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Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, August 3rd.

This is your FT News Briefing. Investors are feeling bearish about the Eurozone economy

and shoppers are feeling bearish about luxury goods. Plus Nissan is trying to reestablish

its electric vehicle presence in China, but it's going to have to elbow its way back into a pretty

crowded market. I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day.

Investors are upping their bets that Europe is headed for a painful economic downturn.

The Euro has fallen against the dollar over the past two weeks and European stocks have dipped

recently. Economic indicators in the Eurozone are deteriorating as the European Central Bank

raises interest rates and higher prices are still a threat. Services inflation in the Eurozone

hit a record high last month. Meanwhile, investors are taking a different approach in the US.

They're betting that the country is headed for a soft landing. Government data shows that the

US economy grew faster than what economists had forecast for the second quarter,

and inflation fell more than expected in June.

Customers spent big on luxury items like handbags during the pandemic,

but now they're starting to get a little bit more conservative.

The FT's US business editor Andrew Edgecliffe Johnson recently wrote about the luxury sector

growth slowing and he joins me now. Hi, Edge. Hi, Mark.

So let's back up a little bit. Luxury brands were growing like crazy during the pandemic.

They broke records. Why was that?

But if you remember, there was a period of course where nobody could spend very much money on

...