Notes today:

• Finance ministers of the Group of 20 major economies meeting in Italy have failed to agree on a climate pledge to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to people familiar with the matter.
• Meanwhile: Temperatures in Death Valley, California, reached a beyond belief 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 Celsius) on Friday.

• China cut is reserve requirement ratio by 0.5% releasing 1 Trillion Yuan in liquidity to boost its economy. This is the first time since the height of the pandemic in 2020.

• A British regulator said on Friday that banks clearing gold trades in London could apply for an exemption from tighter capital rules due in January 2022, removing what some said was a threat to the functioning of the market.

• Concern is rising about the fast-spreading delta variant of the virus. The Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Gamma variants have already made the VOC list.  Lambda may be next ..

• President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order that the White House bills as an effort to target anticompetitive practices in tech, health care and other parts of the economy while boosting workers' wages and consumer protections.

• The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the second quarter of 2021 is 7.9 percent on July 9, up from 7.8 percent on July 2. After this week’s releases from the Institute for Supply Management and the U.S. Census Bureau, the nowcast of second-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth increased from 4.7 percent to 5.1 percent.

• All three major US averages notched record closes on Friday,