| Debt-ceiling deal approaches a vote, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon stands by China, and US interest rates and taxes may be set to rise. — Liza Tetley President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's debt ceiling deal is heading towards a vote Wednesday, having cleared a key hurdle in the House Rules committee Tuesday night. Just days remain to avoid a debt default, with Congress racing to pass the measure before June 5, when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned the US could run out of money. Biden and McCarthy are both confident the measure will pass. There's some consternation amid the conservative ranks though, with some saying McCarthy has granted too many concessions to Democrats. JPMorgan's annual Global China Summit is going ahead in Shanghai, and the bank's CEO Jamie Dimon told Bloomberg TV that they would be in China through the good times and the bad, reiterating a commitment to do business in the country even as political tensions with the US rise. "Over time there'll be less trade," Dimon said. "It'll take years for this thing to take place, but it won't be a decoupling and the world will go on." During the same interview, Dimon added that running for public office had crossed his mind, amid speculation over his future beyond JPMorgan. US interest rates could push higher in the short-run, and taxes rise in the long run, says former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who sees risks from inflation and government debt. In a speech Tuesday at the Peterson Institute, he said the US seemed stuck with underlying inflation around double that of the Fed's target, meaning the central bank may have to raise rates further. "My guess is that Fed funds are going to have to get to a point 50 basis points or more ahead of where they are," he said, adding the US would be "likely to require substantial increases in revenue." Contracts on the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are down today, both declining around 0.2% as at 5:11 a.m. in New York. Treasury yields are falling across the curve, slightly less so at the short-end, indicating that anxiety over the impending debt ceiling deadline may still be weighing a little. A measure of the dollar is gaining, while oil prices extend yesterday's slump. Most metals decline, including gold. There's a slew of Fed speakers today. We have Collins and Bowman at 8:50 a.m., then Collins speaks again at 12:20 p.m. followed by Harker at 12:30 p.m., and Jefferson at 1:30 p.m. At 2 p.m. the Fed releases the Beige Book.
On the data front, we've got MBA Mortgage Applications at 7 a.m., followed by MNI Chicago PMIs for May at 9:45 a.m. We'll then get April JOLTS Job Openings at 10 a.m. At 11:30 a.m., the US will sell $44 billion 17-week bills.
Lastly, we've got earnings from Salesforce, CrowdStrike, Chewy, Okta, NetApp, Veeva, Pure Storage, Nordstrom, and PVH.
Do you prefer to work from home or from the office? Do you find yourself more risk-averse or more risk-tolerant when working from the home office or a laptop? Do you think people working from home are more or less likely to commit financial crimes? This week, the MLIV Pulse survey focuses on work from home and return to office. Click here to share your views. Here's what caught our eye over the past 24 hours: Hello and Happy JOLTS Day. For a long time, the Fed has been focused on Job Openings as a key measure of labor market tightness. The expectation today is that the number will fall to 9.4 million, down from 9.59 million last month. Of course, this would still be way above pre-pandemic levels. In January 2020, there were about 7.2 million measured openings. Whether the data is perfectly like-for-like is for others to debate, but generally it's been consistent with other measures of labor market tightness, including the unemployment rate and the pace of wage growth. That being said, it is slowing, and that's a good opportunity to revisit one of my other favorite charts. Yesterday we got the latest Conference Board Consumer Confidence data, which among other things asks people their perception of the labor market. Some people see the labor market as being good. Some people see it as bad. And the gap is the so-called Labor Differential. The higher the stronger. Of course it's just a survey of people. But what's nice is that over the years, it's moved in line with the Quit Rate from the JOLTS report. And quitting your job is not like answering a survey, since it's a real thing with stakes. But like the survey question it's also implicitly a function of labor market confidence. You're unlikely to quit your job unless you have other financial opportunities available to you (most likely another job). So yesterday we got the latest Labor Differential and it's still high by historical standards, but also the trend is generally lower. We'll see if the same trajectory is reflected in today's quits, with further evidence of labor market slackening building up. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Twitter @TheStalwart. | 
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