Your Sunday Briefing: Inflection Points and the Crypto Fallout

Hello there: Whether you’re watching inflation markers, retail earnings, your crypto wallet or the balance of power in Washington — and the wider world — this week will bring plenty of action.

The big summit: Joe Biden will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday at the Group of 20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia. It’s the first time the two leaders — each arriving with their domestic standing bolstered recently — have met since Biden became president. The list of issues before G-20 leaders is long: global financial instability and a looming recession, worldwide hunger exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, growing tensions in Asia, struggling efforts to curb climate change, the lingering economic and social turmoil of the pandemic.

The big win: Catherine Cortez Masto appears to have won the US Senate race in Nevada, meaning Democrats are almost certain to keep control of the upper chamber. Barring a reversal in any recount, it was a win for Biden and a loss for Donald Trump, who endorsed Masto’s challenger Adam Laxalt, one of several election deniers who went down to defeat. Democrats defied political forecasts and political trends this midterm election, avoiding what's usually deep losses for the party in power. The final unsettled Senate race is a runoff in Georgia, on Dec. 6, while control of the House of Representatives is still up for grabs.

The big market thought: Institutional investors were souring on cryptocurrencies even before the sudden downfall of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. But the crypto empire’s demise last week might have permanently damaged the prospects of digital assets being included in mainstream portfolios. “There was a period when it was being considered as a potential asset class that every investor should have in their strategic asset allocation and that’s off the table entirely,” said Hani Redha, a multi-asset portfolio manager at Pinebridge Investments in London.