Many people in China cheered the meeting Thursday between President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump, after months of escalating bilateral tensions. Every time the two leaders meet, it helps ease tensions and creates a "positive atmosphere," Alex Hongcai Xu, chair of Beijing Honglve Consulting, said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. "This atmosphere is beneficial for negotiations." "Each side lowering tariffs to below 10% would benefit capital flows and cooperation," Xu said. He noted that China can likely buy more U.S. soybeans and U.S.-made Boeing airplanes. Trump said Thursday...
Raphael Bostic of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta warned that rising price pressures over the next six to twelve months could intensify the Fed's challenges. A ton of economic scenarios that could play out, hard to assign probabilities.Outlook is for the economy to continue slowing, but also expect real uncertainty about what that means for jobs and inflation. Firms are still in a wait-and-see pattern around employment.Likely to be upward pressure on prices for six to 12 months; that puts pressure on the Fed. The most important question for the Fed is whether tariffs will shift prices...
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller is emerging as a top candidate to be the central bank's next chair, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. Waller has met with members of President Donald Trump's team, who are impressed with him, though he has not met with the president, Bloomberg News reported. A Fed spokesperson had no comment. "President Trump will continue to nominate the most competent and experienced individuals to deliver on his pledge to Make America Wealthy Again," White House spokesperson Kush Desai said. "Unless it comes from...
Initial jobless claims in the US rose by 7,000 from the previous week to 226,000 in the last week of July, firmly above market expectations of a softer increase to 221,000. In turn, outstanding jobless claims soared by 38,000 to 1,974,000 on the previous week, well above market expectations of 1,950,000 to mark the highest level of unemployment since November 2021. The results consolidated the view of a sharp slowdown in hiring and a softening labor market. Source: Trading Economics
Switzerland's government will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to decide its next move after its president returned home empty-handed from an 11th-hour trip to Washington aimed at averting a crippling 39% U.S. import tariff on Swiss goods. An urgent meeting of the seven-member Federal Council - Switzerland's governing cabinet - will take place in Bern in the early afternoon, the government said a post on X. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter left Washington on Wednesday without a new deal and did not meet with U.S. President Donald Trump or any of his top trade officials, two sources...
A worst-case scenario for India on U.S. tariffs is now the base case. New Delhi called Donald Trump's decision on Wednesday to double the levy on the South Asian nation's goods to 50% because of its Russian oil purchases "extremely unfortunate". That's an understatement. Negotiating down this high rate before it goes into effect in three weeks is now an urgent priority for Narendra Modi - and will require a major compromise from the Indian leader. The new rate can inflict serious pain on the $4 trillion economy. New Delhi failed to lower the initial 25% tariff unveiled by the U.S. president...
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...
US President Donald Trump said Thursday that he had agreed with President Xi Jinping to cut tariffs on China in exchange for Beijing cracking down on illegal fentanyl trade, resuming purchases of...