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...
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to the leaders of China, India and three ex-Soviet states on Friday in a flurry of calls to brief them on his contacts with the United States about the war in Ukraine. Putin met U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Wednesday, after which the Kremlin said a summit between Putin and Trump could take place as early as next week. No venue, date or agenda have been announced. Trump, pressing for an end to the 3-1/2-year war, had set a deadline that expires on Friday for Russia to agree to peace or face new sanctions on Moscow and...
New Delhi has put on hold its plans to procure new U.S. weapons and aircraft, according to three Indian officials familiar with the matter, in India's first concrete sign of discontent after tariffs imposed on its exports by President Donald Trump dragged ties to their lowest level in decades. India had been planning to send Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to Washington in the coming weeks for an announcement on some of the purchases, but that trip has been cancelled, two of the people said. Trump on Aug. 6 imposed an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods as punishment for Delhi's purchases...
The Federal Reserve is seen as more likely to slash interest rates at its upcoming policy meeting in September following President Donald Trump's nomination of a temporary governor of the central bank, according to analysts at JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM). In a note following the announcement, the bank pulled forward its expectation for the next 25 basis point cut to September. It had previously predicted that such a reduction would come in at the Fed's gathering in December. "We continue to look for three like-sized cuts at the subsequent three meetings before pausing indefinitely," the...
US President Donald Trump said Thursday he will nominate Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran to fill the final months of a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve, as the White House seeks a permanent member for the central bank's board of governors and continues its search for a new Fed chairman. Miran has called for a complete overhaul of Fed governance and will take over from Fed Governor Adriana Kugler following her surprise resignation last week, as she returns to her tenured professorship at Georgetown University. The term expires January 31, 2026, and must be confirmed by...
Russia's deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin may meet with U.S. President Donald Trump next week, but said he was not aware of any planned meeting between Putin and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy. "As far as I heard, there are a number of locations, but they agreed to something that they don't want to disclose. The timeline is, I think, next week, but that's again judging from what presidents said themselves," Polyanskiy told reporters about the Putin-Trump meeting. "I haven't heard about any meeting planned with...
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,...