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Good morning. Netflix's pandemic boom wanes, stocks are unsteady, a blockbuster U.K. politics interview and cooling down gets expensive. Here's what's moving markets.

Lacklustre Lupin

Netflix reckons customers are watching less TV than they did a year ago, reporting its worst first-half subscriber growth since 2013. The company has suffered a slowdown after pandemic lockdowns sent its membership soaring in 2020. The service has had fewer big shows to offer in the first half of this year, due in part to production delays in the early months of the pandemic. The audience for two of its most popular shows, the caper drama "Lupin" and the reality dating program "Too Hot to Handle," fell from previous seasons. The stock recovered in post market trading after initially falling about 7%.

Stocks Unsteady

European stocks saw small gains Tuesday following their worst day in seven months as investors considered whether the spread of Covid-19 mutations could derail a rebound in economic growth and corporate earnings. As for today, Asian stocks pared gains and European and U.S. equity futures wavered. The rally in Treasuries has paused after bond yields dipped this week as delta mutation fears sent traders rushing to pare back bets on Federal Reserve rate hikes. One bull's 1% yield forecast is looking more realistic.

Blockbuster Cummings

It was a blockbuster night from former top U.K. government aide Dominic Cummings, who made a series of revelations about the running of Downing Street to the BBC, while also elaborating on his Barnard Castle eye test and admitting he has doubts about Brexit. In latest pandemic news in Britain, the government has insisted it's crucial people isolate when told to do so by the National Health Service mobile app, after a minister suggested that people could choose to ignore the advice. The U.K.'s great unlocking isn't going quite as smoothly as planned

Fan Fuel

Scorching heat is boosting electricity prices across Europe, adding to a list of factors that have sent power costs surging. The extreme temperatures are boosting demand for cooling, with Spanish day-ahead power surging to a record. Prices in the U.K., meanwhile, climbed for a fifth day, the longest rising streak in more than a month, and German next-day rates were double the five-year seasonal average. Elsewhere for energy markets, the U.S. and Germany are close to a deal on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Coming Up…

It's a busy earnings day on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, carmaker Daimler, drug firm Novartis, tech group SAP and Dulux paint company Akzo Nobel are among the big names reporting, while in the U.S., consumer and pharmaceuticals group Johnson & Johnson, drinks-maker Coca-Cola and communications giant Verizon all report. Elsewhere, Tesla boss Elon Musk, investor Cathie Wood and Twitter's Jack Dorsey will all be discussing Bitcoin at an event called "The B Word," with the cryptocurrency languishing around $30,000.

What We've Been Reading

This is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours. 

And finally, here's what Cormac Mullen is interested in this morning

Growing concern about the impact of the delta variant on the global recovery has sent traders scrambling to pare back their bets on Federal Reserve rate hikes. On Monday alone, implied pricing of where interest rates will be from June 2024 onwards via Eurodollars fell by about 18 basis points, taking the best part of a full rate hike out of the mid-term market outlook. As my colleague Stephen Spratt noted Tuesday, almost 100 basis points of expected hikes have been priced out of the market since early April as Eurodollar futures -- which are used to bet on the direction of interest rates -- rally alongside global bonds. Bets on quicker-than-expected rate hikes had become popular in recent months, with Wall Street strategists including Morgan Stanley and Citigroup suggesting the market underestimated the pace the Fed would act. But as prices moved against them hawkish traders were squeezed -- on Monday, the Citi team were stopped out of an options strategy betting that short-term rates would rise. Traders in the options market have now pushed back expectations of when they see the Fed lifting rates to March of 2023 -- compared to January of that year on Friday.

Cormac Mullen is a cross-asset reporter and editor for Bloomberg News in Tokyo.

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