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☆ Oil rises 2% on lower-than-expected US inflation data
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Arathy Somasekhar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Prices rose about 2% on Tuesday. The CPI rose 6% year-on-year in February. Markets shrugged off a small build in U.S. crude oil stocks, attributing it in part to a congressionally mandated release of oil from the U.S. emergency reserve and lower exports at the start of the month. Meanwhile, the global oil market could see tightness in the second half of 2023, which would push oil prices higher, said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency. In a negative for oil demand, the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday trimmed its 2023 global growth outlook, citing the impact of higher interest rates.

☆ Brainard: US banking system is ‘sound’ and ‘stable’
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Minneapolis CNN —The broader US banking system remains sound and stable, but the two regional banks that failed were “poorly managed” and “took unacceptable risks,” White House economic adviser Lael Brainard told CNN’s Poppy Harlow in an interview Wednesday at Semafor’s World Economy Summit in Washington, DC. “The banking system, it’s very sound, it’s stable; the core of the banking system has a great deal of capital that was put in place in the wake of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis,” said Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council. They failed, and the president took strong actions along with the Secretary of the Treasury and the banking regulators,” she said. “Those actions reassured Americans their deposits are safe, the banking system is sound; but it was also important to the president that the executives of those failed banks were held accountable and, very important, that taxpayer money not be at risk,” she continued. “When those strong safeguards were put in place [through Dodd-Frank], it materially strengthened the banking banking system,” she said.

☆ Senate Democrats led by Elizabeth Warren press federal bank regulators to implement stronger capital requirements
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Chelsey Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats are pressing federal banking regulators to toughen bank capital requirements following back-to-back congressional hearings where officials testified about the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. "We write to urge you follow through with establishing strong capital requirements that protect consumers and taxpayers, and preserve the safety and soundness of our banking system," Warren, along with Sens. Under the "stress capital buffer" implemented at the time, the capital requirements for banking firms is determined annually according to supervisory stress tests. The lawmakers urged regulators to enforce strong capital requirements to fend off aggressive lobbying from Wall Street and safeguard against more bank failures. "In order to prevent future bank crises and protect working Americans, I urge your agencies to quickly implement strong capital requirements and resist industry pressure to weaken or delay these requirements."

☆ Premarket stocks: How big of a problem is greedflation?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

“Executives at SVB and Signature [Bank] took wild risks and must be held accountable for exploding their banks,” Warren said. Republican Senators say the Fed’s focus on climate change led to banking turmoilRepublican Senators repeatedly insinuated on Tuesday that the recent US banking turmoil came as a result of the Federal Reserve’s focus on climate change. In his opening statement, Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the ranking member of the banking committee, called the Fed’s focus on climate change a waste of time. It’s what our supervisors do all the time.”In an interview with Montana Public Radio in 2014, Daines said that “the jury’s still out” on whether climate change is real. The public reasonably expects supervisors to require that banks understand, and appropriately manage, their material risks, including the financial risks of climate change.”

The index of top European banks (.SX7P) was down 1% in early trading, with German banking giants Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Commerzbank (CBKG.DE) both falling 0.8%. The rescue of Credit Suisse, which followed the collapses of California-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) (SIVB.O) and New York-based Signature Bank (SBNY.O) ignited broader concerns about investors' exposure to a fragile banking sector. The decision to prioritise shareholders over Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bondholders rattled the $275 billion AT1 bond market and some Credit Suisse AT1 bondholders are seeking legal advice. "The AT1 instruments issued by Credit Suisse contractually provide that they will be completely written down in a 'viability event', in particular if extraordinary government support is granted," FINMA said. However, some watchers think the banking system is more vulnerable to rumour and rapid moves in an era of widespread social media use, posing a challenge for regulators trying to tamp down instability.

