The bottom line

■ Despite the West’s sanctions, sales are booming in Russia’s oil export market. Russia has earned $20 billion in average monthly sales this year compared with a $14.6 billion monthly average in 2021. The country exported 7.4 million barrels of crude oil, diesel, and gasoline each day in July, down only about 600,000 barrels a day since the start of the year. The Wall Street Journal

■ More than $150 billion of mergers and acquisitions have been scrapped or stalled since the beginning of June. KKR & Co. last week abandoned a $14 billion bid for an Australian hospital chain. Bloomberg

■ A 1952 Mickey Mantle rookie card graded in mint-plus condition sold for a record $12.6 million, becoming the most valuable piece of sports memorabilia to be sold at auction. The previous owner bought the card in 1991 for $50,000. The New York Times

■ The mortgage denial rate for Black homebuyers is twice that of the overall population of borrowers in the country’s largest 50 metropolitan areas. In St. Louis, the denial rate for Blacks was 20.73 percent, versus 7.33 percent for the overall population. CNBC.com

■ The national average credit score sits at an all-time high of 716, unchanged from a year ago, according to a new report from Fair Isaac Co., developer of the FICO score. Fortune

■ As of July, 59 percent of Americans said they lived paycheck to paycheck, down from 61 percent in June but still higher than a year ago, when the number of adults who felt stretched too thin was 54 percent. The number was higher (63 percent) among those earning between $50,000 and $100,000. CNBC.com