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Trump puts inflation on the agendaThe inflation risk stalking the markets eased over the summer, but it never really went away. It’s front and center again as investors contend with a Trumponomics crackdown on immigration, a rising trade-war risk and a potential bonanza of tax cuts. An important inflation measure comes out at 10 a.m. Eastern: the Personal Consumption Expenditures index report. Economists fear that it could add bottlenecks and costs to supply chains and reignite inflation, and that it could scramble the Fed’s policy on interest rates. next year would jump by an additional 1.1 percentage points if the Trump tariffs were fully enacted.

Persons: Trump, Donald Trump’s Organizations: United States ’, Deutsche Bank Locations: Canada, China, Mexico, United States

The latest:Trump wants to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico “on ALL products coming into the United States,” he said on Truth Social. He also wants an “additional” 10 percent tariff on imports from China, which Trump blames for the fentanyl crisis, a charge that Beijing has repeatedly disputed. Europe, Japan and South Korea weren’t even mentioned in Trump’s announcement, but stocks have fallen there, too. That suggests rising fears that a new trade war could scramble global supply chains and dent profits. Automakers are some of the hardest hit stocks, with Volkswagen, Stellantis and Nissan, which run manufacturing operations in Mexico, all down.

Persons: Donald Trump’s, Trump, ”, South Korea weren’t, Scott Bessent, it’s Trump, Robert Lighthizer, Bill Ackman, ” Mohit Kumar Organizations: Trump, Investors, United States ’, —, Truth, Canadian, Volkswagen, Nissan, Treasury Department, Trade Representative, Jefferies Locations: — Canada, China, Mexico, Canada, United States, Beijing, Europe, Japan, South Korea, America

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On the first trading day since Donald Trump chose the billionaire financier Scott Bessent as his pick for Treasury secretary, investors seem to be signaling they like the choice. Bessent does,” Paul Donovan, chief economist of UBS Global Wealth Management, wrote in a research note on Monday. The Key Square Group founder overcame serious opposition from some in Trump’s inner circle. On Wall Street, a document was circulated suggesting that his Key Square hedge fund had underperformed the booming markets. Bessent’s ascent is notable in that he doesn’t appear to have been on Trump’s radar during his first administration.

Persons: Donald Trump, Scott Bessent, ” Paul Donovan, Elon Musk, Howard Lutnick, Cantor Fitzgerald, Trump, Lutnick, Bessent, Mark Rowan Organizations: “, UBS Global Wealth Management, Key Square, Commerce Department, Apollo Global Management

☆ Do Coding Boot Camps Make Sense in an A.I. World?
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-24 | by ( Sarah Kessler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

“I’ve always been doing jobs that require physical labor,” he remembers thinking. “What if I start using my brain for once?”An Army veteran, Mr. Rendon explored training programs he could fund using his military benefits. He landed on a coding boot camp. At first, the intensive courses seemed intimidating. Mr. Rendon had gotten his high school equivalency diploma before joining the Army, and he had taken some college courses, but he didn’t consider himself book smart.

Persons: Florencio Rendon, I’ve, ”, Rendon, didn’t Organizations: Army

New face, same goals? Heads in Washington are still spinning after Donald Trump named Pam Bondi as his choice for attorney general, just hours following Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from consideration. Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and close ally of the president-elect, would most likely share his and Gaetz’s goal of shaking up the Justice Department. But the switcheroo also raises questions about how willing Republicans might be to push back against the more divisive elements of the Trump agenda. What to know: As Florida’s attorney general, Bondi participated in efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act and the legalization of marijuana, as well as a multi-state lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.

Persons: Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, Matt Gaetz’s, Trump, Bondi, Brian Ballard — Organizations: Justice Department, Purdue Pharma, Republican, General Motors, Trump Locations: Washington, Florida

The Twitter approach to government efficiencyDonald Trump picked Elon Musk and the financier Vivek Ramaswamy to tackle one of his administration’s biggest priorities — reducing the size of the federal government. The two have now shed some light on what Trump has called the Department of Government Efficiency plans to do. They appear to be taking a page from Musk’s playbook for extreme cost-cutting. “We won’t just write reports or cut ribbons,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, addressing skepticism that their initiative, known as DOGE, can achieve. (That said, Congress created the public broadcasting organization and authorizes its budget.)