Morgan Stanley analyst Manan Gosalia, in a report earlier this week, set a target price of $54 for First Republic shares in a best-case scenario. "I have not considered or discussed anything having to do with blanket insurance or guarantees of deposits," she said. The Morgan Stanley report considered that a potential extension of FDIC insurance could bring a majority of First Republic's customers back. Even if it clinches a cash infusion, the lender will probably need to take losses on securities in its so-called held-to-maturity portfolio, the Morgan Stanley analysts wrote. In the worst-case scenario, First Republic's shares would sink to just $1, Morgan Stanley analysts estimated.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell sought to reassure investors about the soundness of the banking system, saying that the management of Silicon Valley Bank "failed badly," but that the bank's collapse did not indicate wider weaknesses in the banking system. "These are not weaknesses that are running broadly through the banking system," he said, adding that the takeover of Credit Suisse seemed to have been a positive outcome. The Federal Open Market Committee policy statement also said the U.S. banking system is "sound and resilient." The much-anticipated rate cut by the Fed, which had delivered eight previous rate hikes in the past year, sought to balance the risk of rampant inflation with the threat of instability in the banking system. The banking sector has been in turmoil after California regulators on March 10 closed Silicon Valley Bank in the largest U.S. bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis.

Morgan Stanley analyst Manan Gosalia, in a report earlier this week, set a target price of $54 for First Republic shares in a best-case scenario. That hope was reduced on Wednesday, after Yellen told a hearing of the U.S. Senate's Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services that the government "is not considering insuring all uninsured bank deposits." The Morgan Stanley report considered that a potential extension of FDIC insurance could bring a majority of First Republic's customers back. Even if it clinches a cash infusion, the lender will probably need to take losses on securities in its so-called held to maturity portfolio, the Morgan Stanley analysts wrote. In the worst-case scenario, First Republic's shares would sink to just $1, Morgan Stanley analysts estimated.

NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - JPMorgan (JPM.N) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon met Lael Brainard, the director of the White House National Economic Council on Wednesday, while in Washington this week, according to a person familiar with the situation. Brainard met with a range of business leaders including Dimon, part of a series of meetings she has had over the last month with business, labor, advocacy, and academic leaders, the source said. The CEOs of major banks gathered in Washington for a two-day meeting which started on Tuesday, sources familiar with the matter previously said. The banks were aiming to work out details for what needs to be done for First Republic within the coming 24 hours, another source said. On Tuesday, Reuters reported First Republic is examining how it can downsize and sell parts of its business, including some of its loan book, in a bid to raise cash and cut costs.

NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - JPMorgan (JPM.N) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon is scheduled to meet with Lael Brainard, the director of the White House's National Economic Council, during the executive's planned trip to Washington, according to a person familiar with the situation. The CEOs of major banks gathered in Washington for a two-day scheduled meeting which started on Tuesday, sources familiar with the matter previously said. The quarterly meeting of the Financial Services Forum included Dimon and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) CEO Brian Moynihan, who head the nation's two largest lenders, the sources said. The banks were aiming to work out details for what needs to be done for First Republic within the coming 24 hours, another source said. Eleven lenders, including the eight members of the Financial Services Forum, threw First Republic a lifeline of a combined $30 billion in deposits last week.

☆ Jamie Dimon and other big bank CEOs met with top Biden economist Lael Brainard
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Matt Egan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: 1 min

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☆ Junk fees cost consumers tens of billions annually, according to the White House
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Chelsey Cox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Fees on concert tickets, airfares, hotels and other so-called junk fees cost Americans tens of billions of dollars every year, often obscuring the full price of purchases from consumers, top economic experts said at the White House on Tuesday. Biden also called on state legislators to address junk fees at a March 8 virtual meeting with the White House. The eradication of junk fees is also a bipartisan issue with positive benefits for the economy, Brainard will say. She says recent surveys show 75% of consumers support cutting junk fees, "with strong support across party lines." "As an economist, I know that regulating junk fees has a strong foundation in decades of scholarship.

