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...
United States (US) President Donald Trump hit the airwaves with a fresh round of commentary on a wide range of subjects on Tuesday. President Trump reiterated his intentions to treat trade balance as an imbalance that needs to be rectified in order for a country to reach maximum profitability, and also repeated his intentions to obtain questionably steep 'investment agreements' with individual companies. How these corporations are meant to invest directly in the US, outside of expanding regular operations that market share may not generate profitability from, remains unclear. Donald Trump...
Goldman Sachs has said it now sees a 35% chance of the U.S. entering a recession, down from a prior estimate of 45%, following an agreement between the U.S. and China that sparked hopes for an easing in recently intensifying trade tensions. In a note to clients, the brokerage also lifted its projection for U.S. gross domestic product growth this year by 0.5 percentage points to 1%. On Monday, Washington and Beijing announced that they had reached an agreement that would slash their sky-high respective tariffs on each other and pause the levies for 90 days. U.S. tariffs on China were...
The easing of trade tensions between the United States and China is a step in the right direction and helps reduce European fears of being flooded with Chinese goods redirected from the U.S. market, European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said. Speaking to reporters after a meeting of European Union finance ministers on Tuesday, Dombrovskis noted, however, that the reduction of tariffs after weekend talks in Switzerland was for 90 days and the tariff rates that remained were still high. "Obviously this easing of trade tensions between the U.S. and China is heading in the right...
The annual core consumer price inflation rate in the United States, which excludes volatile items like food and energy, stood at a four-year low of 2.8% in April 2025, unchanged from March and matching market forecasts. The shelter index, accounting for over two thirds of the total 12-month increase, was at 4%, matching March's reading. Increases were also seen for medical care (1%), motor vehicle insurance (+6.4%), education (+3.8%), and recreation (+1.6%). On a monthly basis, core consumer prices rose by 0.2% in April, up from the 0.1% increase in March, just below market expectations of...
The U.S.-China deal to lower the most aggressive import tariffs between the world's two largest economies could lessen the impact of their trade war, though the levies left in place are still steep and will leave a mark on the economy, Federal Reserve officials said on Monday. Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler said the 90-day pause on import levies at levels that threatened to shut down bilateral trade reduces chances that the U.S. central bank will need to lower interest rates in response to an economic slowdown. The outcome of the weekend meetings between Chinese and U.S. officials...
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...