LIVE MARKETS-Ralph Lauren links pay for execs to ESG

* Major U.S. stock indexes decline; smallcaps, transports green

* Real estate weakest major S&P sector; energy leads gainers

* Dollar ~flat; gold off, crude up; bitcoin up

* U.S. 10-Year Treasury yield ~1.50%

June 15 - Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com

RALPH LAUREN LINKS PAY FOR EXECS TO ESG (1445 EDT/1845 GMT) Apparel seller Ralph Lauren Corp said on Tuesday it will start tying executive compensation to environmental, social and governance $(ESG.UK)$ factors, a move that is en vogue among companies looking to burnish their credentials with investors.

Executives' pay will depend in part on how well Ralph Lauren meets goals to become a more diverse workplace and advances on its commitments to protect the environment, according to a statement from the company. Ralph Lauren executives will start being judged on these measures starting in the company's fiscal year 2022.

Financial technology firm Mastercard Inc , iPhone maker Apple Inc and Germany's largest bank Deutsche Bank have also linked executive pay to ESG metrics.

Ralph Lauren is aiming to achieve a 25% increase in women in factory leadership, according to a company report. The fashion house also plans to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

(Jessica DiNapoli)

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WFII FORECASTS FURTHER S&P 500 GAINS BY YEAR-END 2022 (1345 EDT/1745 GMT)

In an Institute Alert, the Wells Fargo Investment Institute (WFII), is announcing its 2022 economic forecasts and market targets.

WFII believes that the U.S. economy should grow, amid a deceleration in inflation in 2022, but remain above their pre-pandemic paces. With this, they expect to see 2022 earnings gains, although at a slower pace than 2021.

Additionally, WFII believes an increase in taxes, as well as higher interest rates and inflation next year, may serve to hold back 2022 stock market gains to some extent.

"On balance, however, we believe earnings growth should still support higher global equity market benchmark levels."

In terms of forecast levels, WFII has a year-end 2021 U.S. GDP growth target of 7%, followed by 5.3% growth year-end 2022.

They expect CPI inflation will fall from 3.8% year-end 2021 to 2.8% year-end 2022.

Their S&P 500 target goes from 4400-4600 year-end 2021 to 4,800-5,000 year-end 2022.

WFII sees the U.S. 10-Year Treasury yield going from a year-end 2021 target of 2.00%-2.50% to 2.25%-2.75% year-end 2022.

Additionally, WFII expects higher prices for commodities in 2022, "notably for oil and gold," as well as a "clearer U.S. dollar depreciation trend to emerge as global growth broadens in 2022."

(Terence Gabriel)

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EVs AND SPACs (1320 EDT/1720 GMT)

There were always going to be bumps in the road to mass adoption of electric vehicles. However, after Lordstown Motors Corp hit a giant pothole in recent days, investors in the next generation of U.S. auto manufacturers are seeking the exit ramp.

The electric truck maker slumped 19% on Monday after disclosing both founder and Chief Executive Steve Burns and Chief Financial Officer Julio Rodriguez were resigning. The news came days after the company warned there was "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue as a going concern in the next year due to problems in funding production.

Shares are stabilizing on Tuesday, trading marginally higher at $9.30, but the company's stock is still down nearly 70% since Feb. 11.

Some investors may be more concerned by the fact Lordstown is now below the $10 price which special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) sell their stock to the public. Lordstown went public last October through a merger with blank-check firm DiamondPeak Holdings Corp.

SPACs have sped into the electric vehicle $(EV)$ market, hoping to hitch their wagon to the next Tesla Inc . Since the start of 2021, there have been a number of announced mergers: one such deal, for Proterra, just completed and the bus maker started trading on the Nasdaq on Tuesday.

So far, it's not been the debut Proterra and its SPAC backers, ArcLight Clean Transition Corp, would have hoped for. Shares are now down around 4%.

Other SPACs due to merge with EV manufacturers have also been run over by the Lordstown developments.

Churchill Capital Corp IV is down another 5% on Tuesday, taking its losses since Wednesday's close to around 13.5%. Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corp is off 1.8% on Tuesday.

Lordstown isn't the first SPAC-backed EV manufacturer to get a puncture either. Nikola Corporation was initially turbo-charged, trading intraday at nearly $94 within a week of its listing, but then questions were raised about its technology, regulatory investigations began and the founder resigned.

Nikola is down 9.8% on Tuesday at $15.50.

EV aren't likely to be a road to nowhere: a June 3 report from Pew Research Center said 39% of Americans would consider going electric the next time they shop for a car. Meanwhile, companies including Amazon.com Inc and Fedex Corp

are making huge commitments to electrify their fleets.

Like buying the real thing, investors need to be doing their research on EV manufacturers, so they aren't stuck with a lemon.

