Good morning. We have more updates on volatile global markets and a deep dive into a key voter demographic that could decide the US presidential election.
But first, we start the day with an exclusive story on Google and Meta. According to documents seen by the Financial Times and people familiar with the matter, the tech giants made a secret deal to target advertisements for Instagram to teenagers on YouTube, skirting the search company’s own rules for how minors are treated online.
Google worked on a marketing project for Meta that was designed to target 13- to 17-year-old YouTube users with ads that promoted its rival’s photo and video app. The Instagram campaign deliberately targeted a group of users labelled as “unknown” in its advertising system, which Google knew skewed towards under-18s, the people said.
Documents seen by the FT suggest steps were taken to ensure the true intent of the campaign was disguised.
The project disregarded Google’s rules that prohibit personalising and targeting ads to under-18s, including serving ads based on demographics. It also has policies against the circumvention of its own guidelines, or “proxy targeting”. Here’s how Google and Meta responded when contacted by the FT.
Here’s what I’m keeping tabs on today:
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Paris Olympics: After clinching gold in Sunday’s 100 metres, the US’s Noah Lyles will aim to become the first man since Usain Bolt to achieve a sprint double at the Games as he competes in the 200-metre final today.
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Taylor Swift: The singer has cancelled three concerts due to start today in Vienna after Austrian authorities said they had uncovered an Islamist terror plot targeting her fans.
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Companies: Deadline for Bellway to announce a firm intention to make an offer for Crest Nicholson. Results are due from Allianz, Deliveroo, Eli Lilly, Hill & Smith, PageGroup and Siemens. Full list at our Week Ahead newsletter.
Join Robert Armstrong of Unhedged and other FT experts from London to Tokyo next Wednesday for a subscriber-only webinar on the recent trading turmoil and where markets go next. Register for free.
Five more top stories
1. US consumers are reining in spending on travel and leisure, hitting businesses including Disney theme parks, Airbnb home rentals and Hilton hotels. Warnings from several companies’ earnings statements this week offered the latest evidence of belt-tightening among American households as questions grow about the health of the country’s economy.
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‘Soft landing’?: America’s economy is slowing, not plunging, writes the FT’s editorial board. But the Federal Reserve should cut rates at its next meeting.
2. Exclusive: Britain’s biggest private-sector pension fund has sold £80mn of Israeli assets following sustained pressure from some of its more than 500,000 members. The £79bn Universities Superannuation Scheme “materially” reduced its exposure to investments including Israel’s government debt and currency in the past six months, said people with knowledge of the matter. Josephine Cumbo and Harriet Agnew have more details.
3. Defence technology start-up Anduril Industries has raised $1.5bn to accelerate the production of autonomous weapons for the US and allied militaries, as investment in the sector surges on the back of conflict in Ukraine. This latest investment values the California-based start-up at $14bn, double its valuation in December 2022, the last time the company raised money. Here are the investors that participated in the round.
4. Nasa may ask SpaceX to retrieve two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station following technical difficulties with the Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft they took to get there. The US space agency is deciding how to bring home astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore, who were supposed to return to Earth nearly two months ago. Here are the options being weighed.
5. Thousands of anti-racism demonstrators turned out in the UK yesterday evening in response to a rumoured wave of far-right disorder that ultimately failed to materialise. Huge rallies across English towns and cities mobilised to defend a list of locations thought to be targets for violence, including refugee charities and immigration lawyers. Read the full story.
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Telegram: The messaging app is facing renewed pressure against its “hands off” approach to content moderation in the UK as it emerged as one of the main tools wielded for mobilising rioters and stoking unrest.
The Big Read
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are now polling neck and neck in what is shaping up to be a close fight for the White House. In such a tight race, one group could decide the US presidential election: Hispanic voters. Who they choose matters more than ever, with the demographic reaching over 62mn in 2020 — roughly 1 in 5 Americans — to overtake the Black population as the nation’s second-largest ethnic group. While far from a political monolith, Hispanic voters as a whole have been slowly drifting to the right in a shift that could seal the Democratic party’s fate in November.
We’re also reading . . .
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Japanese stocks: The country’s entire market has traded like a penny stock this week, swinging drunkenly from one extreme to the next. Leo Lewis explains why.
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Streaming hangover: After the music industry’s years of roaring growth, expectations are being re-priced and hopes pinned on superfans, writes Anna Nicolaou.
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War memes: The wait for a seemingly inevitable confrontation between Israel and Hizbollah has bred both gallows humour and an underlying dread for both Israelis and Lebanese.
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Venezuela: Rights groups report hundreds of arrests with opposition figures enduring home break-ins as Nicolás Maduro seeks to quell dissent after a disputed presidential vote.
Chart of the day
“Covered call” ETFs were supposed to be a goldilocks investment that offers insulation from market volatility. But investors who pumped tens of billions of dollars into the funds suffered sharp losses during this week’s sell-off, highlighting the perils for retail traders seeking easy ways to ride out market uncertainty.
Take a break from the news
Summer is here and so are seagulls, lambasted by British tabloids as a “menace” that has been “terrorising towns”. But Jonathan Guthrie argues we share a lot in common with the seaside scavengers in his defence of the much-maligned birds.
Additional contributions from Harvey Nriapia and Benjamin Wilhelm
