US-Iran Talks Continue; SK Hynix's US Debut

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2:22Good morning. I'm Karen Moskow. And I'm Alexis Christophorus. Here are the stories we're following today. Alexis, we begin with the latest developments in the Middle East, despite two days of clashes. An American official says talks between the U.S. and Iran over a permanent peace deal continue. We get the latest with Bloomberg European News Director Will Kennedy. Neither side has the appetite to return to full-blown conflict. Clearly, the last few days have been the worst since that original truce deal was signed. But there is, it seems, a willingness to keep things on track. Those technical talks are at level of officials, not politicians as such.

3:03They will continue with some of the sticking points that we've discussed before, like the future of the Strait of Hormuz, the nuclear program, the release of Iranian funds. We'll have to see whether they yield much progress. And Bloomberg's Bill Kennedy says talks slowed this week as Iran held days of funeral rights for former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. And Karen, back here in the U.S., The White House official says President Trump has fired two Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission. That's the agency charged with helping states facilitate accurate elections. A Republican member has also resigned.

3:38The departures marked the latest move by the president to put his stamp on how elections are run months before voters head to the polls in November. Last month, the Supreme Court expanded a president's right to dismiss government officials, including at independent agencies. Alexis, we now turn to politics overseas, where Andy Burnham is one step closer to becoming the next Prime Minister of the UK. We go live to London and get the latest with Bloomberg's James Wilcox. James, good morning. Good morning, Karen. Alexis, barring an act of God, Andy Burnham is Britain's next Prime Minister. You need 20 % of Labour MP support to stand to replace Keir Starmer.

4:14Yesterday, on the first day, nominations were open. Andy Burnham got 79.9%. With that overwhelming endorsement, attention now turns to who the Labour frontrunner would pick to run his government and what he would do. In London, James Wilcock, Bloomberg Radio. Thanks, James. Let's turn to the markets now, where futures are mostly lower as we close out the trading week. NASDAQ futures down by about six-tenths of a percent. Yesterday, tech stocks led the way higher when the NASDAQ gained 1.3 percent. And Alexis Tech will once again be in focus with the U.S. trading debut of SK Hynix. The South Korean memory chipmaker raised more than$26 billion in its American depository receipt offering.

4:54That's the largest ever U.S. first-time share sale by a foreign company. Brendan Burke is research director at Futurum. Right now is an ideal time to capitalize on the strategic role of memory in the AI build-out. SK Hynix has shown that it's a critical thought partner in development of novel AI systems along with innovators like NVIDIA. It's developing the next-gen systems that can continue high growth for the memory trade as we head into the next wave of agentic systems. Brendan Burke with Futurum. SK Hynix will make its debut on the NASDAQ today under the symbol SKHY. This morning in Europe, Karen, shares of EasyJet rallying more than 14%, The budget carrier has received a fresh takeover offer of$7.7 billion from private equity firm Apollo Global Management.

5:48Now, that beats a rival proposal from Castle Lake. And it's a surprise twist in the takeover saga that sets up a possible bidding war now between these two U.S. investment funds. And Europe's biggest carmaker is planning major changes. Alexis, Volkswagen intends to cut its model lineup by as much as 50 percent in an effort to save money. Stefan Nicola covers autos for Bloomberg in Europe. Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume is attempting the biggest restructuring in many, many years at Europe's biggest carmaker. He wants to make Volkswagen smaller, faster and more profitable. That's because competition is intensifying in China, which is a big market for Volkswagen, but also in Europe, where a lot of the Chinese carmakers are now pushing into that region because of a tough pricing competition in their whole market.

6:42And Bloomberg's Stefan Nicola there. Volkswagen's decision follows weeks of tension with labor leaders and politicians over proposals to eliminate thousands of jobs. And Karen, on Wall Street, Goldman Sachs is banning employees from trading on most prediction markets. Bloomberg's John Tucker in New York now with the very latest. And, John, I have a feeling other firms may soon be doing the same. Yeah, so the bank, Alexis, updated its policy to prohibit trading on event contracts. This is related to specific companies as well as election outcomes or the performance of any financial market. Repeated violations of the policy may lead to firing.