(David French)

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U.S. DOLLAR OUTLOOK DEPENDS ON FED'S INFLATION VIEW -BOFA (1240 EDT/1640 GMT)

BoFA Securities said in its latest research note on Tuesday that the fate of the U.S. dollar rests on the Federal Reserve, which releases its statement on monetary policy on Wednesday after its two-day meeting.

It noted that the combination of a dovish Fed and higher inflation is negative for the dollar because of negative real rates and the risks to the Fed's inflation credibility.

But "if the Fed reacts to higher inflation by tightening its policies, the correlation flips and the U.S. dollar will appreciate, at least in the short term," BofA said.

Once the dust settles though from the current base effects, the economy runs the risk of inflation ending well above the Fed's flexible average inflation targeting (FAIT), BofA says. That should push the Fed to normalize monetary policy, which should be a positive for the dollar.

"Inflation expectations remain anchored for now, but this is because the market is already pricing some policy normalization in the next two years; they will not remain anchored if the Fed does not respond to higher inflation," the U.S. bank said.

The U.S. dollar index is currently little changed at 90.532

. Over the last two months, the dollar has been down nearly 1%.

(Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss)

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DATA PART DEUX: PRODUCTION GAINS STEAM, HOMEBUILDING LOSES HEAT (1155 EDT/1555 GMT)

Round two of Tuesday's data-palooza provided signs that the U.S. economy is rounding the bend back to pre-pandemic levels, but rocks remain in that last stretch to the finish line.

Industrial output unexpectedly gained steam in May according to the Federal Reserve, rising 0.8% versus the 0.6% consensus, although April's gain was sharply reduced to a paltry 0.1%.

The growth was largely attributable to a bounce-back in automobile production, which nonetheless remains hobbled by a global microchip drought.

"Looking ahead, hearty goods demand, rising business investment, and revitalizing external activity will keep industrial production on a solid expansionary path," writes Oren Klachkin, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. "Roadblocks to stronger production from supply chain and hiring challenges will start to be removed in the latter half of 2021, supporting strong activity."

Capacity utilization , a barometer of economic slack, showed better-than-expected improvement, gaining 60 basis points to 75.2%, closing in on the pre-pandemic 76.3%.

A report from the Commerce Department showed goods held in the store rooms of U.S. businesses shrank by 0.2% in April, more than analysts anticipated.

It was the first monthly decline since last July.

But retail inventories, excluding motor vehicles, rose by 0.6%, an acceleration from March's 0.5% increase, yet another indication that car manufacturers remain constrained by the afore-mentioned chip shortage.

Inventories were a drag on first-quarter GDP as U.S. firms began to contend with hobbled supply chains, and the April business inventories reading, notching its first drop in nine months suggests that drag could carry on through the current quarter.

"Labor constraints, shipping delays, and high input costs will limit inventory gains," Klachkin adds. "But we look for those challenges to ease as better health conditions and reopenings bring the supply side of the economy back online."

And finally our data deluge concludes with news from the erstwhile star of the economic recovery: the housing market.

The COVID crisis caused a demand stampede, as homebuyers painted "suburbs or bust" on their SUVs and fled the cities in search of elbow room and home office space.

That rush drove inventories to record lows, which in turn gave robust support to the homebuilding sector.

But heightened demand has also collided with stricken supply chains and a dearth of building materials, launching home prices into orbit and dampening the homebuilding party.

The National Association of Homebuilders' (NAHB) Housing Market index , also known as homebuilder sentiment, has shed 2 points this month to a still-sunny reading of 81.

It was the index's lowest level since August of last year.

"Higher costs and declining availability for softwood lumber and other building materials pushed down builder sentiment in June," said NAHB chairman Chuck Fowke. "These higher costs have moved some new homes beyond the budget of prospective buyers, which has slowed the strong pace of home building."

The selling mood on Wall Street remains entrenched in late morning, with all three major U.S. stock indexes well inside negative territory.

Rising crude prices helped promote energy shares

to the head of the gainers' class.

(Stephen Culp)

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NEW YORK APARTMENT RENTS POP AS BANKS DIS REMOTE WORK (1045 EDT/1445 GMT

Perhaps bankers in the Big Apple didn't get the memo on remote work, or are hearing a different tune than big tech on the West Coast.

While all gateway markets are showing signs of recovery in apartment rentals, some are recovering faster than others, with a notable difference between New York and Seattle and San Francisco, according to Yardi Matrix.

Apartment rents increased 3.4% on a month-over-month basis in New York in May, well above the other top 30 U.S. metro areas that Yardi tracks in its National Multifamily Report.

Seattle and San Francisco rebounded, but only at 0.2% and 0.3% growth month over month, respectively, said Yardi, which researches U.S. commercial real estate.

