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☆ US dollar flat, but on track for eight straight weeks of gains; yuan sinks
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-08 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Despite Friday's pullback, the dollar index was headed for eight straight weeks of gains, the longest such streak since 2014. "There's a lot of reasoning to ask whether dollar strength is going too far." In afternoon trading, the dollar index , which measures the greenback against six major peers, was flat at 105.05. That said, Vassili Serebriakov, FX strategist, at UBS in New York, said while eight weeks are an unusually long stretch of dollar strength, the currency's gains are getting smaller every week. The euro , the largest component in the dollar index, was on track for eight straight weeks of losses and down 0.7% on the week.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Amo Sahota, Sahota, Vassili, Sterling, Shunichi Suzuki, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Samuel Indyk, Rae Wee, Shri Navaratnam, Gerry Doyle, Angus MacSwan, Mark Heinrich, Diane Craft Organizations: REUTERS, FX, U.S, Apple, Federal Reserve, UBS, greenback, Finance, Thomson Locations: San Francisco, China, New York, U.S, Germany, Europe's, Canada, United States, Japan, London, Singapore

☆ Dollar firmer on solid US data; China's yuan tumbles to 16-year low
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-07 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Japanese yen and U.S. dollar banknotes are seen with a currency exchange rate graph in this illustration picture taken June 16, 2022. China's onshore yuan , on the other hand, slid to a 16-year low versus the greenback, under pressure from a property slump, weak consumer spending, and shrinking credit growth in the world's second-largest economy. Against a basket of currencies including the euro and sterling, the dollar rose 0.2% to 105.03, after earlier touching a fresh six-month peak. The index also climbed to a six-month high on Tuesday, as the U.S. services sector unexpectedly gained steam in August. ONSHORE YUAN HITS 2007 LEVELSThe onshore yuan sank to 7.3299 per dollar, its weakest since December 2007.

Persons: Florence Lo, Brad Bechtel, BoE, Andrew Bailey, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Joice Alves, Rae Wee, Zhou, Sharon Singleton, Chizu Nomiyama, Nick Zieminski, Andrea Ricci Organizations: U.S, REUTERS, Federal Reserve, Jefferies, Reuters, New Zealand, European Central Bank, Bank of England, Thomson Locations: U.S, New York, China, Beijing, Japan, Bank, London

☆ Dollar rises to six-month high after US data; weak yen prompts warning
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The greenback recovered against most currencies after the data, with the euro and sterling hitting three-month lows and the yen touching session troughs. The euro and sterling fell to three-month lows after the data and were last flat at $1.0726 and down 0.5% at $1.2505 , respectively. Data showed the Institute for Supply Management (ISM)'s non-manufacturing PMI rose to 54.5 last month, the highest since February and up from 52.7 in July. Against the yen, the dollar trimmed losses, last down little changed at 147.69 yen. The dollar showed little reaction to the report.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Helen, Susan Collins, Christopher Waller, Waller, Masato Kanda, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Samuel Indyk, Ankur Banerjee, Savio D'Souza, Alexandra Hudson, Josie Kao Organizations: REUTERS, Institute for Supply Management, Reuters, Monex USA, Federal, Fed, Boston, CNBC, Ministry of Finance, Thomson Locations: Washington, U.S, Kanda, London, Singapore

☆ Stocks fall, dollar and yields up after US services data
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Caroline Valetkevitch | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., August 15, 2023. Weighing heavily on Wall Street stock indexes, shares of Apple (AAPL.O) fell 3.6% after the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that China had banned officials at central government agencies from using iPhones and other foreign-branded devices for work. Some investors said the data may add to signs that interest rates could remain elevated for longer. The Nasdaq ended more than 1% lower, leading declines on Wall Street. In other data, manufacturing activity in Germany, Britain and the euro zone declined, while their service sectors fell into contraction territory.

