The Friday Review

What we are reading:

A week that stretched across centuries and continents: a war that has now outlasted World War I, a trade framework governing $2 trillion in North American commerce left deliberately in limbo, and financial logic that has been quietly stood on its head.

🛏️ Sleep Number filed for Chapter 11 this morning, entering a sale agreement with Sleep Country Canada. A 40-year-old brand built on proprietary sleep technology, undone by an unsustainable capital structure and tariffs. https://www.furnituretoday.com/financial/sleep-number-files-chapter-11-enters-agreement-to-sell-company-to-sleep-country-canada/

⚔️ The war in Ukraine has now surpassed World War I in duration, 1,569 days and counting. What Putin expected to last a week has outlasted a conflict that reshaped the map of Europe. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/11/world/europe/ukraine-russia-world-war-i.html

📈 Gillian Tett in the FT on a paradox haunting markets: equity yields are sitting below Treasury yields, inverting a relationship that held for three decades. Either bonds are mispriced, equities are, or investors are too dazed to tell the difference. https://www.ft.com/content/4389caaa-b87a-4d4c-82a1-db161d3265d3

🏦 FDIC Chair Travis Hill outlined five proposed changes to how bank failures are resolved, including letting private capital bid on failed institutions and creating a de minimis exception to the "least cost" rule that has disadvantaged small bank depositors. https://www.bankingdive.com/news/fdic-travis-hill-bank-fail-bid-assessment-resolution-private-credit-least-cost-dif/822509/

🌎 Trump said Wednesday he will not renew the USMCA ahead of its July 1 review deadline, pushing North American trade relations into rolling annual negotiations with no clear endpoint. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/world/canada/trump-canada-mexico-trade-deal-usmca.html

💸 The WSJ on whether microfinancing actually works as a poverty-reduction tool, and who it ends up serving. https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/poverty-microfinancing-loans-entrepreneurs-de458ee8

⚽ An academic study on the economics of hosting the World Cup, timed to the 2026 tournament now underway. The math rarely adds up the way host nations expect. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14660970.2026.2640520