The ISM Services PMI rose to 52.4 in October 2025 from 50 in September, beating forecasts of 50.8, pointing to the strongest expansion in the services sector since February. Both business activity (54.3 vs 49.9) and new orders (56.2 vs 50.4) rebounded while the continued contraction in employmet (48.2 vs 47.2) shows a lack of confidence in the continued strength of the economy. "There was no indication of widespread layoffs or reductions in force, but the federal government shutdown was mentioned several times as impacting business activity and generating concerns for future layoffs",...
Ukraine and the U.S. on Wednesday signed a deal heavily promoted by U.S. President Donald Trump that will give the United States preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals deals and fund investment in Ukraine's reconstruction. The two countries signed the accord in Washington after months of sometimes fraught negotiations, with uncertainty persisting until the last moment with word of an eleventh-hour snag. The accord establishes a joint investment fund for Ukraine's reconstruction as Trump tries to secure a peace settlement in Russia's three-year-old war in Ukraine. The agreement is...
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration reached out to China to initiate talks over a bitter tariff exchange between the two countries, a state-run Chinese media outlet reported on Wednesday. U.S. officials had reached out to China through various channels with the intent of negotiating on tariff issues, according to a post by Yuyuantantian, a Weibo (NASDAQ:WB) account affiliated with state broadcaster China Central Television. The report comes amid heightened speculation over U.S.-China trade talks, with Washington and Beijing offering contrasting views on negotiations. Trump claimed...
Price increases subsided in March, going by the Federal Reserve's preferred metric, bringing annualized inflation closer to the central bank's target in the month before the brunt of President Trump's new tariffs took effect. The personal-consumption-expenditures price index was flat last month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. After stripping out variable food and energy costs, core prices also were flat. Analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal thought prices would be flat month over month, or up 0.1% on the core reading. The cooler price increases pulled the 12-month PCE...
The U.S. economy contracted at an annualized rate of 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025, marking the first decline since the first quarter of 2022. This was a sharp reversal from 2.4% growth in the previous quarter and came in below market expectations of 0.3% growth, according to an advance estimate. A 41.3% surge in imports contributed to the slowdown, as businesses and consumers rushed to stockpile goods in anticipation of higher costs following a series of tariff announcements by the Trump administration. Consumer spending growth also cooled to 1.8%, the slowest pace since Q2 2023,...
Private business in the US added 62k workers to their payrolls in April of 2025, less than half of the downwardly revised 147k payrolls in the previous month and well below market expectations of 115k. It was the softest increase since July of last year, underscoring the impact of tariffs by the US government on businesses' intake of new labor. New employment rose by 34k in service providing industries, with increase in trade/transportation/utilities (21K) and financial activities (20K) offsetting the sharp declines in education/health services (-23K), and information (-8K). In turn,...
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...
American consumers struggling to access food assistance payments due to the government shutdown are unable to fill their shopping carts, and that's "hurtful," according to the company behind Stop...