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☆ Fed meeting live updates: Fed set to cut rates — but market reaction may depend on size of move
▼ + stars: | 2024-09-18 | by ( Darla Mercado | Cfp | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The Federal Reserve is expected to make its first cut to interest rates on Wednesday after more than two years of tight monetary policy. That is up from 4.29% during the week of March 11, 2022, just prior to the Fed kicking off its first hike. Home equity loans have also become more expensive, with rates rising to 8.49% as of last week, compared to 5.96% back in March 2022, according to Bankrate. The Fed's tight policy has provided a silver lining to savers, however. The annual percentage yield on a five-year certificate of deposit has jumped to 2.87%, up from 0.5% in March 2022, according to Haver.

Persons: Bankrate, Haver, — Darla Mercado, Nick Wells Organizations: Federal, Mortgage News, Fed

☆ Alex Izenberg Was Almost a Teen Rock Star. His Second Chance Is Here.
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-21 | by ( Grayson Haver Currin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On his 12th birthday, in April 2003, Alex Izenberg went to Guitar Center to jam. He was the prankster of his Los Angeles public school, a high-strung and mischievous kid who hated class but loved rock ’n’ roll. At Guitar Center, his friends marveled at his best Hendrix, and he attracted a famous listener, too. When Izenberg chuckled and said no, Perry bought it for him, plunking down $5,000 for a “fiesta red” Fender Relic and a Marshall amp. She left her number, too, so he started calling, imploring her to see his preteen trio, Din Caliber.

Persons: Alex Izenberg, marveled, Hendrix, ‘, ’ ” Linda Perry, “ I’m, ” Perry, Where’d, Izenberg chuckled, Perry, imploring, ”, “, ’ Organizations: Guitar Center, Center Locations: Angeles

☆ Mavis Staples Is an American Institution. She’s Not Done Singing Yet.
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-25 | by ( Grayson Haver Currin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On a rainy April day in Chicago, Mavis Staples sat in the restaurant of the towering downtown Chicago building where she’s lived for the past four years. For two hours, she talked about the civil rights movement and faith. She’d heard rumors he would soon retire, finally wrapping his fabled Never Ending Tour. The Staple Singers became a gospel fulcrum of the civil rights movement and, later, a force for bending genres — mixing funk, rock and soul inside their spiritual mission, an all-American alchemy. The band’s mightiest singer and sole survivor since the death of her sister Yvonne in 2018 and brother, Pervis, in 2021, Mavis remained in high demand, a historical treasure commanding a thunderous contralto.

Persons: Mavis Staples, she’s, Bob Dylan, he’d, They’ve, She’d, Staples, Bobby, ” Staples, “, ‘ Don’t, ’ ” Staples, Roebuck Staples, Yvonne, Pervis, Mavis Organizations: Staples, Newport Folk Locations: Chicago

☆ Here’s where BlackRock sees investment opportunities as demographics shift and the population ages
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-10 | by ( Michelle Fox | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Aging population plays In developed markets with aging populations , health-care needs will rise, creating an investment opportunity in the sector, Li said. "The relative outperformance of the health-care sector is to be expected in the context of an aging population," Li said. It tracks the health-care sector of the S & P 500 . "An economy-wide, sustained productivity boom is very hard to achieve, especially in the context of the supply constraint coming from, among other things, demographic shortage, aging population," Li said. "If India is able to bring more people into the working population, especially women, that will significantly boost its growth trajectory," she said.

Persons: Wei Li, dwindles, BlackRock, Li, It's, it's Organizations: BlackRock, World Health Organization, United Nations, Healthcare, Bank Locations: BlackRock, Japan, U.S, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, India, China

☆ The Encounter That Put the Pianist Kelly Moran on an Unexpected Path
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-25 | by ( Grayson Haver Currin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

As spring 2022 bloomed, Irena Wang emailed the pianist Kelly Moran to ask for a mixtape. They had briefly met just days before — at the funeral of Wang’s partner of seven years and Moran’s high-school sweetheart in the little Long Island town where they grew up. “He was my first love, my first heartbreak, my first everything,” Moran remembered one evening after dark in Yamaha’s sprawling Midtown Manhattan piano studio in early February, a week before she turned 36. After the funeral, Wang sent her an email: “I really want to know you, but I need some time. Late last year, they moved in together; with Luka, Wang and Damian’s son, the members of this unorthodox trio have empowered one another past the shadow of grief.

Persons: Irena Wang, Kelly Moran, “, ” Moran, ”, Damian, Moran, Wang, John Adams’s “, —, Luka Organizations: — Locations: Midtown Manhattan, Los Angeles, Big

☆ 10 reasons the Fed won't cut rates in 2024, according to a chief economist
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-01 | by ( Aruni Soni | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok laid out 10 reasons the Fed won't cut rates in 2024. AdvertisementAdd Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok to the growing chorus of people skeptical the US will see a rate cut this year. "As a result, the Fed will not cut rates this year, and rates are going to stay higher for longer." Underlying inflation trends are moving higher, not coolingBLS, Cleveland Fed, Atlanta Fed, Haver Analytics, Apollo Chief Economist3. RB of Atlanta, NFIB, Haver Analytics, Apollo Chief Economist.