Persons: Brendan McDermid, Susan Collins, Jeffrey Roach, Caroline Valetkevitch, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Nell Mackenzie, Kane Wu, Edmund Klamann, Sam Holmes, Will Dunham, Sharon Singleton Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, REUTERS, U.S, Apple, Treasury, Wall, Wall Street Journal, Institute for Supply Management, U.S . Federal, Fed Bank of Boston, Nasdaq, . Technology, Dow Jones, LPL, Brent, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S, China, Germany, Britain, New York, London

☆ Bitcoin hits two-week peak after Grayscale spot bitcoin ETF ruling
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Representations of cryptocurrency Bitcoin are placed on a PC motherboard, in this illustration taken June 16, 2023. "Despite the inevitable SEC appeal, to our mind there is no doubt now, spot BTC ETFs are coming to the US. He also expects pent up U.S. demand to positively impact bitcoin prices and help global acknowledgement of crypto as a new asset class. The SEC last year rejected Grayscale's application for a spot bitcoin ETF, arguing the proposal did not meet anti-fraud and investor protection standards. So far this month and despite Tuesday's sharp gains, both bitcoin and ether were down 6% and nearly 8%, respectively.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Tim Bevan, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Tom Wilson, Alun John, Josie Kao Organizations: REUTERS, Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, District of Columbia, BTC, ETC Group, U.S, Supreme, Fidelity, Federal Reserve, Thomson Locations: District, Washington, New York, London

☆ A Local’s Guide to Majorca
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-25 | by ( Gisela Williams | Richard Pedaline | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

T’s new monthly travel series, Flocking To, highlights places you might already have on your wish list, sharing tips from frequent visitors and locals alike. Majorca, the largest of Spain’s Balearic Islands, has been a classic summer destination for Europeans and Brits for decades. In the last few years, a number of artists and designers have left larger cities in Europe and moved to Majorca. For the first installment of our series of Flocking To travel guides, we asked four locals or frequent visitors to Majorca to share the places they love most. One word of advice for first-time visitors: Majorca sprawls across roughly 1,400 square miles (it’s about the size of Long Island), so if you’re planning on exploring, you might want to rent a car.

Persons: helipads, Frédéric Chopin, George Sand, Robert Graves, Laura Riding, Deià —, Gertrude Stein —, Joan Miró, Miquel Barceló, ikat Locations: Majorca, Balearic, Polish, French, Valldemossa, British, American, Deià, Barcelona, Palma ., Asia, Europe, Sóller, Palma’s Old, Long

☆ Nvidia drops from record high, tracking market fall; AI bets support outlook
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-22 | by ( Medha Singh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

A view of a Nvidia logo at their headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan May 31, 2023. Rising bets that Nvidia's revenue target will once again surpass Wall Street estimates have lifted the stock about 19% from a two-month low hit last week. That pushed its market capitalization above $1 trillion, making its stock the best performer on the S&P 500 index (.SPX). At least 19 brokerages have this month raised their target price on Nvidia, pushing the median view to $500, which is a 6.5% increase to the stock's last closing price. If Nvidia were to miss (expectations), this market would be in a world of pain," Dick said.

Persons: Ann Wang, Dennis Dick, Brian Mulberry, Goldman Sachs, Dick, Medha Singh, Amruta Khandekar, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Anil D'Silva, Arun Koyyur, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: REUTERS, Nvidia, Dow, Nasdaq, Wall, Triple D Trading, Reuters Graphics, Big Tech, Zacks Investment Management, Reuters, Thomson Locations: Taipei, Taiwan, Bengaluru, Bengalaru, New York

☆ When art and money meet
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-11 | by ( Amanda Taub | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I’ve often thought that if one was looking for niche curses to place on enemies, “May you be profiled by Patrick Radden Keefe” would be a particularly potent option. Amid such company, Larry Gagosian, the global art-market king who is the subject of Radden Keefe’s latest profile, gets off relatively lightly. I was reminded of one of my favorite exhibitions of all time, “The Steins Collect,” which I saw at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York a decade ago. Regular readers will know that I like biographies about artists, so you might have expected the Gagosian profile to send me reaching for more of those. (I wonder what Lewis, who studied art history as a Princeton undergraduate before going into finance and then journalism, would make of Gagosian.)

Persons: I’ve, “, Patrick Radden Keefe, Guzmán Loera, El, Gerry Adams, Larry Gagosian, Radden, Radden Keefe, Gagosian, Matisse, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Michael Lewis, Lewis Organizations: New Yorker, Irish Republican, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wall, Princeton Locations: Mexican, New York

☆ US dollar recovers from inflation-related losses; yen slumps
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-10 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The greenback climbed to five-week peaks against the yen of 144.735 , and last traded up 0.7% at 144.71 yen. The recovery of the dollar against both the euro and yen pushed the dollar index up 0.1% to 102.56 . Earlier in the session, the dollar dropped after data showed the consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.2% last month, matching the gain in June. Investors are also on the lookout for possible intervention by the Japan to lift the yen. In September, Japan intervened when the dollar rose above 145 yen, pushing the pair to around 140 yen as the Ministry of Finance bought the yen to weaken the dollar.

