• JT-BN: “BOJ stands pat and trims inflation outlook ahead of Fed rate cut” (http://bit.ly/33aejbc) // “The Bank of Japan on Tuesday kept its monetary policy unchanged while trimming its inflation forecasts, taking a wait-and-see stance ahead of an expected interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve. The BOJ maintained the settings on its yield curve-control program and asset purchases, it said, a result expected by most economists in a Bloomberg survey.”

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• WSJ: “Federal Borrowing Soars as Deficit Fear Fades” (https://on.wsj.com/2OtTJPD)// Kate Davidson: “The Treasury Department said Monday it expects to issue $814 billion in net marketable debt in the second half of this calendar year, bringing total debt issuance to $1.23 trillion in 2019. That would represent a slight decline from borrowing in 2018, when the Treasury issued $1.34 trillion in debt—more than twice as much as the $546 billion it issued in 2017.”

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• WSJ: WSJ: “Capital One Reports Data Breach Affecting 100 Million Customers, Applicants” (https://on.wsj.com/2YudyWI) // Nicole Hong, Liz Hoffman and AnnaMaria Andriotis: “Capital One Financial Corp. , the fifth-largest U.S. credit-card issuer, said Monday that a hacker accessed the personal information of approximately 106 million card customers and applicants, one of the largest-ever data breaches of a large bank. Paige A. Thompson, 33 years old, was arrested in connection with the hack Monday by federal agents in Seattle, officials said. Ms. Thompson is accused of breaking through a Capital One firewall to access customer data that the bank had stored on Amazon.com Inc. ’s cloud service, according to a federal criminal complaint and people familiar with the matter.”

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• WSJ: “Mortgage Rates Were Falling Before Fed Signaled Rate Cut” (https://on.wsj.com/2ZkUBH9)// Paul Kiernan: “Mortgage rates have fallen recently to the lowest levels since late 2016, tracking a broader slide in U.S. Treasury yields. The average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 3.75% last week, down from 4.94% in November, according to Freddie Mac. “The most significant impact of an expected Fed rate cut is already upon us,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, referring to the drop in mortgage rates.”

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• FT: “US-China trade talks resume with low expectations of breakthrough” (https://on.ft.com/2MpJDg4) // Lucy Hornby and James Politi: “USChina trade talks resume on Tuesday in Shanghai amid low expectations for a breakthrough to end the year-long spat between the world’s two largest economic powers. Optimism has been dented since then. Mr Trump warned last week that there might be no deal before the next US presidential elections in November 2020.”

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• FT: “Hedge fund Element Capital to raise performance fees to 40%” (https://on.ft.com/2ZnnnHs) // Robin Wigglesworth, Lindsay Fortado: “But by the end of this year, the investment group will raise the levy on any profits it makes to 40 per cent, according to a letter to investors sent out on Monday evening — higher even than some of the best-known funds in the industry — although it will trim its management fee to 2 per cent. Element also plans to reduce the size of its fund by 20 per cent by the end of 2019. If redemptions after the fee increase prove smaller than that target, it will return a pro rata slice of investors’ capital.*”