After a decade of low growth and inflation, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell unveiled a new strategy a year ago in which the central bank would keep interest rates lower for longer.

Reality has dealt Mr. Powell a different and unexpected challenge: the biggest inflation spike in decades. Consumer prices rose 5.4% in July from a year earlier.

Mr. Powell heads into the Kansas City Fed’s annual conference this week at the center of the debate over how long the currently higher inflation will last, and what the Fed should do about it.

He is managing internal disagreement and weathering external criticism, with economic recovery thrown into renewed turmoil by the rise of the Delta variant.

Some central bank officials expect the recent price surges to reverse on their own, allowing the Fed to stick to the approach Mr. Powell outlined a year ago, intended to generate inflation slightly above 2%. Others see dangers that high inflation will...

The cryptocurrency industry is getting so big and enabling so much risk-taking that governments around the globe are taking notice.

Bitcoin traded above $50,000 Monday; its total value now exceeds $900 billion, more than all but a handful of companies. Digital currencies called stablecoins grease ever more trading and issuance. Giant crypto exchanges in Asia offer 100-to-1 bets, often serving traders in countries where their products aren’t legal.

After years of relative inattention, regulators and lawmakers are scrambling to catch up—but it won’t be easy. They aim to rein in a rebellious industry that has adopted the tech world’s blueprint for aggressively deploying new products to quickly amass users—while often leaving regulatory compliance as an afterthought.

Some of the largest crypto firms are under increasing pressure. In recent weeks, Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, was barred from or warned about offering certain crypto...

Investment bank PJT Partners Inc. has hired the former U.S. head of restructuring at hedge fund Anchorage Capital Group as a partner, said people familiar with the matter.

Charles Tauber, 50 years old, had a major role in the New York hedge fund’s investments in distressed companies including the Hollywood movie studio MGM Holdings Inc., PG&E Corp. and J.Crew Group. He is slated to start at PJT in September in its restructuring and special-situations group, one of the people said. Mr. Tauber left Anchorage in 2020 after more than a decade there.

Most recently, PJT worked with Mr. Tauber on J.Crew. PJT advised Anchorage and other creditors on an committee formed to help shepherd J.Crew through its 2020 restructuring. J.Crew emerged from bankruptcy last year with Anchorage as its majority owner.

—ad-hoc

In one of the other investments, Anchorage notched paper profits of about $2 billion on its more than decadelong...

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SYDNEY—One of this year’s hottest commodities is flaming out.

The price of iron ore has fallen roughly 40% since mid-July on concerns about demand from China, which makes more than half of the world’s steel. The downturn has dealt a blow to producing countries, notably Australia and Brazil, that are battling to protect fragile economic recoveries from outbreaks of the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.

The benchmark price fell as low as $130.20 a metric ton on Thursday following a 15% single-day nosedive to its lowest value since November 2020, according to S&P Global Platts, which publishes daily prices. The commodity, which hit a record above $233 a ton as recently as May, bounced slightly to $139.10 a ton on Friday.

Other commodities including oil and copper have been falling on worries that rising Covid-19 cases might hobble the global recovery, but not at such a rapid pace. Iron ore hasn’t fallen this far this fast since spot...

Bitcoin prices topped $50,000 for the first time in three months Monday.

The cryptocurrency recently traded at $50,200, up about 2.4% from where it sat 24 hours ago, according to CoinDesk.

Monday’s moves mark the latest milestone for which has regained ground since peaking around $64,000 in mid-April and then tumbling alongside other digital currencies. After skidding to a low of $29,608 last month, bitcoin has soared 70%.

A surge of retail investor enthusiasm had helped bitcoin soar in the first few months of the year. But prices then took a hit after a series of setbacks, including Tesla Inc. saying it would no longer accept bitcoin as payment for its electric vehicles and Chinese regulators stepping up a crackdown on cryptocurrency trading in the country.

Lately, some money managers and institutions have signaled more support for the cryptocurrency. PayPal Holdings Inc. said Monday that it would introduce a service allowing U.K. customers to...

Wall Street is diving back into the business of turning home loans into bonds, injecting new competition into a market long dominated by government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac .

The so-called private-label mortgage market—in which financial firms serve the middleman role of creating giant pools of loans and selling them to investors—had more than $42 billion of issuance in the second quarter. That is the most since the pandemic started and almost the most for any quarter since the last financial crisis, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, an industry research firm.

This market still made up a mere 4% of all mortgage bonds issued last quarter. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which issue bonds that come with a federal guarantee that investors will get paid, remain the industry’s dominant players.

But mortgage investors expect the private market to keep growing as a repository of loans that Fannie and Freddie can’t or won’t...

An investment group that includes Abu Dhabi’s sovereign-wealth fund is close to acquiring a minority stake in CityFibre Infrastructure Holdings in a deal that would value the U.K. fiber-optic-broadband provider at more than $2.7 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

The investment would be from Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. and the investment arm linked to the family behind IKEA, the people said.

It comes as wholesale broadband network providers like CityFibre and incumbent telecom operators such as AT&T Inc. in the U.S. and Britain’s BT Group PLC are racing to expand their high-speed networks to reach more customers and support the rollout of superfast 5G wireless services.