Persons: Florence Lo, Yen, Helen, It's, Francisco Federal Reserve Bank Mary Daly, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Alun John, Mark Potter, Andrea Ricci, Richard Chang Organizations: REUTERS, Monex USA, Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, Federal, Market, Fed, Labor Department, Analysts, Ministry of Finance, Thomson Locations: U.S, Washington, Japan, London

☆ Musk says fight with Zuckerberg to be live-streamed on X
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File PhotoNEW YORK/BENGALARU Aug 6 (Reuters) - Elon Musk said in a social media post on Sunday that his proposed fight with Meta (META.O) Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg would be live-streamed on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. "Zuck v Musk fight will be live-streamed on X. Zuckerberg, responding on his social media app Threads, said late Sunday: "I'm ready today. When a user on X asked Musk the point of the fight, Musk responded by saying "It's a civilized form of war. Musk then said he would start training if the cage fight took shape.

Persons: Elon Musk, Tingshu Wang, Mark Zuckerberg, Musk, Zuckerberg, hasn't, Juby Babu, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Alex Richardson, Diane Craft Organizations: Tesla, REUTERS, Meta, Twitter, Thomson Locations: Beijing, China, Las Vegas, jiujitsu, Bengaluru, New York

☆ Warner Bros movie 'Barbie' ticket sales top $1 billion
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

NEW YORK, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Box-office ticket sales of the movie "Barbie" topped $1 billion in the United States and worldwide since its debut more than two weeks ago, Warner Bros. Pictures, a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD.O), announced on SundayIn a statement, Warner Bros. said the movie took in $459 million from domestic theaters and another $572.1 million overseas over the weekend, for a total of $1.0315 billion. "As distribution chiefs, we're not often rendered speechless by a film's performance, but Barbillion has blown even our most optimistic predictions out of the water," said Jeff Goldstein, president of domestic distribution for Warner Bros. Pictures, and Andrew Cripps, president of international distribution. "Barbie" ticket sales ranked second this year to "The Super Mario Bros," which was released in April and raked in a total of $1.357 billion at the box office. Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: we're, Jeff Goldstein, Andrew Cripps, Oscar, Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Barbie, Ken, Mattel, Mario Bros, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Leslie Adler Organizations: Warner Bros . Pictures, Warner Bros ., Warner Bros, Thomson Locations: United States

☆ Auction sizes set to increase at US Treasury refunding
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-28 | by ( Karen Brettell | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The Treasury earlier this month posted a $228 billion budget deficit for June, up 156% from a year earlier. "They have to grow coupon auction sizes - not just at the August refunding, not just at the November refunding, but also at the February refunding as well, because they are ultimately trying to balance this supply picture between bills vs coupons and this growing financing need," Swiber said. The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee (TBAC) recommends that bills make up 15-20% of the total marketable debt. The Treasury will release its quarterly borrowing requirement Monday afternoon, and its refunding news comes Wednesday at 0830 ET/1230 GMT. The Treasury surveyed dealers about their opinion on how some details of the program should work ahead of the August refunding.

Persons: Steven Zeng, Meghan Swiber, Swiber, Ben Jeffery, Karen Brettell, Davide Barbuscia, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Hugh Lawson Organizations: U.S . Treasury Department, Treasury, COVID, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, BMO Capital Markets, Thomson Locations: U.S

☆ Americans' wages are finally outpacing inflation. But could it last?
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-16 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

For more than two years, persistent and pervasive inflation has taken big bites out of Americans’ paychecks. Annual real weekly wages were up 0.6% last month, a rate that’s a tick below the 0.7% gain seen in February 2020. June also marked the second consecutive month of year-over-year real hourly wage growth — the first back-to-back months of gains since early 2021. Fears of a dreaded “wage-price spiral” — when rising wages and prices feed into each other — have made a bogeyman out of wage growth. And finally, supply-side inflation has drastically cooled to the point where annual inflation is practically flat — which, ideally, gives firms more wiggle room to pay workers, she said.

