Loud and clear.

Federal Reserve officials reiterated that they will keep raising interest rates to restrain high inflation, as turmoil in Europe continued to fray investor nerves. It may have taken six months, but the Fed’s message is getting received loud and clear in the stock market where everyone from retail traders to smart-money speculators is pulling up stakes. The S&P500 fell as much as 2.9% overnight, while the Nasdaq 100 was dragged even lower by Apple, which took a 6.1% hit — equivalent to a $120 billion wipeout — after a rare analyst downgrade from Bank of America. The pain looks set to continue in Asia.

Fixed income investors’ nerves have been frayed by a series of events most commonly seen during market crises. Photo: Roland Warmbier | Dreamstime.com

‘Volatility vortex’ slams into $24tn US government bond market

The $24tn US Treasury market has been hit with its most severe bout of turbulence since the coronavirus crisis, underscoring how big swings in international bonds and currencies and jitters over US rate rises have spooked investors. The Ice BofA Move index, which tracks fixed income market volatility, has reached its highest level since March 2020, a time when deep uncertainty about how the pandemic would affect the world economy set off massive fluctuations in US government bonds. (Financial Times | Sep 29)

US is growing worried about UK market turmoil, working with IMF

The US is alarmed over the market turmoil triggered by the new UK government’s economic program and is seeking ways to encourage Prime Minister Liz Truss’s team to dial back its dramatic tax cuts. Officials inside the US Treasury Department are concerned at the volatility in financial markets and potential spillovers to the broader economy, and are working through the IMF to apply pressure on Truss’s government, according to people familiar with the matter. (Bloomberg Politics | Sep 28)

Fed reverse repo use hits fresh record as investors hide in cash

The amount of money that investors are parking at a major Federal Reserve facility climbed to yet another all-time high as funds sought out places to stash short-term cash. Some 101 participants on Wednesday put a total of $2.367 trillion at the Fed’s overnight reverse repurchase agreement facility, in which counterparties like money-market funds can place cash with the central bank. The previous record was $2.359 trillion set on Sept. 22. (Bloomberg Markets | Sep 28)

Nasdaq divides business into three units to streamline operations

Nasdaq Inc said on Wednesday it was reorganizing its business into three divisions to focus on major growth areas as competition among trading exchanges was intensifying. It said Market Platforms, Capital Access Platforms and Anti-Financial Crime will be the new units that will focus on digital assets, carbon markets, providing investment intelligence apart from U.S. equities. The New York-based stock exchange, which competes with CBOE Global Markets, NYSE and its parent Intercontinental Exchange Inc and BATS Global Markets, said the fourth quarter and full year 2022 results will reflect the changes. (Reuters | Sep 28)

A reckoning has begun for corporate debt monsters

When investment bankers agreed in January to underwrite the leveraged buy-out of Citrix, a software company, by a group of private-equity firms, returns on safe assets like government bonds were piffling. Yield-hungry investors were desperate to get their hands on any meaningful return, which the $16.5bn Citrix deal promised. Lenders including Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs were happy to dole out $15bn to finance the transaction. Inflation would pass, central bankers insisted. Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine, energy markets were placid and the world’s economies were growing. Nine months later the banks tried to offload the debt in a market gripped not by greed but by dread — of stubborn inflation, war and recession. Struggling to find takers, they palmed off $8.6bn of the debt at a discount, incurring a $600m loss. They are still nursing the remaining $6.4bn on their balance-sheets. (The Economist | Sep 27)

Photo: Marco Rosario Venturnini Autier | Getty Images

Mystery hackers are 'hyperjacking' targets for insidious spying

For decades, virtualization software has offered a way to vastly multiply computers’ efficiency, hosting entire collections of computers as “virtual machines” on just one physical machine. And for almost as long, security researchers have warned about the potential dark side of that technology: theoretical “hyperjacking” and “Blue Pill” attacks, where hackers hijack virtualization to spy on and manipulate virtual machines, with potentially no way for a targeted computer to detect the intrusion.

— Wired

EU’s cyber chief warns attacks are getting worse

Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, and companies must continue to keep their guards up, the head of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, or Enisa, Euractiv reports. While the overall threat landscape hasn’t changed, said Juhann Lepassaar, Enisa's executive director, cyberattacks such as ransomware are becoming more costly, and state-sponsored actors are increasingly targeting supply chains.

— Euractiv

Uber hack challenges 2-step login security practices

Cybercriminals' aggressive targeting of smartphones is weakening the crux of many organizations' security procedures: text-based, multifactor authentication (MFA). The big picture: Experts have long warned that authentication protocols that rely only on sending a code to someone's phone to confirm their identity are easily manipulated. Driving the news: Uber said earlier this week that its recent security incident was the result of a so-called "MFA fatigue" attack, where hackers spam someone with authentication requests on their phone until they accept one.

— Axios

The Johnson Wax Administration building was the breakthrough that launched Frank Lloyd Wright's “second career”.

Frank Lloyd Wright nailed the open office concept

An open plan office space seems to be a new trend in office design. The idea of an open plan office is to increase collaboration amongst employees, create transparency, and ease communication between workers. Also an open office design allows for a flexible fit out, or an adaptive space, and most importantly reduces operational cost of the organization.

— Vox

Pointless meetings waste millions of dollars at big companies

Unnecessary meetings are a $100 million mistake at big companies, according to a new survey that shows workers probably don’t need to be in nearly a third of the appointments they attend.

— Bloomberg | Work Shift

Bourbon insider trading

In an unusual criminal case unfolding outside Richmond, Virginia, a former employee of the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority (ABC) has admitted to working with Rob Adams to sell distribution information that would allow bourbon fans to scoop up the limited supply of choice bottles. The alleged scheme has exposed just how frenzied the hunt has become for the rarest bourbon. Collectors say big money can be made by reselling bottles on a booming — sometimes wild — black market, where prices can reach three, five or 10 times the shelf price.

— Washington Post