Good morning from the Financial Times. Today's Friday, June 18th, and this is your FT news briefing.

Investors are brushing off inflation fears and diving into corporate bonds,

and one of Asia's most important trade and investment relationships is falling apart.

Plus, US corporations have embraced the Juneteenth holiday, which marks the end of slavery,

but many black professionals say the gesture feels empty.

It's the fact that corporations are going to pat themselves on the back for saying,

look what we've done without having actually done much to change,

the way that they hire the way that they promote people and things like that.

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

Investors keep snapping up US corporate bonds as they grow more confident that inflation won't

derail the economic recovery from the pandemic. Right now, the difference between

corporate bond yields and treasuries, these are the safest and lowest yielding bonds,

is the narrowest in more than a decade. The FT's US markets editor Eric Platts says investors

have been searching for places to park their money and put it to work after interest rates dropped

to historic lows. What you saw was a real race by investors to hoover up these assets.

They wanted to be lending to Apple, to IBM, even to American Airlines. They wanted to be lending

to these companies because they needed a place to put their money to work that would earn a real return.

And they've been really kind of comfortable making these loans. And because the demand has been

so much larger than the supply, you've just seen that spread compress and compress and compress.

And it's happened alongside a really robust economic recovery that people are expecting is

taking place right now and could last a year or two or many more.

Now, Eric, earlier this spring, we saw spreads between corporate bonds and treasuries widen

...