Jay Powell won’t have to tap a glass with a knife to get everyone’s...
Jay Powell won’t have to tap a glass with a knife to get everyone’s attention before his highly anticipated speech at the Fed’s annual economic symposium today in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Wall Street will dissect every sound bite and eyebrow twitch for hints about whether the Fed intends to slash interest rates next month. But that’s far from the only reason why his wonkfest address will hit different this year. It’s all but certain to be Powell’s last Jackson Hole speech as Fed chair, since his term ends next spring.
Powell takes the podium amid internal divisions at the Fed over interest rates as a cooling job market and the threat of inflation induced by President Trump’s tariffs complicate the central bank’s decision on rates.
The odds of a rate cut currently stand at 74% ahead of Powell’s speech, down from 92% last week, per the FedWatch tool that investors use to bet on interest rate moves.
NY appeals court throws out $500 million fraud penalty against Trump
President Trump will no longer have to pay the half-billion-dollar judgment...
President Trump will no longer have to pay the half-billion-dollar judgment from his civil business fraud trial after a New York court tossed the massive fine. “While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half-billion-dollar award to the State,” Justice Peter Moulton wrote in a decision that sharply divided the court. Trump immediately took to social media to declare “TOTAL VICTORY.” Though it threw out the huge financial penalty, the court upheld the fraud ruling, which found last year that the president had inflated his net worth in order to secure better loan terms.
Meta reportedly freezes its AI hiring. According to...
Meta reportedly freezes its AI hiring. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Facebook and Instagram parent company is ending its AI spending spree (for now) and putting a hold on hiring for its artificial intelligence division. Meta has invested untold billions in waging a talent war over the industry’s top AI minds as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s quest to develop “superintelligence,” or smarter-than-human intelligence. Earlier this year, Meta spent $14 billion for a stake in Scale AI to secure the services of its co-founder, Alexandr Wang. But analysts and investors are beginning to worry about the sky-high spending. Meta downplayed the hiring freeze as “basic organizational planning.”
Apple raised the price of an Apple TV+ subscription in the US from $10 a month to $13 yesterday.
Starbucks is expanding its test of coconut water drinks to hundreds more locations, probably because we need something besides pumpkin spice lattes to talk about.
Sony is hiking prices of PlayStation 5 consoles by about $50 due to tariffs, the company announced yesterday.
Elon Musk was ordered to face a lawsuit accusing him of running an illegal $1 million giveaway during the 2024 presidential election.
Netflix is launching an astrology hub that will recommend content based on your zodiac sign, so now Leos and Scorpios can find something to bond over (Love Is Blind).
Oil rises 1% on stalled Russia-Ukraine peace talks, strong US demand
(Reuters) - Oil prices rose by nearly a dollar a barrel...
(Reuters) - Oil prices rose by nearly a dollar a barrel on Thursday as Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for a stalled peace process, and as earlier U.S. data showed signs of strong demand in the top oil-consuming nation.
Brent crude futures rose 83 cents, or 1.2%, to settle at $67.67 a barrel, a two-week high. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures gained 81 cents, or 1.3%, to close at $63.52 a barrel.
Both contracts climbed more than 1% in the prior session.
The path to peace in Ukraine remained uncertain, turning oil traders cautious after a selloff over the past two weeks on hopes that U.S. President Donald Trump would soon negotiate a diplomatic end to Russia's war with its neighbor.
"Some geopolitical risk premium is slowly being pumped back into the market," oil trading advisory firm Ritterbusch and Associates told clients on Thursday.
The uncertainty in the peace talks means that the possibility of tighter sanctions on Russia has resurfaced, said Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates.
S&P 500 logs 5-day losing streak as investors await Powell's Jackson Hole speech
U.S. stocks closed lower Thursday, with the S&P 500...
U.S. stocks closed lower Thursday, with the S&P 500 index logging a fifth straight daily loss, as technology stocks slumped and investors waited to hear from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 152.81 points, or 0.3%, ending at 44,785.50.
The S&P 500 fell 25.61 points, or 0.4%, closing at 6,370.17 and booking a 1.5% decline over five straight days.
The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 72.55 points, or 0.3%, finishing at 21,100.31.
Investors will be listening for any hints about the future path of interest rates during Powell's highly anticipated speech at the annual Jackson Hole economic symposium.
Small-cap stocks and other rate-sensitive assets, like home-builder stocks, have rallied in August in anticipation of the Fed potentially resuming rate cuts in September.
