If it just seems like the first Friday of the month wasn't the same without being able to pore through the Bureau of Labor Statistics' hotly watched monthly jobs report, don't worry. You probably didn't miss much. While the BLS has gone dark with the shutdown in Washington, other reports outside the government data suggest the labor market just plodded along in September. The Dow Jones consensus forecast was for growth of 51,000 in nonfarm payrolls with the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.3%. High-frequency data that includes job postings, private payrolls and state-by-state figures...
U.S. President Donald Trump again called for Powell to cut rates.Economic activity might ‘fall off' in summer, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said.The Trump administration could overhaul the U.S. State Department.Fees on Chinese-built vessels will be imposed by the Trump administration.Ukraine said it had signed the outline of a mineral deal with the U.S.Tesla and Alphabet are announcing first-quarter earnings this week.An independent central bank is seen by most (including this newsletter) as the bedrock of a functional economy. Officials steer the economy by calibrating the...
China's ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, has urged Washington to seek common ground with Beijing and pursue peaceful coexistence while warning that China stood ready to retaliate in the escalating trade war. Speaking at a public event in Washington on Saturday, details of which were posted on the Chinese embassy's web site, Xie said tariffs would devastate the global economy and drew a parallel between the Great Depression and tariffs imposed by the U.S. in 1930. Referring to concepts in traditional Chinese medicine like the need to balance the opposing forces of yin and yang,...
President Donald Trump said he was reluctant to continue ratcheting up tariffs on China because it could stall trade between the two countries, and insisted Beijing had repeatedly reached out in a bid to broker a deal. Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, said officials he believed represented the Chinese leader Xi Jinping had sought to start talks. But he repeatedly sidestepped direct questions about whether he and Xi had been in direct contact. "I have a very good relationship with President Xi, and I think it's going to continue. And I would say they have reached...
Initial jobless claims in the United States fell by 9,000 from the previous week to 215,000 on the second week of April, contrasting with market expectations that they would rise by 1,000 to 225,000, to mark the lowest number of new claims in over two months. The result continued to reflect a historically tight labor market in the US to extend the momentum from the latest jobs report. In the meantime, continuing claims rose by 41,000 from to 1,885,000 in the prior week, extending their volatile momentum. Source: Trading Economics
The Trump administration confirmed Wednesday morning that the base tariff on products imported into the U.S. from China remains at 145%, after a previously released fact sheet caused confusion in Asian hours. The White House, in a fact sheet on critical minerals released Tuesday afternoon Washington time (early Wednesday in Asia) included language that said China "now faces tariffs of up to 245% on imports into the United States as a result of its retaliatory actions." That language was picked up by some Asian media outlets and Asia-based market analysts who, in the overnight Washington...
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...
The U.S. government shut down much of its operations on Wednesday as deep partisan divisions prevented Congress and the White House from reaching a funding deal, setting off what could be a long,...