| Musk tries to walk away from Twitter, again. Boris Johnson attempts a three-month swan song. China considers massive stimulus. Here's what you need to know today. Elon Musk's proposed acquisition of Twitter may fall apart over his doubts that the company is accurately reporting the number of spam bots on the service, the Washington Post reported. Musk's team has concluded that Twitter can't verify its figures on the spam accounts and has "stopped engaging" in discussions around funding the deal, according to the report. Twitter has repeatedly said that spam bots represent less than 5% of its total user base. Musk, meanwhile, has complained that the number is much higher. Legal experts have widely speculated Musk is using the bot issue as an excuse to abandon or renegotiate the deal, which is looking better and better for Twitter as stocks slumped this year. Twitter in a statement said it continues to share information with Musk and intends to close the transaction and enforce the agreement at the agreed price and terms. You should read what Matt Levine thinks of the bot saga. Boris Johnson announced his intention to resign as UK prime minister, bowing to the inevitable after the mass resignation of members of his government and excoriating public attacks on his judgment, leadership and allegiance to the truth. Johnson was still in Downing Street on Thursday night, however, seeking to remain as caretaker Prime Minister until October when a new Tory leader will be in place. But the ruling Conservative Party is urgently drawing up plans for an accelerated contest to choose his successor by the end of the summer, rather than allowing the extended three-month swan song. Read more on the contenders to replace Johnson.  | China is preparing for a fresh round of economic stimulus with the Ministry of Finance considering allowing local governments to bring forward about $220 billion worth of special bond sales into the second half of this year, according to people familiar with the discussions. The debt would mostly be used to pay for infrastructure spending, an old playbook that policy makers are using to boost an economy hit by Covid lockdowns and a housing slump. Here are signs China's economy shrank last quarter. The possible stimulus and a slight easing in worries about a global economic downturn may lift Asian stocks on Friday after a rally on Wall Street. Crypto investors are known for their devotion, but their confidence is cracking following news that customers of bankrupt broker Voyager Digital likely won't get all their money back. Aaron Selenica, 21, says he "fell into the crypto craze" last fall and eventually invested $15,000 in Bitcoin on Voyager's platform. That's now worth about $6,900 and he doubts he'll even be able to get that back, having never expected the platform to collapse. "It feels like I was robbed," he said. "I just don't understand how this could be legal. I'm not going to invest on another platform. I'm done with crypto." Read more on the crypto winter. There's no need to fret about the timing of a US recession anymore, according to Wells Fargo Investment Institute — because we're already in one. The investment strategy arm of the bank says the US is entering a recession in the second half of the year — in other words, now — amid inflation that's faster and more broad-based than expected, weakening consumer sentiment and corporations flagging a shift in spending. While several major Wall Street players like Guggenheim and Nomura Securities see a recession by the end of next year, the institute's call marks one of the first to say a downturn is happening now. Treasuries are fluctuating as investors await clarity from key data points — payrolls later on Friday and then CPI next week — about how hawkish the Federal Reserve will be this month. Also, whether the economy is strong enough to cope with the expected pace and amplitude of interest-rate hikes. Realized and implied volatility in US bonds has also soared, but the pattern here is making it look like 3% is now the golden mean when it comes to the benchmark 10-year yield. ICE's MOVE index of expected price swings, often referred to as the fear gauge for bonds, has jumped around the periods when the yield topped that round number, and the index also bottomed out in late May when the yield got a substantial way below 3%. Chances are volatility will keep grinding higher until it becomes apparent whether 3% is a ceiling or a floor for yields over the longer term. Garfield Reynolds is Chief Rates Correspondent for Bloomberg News in Asia, based in Sydney. | 
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