☆ Tech pressure, Yellen everywhere: How Washington scrambled as SVB collapsed
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Yellen heads to the White House, Brainard meets with her staff and holds Zoom calls in her wood-paneled office in the West Wing. Treasury staff hustle to get Yellen on CBS News' "Face the Nation" program on Sunday, in an attempt to reassure markets. White House officials draft news releases with various scenarios, uncertain until shortly before 6 p.m. if an acquisition can still happen. As he leaves Delaware to return to the White House, Biden tells reporters he will make a statement on Monday. Treasury and White House officials reach out to members of Congress and their staffs throughout the evening to explain the plan, with discussions continuing into Monday.

☆ Bank-rule pendulum swings back to 'safety first'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( John Foley | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

NEW YORK, March 13 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The crisis that struck the U.S. banking system over the weekend had many causes. After the 2008 crisis, Congress bound up the financial system with rules to prevent bank death spirals. The major financial authorities – the Fed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency – applied the lighter touch. The Fed was permitted to retain tough rules for banks with assets over $100 billion, but decided not to. There are, after all, only 17 banks with assets between $100 billion and $250 billion – two fewer than last week.

☆ In praise of American finance’s regulatory mess
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( John Foley | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

NEW YORK, March 9 (Reuters Breakingviews) - There are many issues on which China and the United States are far apart. The People’s Republic this week proposed combining financial regulatory functions into a new super watchdog to govern its financial sector more effectively. China’s proposed new National Financial Regulatory Administration is roughly in this mold. Since 2008, officials in Beijing have criticized the United States’ financial excesses and its “warped conception” of financial discipline. The new National Financial Regulatory Administration would sit directly under the State Council, which serves as China’s cabinet.

☆ White House urges states to join government-wide crackdown on 'junk fees'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Signage is seen at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) headquarters in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 14, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew KellyWASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) - Top White House officials and the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Wednesday will urge states to expand their efforts to crack down on surprise fees consumers are forced to pay on everything from rental housing to cable bills. The push is part of President Joe Biden's government-wide effort to reduce or eliminate so-called "junk fees" that jack up costs for consumers. loadingIt will also release a new guide that maps out actions states can take. "These junk fees, which are often not disclosed upfront and only revealed after a consumer has decided to buy something, obscure true prices and dilute the forces of market competition that are the bedrock of the U.S economy," the guide said.

"If corporate profits were to decline from the extremely high levels that we saw recently, would it be possible to sustain" growth in workers' benefits "even as we get inflation down to the target of 2%?" Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen asked Powell during the Fed chief's semi-annual testimony before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. "Wages affect prices and prices affect wages," Powell said, associating current earnings growth to the current ultra-low unemployment rate of 3.4%, and suggesting the labor market may need to weaken at least somewhat for inflation to fall. SHORTAGESUltimately, Powell said he felt profits would likely moderate on their own as the U.S. economy moves beyond the pandemic. "What we're seeing in the economy is pretty much about shortages ... supply chain blockages," Powell said.

☆ ECB confronts a cold reality: companies are cashing in on inflation
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Francesco Canepa | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

"It's clear that profit expansion has played a larger role in the European inflation story in the last six months or so," said Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management. "The ECB has failed to justify what it's doing in the context of a more profit-focused inflation story." Instead, national accounts and earnings reports from listed companies are being used as proxies to paint the inflation picture. "The main story of the risks going forward is still that there's a looming wage-price spiral which should make the central bank even more aggressive in hiking interest rates." loadingloadingEven inside the ECB, labour representatives demanding higher pay for central bank staff have distanced themselves from what they described as the institution's "anti-worker bias".

☆ Biden aims billions in taxpayer money at companies' labor, supply practices
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

"What Biden and his advisers are doing is solving problems that exist in the economy. They are pushing forward an agenda aimed at building things in America again ... and taking on corporate power," he said. A Department of Energy provision in the act requires companies to focus on workforce training, ensure diversity and engage "environmental justice" communities in planning. Key provisions on universal child care and better working conditions for child care workers were stripped out of bills last year. Julie Su, just tapped to be labor secretary, launched a campaign against "wage theft" by employers as a labor activist.