At the same time, the promise of recurring revenue generated from the high-speed transmission of video and other bandwidth-hogging data is drawing investors seeking steady long-term returns.

The deal, if finalized, is expected to be announced over...

Shares of Uber ,   Lyft and  DoorDash are all hitting the skids premarket. A California judge said the November ballot measure that allowed the companies to continue treating their drivers as independent contractors is unenforceable and unconstitutional. Uber dropped 3%, Lyft lost 4.6% and DoorDash shed 2.5%.

U.S. stock futures edged up Monday, suggesting that the major indexes will kick off the week on the front foot as investors await data on the American manufacturing and services sectors.

Futures tied to the S&P 500 ticked 0.3% higher, pointing to the broad market index extending Friday’s 0.8% gain. Nasdaq-100 futures also climbed 0.3%, indicating a modest rise in technology stocks after the opening bell.

Investors are largely focused on the Federal Reserve’s annual economic policy symposium later this week, awaiting fresh cues on when policy makers may slow bond purchases. At the same time, rising concerns that elevated Covid-19 infection levels may slow the global economic recovery sent stocks lower last week. Dallas Fed President Rob Kaplan said Friday he may rethink his call to begin tapering asset purchases soon if the Delta variant weighs on growth.

“If there is any sign that the U.S. economy is slowing, the Fed won’t taper,” said Michael...

When China vowed to crack down on cryptocurrency mining early this summer, Nasdaq-listed Bit Digital Inc. ramped up efforts to get its more than 20,000 computers out of the country.

The machines are the heart of the New York-based company, which makes money by plugging the high-powered computers into cheap electricity sources so they can work through mathematical problems to unlock new bitcoin. The process, called mining, has gone from something any individual with a PC could do a decade ago, to a massive industry that uses numerous computers and lots of electricity.

Bit Digital and other cryptocurrency mining companies now face many hurdles as they move their machines out of a country that previously used two-thirds of the global energy dedicated to harvesting bitcoin. The machines are prone to damage if shaken, which makes packing and shipping them internationally an arduous task. A single new computer can cost about $12,000.

Companies have had to...

Three vital issues for investors remain uncertain as the Federal Reserve moves toward tapering its bond buying. Will this quantitative tightening mean Treasury yields go up or down? Will stocks do better with rising or falling bond yields? And, a linked issue, is the stock-bond relationship that has held for the past three decades going into reverse?

Few people share my first uncertainty, because it seems so obvious that if the Fed buys fewer Treasurys, the price will drop and hence the yield rise. It is basic supply and demand, goes the response: Duh.

It is certainly true that all else equal, fewer bond purchases should mean a higher yield. But all else isn’t equal, because the Fed’s discussion of withdrawing stimulus shows a shift in mentality toward tighter monetary policy. Tighter monetary policy means less growth and inflation in the long run, and so lower long-term bond yields. The balance between the demand impact of less Fed buying and the perception...

Operational missteps put Indigo Agriculture on the outs with farmers in its early days. It is revising its offerings, and now old-line giants are implementing their own tech products for grain and carbon trading.

Square bet the future of “buy now, pay later” on Afterpay, acquiring it for $29 billion. Investors should spread their chips around.

The deal unleashed a flurry of buying not just in online checkout carts but in the stock market. Shares of other so-called BNPL players, including Affirm Holdings and Zip Co., jumped after the deal despite the fact that their giant competitor teamed up with Square. The thinking appeared to be that Square’s willingness to pay a premium for one of their peers shows that fears about installment payments becoming commoditized are overblown, and that the market is overall poised for huge growth.

At first blush, small-cap stocks look like a bargain. But dig deeper and the story gets more complicated.

One common way to gauge whether a stock is looking expensive is to divide its price by the company’s earnings. By one measure, the Russell 2000 benchmark, whose members have an average market capitalization of about $3.3 billion, recently traded at about 19 times its past year’s earnings, while the large-cap Russell 1000 index traded at 25 times—making the small-cap segment seem like a deal.

However, when calculating the price-to-earnings ratio, analysts sometimes—as in the figures just cited—cut out the companies that don’t turn a profit. This can have a dramatic effect on how pricey a broad swath of the market appears, especially since the share of the small-cap index without profits, high to begin with, surged in the aftermath of the pandemic-induced recession.

For the Russell 2000 benchmark, leaving out the unprofitable companies means setting...

Three vital issues for investors remain uncertain as the Federal Reserve moves toward tapering its bond buying. Will this quantitative tightening mean Treasury yields go up or down? Will stocks do better with rising or falling bond yields? And, a linked issue, is the stock-bond relationship that has held for the past three decades going into reverse?

Few people share my first uncertainty, because it seems so obvious that if the Fed buys fewer Treasurys, the price will drop and hence the yield rise. It is basic supply and demand, goes the response: Duh.

It is certainly true that all else equal, fewer bond purchases should mean a higher yield. But all else isn’t equal, because the Fed’s discussion of withdrawing stimulus shows a shift in mentality toward tighter monetary policy. Tighter monetary policy means less growth and inflation in the long run, and so lower long-term bond yields. The balance between the demand impact of less Fed buying and the perception...

