DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Morning Bid: Still seeking decisive stimulus in China
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

A look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Sonali DesaiDisappointment has been the prevailing sentiment so far this week as investors grow impatient with the wait for more decisive Chinese stimulus measures. China delivered the expected 10 basis-point reduction to its lending benchmarks, but disappointed those looking for a bigger cut to the mortgage-linked five-year loan prime rate. Chinese property stocks took a hit and the yuan came under further pressure, reversing much of its bounce against the U.S. dollar late last week when stimulus expectations were driving price action. Still, that helped Australian shares build on recent gains to reach a seven-week high, bucking declines across Asian bourses where rising Treasury yields and souring anticipation of Chinese stimulus efforts spurred broad declines. The wary investor mood is likely to spill into Europe, where the data calendar is confined to German producer prices for May.

Persons: Sonali Desai, Antony Blinken's, Luis de, Pablo Hernandez de Cos, Olli Rehn, Elizabeth McCaul, Luis de Guindos, St Louis, James Bullard, Christopher Cushing Organizations: Sonali, U.S ., Reuters, Bank of Australia's, European Central Bank, Bank of Spain, Bank of Finland, St, Barcelona School of, Thomson Locations: Asia, China, Europe, Luis de Guindos, Hungary

☆ Just days after pausing rate hikes, Fed official calls for more increases
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Bryan Mena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Washington, DC CNN —The dust has barely settled on the Federal Reserve’s decision to pause its aggressive rate-hiking campaign — but in public appearances Friday, central bank officials have a clear message: Keep hiking. In one of the first speeches, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said Friday that additional rate increases are necessary to bring inflation down to the central bank’s 2% target. The Fed’s decision to restart hikes depends on what data show in the coming weeks and months. It is the job of bank leaders to deal with interest rate risk and nearly all bank leaders have done exactly that,” Waller said. A representative of the event said the conference wasn’t being recorded and that only registrants who paid a fee were able to attend.

Persons: Christopher Waller, ” Waller, ”, Gregory Daco, Ernst & Young, ” Powell, Waller, “, Michael Gapen, Gapen, they’re, Louis President James Bullard, Thomas Barkin Organizations: DC CNN, Federal, Norges Bank, International Monetary Fund, Ernst &, Bank, BofA Global Research, CNN, Federal Reserve Bank of St, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Maryland Government Finance, Association Locations: Washington, Oslo, Norway, ”

☆ The job market held up in May. But the Fed may have already decided to pause
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Bryan Mena | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Washington, DC CNN —The US labor market picked up momentum in May, once again defying expectations of a slowdown. Many economists, including those at the Fed, still expect a recession later in the year. The labor market and signs of future disinflationThe May jobs report mostly showed that the labor market held up. Some top economists have argued that the strong labor market has had a minor, albeit growing, impact on inflation. Hawkish Fed officials still think the Fed’s job isn’t done.

Persons: That’s, Joe Biden’s, ”, Philip Jefferson, Patrick Harker, “, ” Harker, It’s, ” Julia Pollak, ZipRecruiter’s, you’ve, you’d, Dave Gilbertson, hasn’t, Ben Bernanke, ” Jack Macdowell, Louis President James Bullard, Bullard, Louis Fed’s, Louis, Jerome Powell, there’s, Ian Shepherdson, Eugenio Alemán, Raymond James Organizations: DC CNN, Federal, Fed, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, National Association for Business Economics, CNN, Employers, of Labor Statistics, BLS, UKG, The Palisades Group, Hawkish Fed, Federal Reserve Bank of St, Louis Fed, Pantheon Locations: Washington, Washington ,

☆ Futures muted as focus shifts to jobs data amid recession fears
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SummarySummary Companies Futures mixed: Dow flat, S&P down 0.05%, Nasdaq down 0.24%April 6 (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures were subdued on Thursday as investors awaited jobs data to gauge the impact of the Federal Reserve's aggressive policy tightening on the U.S. economy. Weak data from services and manufacturing sectors this week has pointed to slowing growth, fueling hopes in the market of a pause in interest rate hikes. ET, Dow e-minis were up 9 points, or 0.03%; and S&P 500 e-minis were down 2 points, or 0.05%. The benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq (.IXIC) are on track to notch declines for the first time in four weeks. The U.S. stock market will be shut on Friday for the Good Friday holiday.

