies remain cautious about shifting too far toward Democrats while Trump retains significant regulatory and policy authority for more than two years.

 

Wall Street Journal

Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, has written to G20 finance ministers and central bank governors to express his concerns about the risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence. He said that "frontier" AI models exhibit sophisticated autonomy and could destabilize the global financial system through cyber-disruption. Bailey noted that many jurisdictions lack protocols to manage these technologies, increasing risks for the financial sector. He called for international cooperation to address such challenges.

 

The Guardian

Shein shares fell as much as 10% on their Hong Kong trading debut after opening at the HK$48.56 IPO price, as concerns over weakening earnings and rising trade barriers weighed on investor sentiment. The fast-fashion retailer raised around HK$13.6bn ($1.7bn), giving it an initial market capitalization of about HK$193bn, roughly 75% below its $100bn peak valuation in 2022. The Hong Kong listing follows abandoned attempts to float in New York and London after Shein encountered political and regulatory hurdles.

 

AP News

Nikkei Asia

Financial Times

South China Morning Post

Visa and Mastercard have begun processing international card transactions in Syria, days after the U.S. removed the country from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, marking a significant step in Syria’s return to the global financial system. Mastercard said international cards can now be accepted at hotels, restaurants, and government entities through Qatar National Bank terminals, while Visa is working with Lebanon’s Fransabank and Syrian payments company Paymera.

 

Financial Times

Reuters

Federal authorities are preparing potential insider trading charges against a U.S. service member suspected of earning more than $1m through Polymarket bets related to military operations in Iran and Venezuela. Authorities are also investigating a KPMG employee who allegedly bet on whether a specific public company would beat quarterly earnings expectations, with charges in both cases potentially coming this fall, although no final decisions have been made. The investigations are part of a broader crackdown on the use of confidential information in prediction markets, involving federal prosecutors and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Authorities have already brought criminal cases against a U.S. Army soldier and a Google employee over allegedly profitable Polymarket trades based on nonpublic information. Defendants are challenging whether existing antifraud and insider trading laws apply to prediction market contracts, leaving the government’s legal approach subject to judicial scrutiny.

 

Wall Street Journal

A federal judge has approved a $72.5m class-action settlement between victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Bank of America. Manhattan Federal Court Judge Jed Rakoff said: “It is thanks to plaintiffs’ counsel that a substantial number of Epstein’s victims are receiving substantial amounts of money and that some at least modest justice is thereby being accommodated.” Bank of America admitted no wrongdoing; a representative for the bank said that it still denies it aided Epstein’s abuse. “While we stand by our prior statements made in the filings in this case, including that Bank of America did not facilitate sex trafficking crimes, this resolution allows us to put this matter behind us and provides further closure for the plaintiffs,” a statement read.

 

The Baltimore Sun

New York Daily News

Amazon has been sued by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 22 states over allegations that it secretly inflated advertising prices for more than 1m advertisers, generating tens of billions of dollars in additional revenue. The lawsuit alleges that since 2018 Amazon has manipulated its real-time advertising auctions by introducing artificial bids that pushed winning prices higher, with further increases during major shopping events including Prime Day and Black Friday. Amazon has denied misleading advertisers and said the FTC “fundamentally misunderstands” its advertising system, arguing that its approach to prioritizing ad relevance saved advertisers more than $8bn between 2021 and 2025.

 

NPR

Reuters

San Francisco Chronicle

Washington Post

U.S. consumer sentiment fell in August for the first time in three months as concerns about the economic outlook outweighed an improvement in near-term inflation expectations. The University of Michigan’s sentiment index declined to 51.7, although the final reading was slightly higher than the preliminary estimate and above economists’ median forecast. Consumers expect prices to rise 4% over the next year, the lowest rate since March but still historically elevated, while longer-term inflation expectations stand at 3.3% annually over the next five to 10 years. Views of current economic conditions, future expectations, and the economy over both the next year and five years deteriorated, as households continued to face elevated costs, gasoline prices above $4 a gallon, and pressure on incomes from inflation.

 

Bloomberg

Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh has signaled that further action may be needed to bring inflation back to the central bank’s 2% target, arguing that financial conditions remain relatively loose despite the Fed’s policy rate of around 3.6%. In his first speech as Fed chair, Warsh said improved inflation readings in June and July had not convinced him that underlying price pressures were easing meaningfully, noting that about half of the items in the Fed’s preferred inflation basket are rising by more than 3%. Warsh stopped short of endorsing a rate increase at the Fed’s September meeting, saying policymakers should remain responsive to incoming data, supply chains, investment flows, and geopolitical developments. His comments come amid divisions within the Fed over whether persistent inflation reflects temporary shocks, including tariffs and the Iran war, or stronger demand that is allowing businesses to sustain price increases.

 

Bloomberg

Washington Post

Wall Street Journal

Stablecoins are not a credible solution for large-scale payments, according to Bank for International Settlements chief Pablo Hernandez de Cos. He says that tokenized bank deposits offer greater potential for everyday transactions, with stablecoins serving specialised roles. De Cos warned stablecoins could increase bank funding costs, create money-laundering risks and undermine monetary sovereignty, particularly through dollar-pegged products. However, he acknowledged they could reduce sovereign borrowing costs and said both technologies could coexist.

 

Reuters

The IRS is still unable to locate 594 IT assets assigned to employees who left the agency during a large workforce reduction in 2025, according to a new TIGTA report. Around 22,000 departing staff had been assigned more than 32,000 devices, including laptops, smartphones, and portable printers, and 1,308 were initially listed as missing before the IRS recovered hundreds of them. The watchdog said weak return deadlines, poor reconciliation processes, and incomplete inventory updates contributed to the problem, and warned that unreturned laptops and phones could contain sensitive taxpayer information. It also criticized the IRS for lacking a policy to recover the cost of unreturned equipment. The IRS said there was no evidence former employees had accessed agency networks, and agreed to all four recommendations, including stronger device-return rules, better tracking, and clearer responsibilities for system administrators.

 

FedScoop

Accounting Today

Washington Times

Horizon Organic Dairy has voluntarily recalled 53,760 cases of 1% low-fat chocolate milk because of a packaging seal issue that could cause leaks, bloated cartons, and premature spoilage. The recall covers 34,524 cases of 12-count boxes and 19,236 cases of 18-count boxes, with no illnesses or hospitalizations reported, and the company said the issue is not related to allergens, microorganisms, or pathogen contamination.

 

USA Today