The difference could be due to the type of industries in the three cities and their return-to-work plans, Yardi said.

New York banks are requiring employees to return to the office this summer, while tech workers in Seattle and San Francisco are more likely to be able to work on a hybrid or fully remote schedule, Yardi said.

James Gorman, chief executive at Morgan Stanley , said Monday that if most employees are not back at the bank's Manhattan headquarters in September, he will be "very disappointed."

Facebook Inc said last week it was opening up remote work as an option to all levels of employees across the company, starting on Tuesday, and expects to reopen all its U.S. offices by October.

Alphabet Inc's Google and Microsoft Corp , have given employees options to choose their work location and remote work preferences.

Multifamily rents rose 2.5% year-over-year in May to almost exactly where rent growth was in March 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Yardi said.

Rents grew $12 in May to $1,428, the largest one-month increase in Yardi's data set history, it said.

(Herbert Lash)

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DATA ROUND ONE: RETAIL SALES, PPI, EMPIRE STATE (1000 EDT/1400 GMT)

An onslaught of reports unleashed on Tuesday suggests an economy entering a new phase of recovery from the pandemic recession, with freshly-jabbed consumers leaving their houses to find inflation running hotter than the weather.

Sales at U.S. retailers fell 1.3% last month according to the Commerce Department, steeper than the anticipated 0.8% drop, reversing April's upwardly-revised 0.9% gain.

In part, the decline reflects consumer demand pivoting back from goods to customer-facing services as more Americans are inoculated and taking advantage of lifting social distancing restrictions.

Receipts at bars/restaurants and department stores, for example, jumped by 1.8% and 1.6%, respectively, and gasoline sales rose by 0.7%.

On the other hand, sales of home improvement goods plunged by 5.9% and home electronics slid 3.4%.

The overall pullback suggests a "satiated demand for goods" as "higher prices weighed on consumers’ buying attitudes," writes Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics.

"While some will interpret this as a sign of wary households," Daco adds, the report signals "ongoing demand rotation as vaccinated consumers splurge on services.

Core retail sales, which excludes autos, gasoline, building materials and food services - and corresponds closely with the personal consumption component of GDP - dropped by 0.7%.

A report from the Labor Department showed the producer price index (PPI) - or the prices U.S. goods makers get for their wares at the factory loading dock - rose at a faster pace in May than analysts expected.

Monthly headline PPI rose by 0.8%, running hotter than the 0.6% growth projected by economists.

On an annual basis, core PPI - which strips out food, energy and trade services - accelerated to 5.3% from April's 4.6% pace.

"Headline, core and core ex-trade services prices are well above the 2% target," notes Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. "However, the Fed is expected to continue to view building pressures as transient."

The graphic below shows how year-over-year core PPI stacks up among other major indicators relative to the Fed's average annual 2% target:

The demand U-turn away from goods back to services appears to be showing itself in data from the New York Fed, which showed manufacturing activity in New York State stepped on the brakes in May.

The New York Federal Reserve's Empire State index

plunged nearly seven points to a reading of 17.4, well below the 23 consensus.

An Empire State number above zero signifies increased activity over the previous month.

"Manufacturing is doing well, but activity is no longer accelerating," says Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

But Shepherdson outpoints unfilled orders and prices paid components "suggests a marginal easing of supply constraints," a welcome development amid the ongoing demand/supply imbalance.

But Tuesday isn't done with us. Industrial production, inventories and homebuilder sentiment remain on tap.

Investors were taking a breather out of the starting gate, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq slipping back from Monday's record closing highs.

(Stephen Culp)

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S&P 500: SLEEPWALKING (0900 EDT/1300 GMT)

The S&P 500 posted another record close on Monday. While only about halfway into June, that marked its 29th record-high finish so far this year vs 33 for all of 2020.

Despite the levitation, SPX action in many ways has grown zombie-like. Monday's range as a percentage of the prior session's close was just 0.51%. With this, nearly half of the 18 smallest daily ranges so far this year, have occurred in the past 13 trading days. For the week, the SPX is on track for its tightest range since September 22, 2017.

Meanwhile, volatility close-to-close, on a weekly basis, has contracted to its lowest level since mid-January 2020, or roughly one month ahead of the February 2020 market top:

Implied volatility has also recently collapsed. The CBOE Volatility Index ended last Friday at its lowest level since February 20, 2020, or one day after the SPX's February 19, 2020 peak.

Thus, with significant event risks this week in the form of the FOMC Meeting results on Wednesday , and a quadruple-witching Friday , the benchmark index appears especially ripe for much more spirited action.

It now remains to be seen whether the SPX will soon begin a well-rested sprint, or if it will be shaken from its slumber by something that goes bump in the night.

(Terence Gabriel)

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(Terence Gabriel is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own)