| Meta and Disney are set to slash jobs, Fox News settles Dominion's defamation lawsuit and the riskiest type of bank debt is back. — Kristine Aquino Meta is set to commence companywide layoffs on Wednesday, with Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Reality Labs — which houses the firm's virtual reality efforts and Quest hardware — set to be impacted. Facebook's parent company notified managers to prepare to announce job cuts via a memo seen by Bloomberg News. Meanwhile, Disney plans to eliminate thousands of positions spanning TV, film and theme parks next week, including about 15% of the staff in its entertainment division, people familiar with the matter said. Fox News agreed to a $787.5 million settlement for Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit over the network's 2020 election broadcasts regarding its voting machines. The settlement was for almost half the amount sought by the company, and comes after more than two years of legal skirmishing over whether the network defamed Dominion by airing bogus claims that it rigged the vote against Donald Trump. The biggest winner from the settlement is probably Staple Street Capital. The New York private equity firm acquired a roughly 76% stake in Dominion in 2018 for $38.8 million. Assuming it has made no additional equity investment since, its share of the settlement would be $598.5 million. The global market for the riskiest type of bank debt is back in business. Additional Tier 1 bonds — or AT1s — were thrust into the spotlight during the downfall of Credit Suisse, which had to wipe out such debt as part of the Swiss government-brokered deal for UBS to take it over. Just weeks later, Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group sold 140 billion yen ($1 billion) of AT1 debt, one of the largest deals in the yen corporate bond market this year. "The global AT1s market is somewhat siloed along geographic lines. Yet, this is a step in the right direction for sector," said Pri de Silva, senior analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. S&P 500 futures fall 0.6% as of 5:58 a.m. in New York, while Nasdaq 100 contracts slide 0.9%. Treasury yields climb across the curve, mirroring larger moves in UK gilts. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index traded near the day's highs, pressuring most Group-of-10 currencies. Oil, gold and Bitcoin fall in tandem. At 7 a.m., we'll get data on mortgage applications. At 11:30 a.m., the US will sell $36 billion of 17-week bills, followed by $12 billion of 20-year bonds at 1 p.m. The Federal Reserve will publish its latest Beige Book at 2 p.m. Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee will appear in an NPR interview at 5:30 p.m., while his New York Fed counterpart John Williams will speak at an event at 7 p.m. Here's what caught our eye over the past 24 hours: Inflation is a global phenomenon, which makes it hard to pinpoint it on any specific policy decision in the US or elsewhere? Could the Fed have started its hiking campaign earlier? Perhaps. Was Biden's stimulus at the start of his administration overly aggressive? Again, it's possible. But presumably there are also some underlying factors effecting things everywhere, that can't be explained by some domestic decision. Anyway, today we got the latest UK inflation reading, and on a headline basis, CPI there is still running at 10.1%. That's down from the 10.4% reading last month, but well above the 9.8% that economists were expecting. Using the {ECAN <GO>} function on the terminal, you can get a nice look at how UK and US inflation differs. Here's a look at US CPI. The size of each box shows the category's contribution to overall inflation, while the color shows the growth of each category. So you can see, that the big story right now is services inflation, with shelter related categories really moving the needle. Meanwhile, transport remains a particularly hot area. Food prices remain too hot in the US, but it isn't the category that's really driving things. Now here's the UK equivalent. Energy prices are brutal. But also food is a huge part of the story, with massive price increases for things like mike, cheese, eggs, vegetables, bread, cereal, and meat all. Even fruit is up 10% over the last year. Of course, these kinds of numbers put more pressure on the BoE to hike, though this does get back to a classic predicament. In the US, the Fed has some theory about how overly-robust demand is driving the need for more hikes in order to cool services inflation. But is too much demand really why gas, cheese, and vegetables are so expensive now in the UK? Seems unlikely. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Twitter @TheStalwart. | 
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