Persons: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, ” Musk, Ramaswamy Organizations: Trump, Department of Government Efficiency, Street, Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Rowan and Warsh shake up Treasury raceFew of the unfilled positions in Donald Trump’s cabinet are as important as Treasury secretary. Allies of two candidates, Howard Lutnick, the transition co-chair, and Scott Bessent, a top economic adviser, publicly stumped for them this weekend. Musk threw his support behind Lutnick over the weekend, calling Bessent “business as usual,” an especially cutting criticism in the Trump camp. Loeb backed Bessent, arguing that choosing Lutnick might rattle investors, including in the $28 trillion market for Treasury bonds and notes. That said, Bessent is also being floated for positions such as chair of the White House’s National Economic Council.

Persons: Rowan, Warsh, Donald Trump’s, cloudier, Howard Lutnick, Scott Bessent, Marc Rowan, Kevin Warsh, Elon Musk, Dan Loeb, Musk, Bessent, Trump, Loeb Organizations: Times, Apollo Global Management, Fed, Treasury, White, Economic Council

Last year, Son — who says he uses ChatGPT every day — is said to have met with Sam Altman, the A.I. That included talks for Son to provide up to $1 billion in funding to Altman and Jony Ive, the designer behind the iPhone, to create an A.I.-powered replacement for the smartphone. Bloomberg reported that SoftBank had hoped to be part of OpenAI’s last fund-raising round, but was instead wait-listed. Son is also trying to organize the auto industry around the use of A.I. The strike poses a significant threat to the U.S. economy, with analysts estimating it could cost up to $7.5 billion a week.

Persons: SoftBank, Son —, Sam Altman, Altman, Jony, Son, Cerebras Organizations: Bloomberg, Nvidia, Gulf Coasts, International Longshoremen’s Association Locations: OpenAI’s, ramping, A.I, British, Wayve, Gulf, U.S

The most sweeping effort yet to regulate artificial intelligence, a California bill that could have informed laws around the world, is going back to the drawing board. 1047 provided necessary guardrails, and they urged California policymakers to reject intense pressure from software giants against the bill. Smaller tech companies also pushed back, worried that A.I. While governments around the world (and A.I. Act, which focuses on the riskiest use of the technology but also includes transparency requirements for the largest models.

Persons: Gavin Newsom, ” Newsom, Geoffrey Hinton, Elon Musk, Nancy Pelosi, Newsom’s, Sam Altman, OpenAI Organizations: Gov, Hollywood, Street, Google Locations: California, Silicon, S.B

Donors weigh in on the D.N.C. “I will bring together labor and workers and small-business owners and entrepreneurs and American companies to create jobs,” she told the Democratic National Convention last night. The nod to corporate America comes as Democrats try to firm up relations with big business. DealBook has been hitting the phones all week to hear what donors thought of the four-day convention. A flood of donors decided to go only after Harris became the presumptive nominee.

Persons: Kamala Harris’s, ”, DealBook, Harris, Brad Karp, Paul, Weiss, Raymond McGuire, Lazard, Blair Effron, John Rogers Jr Organizations: Democratic, Convention, Chicago, Centerview Partners, Ariel Investments Locations: America

Google faces a reckoningShares in Alphabet, Google’s parent company, were down in premarket trading on Wednesday on news that the Justice Department is said to be considering breaking up the technology giant for maintaining an illegal search monopoly. That would be a devastating blow for the company, but it could also have huge ramifications for the broader tech sector, with Apple, Amazon and Meta all facing their own antitrust battles with the government. A recap: In a ruling last week, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with the government and multiple states that Google’s dominance in search was constraining competition. Google said it would appeal. Mehta has asked both parties to submit suggested remedies by Sept. 4, with a hearing set to take place two days later.

Persons: Amit Mehta, Mehta Organizations: Google, Justice, Apple, U.S, District of Columbia

Starbucks makes a change at the topThis just in: Laxman Narasimhan is out as the C.E.O. of Starbucks, the company announced on Tuesday, a year and a half since he succeeded Howard Schultz at the coffee chain. Narasimhan will be replaced by Brian Niccol, a fast-food industry veteran who executed a turnaround as C.E.O. Narasimhan has also been rocked by dueling activist investor campaigns and has had to fend off criticism from Schultz. Rachel Ruggeri, the Starbucks chief financial officer, will serve as interim C.E.O.

