DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ 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

☆ Key US inflation gauge cooled last month to the lowest level in nearly three years
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-13 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The PPI index, a key inflation gauge that tracks the average change in prices that businesses pay to suppliers, has cooled significantly since peaking at 11.2% in June 2022 and has now declined for 12 consecutive months. Annual producer price inflation is at its lowest level since August 2020, BLS data shows. “It’s definitely a good month for inflation,” Pelle told CNN. Starting in March 2022, the central bank rolled out 10 consecutive interest rate hikes to tame inflation, finally hitting pause last month. Doves tend to favor looser monetary policy and issues like low unemployment over low inflation, while hawks favor robust rate hikes and keeping inflation low above all else.

Persons: Price, Watchara, —, Alex Pelle, It’s, ” Pelle, “, That’s, Pelle, ” Organizations: Minneapolis CNN —, Bureau of Labor Statistics, La, MediaNews, The Press, Enterprise, Getty, BLS, PPI, Mizuho Securities, CNN, ”, CPI, Federal Reserve Locations: Minneapolis, La Reina, San Bernardino , California

☆ Can the Fed help fend off a banking crisis while also cooling the economy?
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

To stave off the latter, the Fed offered a solution that seemingly contradicted its hawkish flight path: looser purse-strings. That means the Fed can still fight the battle against inflation even while it shores up the banking sector. Although the Fed’s new program is an extraordinary action to ensure bank stability, the Fed is engaged in the lending business every day, Brusuelas noted. “The Fed buys and sells government securities each day to maintain the range of its policy rate — the federal funds rate — between 4.5% and 4.75%,” he said. Once that returns, the central bank can shift its focus back to restoring price stability, he said.

☆ Rovio posts Q4 profit drop, says mobile game market shrank last year
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 9 (Reuters) - Finnish game maker Rovio (ROVIO.HE), best known for its Angry Birds franchise, posted a fall in fourth-quarter profit on Thursday and said the global mobile game market in 2022 declined for the first time ever. Rovio, which is currently the target of a takeover offer from larger U.S.-listed rival Playtika , said game developers' revenue was also dented by privacy changes on Apple's iPhone. "Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework has heavily impacted game publishers' ability to target high-value players," the gamemaker said. Rovio reported a 55% decline to 5.9 million euros ($6.3 million) in its fourth-quarter adjusted operating profit, while its revenue declined 2.5%. The mobile gaming market showed signs of stabilising towards the end of the year, it said, adding it expects flat revenue and profit development this year.

☆ What to expect from Friday’s jobs report
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-06 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The US economy is forecast to have added 250,000 jobs in September, which would be the lowest monthly jobs gain since December 2020. August jobs data already indicated that the historically tight labor market has loosened by a notch. The jobs report for that month found that America added 315,000 positions, a much lower level than the 512,000 average job gains over the past 12 months. The unemployment rate will likely have to rise despite these downward demographic pressures, and that likely would have to come from people losing their jobs. It’s not going to be a painless slow grind.”The September jobs report is among the key economic data that Fed policymaking officials will review when they meet in early November to discuss how to stifle stubbornly high inflation.

☆ The number of US job openings fell by more than 1 million in August
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-04 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The number of job openings dropped to just under 10.1 million, down from 11.2 million in July, according to data released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Jay Powell is fist pumping at that job openings number. — Nick Bunker (@nick_bunker) October 4, 2022Economists were expecting job openings to fall to just 10.8 million, according to estimates on Refinitiv. Practically every industry saw a decline in job openings, indicating a broader slowdown, he said. “The key concern for the medium-term US inflation outlook is the extreme imbalance in the labor market,” he wrote.

Search resuls for: "Alex Pelle"

6 mentions found