☆ Elon Musk weighs in on the Fed's monetary policy again: 'A bad Fed decision affects the lives of everyone'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Zinya Salfiti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk has weighed in on the Fed, in a reminder of his worries its policy could crush stocks' value. "A bad Fed decision affects the lives of everyone," he tweeted in a discussion about the next Fed vice chair. "A bad Fed decision affects the lives of everyone." He warned in January that its aggressive rate hikes could crush the value of the entire stock market by discouraging investors from dipping into them. The Fed's rate hikes are seen as a drag on stocks, as parking money in a interest-bearing investment instead becomes more attractive.

☆ Analysis: With record diversity on their boards, Fed bank chiefs see lower chances of policy error
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Ann Saphir | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Fed bank directors generally stay out of the limelight, but many U.S. central bankers view them as a critical resource. "I think the probabilities are far higher of achieving that gentle transition, that smoother transition," San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly told Reuters in an interview. This year, of the 108 spots on the 12 Fed bank boards, 44% are filled by women, and 41% by people of color, a review of the data shows. Still, a majority of the Fed's economists are white men, as are its top two monetary policymakers: Powell and New York Fed President John Williams. Hispanics and Latinos, Menendez notes, are a fast-growing segment of the population but are underrepresented at the Fed at all levels, including on Fed bank boards.

The two-day meeting ended on Feb. 1 with the central bank raising its target interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point, a return to a more standard rate hike size after a year of sequential three-quarter point and half-point increases. The Fed uses the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index in setting its 2% inflation target. Since the meeting, some Fed officials have acknowledged they had pushed to continue with larger half-point rate increases at the last meeting, while investors have boosted their own outlook for where the Fed may end up. Most do not see the Fed returning to larger half-point increases now that they have slowed. While the minutes released today are particularly dated, given the jobs and inflation numbers released since then, policymakers will update their views next month with new economic and interest rate projections issued after the Fed's March 21-22 meeting.

☆ A 'cocktail' of sticky inflation and a tight labor market boosts Bank of England rate hike bets
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Elliot Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, attends the Bank of England Monetary Policy Report Press Conference, at the Bank of England, London, Britain, February 2, 2023. Pool | ReutersLONDON — A tight labor market and comparatively slow return to earth for inflation means the Bank of England is likely to press ahead with a further interest rate hike in March, economists suggest. "However food prices remain a major driver of U.K. inflation, continuing their upwards march in January with an eye-watering 16.8% increase. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey last week urged workers and employers to consider the expected downward inflation trajectory when negotiating pay settlements. "The cocktail of a tight labour market and inflation failing to cool off quickly will remain a cause of concern for Bank of England policymakers, which may mean the Bank's aggressive strategy stays in place," Carter added.

☆ Premarket stocks: Don't underestimate the American shopper
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

All that extra cash should support strong spending through February and perhaps March, said Bank of America analysts. That means the Fed may use the strong data as an excuse to keep hiking interest rates. Recession risk may be deferred, but it certainly hasn’t dissipated.”PPI, housing starts and bald spots: What investors are watching today▸ Thursday morning brings two big data releases: The January Producer Price Index and housing starts. ▸ Housing starts, a measure of new home construction, have declined every month since August. Housing starts are expected to decline slightly.

☆ Biden takes aim at Republican spending cuts plan
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

At issue is Republicans' refusal to raise the statutory $31.4 trillion U.S. debt limit unless Biden agrees to spending cuts. The White House has said such measures will only be discussed after the debt ceiling is lifted. In a speech at a union hall in suburban Maryland, Biden accused Republicans, who now control the House of Representatives, of pushing him to agree to spending cuts, while their own plans would add $3 trillion to the debt. Republicans argue that federal spending is too high and will fuel inflation while raising the U.S. debt level. They also plan a separate news conference on Wednesday aimed at highlighting House Republicans' planned budget cuts.

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