Persons: hasn’t, ’, That’s, ”, William Ferguson, Gertrude B, Austin, it’s, Alex Pelle, “, Sung Won Sohn, Ben Bernanke, ” Pelle, Julia Pollak, they’ve Organizations: Minneapolis CNN, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Grinnell College, stoke, Mizuho Securities, Loyola Marymount University, SS, San Francisco Fed, BLS Locations: Minneapolis, Iowa

☆ US dollar stumbles, drops to more than one-year low as inflation eases in June
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] U.S. one hundred dollar notes are seen in this picture illustration taken in Seoul February 7, 2011. The greenback also hit its lowest against the Swiss franc since early 2015 after the inflation report. Data showed core U.S. consumer prices rose just 0.2% in June, compared with forecasts for a gain of 0.3%. The monthly rise in core prices was the smallest since August 2021. Against the yen, the dollar dropped to a six-week low of 138.17 yen .

Persons: Lee Jae, Simon Harvey, Jordan Rochester, Sterling, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Ann Saphir, Chris Reese, Andrea Ricci Organizations: REUTERS, Swiss, Swiss National Bank, Nomura, Bank of England, Thomson Locations: Seoul, Swiss, U.S, London, Norwegian, Swedish, United States

☆ US dollar plunges to more than one-year low as inflation eases in June
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-12 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] U.S. one hundred dollar notes are seen in this picture illustration taken in Seoul February 7, 2011. The greenback also hit its lowest against the Swiss franc since early 2015 after the inflation report. "The Fed may have talked itself into a corner with a July 26th rate hike. Against the yen, the dollar dropped to a six-week low of 138.17 yen . The pound is being driven by expectations for the Bank of England to deliver more rate rises to tame UK inflation, which is the highest of any major economy.

Persons: Lee Jae, Simon Harvey, Brian Jacobsen, Sterling, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Chuck Mikolajczak, Ann Saphir, Chris Reese Organizations: REUTERS, Swiss, Swiss National Bank, Core, CPI, Annex Wealth Management, Bank of England, Thomson Locations: Seoul, Swiss, Core U.S, U.S, London, Norwegian, Swedish, Menomonee Falls , Wisconsin, New York, San Francisco

☆ US dollar drops to three-week low as Fed rate hikes nearly done
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-10 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

In afternoon trading, the dollar index , which tracks the U.S. currency against a basket of major peers, slid 0.3% to 101.98, a three-week low. With U.S. nonfarm payrolls out of the way, attention turns to U.S. inflation data due on Wednesday. The Norwegian crown firmed against the dollar and euro following Norway's inflation data. The Chinese yuan slumped against the dollar after weak inflation numbers in the world's second-largest economy. The weak Chinese data dragged down the Australian and New Zealand dollars, which are often used as liquid proxies for the Chinese yuan.

Persons: gainers, Mary Daly, nonfarm, Erik Nelson, Wells, Nelson, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Alun John, Rae Wee, Jamie Freed, Ed Osmond, Emelia, Will Dunham, Sharon Singleton Organizations: Federal Reserve, San Francisco Fed, U.S, CPI, New, New Zealand, Thomson Locations: U.S, Wells Fargo, London, Europe, China, Norwegian, New Zealand, Singapore

☆ Wall Street wealth helps boost endowments at posh New York City private schools
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The tuition to attend private day schools in New York City can range from $58,000 to about $65,000 per year. Roughly 20% of school children attend private schools in New York City, according to think tank Manhattan Institute. With larger endowments and higher income from tuition, New York City private schools have bigger investment portfolios as well, which include long-term investments. New York City private schools have yet to report figures for 2022, when the S&P 500 fell 19%. Tuitions at New York City private schools are also outpacing those of their counterparts around the country.