The slew of soft economic data has added to fears of an impending recession in the world's largest economy, putting a lid on risk appetite and sending traders in search of some safe haven assets. The U.S. dollar index was up 0.1% at 101.95, having slid to a two-month trough of 101.40 in the previous session. The Japanese yen also found some support from safe haven bids and was last roughly 0.2% higher at 131.01 per dollar. "Weak economic data continues to weigh in on investor sentiment, triggering a flight-to-safety bid," analysts at Westpac said in a note to clients. The soft data sent U.S. shares lower on Wednesday STX/ while Treasuries advanced, which saw the benchmark 10-year yield falling to its lowest since September .

☆ Morning Bid: And it was all going so well
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LONDON, April 6 (Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Amanda Cooper. The prospect of a sustained string of interest rate rises last year led to an epic sell-off in bonds and battered sectors of the stock market, such as tech. As 2023 dawned, data showed the economy was holding up, the consumer was resilient, and, just as importantly, so were corporate profits. But this week's data releases have served as a reminder that policy transmission - the effect of changes in interest rates on the real world - is alive and well. Twelve months and nearly 500 basis points of rate rises will eventually take their toll.

Shares of major U.S. banks JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Wells Fargo (WFC.N) and Bank of America (BAC.N) dropped more than 2% in premarket trade. Shares of regional lenders First Republic Bank (FRC.N), PacWest Bancorp (PACW.O), Western Alliance Bancorp (WAL.N) and Truist Financial Corp (TFC.N) fell between 2.1% and 2.8%. European banks also came under pressure, with a report of a U.S. probe on Credit Suisse and UBS (UBS.N) further souring the mood. ET, Dow e-minis were down 304 points, or 0.94%, S&P 500 e-minis were down 31.5 points, or 0.79%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were down 59 points, or 0.46%. Reporting by Amruta Khandekar and Ankika Biswas; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Vinay DwivediOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Premarket stocks: SpinCos are the new SPACs
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

The parent company may distribute the new company’s stock to its shareholders, allowing them to own shares in both. These smaller, newly formed companies are still in the process of establishing themselves in the market and often have lower profit margins than their parent company. It costs a lot to borrow these days and investors are looking for high profits and value stocks, writes Goldman. The Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes have added significantly to the cost of government debt. “As we add trillion after trillion to our debt, the problem only gets worse and compounds.

☆ U.S. inflation roller coaster prompts fresh look at long-ignored money supply
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Michael S. Derby | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The recent decline in the money supply comes as the Fed has been aggressively raising rates to push inflation back to its 2% target. That dynamic changed in the last two years, though, with money supply trends moving in roughly the same direction as inflation pressures: As money supply rose rapidly into early 2022, so did inflation; since M2 started a persistent decline last summer, inflation pressures have also receded. To be sure, measuring money supply is complicated, with no one way to do it. Bullard, acknowledging the cooling off of money supply, said this downshift in money "bodes well for disinflation," which means the Fed is likely to face an enduring trend of lower price pressures. Economists, meanwhile, are still taking on board whether money supply is something they need to pay greater mind to as they contemplate monetary policy and inflation.

☆ Fed’s Bullard Sees Need to Keep Up Rapid Pace of Rate Increases
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( David Harrison | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The Federal Reserve should keep on rapidly raising interest rates until they get above 5% in order to prevent a return of inflationary pressures, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said Wednesday. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal Live event, Mr. Bullard said it would be appropriate to raise rates by a half-percentage-point at the Fed’s Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting and continue pushing them up. Mr. Bullard said he sees a central bank policy rate of between 5.25% and 5.5% at the end of the year.

