Weekend roundup

Here’s what you missed while you were living your best life:

• 🏛️ The Fed’s Kashkari said it’s ‘reasonable’ to predict a December rate cut. The Minneapolis Fed president told Face the Nation there’ll be one rate cut this year, and more evidence is needed that inflation is on its way down to 2%.

• 🇨🇳 China May retail sales beat expectations, but industrial output missed. Retail sales climbed 3.7% year-on-year, compared to estimates of 3% from a Reuters poll of economists. Meanwhile, a slowdown in the property sector showed no signs of easing.

• 🍿 Inside Out 2 scored the biggest opening weekend since Barbie. The Disney and Pixar title raked in an estimated $155 million at the box office in the US and Canada. It was also the second-best domestic debut ever for an animated movie.

Featured weekend story

Adidas launched an investigation into bribery allegations in China

Adidas has launched a probe ($) into allegations of large-scale bribery in China after a whistleblower accused senior staff of embezzling “millions of euros”. The Financial Times reports an anonymous letter, which claims to have been written by “employees of Adidas China”, alleged that staff received kickbacks from external service providers.

The letter names several employees, including a senior manager involved with the company’s marketing budget. Another senior employee in a different unit is accused of receiving “millions” in cash and physical items “such as real estate”.

Adidas confirmed it had received a letter alerting it to “potential compliance violations in China”. The company said it was “committed to complying with legal and internal regulations and ethical standards in all markets” where it operates and it was “intensively investigating this matter together with external legal counsel”.

Adidas shook up its leadership in China last year in a bid to address slumping sales. The country had been its fastest-growing market until the Covid-19 pandemic. But sales fell drastically between 2019 and 2022 amid lockdowns and consumer backlash against Western brands that refused to buy cotton from the Xinjiang region.

What to watch this week

US stocks enter a shorter trading week near record highs, but European and Asian stocks started the session muted, with Chinese data too mixed to provide any clear momentum.

Indices at 12:00 AM (ET)

Here are your upcoming market events:

• 🏦 BOE, SNB, RBA decisions. A flurry of central bank decisions this week, starting with the Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday. The Swiss National Bank and the Bank of England follow on Thursday.

• 🛒 US retail sales. Numbers from Walmart and Costco follow Tuesday’s May retail sales data, which will give an indication of how consumers are holding up amid higher rates.

• 🌴 US market holiday. The NYSE, Nasdaq, and US bond markets are all closed Wednesday for Juneteenth.

Off-balance sheet items

Here’s what we’re reading this week:

• 🛬 Why American airports don’t sell anything you actually need (Quartz). From ownership structures to parking revenue, there are a range of reasons you can’t pick up the basics in many US airports.

• 😇 The age of envy: how to be happy when everyone else’s life looks perfect (The Guardian). Social media has created a world in which everyone seems ecstatic – apart from us. Is there any way for people to curb their resentment?

• 🖥️ The Microsoft Excel superstars throw down in Vegas (The Verge). An elite handful of analysts, actuaries, and accountants have mastered Excel, arguably the most important software in the business world. So what do they do in Vegas? They open a spreadsheet.

Chart of the week

The bottom line

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