When China vowed to crack down on cryptocurrency mining early this summer, Nasdaq-listed Bit Digital Inc. ramped up efforts to get its more than 20,000 computers out of the country.

The machines are the heart of the New York-based company, which makes money by plugging the high-powered computers into cheap electricity sources so they can work through mathematical problems to unlock new bitcoin. The process, called mining, has gone from something any individual with a PC could do a decade ago, to a massive industry that uses numerous computers and lots of electricity.

Bit Digital and other cryptocurrency mining companies now face many hurdles as they move their machines out of a country that previously used two-thirds of the global energy dedicated to harvesting bitcoin. The machines are prone to damage if shaken, which makes packing and shipping them internationally an arduous task. A single new computer can cost about $12,000.

Companies have had to...

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings is doubling down on safety this year. Wall Street has taken the under on that bet.

The cruise line operator said this past week it is extending its guest vaccination requirement, which had been due to expire at the end of October, for all of its sailings through the end of the year. Because children under the age of 12 can’t currently get a Covid-19 vaccine, Norwegian’s policy means that these children aren’t allowed on its ships for now.

Shares of Moderna Inc. have been on a tear lately, making the Covid-19 vaccine-maker the top performer in the S&P 500 this year.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Moderna’s stock price has surged 267% in 2021, handily trouncing all other companies in the benchmark index. Retailer Bath & Body Works Inc., recently rebranded from L Brands Inc., follows in a distant second, with a 120% year-to-date gain. Only two other companies in the S&P 500—steel producer Nucor Corp. and cybersecurity stock Fortinet Inc. —have, based on Friday’s closing prices, seen their stock double this year.

The vaccine maker’s outperformance is the latest win for Moderna. The company, which before the pandemic had yet to commercialize a product, has reported roughly $5.9 billion in Covid-19 vaccine sales in the first half of the year. It has already signed $12 billion in advanced purchase agreements—with an additional $8 billion in options—for its coronavirus vaccine next year....

Ken Griffin’s Citadel LLC and Citadel partners are planning to redeem roughly $500 million of the $2 billion they put in Melvin Capital Management after Melvin got slammed by bad short bets on GameStop Corp. and other soaring stocks, said people familiar with the matter.

Citadel and Steven A. Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management together invested $2.75 billion into Melvin’s hedge fund on Jan. 25 as Melvin was hemorrhaging money. In return for the rare intra-month investments, the two firms received non-controlling revenue shares in Melvin for three years. The arrangement means they share in the management and performance fees Melvin collects from its clients over that time but don’t get any control over Melvin or its investments.

Citadel will keep its revenue share, some of the people familiar with the matter said. It couldn’t be determined Friday if Citadel plans to redeem additional money later, but a person familiar with Citadel said it expected to remain a...

Pfizer Inc.

The U.S. is giving Covid-19 boosters a shot. ?The Biden administration on Wednesday called for a third vaccine dose starting this fall for adults who were fully vaccinated with the two-shot regimen from Pfizer and partner BioNTech SE or from Moderna Inc. The booster shot will be administered about eight months after the second dose, starting the week of Sept. 20. Pfizer shares fell 2.2% Wednesday, while Moderna lost 0.8%.

Target Corp.

People are shopping in person again. Target reported increased revenue in the second quarter as more people returned to stores to purchase apparel, food and other items. Online spending abated at the big-box retailer compared with last summer, when the pandemic upended shopping habits. The report came a day after larger rival Walmart Inc. reported strong in-store sales and foot traffic. The results from both chains showed little impact from the recent rise in Covid-19 cases in the U.S. Target executives...

Endo International PLC has tapped a financial restructuring adviser to help the drugmaker evaluate its options for dealing with thousands of lawsuits alleging it contributed to the opioid crisis, according to people familiar with the matter.

Endo has engaged consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal Holdings LLC to advise on options that could include a balance-sheet restructuring that would address the company’s liability from litigation around its opioid drugs, as well as its more than $8 billion in debt, these people said.

As of July, there were nearly 3,000 legal cases pending against Endo from states, counties, cities and Native American tribes over opioids, as well as more than 300 lawsuits from hospitals, health systems, unions, and health or welfare funds.

The company and Alvarez didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Endo’s stock closed at $2.13 Friday afternoon, down 40% from the prior day.

General Motors Co. is expanding its safety recall of the all-electric Chevy Bolt to include newer models, an action that will cost an additional $1 billion to remedy a problem that has increased the risk of battery fires in this particular vehicle.

The expansion adds another 73,000 Bolt electric vehicles to GM’s recall campaign and includes 2019 models not covered under the previous action, as well as 2020-2021 model-year vehicles, the company said Friday.

GM’s stock, which closed at $48.80 Friday, was down 2% in after hours trading.

The Detroit auto maker last year recalled about 69,000 older model-year Bolts, saying it was aware of five fires involving the cars and advising owners not park the vehicles in garages until they can get them fixed. In July, it recalled the same Bolts for a second time because of a potential battery defect that could result in a fire.

At the time, GM said it had since learned of one battery fire that occurred...