Caitlin McCabe (2:26)

Ukrainians see the proposal as a capitulation to Moscow, as it would require Kyiv to give up territory to Russia, block its ambitions to join NATO and limit the size of its military. The talks come as President Volodymyr Zelensky continues to face political trouble at home due to a corruption scandal which has sparked fury across Ukraine. Both Hezbollah and the Israeli military have confirmed the death of a senior Hezbollah commander during a strike in Beirut yesterday. The Lebanese health ministry said five people were killed and a further 28 people injured in the attack in Beirut's southern suburbs. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had approved the strike, describing the senior commander, Hasam Ali Tabatabi, as Hezbollah's chief of staff, according to the US State Department. Tabatabi previously commanded the special forces in Yemen and Syria. The strike adds more pressure to the increasingly shaky ceasefire deal between the two countries as Israel responds to what it says is Hezbollah attempts to rebuild its ranks. Global stock markets are kicking off a new trading week on more solid footing after a volatile downturn last week. Indexes in Asia and Europe are rising, as are US Stock futures, while Bitcoin has inched higher to trade above $85,000 again. At least part of that optimism is tied to rising expectations that the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates next month, after New York Fed President John Williams said Friday that such a may be warranted to bring rates closer to a neutral setting. Today's rebound is a welcome sign for investors and their portfolios after fears of an AI bubble sent the tech focused Nasdaq Composite falling 6.1% over the last three weeks, its steepest such decline since April, when fears about President Trump's tariffs took hold. This will be another busy week for markets with the delayed release of the Producer Price Index, which is the Fed's preferred inflation gauge. Teles Demos, co host of WSJ's take on the Week podcast, says that there are a number of key earnings reports to watch as well.

Teles Demos (4:34)

We've got Dell Technologies, for example. That is a company that has in the past talked about how AI could be a driver of its business. So we'll continue to get reads on AI directly. In addition, we're getting a bunch of updates from retailers and consumer staples companies like JM Smuckers. They of course make a lot of things you find in the grocery store. And we've got a lot of retailers like Kohl's and Abercrombie and Fitch. We also just this past week had earnings from Target and Walmart. And while the headline number on Walmart was pretty good, an increase in same store sales, I thought that some of their comments about what they were seeing under the hood were interesting and what they said was that they were seeing a lot of increased market share, I.e. people are coming from other stores to shop at Walmart. They were seeing weakness, some weakness starting to form in their lower income consumers and they were seeing a bigger pickup from higher income consumers.

Caitlin McCabe (5:24)

As Telus points out, those under the hood comments from Walmart highlight a key sentiment that many Americans are feeling right now. They're just plain weary after nearly five years of high prices and a lot of uncertainty over what's to come. WSJ economics reporter Rachel Wolf says that middle income consumers in some cases are joining lower income Americans in scaling back purchases.

Rachel Wolf (5:48)

We looked at the University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Survey in which middle income respondents were feeling really not so great about their financial situation. 44% of middle income respondents said their personal finances were worse than they were a year ago and only 23% said they were better. And those felt worse off overwhelmingly said it was because of higher prices.

Caitlin McCabe (6:11)

Rachel noted that costs for goods and services are now 25% above where they were in 2020, with certain essentials like coffee, ground beef and car repairs up markedly this year. She says frustrations over that are increasingly spilling into polit.

Rachel Wolf (6:27)

We saw that cost of living issues really pushed voters this month toward candidates who promised to address what many now see as an affordability crisis. We also know that similar issues plagued Joe Biden's reelection campaign last year and have recently weighed on Trump's approval ratings.

Caitlin McCabe (6:43)

For more on how consumers are feeling right now, we've left a link to Rachel's story in our show Notes and check out this Week's episode of WSJ's take on the Week, which digs into this topic too. Wherever you get your podcasts coming up. Speaking of rising costs, Britain's government has been weighing all options to boost sluggish growth. With a key budget later this week, tax hikes are looming. That story after the break.

Unidentified Official (7:13)

This episode is brought to you by Charles Schwab. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day, but what policy changes should investors be watching? Washington Wise is an original podcast for investors from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen@schwab.com WashingtonWise.

