Finance

…

While on a walk in 2010 around Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood, Teverow saw a man cooking a whole animal on the sidewalk and had one overriding thought: I have to go talk to him.

It was Pierre Thiam, one of the world’s leading West African chefs.

“It was a lamb, and I was humiliated because I assumed it was a baby pig,” Teverow told Fortune. (A pig would not have passed muster in Senegal, Thiam’s birthplace, which is a predominantly Muslim country.)

The pair would occasionally cross paths after that initial meeting, and Teverow had ordered Thiam’s first cookbook: “Yolélé! Recipes From the Heart of Senegal.” (Yolélé is a Fulani expression used throughout West Africa that’s meant to be shouted in joy. It roughly translates to, “Let the good times roll!”)

But a partnership wasn’t born until Teverow read an article about Thiam’s dream: creating economic opportunity for West African farming communities by sharing their food with the world, including the ancient grain fonio, pronounced “phone-yo.”

Five years after their sidewalk meeting in 2010, the pair launched their company, aptly named Yolélé. “I had been making my living in the specialty food industry for 16 to 17 …

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.

Happy Friday, Bull Sheeters. Solid U.S. labor data couldn’t save the Dow and S&P 500 from finishing in the red yesterday. But the benchmark S&P 500 is still up more than 50% since its March lows as it nears a new all-time high. Alas, U.S. futures point to a flat open today.

Let’s check in on the action.

Markets update

Asia

• The major indexes are mostly higher, with the Shanghai Composite leading the way, up 1.2% in afternoon trade.
• China’s industrial output continues to crank into high gear, rising 4.8% YOY in July. Elsewhere, China’s retail sales were flat.
• There are just 48 total active coronavirus cases, but New Zealand isn’t taking any chances. It’s extending a lockdown in Auckland as a 102-day streak of being COVID-free was snapped a few days ago.

Europe

• The European bourses were down at the open with travel and energy stocks leading the way lower. The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 dropped 1.6% two hours into the trading session.
• Daimler shares fell 1.4% in mid-morning trade after

…

This is the web version of the Bull Sheet, Fortune’s no-BS daily newsletter on the markets. Sign up to receive it in your inbox here.

Buongiorno, Bull Sheeters. The August rally has been truly impressive. The S&P 500 has gained ground on all but one trading session this month. Alas, this morning investors have hit pause on equities, with U.S. futures slightly down, and Europe and Asia mixed.

Let’s check in on the action.

Markets update

Asia

• The major Asia indexes are mostly higher with Japan’s Nikkei up 1.8% in afternoon trade.
• Facing a potential U.S. ban, Tencent Holdings, operators of the popular WeChat messaging platform, is trying to placate investors that any impact on the business would be a narrow one. Conversely, any ban could inadvertently hit Apple’s $44 billion China business pretty hard.
• Saudi Aramco has vowed to meet its commitment of paying out $75 billion in dividends this year despite a huge drop-off in revenues and a rising debt pile. Unless crude prices rise significantly, that strategy isn’t a viable one, analysts tell the Financial Times.

Europe

• The European bourses sank at the open, with London’s FTSE down 0.9% in the

…

Source link …

Amid a standstill in Congress over a fresh round of stimulus, President Trump issued several executive orders over the weekend to fast-track some economic aid initiatives to deal with the continued fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. One key order is a so-called payroll tax holiday—which would put a moratorium on paying certain payroll tax until next year.

The order has already been met with a lot of criticism, including that the tax deferral wouldn’t help the people who might need it most who have lost their jobs and aren’t currently paying payroll tax. Meanwhile, there’s a catch: the order is only a deferral of the taxes, so it won’t forgive them—as things stand, you’ll have to pay the taxes later.

“It is far from clear that the payroll tax holiday will achieve its intended objective of, as the president said, ‘save American jobs and provide relief to the American workers’,” Bankrate.com senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick said in a note Monday. “The bill is still due, it just isn’t due in the short-term. Let’s remember it is the unemployed who need help, not so much Americans who are still working and who’d get the benefit.”

What is the payroll tax holiday?

…