Persons: outsized, Horace Mann, Walter Dillingham, Dillingham, Myra McGovern, McGovern, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Alden Bentley, Mark Porter Organizations: YORK, Manhattan Institute, Wilmington Trust, National Association of Independent Schools, New York, New, Internal Revenue Service, Horace, Brearley School, Prep Day School, Little Red School House, Harlem Academy, Tuitions, Thomson Locations: New York, New York City, Wilmington, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, NAIS, Washington, Kansas City

☆ Does the Hudson Valley Beat Malibu? Ask Lorraine Toussaint.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( Joanne Kaufman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The wildfire that destroyed Lorraine Toussaint’s house in Malibu, Calif., in November of 2018 did not leave her unsheltered — she had a rental apartment in Midtown Manhattan — but it did leave her unmoored. Home has to have dirt and plants,” said the Trinidad-and-Tobago-born Ms. Toussaint, 63, a series regular on the CBS crime drama “The Equalizer,” who is spending her summer playing Gertrude in the Shakespeare in the Park production of “Hamlet.” (Performances run through Aug. Almost exactly a year after that signal loss, Ms. Toussaint was shooting an indie film in and around Rhinebeck, N.Y., and began to explore. “I was really kind of desperate to find a place that would let me escape New York,” she said. “I love all that the city has to offer, but it’s a lot for me.”She had looked at a raft of prospective hideaways in New Jersey, but was now caught by the charms of the Hudson Valley.

Persons: Lorraine Toussaint’s, —, “, ”, Toussaint, Gertrude Organizations: CBS Locations: Malibu , Calif, Midtown Manhattan, Trinidad, Tobago, Rhinebeck, N.Y, New York, New Jersey, Hudson

While there has been some scrambling to amend contracts linked to Libor over the past month, the transition was well telegraphed and no major issues are expected, loan and derivatives market participants and lawyers said in interviews. "I feel like it has been two to three years now that we have been re-papering all the legacy loans and legacy securities we purchased tied to Libor," said Scott DiMaggio, co-head of fixed income, at Alliance Bernstein. Friday at 11:55 a.m. British Summer Time (1055 GMT) marked the last publication for the 1-month, 3-month and 6-month U.S.-dollar Libor interest rates. Other U.S. dollar tenors were largely phased out for new contracts at the end of 2021 along with Libor rates linked to other currencies. Derivatives markets based on Libor had already mostly moved to new benchmarks without major disruption, while some corners of the loan markets, such as syndicated loans, have been busy with contract amendments, market participants said.

Persons: Scott DiMaggio, Alliance Bernstein, Shah, Federal Reserve Bank of New York's, Libor, Tal Reback, Gennadiy Goldberg, John McCrank, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfus, Alden Bentley, Stephen Coates Organizations: YORK, Alliance, Regulators, Federal Reserve Bank of New, U.S, Britain's, Authority, Libor, TD Securities, Thomson Locations: London, Iran, U.S, New York

☆ Italian Men’s Wear Does a Power Edit
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-21 | by ( Guy Trebay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Concision — that was the word to come to mind after eight surprising days in this men’s wear capital, and in Florence. Did some unseen force take a blue pencil to all the slack narratives, rehashed inspirations, derivative references that prevailed in recent seasons? Suddenly everything seemed crisp and focused, like early Hemingway after he’d learned how to do Gertrude Stein. You could follow the lead of Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino, showing his first men’s wear collection in three years. Not coincidentally, the significant design gesture was the designer’s decision to emblazon some of the apparel and many accessories with text.

Persons: Concision, Hemingway, he’d, Gertrude Stein, Piccioli, Valentino, Hanya, ”, Yanagihara Organizations: Gabbana, T Locations: Florence

☆ Euro advances, surges to 15-year peak vs yen, after ECB lifts rates
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] Euro and U.S. dollar banknotes are seen in this illustration taken March 10, 2023. The ECB lifted rates by 25 basis points (bps), as expected, to 3.5%, the highest in 22 years. "There were hawkish elements in the latest ECB press conference, in particular the upwardly revised 2025 inflation forecasts. Versus the yen, the euro rose 1.2% to 153.52 , hitting 153.68 yen, the highest since September 2008, following the ECB decision. We have assumed for some time that the rate-cycle peak would be a negative for the dollar peak yields will bolster risk-taking and encourage investors to deploy capital away from the U.S.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Mark Wall, Christine, Lagarde, Jerome Powell, Shaun Osborne, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Samuel Indyk, Rocky Swift, Shweta Agarwal, Emelia, Jonathan Oatis Organizations: U.S, REUTERS, YORK, European Central Bank, ECB, Deutsche Bank, U.S . Federal Reserve, Bank of, Scotiabank, U.S ., Reuters, U.S . Labor Department, Thomson Locations: Bank of Japan, Toronto, New York, London