Persons: Torsten Slok, Slok, —, Jerome Powell Organizations: Service, Bloomberg, Apollo, Cleveland Fed, Atlanta Fed, BEA, Haver, RB Locations: Atlanta, NFIB

☆ China's economy is at risk of a brutal 'debt-deflation spiral'
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-06 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

China's economy has crawled out of the pandemic far below the pace of what most analysts expected, and if policymakers don't step in with sufficient support in 2024, a "debt-deflation spiral" could ensue. Deflation and falling stocksThe researchers said China's leadership has failed to address the lopsided supply and demand dynamics in particular. Meanwhile, deflation has crushed corporate earnings and stock prices in China, as well as wage growth and tax revenues. Nominal GDP grew at 4.6% in 2023, 0.6 points below real growth. "The economy could fall into a debt-deflation spiral without adequate policy support."

Persons: Gene Ma, Phoebe Feng, Ma, Feng, Banks Organizations: Wall Street, Institute of International Finance, CSI, People's Bank of Locations: China, Beijing, People's Bank of China

Since the central bank kicked off its policy-tightening campaign in March 2022 — boosting interest rates 11 times — income investors have benefited from higher yields on Treasurys, money market funds and certificates of deposit. "From here, even if rates go higher you are locking in some really good income." If you're willing to sacrifice a little bit of liquidity, select banks will pay even higher yields. Drivers of those increases include higher-for-longer interest rates, and competition from Treasurys and money market funds, Graseck added. Money market funds Rates on money market funds have also jumped substantially since the rate-hiking campaign started.

Persons: Greg McBride, reinvest, US2Y, Treasurys, Sameer Samana, Sallie Mae, Morgan Stanley's Betsy Graseck, Graseck, — CNBC's Michael Bloom, Nick Wells Organizations: Federal Reserve, Fed, Treasury, Wells, Wells Fargo Investment Institute, Savings, Synchrony, Bread Financial, Investment Company Locations: maturities, Wells Fargo

☆ How Shahzad Ismaily Became Musicians’ Favorite Musician
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Grayson Haver Currin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Shahzad Ismaily cannot regulate his body temperature. When he was a month old, his parents rushed him to the hospital because he was beyond feverish and struggling to breathe. “The hardest part of playing music with people is a kind of nonverbal, total empathetic awareness of how another person feels, how a room feels. I’m moving with the world around me. His Brooklyn studio, Figure 8, remains an affordable and inclusive hub for experimental musicians, even as Ismaily becomes a marquee session player.

Persons: Shahzad Ismaily, ectodermal, Ismaily, “, I’m, he’s, Bonnie “ Prince ” Billy, Yoko Ono Organizations: Brooklyn Locations: Netherlands, New York

☆ China Investing in Open-Source Intelligence Collection on the U.S.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Julian E. Barnes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

Why It Matters: Beijing’s open-source intelligence collection could give it an advantage. As the relationship between the United States and China has become more adversarial, both countries are investing more in their intelligence collection capabilities. For example, the report details some of the work one prominent Chinese open-source intelligence company has done to analyze publicly available insights from the Office of Net Assessment, the Pentagon’s in-house think tank. Naval War College has a China Maritime Studies Institute, and it produces a lot of open-source research on China,” said Zoe Haver, a threat intelligence analyst with Recorded Future. China’s secret intelligence-gathering abilities have grown in leaps and bounds in recent decades, and Beijing’s investment in open-source information has intensified over the last decade.

Persons: ”, Zoe Haver, Ms, Haver Organizations: Naval War College, U.S . Naval, China Maritime Studies Institute, ”, ., China’s, Liberation Army Locations: United States, China, Newport, R.I, Taiwan, States, Beijing

☆ The Beauty of a One-Bedroom House? No Room for Guests.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Tim Mckeough | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

As the founders of Haver & Skolnick Architects, an upscale firm based in Roxbury, Conn., Charles M. Haver and Stewart R. Skolnick spend most of their days designing expansive country estates. But when it came time to design their own getaway, they wanted the exact opposite. “We wanted something very small, with privacy and an ocean view,” said Mr. Haver, 64. “In Roxbury, we have about 3,500 square feet in our home, and our offices are in an antique barn that’s an additional 3,500 square feet,” said Mr. Skolnick, 68. “So you have two guys rambling around in 7,000 square feet.”

☆ Tim Hecker Helped Popularize Ambient Music. He’s (Sort of) Sorry.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Grayson Haver Currin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Still, he admitted, the loss was “bound up in the melancholy of youth.”This multivalence seemed to follow Hecker. He would spend his collegiate summers in the British Columbia wilderness, planting as many as 4,000 trees each day in clear-cut forests. Later, frustrated by the exigencies of starting a band, like remembering what they’d played the day before, Hecker began experimenting with drum machines and samplers. “The original impulse was this awe-struck excitement,” Hecker said, recalling his titanic computer tower, gargantuan monitor and pirated software. “There are different feelings in those different moments, and they each have their own ecosystem,” he said.

☆ The Fed's inflation projections 'make no sense' and central bankers could have been misled by a cyberattack, Fundstrat says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Jennifer Sor | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Inflation needs to "explode" this month to meet the Fed's expectations, which is why their estimates "make no sense," Fundstrat said. The research firm estimated that December inflation projections were likely 60-basis-points too high. Fed officials projected core PCE inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, to average 4.8% in 2022. To meet the Fed's projection, core PCE inflation would need to "explode" by 75-basis-points over the next month, Lee said. That suggests the bond market thinks the Fed's inflation forecasts are too high, and a pause or cut in rates could be in the cards next year.

The trial over Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for trans children recently began. As vulnerable children await to hear if their bodily autonomy will be stripped away, we should remember that cisgender children seek gender-affirming care with relatively little social stigma attached. The care that I received is just one small example of the gender-affirming care that cisgender folks receive regularly. The care that I received is just one small example of the gender-affirming care that cisgender folks receive regularly. And a recent viral interview between Jon Stewart and Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge about her state’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth points to a large part of the problem.

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