7:19The new policy does exclude sports and entertainment bets. The prediction markets like Calci and Polymarket, they've created new risk around insider trading. in particular for financial industry employees who are often aware of non-public information. The Goldman's move, one of the most pointed efforts by a Wall Street firm, grappling with these new regulatory issues raised by the boom in betting on events. In New York, I'm John Tucker, Bloomberg Radio. All right, John, thank you. Let's turn to the economy now. Fed Chairman Kevin Worsh has announced the leadership of five task forces that will examine the central bank's approach to key aspects of policymaking.

7:56Worsh tapped several former policymakers for the task forces, including former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King. Other names include Karen Dynan of Harvard, who previously held top roles at the Treasury Department, and former Walmart CEO Doug McMillan. And former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke has a new job. He's been appointed to Anthropics Long-Term Benefit Trust. Bernanke will advise on topics such as the societal impact of AI. He'll also have the authority to appoint and remove corporate board members. We get more from Bloomberg technology host Ed Ludlow. The long term benefit trust essentially gets to have board oversight.

8:33It can appoint directors, it can control the mechanics of that board composition and with time has a power to add more, which Anthropik says it will do. And so reflecting not just on Bernanke's position as a former chair of the Federal Reserve, but also his work in academia, looking at the economic history of the Great Depression and disruptive cycles in the history of the U.S. economy. Bloomberg's Ed Ledlow says Bernanke is currently a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. He led the Federal Reserve during the 2008 global financial crisis and recovery.

9:095.08 on Wall Street. Time for a look at some of the other stories making news in New York and around the world. For that, we're joined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr. Good morning, Michael. Good morning, Alexis. There are new details in this week's fatal shooting of a Mexican national killed by federal agents in Houston claiming self-defense. A Homeland Security official says 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo resembled the target they were looking for, and ICE officers then initiated the vehicle stop. A DHS official told ABC, though, Araujo was not the person they were looking for. ICE has said he didn't follow verbal commands and tried to run over an officer.

9:47Agents claim they shot Araujo in what ICE says was self-defense. Virginia Congressman James Walkinshaw is a Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee. The administration, ICE, DHS, FBI have presented not one ounce of evidence to support their description of the events. And I think it's incumbent upon them to do so. Araujo's sons are calling for an independent investigation. A former Olympic canoe racer has pleaded not guilty to deliberately damaging the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. David Hearn was in D.C. Superior Court and faces a felony count of property destruction. Hearn's attorneys argue the charges are based on a concocted narrative that the pool was vandalized.

10:35Hearn's attorney, Norm Eisen. This indictment reflects the administration's effort to scapegoat Davey and to shift blame for their own failures. President Trump ordered a multi-million dollar renovation of the pool, but the project has faced issues, including peeling paint and algae. The wife of former New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez will report to federal prison today after a judge denied her last-minute attempt to extend her surrender date as she fights breast cancer. Last September, Nadine Menendez was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for bribery, obstruction of justice, and acting as a foreign agent.

11:16Global News 24 hours a day and whenever you want it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Michael Barr and this is Bloomberg. Thanks, Michael. Time now for our Bloomberg Sports Update. And for that, we bring in John Stashauer. Thanks, Karen. The Wimbledon women's semifinal match between Coco Gauff and Carolina. Mukova went to a third set tiebreaker. Mukova pulled it out, won it 12-10, and will now play Linda Kostiak in tomorrow's all Czech Republic women's singles final. Men's semis today. It's Novak Djokovic against Yannick Sinner. And the youngster, Arthur Ferry, taking on Alex Severa. World Cup soccer in Foxborough, France 2-0 win over Morocco to advance to the semifinals.

11:56That's your Bloomberg Sports Update. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Daybreak coming up after this. The Bloomberg Sustainable Business Summit returns to Singapore on July 22nd. Our fifth annual Asia-Pacific Summit will explore how business and finance leaders are shaping the next phase of globalization by strengthening resilience and driving a multi-speed energy transition across Asia's diverse markets. Join us for solutions-driven discussions and networking opportunities. Thank you to our summit advisor, Bangkok Bank. Learn more at bloomberglive.com slash SBS-Singapore.

