United States

Amazon’s impending takeover of Whole Foods Market isn’t the only thing weighing on grocers' spirits this Fourth of July holiday. As Bloomberg reports, booming meat supplies have sent ground-beef prices to three-year lows, squeezing food sellers’ margins ahead of the top grilling day of the year, when 87% of US consumers are expected to barbecue.

What’s worse, the surge in production has kept in-store prices low, while wholesale costs have risen.

Here’s Bloomberg with more:

There was something different - and symbolic - about last night's North Korean ballistic missile launch which not coincidentally took place on US Independence Day, because shortly after the event, North Korea announced it would have an important announcement to make.

With the US out on holiday for the 4th of July, overnight trading volumes have been muted, as Europe started off in the red but has since trimmed most losses (Stoxx 600 -0.1%) while S&P500 futures rose shaprly from session lows spurred by the European open ignoring the risk-off sentiment from North Korea's latest missile launch, trading 0.2% higher, or up 4 points to 2,429 and closing the gap to Monday's last minute tech-driven market selloff.

One month ago, after the shocking collapse of the Gulf nation status quo with the announcement of the diplomatic, naval and financial blockade of Qatar by the Saudi alliance, we said that while it is unclear how this latest political fiasco plays out, one thing was certain: with Saudi Arabia and Qatar suddenly adversaries, any likelihood of a Qatari natural gas pipeline crossing Syria - the fundamental cause behind the Syria  proxy war in the first place - was gone.

With the CBO warning that the Treasury is on track to run out of cash in less than four months, Republicans are facing a difficult internecine struggle to raise the debt limits as both conservatives and moderates demand riders that stipulate how the money can be spent.