Persons: Laxman Narasimhan, Howard Schultz, Brian Niccol, Narasimhan, Schultz, It’s, Chipotle, Mellody Hobson, Rachel Ruggeri, Niccol Organizations: Starbucks, Narasimhan Locations: U.S, China

Here’s the latest:S&P 500 futures were up slightly after fears of a slowdown in growth and hiring rocked the benchmark index last week. Investors endured both a stomach-churning rout on Monday and a bounce-back rally on Thursday. Despite that, the S&P 500 ended the week down just 0.04 percent. The big event this week is Wednesday’s inflation data. Investors are anxious after tepid jobs and manufacturing data suggested a slowdown was on the horizon.

Persons: Michelle Bowman, ” Brian Moynihan, Wall Organizations: Investors, Nvidia, Fed, Bank of America, CBS Locations: Europe, Asia

☆ The Social Media Olympics
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-10 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | Sarah Kessler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Just moments after the American wrestler Sarah Hildebrandt won a gold medal at the Paris Games, she let the whole world know what she was thinking:“Oh my gosh I just won the FREAKING OLYMPICS hahahahah DUUUUDE,” she wrote on social media from the event venue. But at the Olympics, it’s part of a new twist — and one of the keys to returning to the sense of a shared national experience that defined the Games of yesteryear. For the last decade or more, it has seemed like the Olympics have struggled to capture relevance the way they did a generation ago. Blame was assigned to a fracturing media landscape and a long string of asterisks (pandemic restrictions in Tokyo, time zone issues in Beijing, a Zika outbreak in Rio de Janeiro, geopolitical tensions in Sochi). But the reason may have been simpler: The Olympics has largely been missing from social media.

Persons: Sarah Hildebrandt, DUUUUDE, ” Organizations: Paris Games Locations: American, Tokyo, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Sochi

The federal court ruling that Google had abused its monopoly in online search threatens to disrupt one of the most valuable businesses in modern history, and Big Tech more broadly. Expect Google to fight back, which could drag this out for some time. What happened: Judge Amit Mehta of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia sided with the Justice Department and several states that had accused Google of illegally cementing its search dominance. In large part that was by paying billions each year to companies including Apple and Samsung to make Google the default search engine on their devices. Those agreements hurt competition, Mehta found, allowing Google to trample competitors.

Persons: Amit Mehta, Mehta Organizations: Google, Big Tech, U.S, District, Columbia, Justice Department, Apple, Samsung

Stocks, cryptocurrencies, the dollar, oil — they’re all down sharply again on Monday on concerns that the U.S. economy is slowing faster than expected. It comes after a rough week for global markets. That has reignited criticisms that the Fed is moving too slowly to cut rates as economic conditions look shakier. Mega-cap tech stocks, which have driven much of the market’s gains this past year, were especially bruised: Nvidia was down 11 percent premarket, while Apple was off 7.5 percent. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to a one-year low.

Persons: Berkshire Hathaway, Bitcoin, Brent, Goldman Sachs, Goldman Organizations: Nvidia, Apple, Berkshire, Nikkei, Bank of Japan, . Investors Locations: U.S, Japan

☆ Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-03 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | Sarah Kessler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Wall Street Democrats have spent the last eight years complaining about their relationship with Washington. But now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, they see a chance to regain influence. “Waging war is not.” (He later clarified that he would support Harris regardless of whether she replaced Khan.) Few on Wall Street would disagree with that stance — Khan has moved to block deals with seemingly little concern over losing in court. But behind the scenes, many are irked by this kind of public lobbying, arguing that it exposes a misunderstanding of the way the Washington game is played, and that it could backfire.

Persons: Donald Trump’s, Biden, Kamala Harris, Elon Musk, Bill Ackman, Harris, Lina Khan, ” Barry Diller, Reid Hoffman, ” Hoffman, “, Khan, — Khan Organizations: Democrats, Democratic Party, Trump, Federal Trade Commission, IAC, CNBC, LinkedIn, CNN Locations: Washington

Slowdown fearsGlobal markets are a blur of red on Friday as investors fret that the U.S. economy is heading for a slowdown. Lackluster tech earnings are weighing on sentiment (more on that below), but the bigger worry is a softening jobs market and a spending pullback by consumers that threatens to crimp corporate profit. That shines a spotlight on Friday’s jobs report, scheduled for release at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, and bolsters calls on the Fed to lower interest rates at its next meeting, in September. There’s even talk that the central bank could consider a jumbo half-percentage-point rate cut to pull off its hope for a soft landing in which inflation is cooled without tipping the economy into recession.

