On  Sept. 23, Evergrande will make this domestic bond payment, but it has yet to say if it is able to pay $83.5 million in interest due on its March 2022 bond on Thursday. Chinese authorities have not signalled that they would come the rescue of the real-estate behemoth, probably because they want to make an example of it.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve set to conclude its two-day meeting later on Wednesday. Last week’s lower than expected jobs numbers and the numerous threats to the global economy make it unlikely that the central bank will start tapering immediately.

However, the Fed theory that inflation was only transitory is getting less likely, since gas prices are at their highest levels in years, fuelled by the fast economic recovery after lockdowns. And another crisis looms in the U.K., with the government warning about a carbon dioxide shortage, with price surging by 500%, threatening various industries.

But that did not stop the FTSE 100 from jumping 1% this morning after a good session yesterday, boosted by the Evergrande announcement, as well as leisure and energy stocks. Today, metal miners and leisure stocks are amongst the biggest gainers. Gambling group Entain climbed 8.1% after DraftKings made a better takeover bid, while Flutter Entertainment gained 5.8% after a settlement in its legal dispute with the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Flutter also said today that its Australian business Sportsbet reached a market share of over 50% in the first half of 2021.

Things to read:

CO2 crisis set to spread to Europe, big distributor warns (Financial Times)

Best Universities 2022 in the U.S.: Harvard, Stanford and MIT top the rankings (Wall Street Journal)

UK expects more retaliation after submarines snub for France (Bloomberg)