| France braces for instability after a surprise win by the left-wing coalition. Samsung workers go on strike. Several influential Democrats in Congress said privately they want Joe Biden to step aside from the presidential race. Here's what you need to know today. France looks headed for political instability after a surprise win by a left-wing coalition in Sunday's legislative election left no party able to claim the majority needed to govern. The New Popular Front — which includes the Socialists and far-left France Unbowed — is poised to gain more seats in the National Assembly than Marine Le Pen's National Rally or President Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance. With no group anticipated to gain an absolute majority in the lower house, it's unclear how the country, which doesn't have a tradition of coalitions, will form a government that is able to pass laws. Samsung Electronics workers are expected to walk off assembly lines Monday, beginning the biggest organized labor action in the South Korean conglomerate's half-century history. The largest union at the nation's biggest company has spent the past few weeks preparing for the three-day walkout, after negotiations over pay and vacation time collapsed last month. Several influential congressional Democrats said privately on Sunday they want Joe Biden to step aside as the party's White House nominee, as the US president enters a pivotal week for his teetering reelection campaign. The latest defections include several Democratic leaders of House committees, a signal that even some party stalwarts in Congress want a new person at the top of the ticket following Biden's stumbling debate against Donald Trump last month. Hedge funds piled into short bets against Tesla stock right before the electric vehicle maker unveiled a set of numbers that triggered a hefty share-price rally. About 18% of the 500-plus hedge funds tracked by data provider Hazeltree had an overall short position on Tesla at the end of June, the highest percentage in more than a year, according to figures shared with Bloomberg. Those contrarian bets now threaten to saddle the hedge funds behind them with losses after upbeat corporate results sent its shares to a six-month high. Bond investors are signaling that good government counts for more than monetary policy in emerging markets. Since the start of April, investors have started to more aggressively sell bonds from high-yielding countries where governments have loosened fiscal policies. They're also willing to buy debt with low or even negative yields, as long as the countries are pushing for fiscal vigilance. This is showing up in the performance trend for the second quarter. Top performers — including Argentina, Turkey and Egypt — are all undertaking fiscal reforms. At the opposite end of the scale are countries with growing deficits, like Mexico and Brazil. French assets tumbled in the days after Macron announced the snap election, but bounced late last week when traders started to price for Le Pen's far-right party to miss out on an absolute majority. The question will be whether last week's retracements hold, or even extend, if projections are correct and the largest party ends up being the left-wing New Popular Front. Going into the weekend, France's CAC 40 stock index had reversed roughly half of its losses since June 7, still down 4%. There was a similar move for the spread between French and German bond yields last week. "These results don't answer a lot of questions for investors at the moment," says Alexandre Baradez, chief market analyst at IG in Paris. Michael Msika covers European equity markets for Bloomberg News in London. | 
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