☆ US dollar falls, but off four-week lows, as Fed signals more rate hikes
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-14 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The dollar index was last down 0.3% at 103.01 after hitting a four-week low of 102.66 in the session. While signaling more rate increases, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a press briefing that the U.S. central bank was not so far away from its target on the benchmark fed funds rate. Officials now expect the fed funds rate to top out at 5.6% this year, implying two more 25 bps increases in 2023, up from the 5.1% estimate in the last set of forecasts released in March. He noted that in 2006, the fed funds rate stood at 5.25% from July 2006 to August 2007 before being cut in the wake of the global financial crisis. Elsewhere, sterling rose 0.4% against the dollar to $1.2660, after hitting its highest since April 2022 of $1.2699.

Persons: Jerome Powell, Chris Low, Louis, James Bullard's, James Bullard, Srijan, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Amanda Cooper, Jonathan Oatis, Lisa Shumaker, Richard Chang Organizations: NEW YORK, U.S, Federal Reserve, Market, Officials, FHN, Louis Fed, Traders, Bank of Japan, Bank of England, Thomson Locations: U.S, New York, London

The dollar made little progress as investors opted for riskier assets, with the Fed widely expected on Wednesday not to hike rates for the first time since January 2022. "Investors have been looking forward to a Fed pause in the rate hiking cycle since they started over a year ago. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) added 202.78 points, or 1.53%, to 13,461.92 in its biggest one-day percentage gain since May 26. Traders are pricing in a roughly 75% chance of the Fed keeping rates steady, and a 25% chance of a 25-basis-point rate hike, according to the CME FedWatch tool. Given said a Fed hike "would likely be very dollar-positive as it would go against current market expectations."

Persons: Brendan McDermid, Price, Burns McKinney, McKinney, Sterling, Helen, Brent, Sinéad Carew, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Elizabeth Howcroft, Andrew Heavens, Nick Zieminski, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, REUTERS, U.S, CPI, PPI Fed, Treasury, U.S . Federal Reserve, Brent, Consumer, Index, PPI, NFJ Investment, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, Traders, Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank of Canada, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan, Monex USA, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S, Dallas, Washington

☆ Opinion | What Economics and Hamlet Have in Common
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Peter Coy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In high school I memorized a scene from “Hamlet” in which the gloomy prince tries to persuade his mother to leave the usurper king, the brother of Hamlet’s murdered father. “Assume a virtue, if you have it not,” Hamlet implores Gertrude. And a few lines later: “Refrain tonight, / And that shall lend a kind of easiness / To the next abstinence: the next more easy; / For use almost can change the stamp of nature.”The idea that “use almost can change the stamp of nature” is embedded in economics, although I didn’t appreciate it in high school. “Virtue is an acquired practice,” the Nobel economics laureate James Heckman, Bridget Galaty and Haihan Tian wrote in a working paper released last month by the Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago. They added that this acquired practice “may eventually become the dominant preference of agents in the sense that it influences behaviors.”I’ll wager that’s exactly how Hamlet would have put it if he’d received graduate training in economics instead of kicking around a castle in Denmark.

Persons: Hamlet’s, “, Gertrude, ”, James Heckman, Bridget Galaty, Haihan Tian, Becker Friedman, he’d Organizations: University of Chicago Locations: Denmark

☆ Crypto insurer Evertas authorized to offer largest single crypto insurance policy
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-02 | by ( Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

"This is the single largest policy that can be approved from one insurance company," Evertas chief executive officer J. Gdanski told Reuters. The $420 million coverage applies to crime-related policies involving the theft of private keys - or codes used to authorize transactions or prove ownership - held by a custodian. The previous single policy limit for Evertas was $5 million. Being a coverholder gave Evertas the authority to write crypto insurance on behalf of Arch, one of Lloyd's syndicate members, part of a group of insurance entities that band together to provide coverage for large risks. The London insurer has also authorized Evertas to provide insurance on crypto mining hardware of up to $200 million, also the largest single policy coverage, Gdanski said.

Persons: Evertas, J, Gdanski, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Alden Bentley, Mark Potter Organizations: YORK, Insurance, Reuters, Evertas, Arch Capital, TRM Labs, Thomson Locations: London, Gdanski

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