☆ Gold nudges lower as Fed members bat for higher interest rates
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Gold prices held steady near the key psychological level of $1,800 per ounce on Monday, supported by a pullback in the dollar and U.S. Treasury yields. Gold prices turned negative on Wednesday, erasing gains made on weak U.S. economic data yet staying above the $1,900 level, as key members of the Federal Reserve signaled their intent to keep pushing interest rates higher to combat inflation. The dollar pared losses from near multi-month lows and held steady, making gold less attractive for other currency holders. Spot gold fell 0.2% to $1,904.84 per ounce by 1:45 p.m. Earlier in the day, U.S. producer prices fell more than expected in December as the costs of energy products and food declined, offering evidence that inflation was slowing.

☆ Premarket stocks: Why Goldman Sachs isn't too worried about a recession
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

In their 2023 outlook, Goldman analysts noted that disagreement about the economic forecast abounds within their own circles. Bill Dudley, a former Goldman Sachs partner and president of the New York Fed, puts the chance of recession this year at about 70%. Goldman analysts say that even with a sour economy, they predict the 2023 investment return on the S&P 500 will most likely be between 9-12%. The Fed’s days of three-quarter-point rate hikes are behind us, said Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Patrick Harker in a blog post Friday. Better-than-expected price data shows that the Fed’s aggressive and economically painful rate hikes are successfully slowing the economy and fighting inflation, he said.

Dow component (.DJI) Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) rose 1.9% after Cowen & Co upgraded the drug distributor stock, citing its healthcare services business push. Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) soared 9.4%, rising the most among S&P 500 (.SPX) components after forecasting a smaller-than-expected drop in annual sales. Energy (.SPNY) led gains among the 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes, bouncing off four-week lows by adding 2%. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 2.70-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and by a 1.12-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P index recorded 19 new 52-week highs and two new lows, while the Nasdaq recorded 49 new highs and 122 new lows.

SummarySummary Companies Best Buy up, sees smaller annual sales dropMedtronic down, lowers FY profit outlookTesla attempts to recoup losses post slumpFutures up: Dow 0.44%, S&P 0.49%, Nasdaq 0.40%Nov 22 (Reuters) - Wall Street's main indexes were set to open higher on Tuesday, with gains in shares of Walgreens and Best Buy helping investors assuage worries around the economic fallout of stricter COVID-19 curbs in China. Leading gains among S&P 500 (.SPX) components trading before the bell, Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) jumped 9.1% after forecasting a smaller-than-expected drop in annual sales ahead of the crucial holiday season. Dow component (.DJI) Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) rose 1.7% after Cowen & Co upgraded the drug distributor stock, citing its healthcare services business push. ET, Dow e-minis were up 148 points, or 0.44%, S&P 500 e-minis were up 19.25 points, or 0.49%, and Nasdaq 100 e-minis were up 46 points, or 0.4%. Analysts expect thin trading volumes as markets will be shut on Thursday for Thanksgiving holiday and will remain open for half day on Friday.

☆ Hoping for a Central-Bank Pivot? Forget the Fed and Look South
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Jon Sindreu | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Bonds denominated in currencies like the Brazilian real could have upside, because central banks in emerging markets started raising interest rates before the Federal Reserve, and could also be first in slashing them. Wall Street is currently obsessed with guessing when the Federal Reserve will stop raising interest rates. Rather than waiting for this much-discussed “pivot” in the U.S., however, investors may be better served by scouting out emerging markets first, especially Latin America. The stock-market rally that started earlier this month with a soft U.S. inflation figure has started to fade, as recent statements by officials cast doubt on the idea that the end of aggressive monetary tightening is nigh. Last week, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said rates would likely need to be set between 5% and 7%.

Search resuls for: "Louis President James Bullard"

15 mentions found