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...
President Donald Trump said on Thursday the United States will sign a minerals and natural resources deal with Ukraine shortly and that his efforts to achieve a peace deal for the country were going "pretty well" after his talks this week with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders. Trump made the comments at a White House event after signing an order to increase U.S. production of critical minerals. "We're doing very well with regard to Ukraine and Russia. And one of the things we are doing is signing a deal very shortly with respect to rare earths with Ukraine." Trump referred to his...
US citizens filing new applications for unemployment insurance rose to 223K for the week ending March 15, the US Department of Labor (DOL) reported on Thursday. This missed the preliminary estimate and was slightly higher than the previous week's revised count of 221K (revised from 220K). The report also highlighted the seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate at 1.2%, while the four-week moving average rose by 750 to 227K from the previous week's revised average. Additionally, Continuing Jobless Claims rose by 33K to 1.892 million for the week ending March 8. (Newsmaker23) Source:...
German producer prices rose by 0.7% year-on-year in February 2025, up from 0.5% in January but still below market consensus of 1%. However, this was the fourth consecutive month of producer inflation, mainly driven by higher prices of non-durable consumer goods (3.0%) and durable consumer goods (1.2%).In particular, capital goods costs also rose (2.0%), especially machinery (1.9%) and motor vehicles, trailers, and semi-trailers (1.4%). In addition, intermediate goods prices rose by 0.3%. Excluding energy, producer prices rose by 1.4%. Meanwhile, energy prices shrank by 0.8%, mainly due to...
Australian employment posted a surprise fall in February although the jobless rate stayed unchanged, a soft result that sent the local dollar lower. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday showed net employment fell 52,800 in February from January. That was well under market forecasts for a 30,000 rise. The jobless rate stayed at 4.1%, matching market expectations. The Australian dollar slipped 0.3% to $0.6341 after the data. Source: Reuters
President Donald Trump's plan to revive U.S. shipbuilding using massive fees on China-linked ship visits to American ports is causing U.S. coal inventories to swell and stoking uncertainty in the embattled agriculture market, as exporters struggle to find ships to send goods abroad. Trump is drafting an executive order that would rely on funding from a U.S. Trade Representative proposal to levy fines of up to $1.5 million on China-made ships or vessels from fleets that include ships made in China. Those potential port fees have limited the availability of ships needed to move agriculture,...
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...