Caitlin McCabe (7:41)

Going now across the pond, where Britons are nervously waiting for the center left labor government to unveil its latest budget on Wednesday, economists are expecting treasury chief Rachel Reeves to announce a mix of tax rises and spending cuts as she seeks to rebuild the UK's deteriorating finances. Just last week, the UK's fiscal watchdog said government borrowing in the first seven months of the fiscal year overshot, forecasts hitting its highest level since the pandemic. The Journal's UK bureau chief, David Luno, has been looking ahead to the budget and he says potential announcements might include a tax on electric vehicles, a shakeup of property taxes, and for wealthy Americans that have settled across the pond, it's worth noting that this could include a 20% exit tax for millionaires looking to leave the UK. David, let's start with a bit of background here. The UK economy isn't exactly doing well and you'd think Reeves would want to put more money into people's hands to boost spending.

David Luno (8:39)

That's a good point. But the government has really already been doing that, arguably since the pandemic. And now it's running budget deficits that are pretty big. At the end of last year it was 5.8% of GDP. It's a little smaller than the US is, which is also big. But Britain, unlike the US, doesn't have the dollar as a reserve currency, so it's a little bit more subject to other people's willingness to lend it money in pounds. And markets have been getting a little nervous about the demands by Britain for borrowing. So they're having to tighten their belt. Last year Reeves said she was going to do a one time tax rise and they were going to be done. Now this year she's back for more. And essentially that's because the UK faces the same kind of constraints that other European governments face. They have aging populations, they have higher defense spending, they have much higher interest costs from higher interest rates. So basically, if you look at it like a business or a household, their costs are going way up, but their revenues are not. So they need to address that.

Caitlin McCabe (9:40)

And so, David, what do we actually know so far about her budget plans?

David Luno (9:44)

Well, we know too much and too little. It's been a bit of a mess so far. The government promised during its campaign two years ago basically not to raise taxes on working people. Americans will recall George Bush back in the 80s saying no new taxes. Read my lips. So in trying to stick to that, last year they introduced a bunch of other tax rises, including on employers, which wasn't good for growth. This time, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, announced that she would consider an increase in income taxes, which markets liked, because it's kind of a simple and clean way to raise revenue. But there was an outcry about the U turn on the election pledge. So now there's Been a U turn on the U turn and everyone is basically dizzy. We're back to a bunch of smaller assorted increases. Kind of a death by a thousand cuts. As you mentioned, she's talking about a tax on homes worth more than 2 million pounds, a per mile tax on electric vehicle, cars driving, taxing worker contributions to their retirement savings and exit tax for millionaires and various others. So it's sort of a grab bag and I think the key is markets will be saying, well, is this a good sustainable way to raise revenue?

Caitlin McCabe (10:57)

I want to talk about markets in just a second, but let's first get to the people. How do we expect Brits to respond to this?

David Luno (11:03)

Well, Brits like everybody don't like tax increases and neither do they like spending cuts. I think this budget's going to be much more weighted on tax increases than spending cuts. The Starmer government tried to reform welfare really on the margin earlier this year and it failed due to a rebellion by its own labor backed benchers. So that's left it with really leaning on taxes as the way to go. Definitely people won't like it, but they're trying to design these essentially with the message of hey, we're just taxing the rich. So polls show that many people do like the idea of raising taxes on what they call mansion tax homes over 2 million pounds. That'd be about 2.4, $2.5 million, which might not be as an American might expect. You hit that price in London pretty quickly. But yeah, people won't be happy, but they'll be glad that the income tax isn't going up.

Caitlin McCabe (11:54)

David, going back to markets, what should we be looking out for in terms of market reaction?

David Luno (11:59)

Well, in order to make the people happy that income taxes weren't going up, the big gamble here is that you make the markets unhappy. I think it's going to be key to watch how the markets do, whether borrowing costs keep climbing for the uk. The UK has the highest borrowing costs of any rich country. So that means it's just going to. But you want to avoid this sort of doom loop where you have ever higher borrowing costs which again makes you pay more money, which lowers economic growth and then the investors want to charge you even more for more debt. So that market reaction is going to be pretty crucial to see if people, if investors kind of believe that this is now on a sustainable path.

Caitlin McCabe (12:37)

That's Journal UK bureau chief David Luno. Thanks David, It's a pleasure. And that's it for what's news for this Monday morning. Today's show is produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Daniel Bo. And I'm Caitlin McCabe for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

David Luno (13:06)

How do more than 100 million Fortnite players join the battle without lag?

Teles Demos (13:11)

AWS is how epic games scales up.

David Luno (13:14)

To keep them in the action. AWS powers next level innovation for millions of businesses.