Bloomberg News

Take a peek behind the scenes of our news quiz, Pointed, in the Bonus Points newsletter. 📥 Last week's hardest question made people think Squid Game was CoComelon. Read more from Quizmaster Aimee Lucido ⤵️

When banks and law firms spot gaps in their M&A advisory teams, they’ll often come up with ambitious and time-sensitive plans to move in and take share from their rivals. But when Kirkland & Ellis sent a group of lawyers to Houston in 2014 to try and grab a slice of the competitive market for oil and gas deals, it knew it had its work cut out: the firm was unknown in Texas and about to go toe-to-toe with some established local firms. As things turned out—through an oil crash, a restructuring boom and some aggressive hiring—Kirkland spent 10 years building a $1.5 billion energy and infrastructure business and became the No.1 adviser in the sector. I spoke with dozens of Kirkland’s employees, competitors and clients to figure out just how the firm got to the top in Texas and how the story of that rise might provide a script for the firm’s future expansion plans. And with Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda yet to kick in, what is Kirkland doing to plug the gap in 2025? Read more in my Bloomberg News feature here: https://lnkd.in/gWNE5Jcj

Every generation seems to think they’re entering the workforce at a difficult time—just ask those still-reeling 2008 grads who launched during the Great Recession (oh hi!)—and they’re not entirely wrong. After all, the US has undergone three recessions since 2000. But there are signs the most recent college grads are facing especially brutal conditions, thanks in part to the rise of #AI, which is replacing some entry-level positions, and the hiring freezes implemented across much of corporate America under the threat of President Donald Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs. The unemployment rate for degree-holders age 22 to 27 hit 5.8% earlier this spring, according to data from NY Fed, its highest level in about four years. It’s now harder to land an entry-level role at one of the big banks than it is to get into Harvard University. In fact, according to Oxford Economics, since mid-2023, 85% of the rise in the unemployment rate is because of new labor market entrants. New grads: Has this been your experience? (As one of those afore-mentioned 2008 grads, I can promise you it gets better ... though I didn't have to compete with AI.) https://lnkd.in/eYJ9_ZMy Story (gift link!) via Claire Ballentine and Bloomberg News here: #education #college #collegegrads #economics #labormarket #unemployment

Scale AI, the startup that Meta is in talks to invest billions of dollars in, has rapidly gained influence in both tech and policy circles. Here's what the company does and where it came from. ⤵

TOMORROW: Sonali Basak opens #BloombergInvest Hong Kong with conversations devoted to what's next in Asia's private markets: 📈 Standard Chartered's Sumeet Bhambri 📈 Blue Owl Capital's Johann Santer 📈 Ardian's Jason Yao 📈 Pictet Wealth Management's Hui Yang Goh Live at 6:10 PM HKT! https://bloom.bg/3ZUy6Kx

WEDNESDAY: What if Canada answered the threat from Trump's tariffs by pivoting away from the US and trading more with China? Bloomberg New Economy's Erik Schatzker speaks with former Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau. Live 6/11 at 2:15 PM HKT! https://bloom.bg/3ZUy6Kx

Talks between the US and China kicked off in London, with the US signaling a willingness to remove restrictions on exports in exchange for assurances that China is easing limits on rare earth shipments.

TOMORROW: Sonali Basak opens #BloombergInvest Hong Kong with conversations devoted to what's next in Asia's private markets: 📈 Standard Chartered's Sumeet Bhambri 📈 Blue Owl Capital's Johann Santer 📈 Ardian's Jason Yao 📈 Pictet Wealth Management's Hui Yang Goh Live at 6:10 PM HKT! https://bloom.bg/3ZUy6Kx

One argument often made for President Donald Trump’s tariffs is that they give him leverage over other countries. But what happens when that leverage is a diminishing asset? It’s a very real and immediate question. As US and Chinese negotiators gather in London on Monday it’s hard to make the case the US has the strengthening hand. Or that Trump’s bargaining position is about to improve. My latest for the Bloomberg News Supply Lines newsletter. With a nod to some worrying data Jason Miller has been pointing to. https://lnkd.in/e-6QCBdU

The actor Sean Penn has summed up the problem with Pete Hegseth, and by extension the administration of President Donald Trump. “I’ve never before seen a Secretary of Defense so aggressively demote himself to the rank of Chief PETTY Officer,” Penn said upon hearing that the Pentagon boss has ordered the Navy to rename an oiler called the USNS Harvey Milk. The naming of a ship (or a gulf, or anything) is often a bureaucratic gesture of forgettable symbolism. Not in this case and a slew of others that Hegseth is currently reviewing. The effort instead points to a worrisome obsession that causes division, distraction and the diversion of scarce energy from real foreign conflicts toward domestic culture wars. Milk, whom Penn played in a screen biopic, was the first openly gay man to hold elected office in California (he was later assassinated) and had earlier been a lieutenant in the Navy during the Korean War. Homosexuality was then a crime in the military, so Milk was eventually given a Hobson’s choice: He could face a court-martial or resign with a discharge that was “other than honorable.” In 1955, Milk chose the latter option. To show that America’s armed forces no longer waste such human talent and exclude so many patriotic Americans, the navy in 2016 named a ship after Milk. But to Trump, who won his first presidency that year, that gesture was part of a pathology which Hegseth later called the “DEI/woke shit,” referring to norms favoring diversity, equity and inclusion. Fresh into office, Hegseth fired senior officers including the first woman to command the Coast Guard, the first woman to run the Navy and the second Black person to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Had that chairman been hired “because of his skin color? Or his skill?,” Hegseth had wondered in The War on Warriors, published in 2024; “we’ll never know, but always doubt.” Backed by Trump, Hegseth then kept purging the Pentagon ... (Read the whole column. This a a gift link)   Bloomberg Opinion https://bloom.bg/4mRMI7t