Persons: There’s Organizations: Fed Locations: U.S

Meta’s earnings calm A.I. Shares in Meta are up more than 5 percent in premarket trading, even after the parent of Facebook and Instagram said it had increased spending on A.I. The numbers: Meta’s second-quarter profit was up 73 percent year-on-year, to $13.5 billion, while revenue jumped 22 percent, to $39.1 billion. The figure in focus was capital expenditures, with Meta spending $8.5 billion in the second quarter. (That also includes the company’s long-running, unprofitable investments in the so-called metaverse and other endeavors.)

Persons: Instagram Organizations: Meta, Facebook

Big Tech’s big spendingThe technology sector is facing another rough patch, after Microsoft reported mixed quarterly earnings and its shares tumbled. The company’s results are fueling more concern among investors about whether hefty spending on artificial intelligence will pay off, and how long that might take. But analysts say that Microsoft is on better footing than its rivals, and that investor enthusiasm for all things A.I. Microsoft missed earnings expectations for its cloud business by a hair. Shares in the tech giant were down 3 percent in premarket trading on the results, echoing a similar market reaction to Alphabet last week, when Google’s parent company disclosed the scale of its ever-growing A.I.

Organizations: Microsoft

How the election is dividing techThe tech world has long been divided by rivalries: Macs versus PCs, open source versus closed source. It’s a reminder, as DealBook has noted, that Silicon Valley’s libertarian wing is feeling more emboldened to flex its money and influence to buck what has become a traditionally Democratic consensus. Who’s who: Some of the most vocal Democratic donors among the tech elite are Hoffman; Vinod Khosla, the venture capitalist; Aaron Levie, the C.E.O. On the Republican side are a camp of libertarians that includes Musk and the investors Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Then there are those staying neutral, including Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, who are ostensibly trying to avoid antagonizing whoever wins in November.

Persons: Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Ryan Mac, Erin Griffith, Mike Isaac, DealBook, Who’s, Hoffman, Vinod Khosla, Aaron Levie, Roger McNamee, Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta Organizations: Republican

Ackman delays his big betMonday isn’t going to be the day that Bill Ackman prices the I.P.O. of his Pershing Square USA investment vehicle, as had been planned. But the long-awaited fund, whose investors will probably include many who follow Ackman’s provocations on social media, is still coming, it says. The context: Pershing Square USA is a so-called closed-end fund that’s raising money to make the sort of concentrated investments that Ackman is now known for. The fund had faced big expectations after Ackman set an initial I.P.O.

Persons: Bill Ackman, Ackman Organizations: Pershing Square USA, Pershing

☆ Why Is It So Hard for Olympic Host Cities to Control Costs?
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-27 | by ( Vivienne Walt | Sarah Kessler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Like every city that hosts the Olympics, Paris designed its opening ceremony to make a splash, with ethereal dance performances, athletes floating down the Seine and a blowout performance by Celine Dion. A big display is table stakes, and hundreds of thousands of people jammed the city’s bridges and riverbanks for hours to cheer the flotilla. The tab for the Games in Paris, the first city to fully test cost-cutting reforms that the International Olympic Committee introduced in 2019, is at least $8.87 billion. Figuring out how to keep host city expenses on budget is vital for the Olympics, which have struggled to find host cities in places where citizens have a say in the decision. voted on Wednesday to give the 2030 Winter Games to the French Alps and the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City, both cities were the only candidates.

Persons: Celine Dion Organizations: Games, International Olympic, London, Tokyo, Rio, Oxford’s Said Business, Olympics Locations: Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Salt Lake City

A question about the future of antitrustNews that Reid Hoffman, the billionaire LinkedIn co-founder and major Democratic donor, wants Vice President Kamala Harris, if she wins in November, to replace Lina Khan as chair of the F.T.C. Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, called it “unacceptable,” and Tim Wu, the Columbia Law School professor and former Biden antitrust official, demanded that the Harris campaign return Hoffman’s donations. Khan is perhaps the most consequential regulator for business in the Biden administration, and her fate as F.T.C. chair underscores anxiety among Democrats about how Harris would approach antitrust policy should she become president. So Khan could be stripped of that role and replaced with a colleague, though that could be awkward.

Persons: Reid Hoffman, Kamala Harris, Lina Khan, Bernie Sanders, Tim Wu, Biden, Harris, Khan Organizations: LinkedIn, Democratic, Columbia Law School Locations: Vermont, United States

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