U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met with BlackRock Inc executive Rick Rieder in New York on Friday, as the Trump administration continued its search for a new chair for the Federal Reserve, a source familiar with the matter said. Bessent has now spoken with four of the 11 candidates on the administration's list of candidates to replace Fed chair Jerome Powell, whose term expires in May, the source said. Bloomberg first reported Bessent's meeting with Rieder, BlackRock's CIO of fixed income, and called him a rising contender for the post. The two met for two hours and discussed...
Increasing revenues flowing into U.S. government coffers from tariffs would make it difficult for the Supreme Court to rule against the Trump administration on the issue if a lower court case makes its way to country's top court, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday. The more money coming in, it gets harder and harder for SCOTUS to rule against us," Bessent said in an interview on Fox Business Network's "Kudlow." Bessent was responding to a question about a case currently in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., which challenges...
U.S. trade officials plan to meet with their Chinese counterparts within the next two or three months to discuss the future of economic relations between the two countries, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday. The announcement comes a day after the Trump administration extended a 90-day pause on implementing higher U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. Speaking in an interview on Fox Business Network's "Kudlow," Bessent indicated that any potential reduction in tariffs on China would require substantial progress on addressing fentanyl flows. "The U.S. will need to see months, if not...
Core consumer prices in the US, which exclude food and energy, rose by 0.3% from the previous month in July of 2025, picking up from the 0.2% increase in the previous month for the sharpest increase since January. The result was in line with the median consensus from markets. Prices accelerated for transportation services (0.8% vs 0.2% in June), medical care services (0.8% vs 0.6%), and rebounded sharply for new vehicles (0.5% vs -0.7%). Source: Trading Economics
The very data that caused President Donald Trump to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he did not like the July employment report, calling it "rigged," is being taken as serious evidence by Federal Reserve officials of a slowing economy and as a justification for the interest rate cuts Trump wants. "The latest employment report confirmed some of the signs of fragility and reduced dynamism in the labor market," Fed Governor Michelle Bowman, a Trump appointee, said in a Saturday speech that elaborated on how the latest jobs numbers and revisions to prior months' data...
US President Donald Trump announced Monday that he is nominating economist E.J. Antoni as the new commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10 days after firing the previous head following weak labor market results, accusing Antoni of manipulating the figures without evidence. Antoni currently serves as chief economist at the influential conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. He has criticized the BLS, the Labor Department's statistical arm, whose monthly data on labor market conditions and inflation is consumed by a global audience of economists, investors, business...
Asia-Pacific markets traded higher, tracking Wall Street gains overnight.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.41% after hitting a fresh record high on Thursday, while the Topix added 0.61%. South...
Both the STOXX 50 and STOXX 600 hovered around the flatline on Friday, as investors adopted a cautious stance ahead of further developments in trade talks between US President Trump and Chinese...
Poland rejected on Friday a suggestion by Donald Trump that Russian drone incursions into its airspace could have been a mistake, a rare contradiction of the U.S. president from one of Washington's...