Axios

Apple, FedEx and Marriott CEOs are reportedly among business leaders invited to tomorrow’s state dinner for India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House.

Why it matters: Their attendance emphasizes a key signal of Modi’s first official state visit — that the U.S. and India are strengthening political and economic ties amid drifting relations between the U.S. and China.

Fund shops big and small are lining up to offer a bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund, and another one just joined.

Driving the news: Valkyrie filed for its own Bitcoin Fund on Wednesday, joining BlackRock, Bitwise Asset Management, WisdomTree and Invesco.

Zoom in: The Nashville-based investment firm is the smallest shop of the bunch, with just two exchange-traded funds, and roughly $36 million in assets under management between them — all the more reason to jump at the chance to launch the holy grail of them all: A bitcoin spot ETF.

The big picture: Being the first to market in the ETF world helps gain those initial dollars and the various fund shops that have followed BlackRock's example underscores that reality.

Flashback: Valkyrie was among the early fund shops that launched an ETF offering exposure to bitcoin derivatives rather than the physical spot.

• The Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF came with a catchy ticker "BTF."

Yes, but: BTF's flows were substantially smaller, and now has just about $26 million in assets under management.

• The first to launch ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, also known as "BITO," has some $840 million in assets.

Of note: Valkyrie, unlike BlackRock, was previously denied by the SEC to offer a bitcoin spot ETF in Dec. 2021 and decided that it wasn't smart to sue.

• This is around the time when the SEC was rejecting applications left and right.

The bottom line: A spot bitcoin ETF will likely not get approved under this administration, but what the applications show is that no one wants to be left out on the off-chance it happens.

Lab-grown chicken got U.S. Department of Agriculture approval Wednesday — a major breakthrough for "cell-cultivated" meats.

Why it matters: Lab-grown foods could be inching closer to restaurants and eventually to markets with the first U.S. regulator approval.

Amazon's upcoming Prime Day sale will battle waning consumer spending as shoppers continue to deal with high inflation.

The big picture: Like in past years, Prime Day is forecast to be one of the year's biggest shopping events — with billions of dollars spent at Amazon and other retailers expected to run competing sales.

The U.K. has the worst inflation problem of any major developed economy. Last month, it got worse.

Driving the news: The nation's Consumer Prices Index rose by 8.7% in the 12 months through May, unchanged from the prior month and bucking analysts' expectations of a slowdown, the government's statistics agency said Wednesday.

If you were told 15 months ago that the Fed would raise rates by 5 percentage points, walloping financial markets and triggering bank failures, it would have been a surprise.

• But you would be more surprised if told that would happen, and that Fed chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues would receive a broadly positive reception from their Congressional overseers.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers on Wednesday there is still "a long way to go" to cool inflation and interest rates are expected to rise further this year.

Why it matters: Powell began two days of appearances before Congress, where he is facing questions about the rate hiking campaign that the Fed paused as inflation continues to runs hot, as well as the impact of higher rates on the economy and labor market.

Blue Owl Capital has begun raising up to $13 billion for its next Dyal Capital Partners flagship fund, which would make passive equity investments in other alternative asset managers. But it's unclear who'll be running Dyal once the final ink is dry.

Behind the scenes: An internal leadership fight has broken out within Blue Owl, a New York-based firm with $144 billion in assets under management and a $16 billion market cap on the New York Stock Exchange.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son on Wednesday said his firm is "ready to shift to offense mode" and to "lead the AI revolution."

Why it matters: The comments, made during SoftBank's annual shareholder meeting, suggests that one of the world's most prolific startup investors is back after several years spent licking its well-earned wounds.

Tesla snagged the top four spots on Cars.com's 2023 list of the top 10 most made-in-America vehicles.

Why it matters: Automotive production is a major source of American jobs — and the origin of vehicles and their parts has significant political ramifications.

The Senate Banking Committee is set to vote Wednesday morning on a bipartisan bill that would allow the FDIC to claw back some compensation from senior executives at failed banks.

Why it matters: The bill has the backing of two key senators on both sides of the aisle and looks to be lawmakers' main response to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, which set off a mini-banking crisis this spring.

The world's second-largest economy may be in treacherous macroeconomic terrain known as a "liquidity trap."

Why it matters: China's massive economy has been the main source of global economic growth for most of the last three decades.

The arrival of new employers — most notably Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC — is forcing Arizona to skill, re-skill and upskill its workforce to meet the demands of the booming advanced manufacturing industry.

What's happening: Arizona community colleges and universities have developed training courses and degree programs to fill the immediate and long-term needs of new high-tech companies sprouting in metro Phoenix.