12:36Coast to coast on Bloomberg Radio, nationwide on Sirius XM, and around the world on bloomberg.com and the Bloomberg Business App. This is Bloomberg Daybreak. And we're told talks between the U.S. and Iran over a permanent peace deal continue despite two days of clashes that threaten to shatter an already fragile ceasefire. Sources are telling Bloomberg the U.S. is still committed to finding a diplomatic solution. And for more, we're joined by Patrick Sykes, Middle East breaking news editor for Bloomberg News. Patrick, good morning. So what can you tell us about the talks that are being held? Yeah, these technical talks continue.

13:16I think most likely the substantive part of those will be focused on the Strait of Hormuz. Obviously, we're over the past few days. We've seen these repeated clashes despite ostensibly the status of the ceasefire remaining in effect. Of course, we did have that comment from Trump the other day saying that to him it was dead, but quickly followed with the caveat that those talks would continue. So a strange kind of liminal phase. For now, it does seem that the active hostilities have eased again. And with that, some trickles through the strait, the waterway. But there's still lots of hurdles ahead of the diplomacy.

13:58So we are seeing a little bit of movement then through the strait of Hormuz. We are seeing NYMEX crude oil down a bit this morning. So is there some hope that traffic is moving again or will at least in the near term? Exactly. In the near term, you know, short of another flaring up of those tensions and more strikes, I think we're likely to see some owners, crews with a higher risk appetite be willing to take the risks. it. They've also got to decide, do they take the northern route along the Iranian coast in cooperation with the Iranian authorities, or do they defy that order from the Iranians and try to take the southern route and go dark and avoid detection?

14:39So two quite different ways to go about it. In general, the hostilities are going to cut the willingness to do that and maybe encourage those who feel they have to go to do so via that more discreet southern route. But it is still going to be a cap on traffic. Where are the mediators in all this, or Qatar and Pakistan, trying to keep this latest tit-for-tat fighting from really erupting into something bigger? Yeah, the Pakistanis have been the main mediators throughout. They, of course, hosted the main face-to-face round of talks that we had since the start of the war. And then the Qataris came on board kind of later in the process and have remained involved.

15:22They became kind of implicated in the latest hostilities when some of their LNG ships came under attack. That mattered in particular, not just because of their role as mediators, but also because they are home to this massive LNG, liquefied natural gas plant. And those attacks meant that the Qataris decided to slow down the restart of that plant after it had been damaged in the war. So, you know, the energy side of it impacting the market is dovetailing directly with the diplomacy at this stage. And what about Israel? Has President Trump been in contact with Netanyahu at all? And has he weighed in on the latest fighting?

16:06Yeah, they're, of course, closely in contact. But I think what this whole phase of the conflict has shown is that those two allies, although they began the war very much in lockstep with one another, as it went on, their stated goals diverged. Israel taking a harder line approach, keen to continue the war and see certainly a resolution to the status of the nuclear stockpile. and the U.S. seeming to be content in the short term, at least, to kind of return to the pre-war status quo, for example, in the Strait of Hormuz and at least just get the economy and energy flows moving again as a basis to then lay the groundwork for further talks on those other issues like nuclear, which will be just as thorny as the Hormuz one that they're struggling with right now.

17:06This is Bloomberg Daybreak, your morning podcast on the stories making news from Wall Street to Washington and beyond. Look for us on your podcast feed by 6 a.m. Eastern each morning on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen. You can also listen live each morning starting at 5 a.m. Wall Street time on Bloomberg 1130 in New York, Bloomberg 99.1 in Washington, Bloomberg 92.9 in Boston and nationwide on Sirius XM Channel 121. Plus, listen coast to coast on the Bloomberg Business app, now with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto interfaces. And don't forget to subscribe to Bloomberg News Now. It's the latest news whenever you want it, in five minutes or less.

17:47Search Bloomberg News Now on your favorite podcast platform to stay informed all day long. I'm Karen Moscow. And I'm Alexis Christophorus. Join us again tomorrow morning for all the news you need to start your day right here on Bloomberg Daybreak.

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