| Good morning. Microsoft disappoints. Harris wipes out Trump's lead in swing states. And Intel is cutting jobs. Here's what's moving markets. — Isabelle Lee US shares sold off Tuesday ahead of megacap tech earnings and key central bank decisions. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% while the Nasdaq 100 tumbled 1.4%. After-the-bell earnings figures from Microsoft added to the sense of gloom, with shares in the software maker and some of its major peers dropping in late trading. AMD was one bright spot for tech, giving an upbeat forecast that has potential to stem the firm's recent share price slide. Bonds and gold were bolstered not only by falling equities, but also by a flare-up in geopolitical risks, with Israel striking Hezbollah in response to a recent attack and political uncertainty deepening in Venezuela. US Vice President Kamala Harris has wiped out former President Donald Trump's lead across seven battleground states as she rides a wave of enthusiasm among young, Black and Hispanic voters, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll. Harris was backed by 48% of voters to 47% for Trump — a statistical dead heat — in the swing states that will likely decide November's election. That's a stronger showing than the two-point deficit for President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race. The numbers suggest Harris has a shot at reassembling the voter coalition that propelled Barack Obama to the White House back in 2008 — and a clearer path to victory than Biden, who'd struggled to galvanize Democrats. South Korean investors, eager for a slice of the world's biggest commercial property market, bet big on riskier loans for office buildings. Now, they are trying to pull back from that mezzanine debt and taking a massive hit on their way out. In New York, South Korea's IGIS Asset Management provided subordinated debt for 1551 Broadway. But the firm decided to cut its losses and sell at a hefty discount. In Los Angeles, South Korea-based Meritz Alternative Asset Management was a mezzanine lender on the Gas Company Tower, which has struggled after the owner defaulted on the building's debt. It's a rapid change for an investor set that piled into the US commercial real estate market amid ultra-low rates and a booming market. Intel plans to eliminate thousands of jobs to reduce costs and fund an ambitious effort to rebound from an earnings slump and market share losses. The workforce reduction may be announced as early as this week, according to people familiar with the company's plans, who asked not to be identified because the information isn't public. Intel, which is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings Thursday, has about 110,000 employees, excluding workers at units that are being spun out. Central banks will be front and center for macro markets on Wednesday with both the Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve slated to reveal decisions. Recent moves in the yen have only increased the pressure on BOJ chief Kazuo Ueda as he prepares to unveil plans for quantitative tightening and, potentially, higher interest rates. Some 14 of 48 economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted the BOJ's board will raise its rate from the current range of 0 to 0.1%, while almost no one is ruling out the risk of such a move. Meanwhile, US policy watchers will be keenly attuned to any signals that Chairman Jerome Powell is preparing to cut in September, a scenario that the market is currently fully priced for. Here's what caught our eye over the past 24 hours: - Ken Griffin is spending millions to put his stamp on Trump's GOP, but not giving cash to the presidential nominee himself
- L'Oréal's sales growth disappointed as China weakness persists
- A luxury heir alleges his $13 billion Hermès fortune has vanished
- At around $2 billion, Bill Ackman's US IPO is set to be much smaller than was previously suggested
- The Olympic medals tracker: who's winning at Paris summer games?
The possibility of a Bank of Japan interest-rate hike this week is set to keep Latin American traders up at night. After years of negative interest rates in Japan keeping a lid on the yen — one of the main funding currencies for carry trades in emerging markets — traders are now grappling with the prospect of the yen appreciating further should officials raise borrowing costs. That comes after suspected an intervention in the currency, which prompted a wave of unwinding of bullish positions in Latin America this month, particularly in the Mexican peso. While JPY rose 5% in July, MXN dropped 2.4%. The connection between the Asian currency and the peso was so strong that the inverse correlation between the two reached beyond 0.9 last week. MXN traders were virtually tracking the yen tick by tick. While this link momentarily receded earlier on Tuesday, it is set to come back at full strength. The Mexican peso will be the only Latin American currency in play when Japanese policymakers announce their decision on Wednesday. A rate hike is set to push peso lower, while unchanged rates could lure bulls back. Davison Santana is a Sao Paulo-based emerging-market currency strategist for Bloomberg News. | 
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