| Billionaire Bill Ackman bets against 30-year Treasuries, a global selloff in stocks and bonds continues and Japan acts again to slow down yield increases. — Kristine Aquino Bill Ackman is making big bets against 30-year US Treasuries. The founder of Pershing Square Capital Management said his position, executed via options rather than outright shorts, is a hedge against the impact of higher longer-term rates on stocks. Ackman's comments — made on social media — come after Fitch Ratings downgraded the US credit rating one step from AAA. The move prompted two former Treasury secretaries Hank Paulson and Timothy Geithner to urge Washington to address the country's long-term fiscal challenges. The decline in Treasuries continues, led by 10- and 30-year debt, with similar pullbacks seen in UK and European bond markets. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures both fell 0.3%, signaling a lower open for the cash indices on Thursday after losses of 1% to 2% the previous day. The UK led an equity selloff in Europe, while Taiwan and Japan were the worst performers in Asia. The Bloomberg Dollar Index climbed to the highest in almost a month, pressuring all Group-of-10 currencies. Gold advanced for the first time in three days, while Brent crude slid for a third-straight session. The Bank of Japan acted for the second time this week to slow gains in benchmark sovereign bond yields, signaling its determination to curb sharp moves in rates even as it makes room for them to rise. The move weighed on the Japanese yen, and spurred speculation over the central bank's tolerance for the size of yield increases. "Two observations do not make a pattern, but for now five basis points increments could be the BOJ's tolerance for movements higher in the 10-year Japan government bond yield," said David Forrester, a strategist at Credit Agricole in Singapore. Chinese authorities are intensifying a crackdown on some commodities transactions they view as offering little economic benefit. Authorities have escalated probes into trades they suspect are being used to obtain cheap financing or government subsidies rather than serving the real economy, according to traders and officials with knowledge of the investigations. Nearly 20 traders, warehouse managers and smelter executives interviewed by Bloomberg News since April said the investigations have made some Chinese firms more hesitant to initiate new contracts in metals, chemicals and coal and have led to the termination of some existing supply deals. At 8:30 a.m., Richmond Federal Reserve President Tom Barkin will speak at an event. At the same time, the US will publish initial jobless claims figures, following by survey data from S&P Global on the services sector due at 9:45 a.m. Fifteen minutes later, we'll get reports on factory orders and durable goods, as well the latest reading on services from ISM. Earnings include Amazon, Apple and Coinbase. Here's what caught our eye over the past 24 hours: On the Odd Lots podcast today, Tracy Alloway and I spoke with Corey Cantor, an EV analyst at BloombergNEF about the rise of Chinese EV powerhouse BYD. While Tesla is probably the most well known brand in the EV space, particularly in the US, the world has woken up to the fact that Chinese exports are making serious inroads all around the world, with European incumbents seemingly among the most threatened. On the show we discussed the why and how of China's rise, including its dominance of the battery component, as well as the industrial policy that helped make this happen. Along with the conversation, Corey sent us 5 charts on the state of the EV market, that you can see here. Here are two that really stand out. First, here are unit sales of BYD vs. Tesla. It's not a perfect comparison, since BYD sells both pure EVs as well as hybrids. Nonetheless, the unit growth since 2020 is staggering. Meanwhile, China absolutely dominates the battery space, and over the years it has massively bent the cost curve of manufacturing them downward. Interesting, the inflation and disruptions of the last two years have actually reversed some of the cost gains. Still it speaks to some of the tremendous competitive pressure that new US battery facilities will be under as they bring their products to market. Check out the full episode here, and check out all of the charts here. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Twitter @TheStalwart. | 
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