Good morning. The stage is set for a government shutdown after a Trump-backed bill went up in flames. A high-profile, experimental weight-loss shot underwhelms. And a persnickety travel reporter rounds up the top hotel stays of 2024. Listen to the day’s top stories.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson. Photographer: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Now for Plan C. The Republican-led House rejected a temporary funding plan backed by Donald Trump, leaving lawmakers with a matter of hours to prevent a government shutdown at midnight. The bill failed by a vote of 235 to 174, which included 38 defiant Republicans.
The blame game, unsurprisingly,got louder—see Elon Musk v. the Democrats. Early Friday, the president-elect—who sought to frame the funding fracas as a Joe Biden problem—doubled down on scrapping or extending the “ridiculous Debt Ceiling.”
Republicans will regroup and “come up with another solution,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said after the vote. If they don’t, here’s what’ll actually stop functioning from tomorrow.
Markets are also seeing red. S&P 500 futures fell in early trading, pointing to a sharp loss for stocks this week in the wake of the debt-ceiling drama and Federal Reserve’s so-called hawkish pivot on interest rates. Tokens are trembling, too: Bitcoin has slumped about 10% from its record high this week. Potentially adding to the turbulence is today’s quarterly “triple-witching,” which will see some $6.5 trillion worth of options expire. Best of luck.
Novo Nordisk’sshares plummeted as much as 27%, the most on record, after an experimental shot helped patients lose less weight than predicted. But it’s good news for rival Eli Lilly. In other corporate news, Nike’s new boss pledged to pull the company out of a deep sales slump by focusing on sports and revamping its products, but shares still fell in premarket trading. And good luck finding a festive Starbucks pumpkin-spice latte if you’re in LA, Chicago or Seattle. The union representing baristas is embarking on a five-day strike from today, and expects the walkouts to spread to hundreds of stores by Christmas Eve.
The booming private credit industry—already a $20 trillion bonanza—may be worth double that within five years, Apollo’s head of credit product said in Bloomberg’s latest Credit Edge podcast. Another top alternative asset manager recently said it sees an opportunity closer to $30 trillion, fueled by lending for infrastructure and the energy transition. Firms eyeing that prize are laying the groundwork to finance everything from auto loans and mortgages to chip manufacturing and data centers.
Barely two years after an epic wipeout, the infamous SPAC—special-purpose acquisition company—and its band of patrons and peddlers are back.
Nearly 50 blank-check companies—which in 2020 were the hot way to pull in money and make deals—have raised $8.6 billion since April, according to SPAC Research. That’s more than double the tally in 2023.
It’s a bit of a head-scratcher. When last in the spotlight, the market for these obscure IPO-like deals went from FOMO to fear—to a hard flop. Nearly half of the more than 450 ex-SPACs still publicly traded have lost more than 90% of their value. That’s on top of dozens that went bankrupt or were bought at fire sale prices.
Or maybe not? Nearly $3 trillion worth of private equity-held companies are looking for an exit and hundreds of tech companies are looking for cash with “no other game in town.” Add Trump’s promises of deregulation to the mix, and another frenzy seems less improbable.
