Author: Steven Sahiounie

You’d expect the stock market to surge after the White House and House Republicans reached a tentative deal to raise the debt ceiling, But markets may have other plans. The stock market, for the most part, has been ignoring the serious risks associated with the United States defaulting on its debt. Even if Congress passes a bill to raise the debt ceiling and President Joe Biden signs it, it could take months before stocks and other financial markets move on. “One of the concerns I have is that even in the run-up to an agreement, when one does occur, there…

Wall Street expects the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in June. Not only that, it finally believes the central bank when it says it likely won’t cut rates this year. What happened? Two key pieces of economic data came in hotter than expected last week, raising investors’ hackles about what the Fed’s interest rate trajectory could look like: The economic data — along with recent calm in the regional banking sector after First Republic’s collapse earlier this month — has investors betting that the Fed could hike rates next month, says Mark Heppenstall, chief investment officer at Penn Mutual Asset…

The United States is taking an analytical approach to its review of whether to keep tariffs on Chinese goods in place and will not base outcomes on any “breakthrough” in U.S.-China trade relations, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Sarah Bianchi told Reuters. The Biden administration is not assuming any such breakthrough will happen, but will continue dialogue with China at various levels, Bianchi said in an interview on Saturday as a ministerial meeting of the U.S.-led Indo Pacific Economic Framework talks wrapped up. “We are conducting the review from an analytical perspective. We’re not base-casing any breakthrough in the trade relationship”…

A U.S. recession may prevent a steep market downturn in the second half of 2023, according to Michael Yoshikami, founder and CEO of Destination Wealth Management. U.S. consumer price inflation eased to 4.9% year on year in April, its lowest annual pace since April 2021. Markets took the new data from the Labor Department earlier this month as a sign that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to curb inflation are finally bearing fruit. The headline consumer price index has cooled significantly since its peak above 9% in June 2022, but remains well over the Fed’s 2% target. The core CPI, which excludes…

House Republicans reached a tentative deal with the White House on Saturday night to raise the nation’s borrowing limit and avoid a catastrophic default on U.S. sovereign debt. “We have come to an agreement in principle,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Saturday in the Capitol. “We still have a lot of work to do, but I believe this is an agreement in principle that’s worthy of the American people.” McCarthy said he spoke to President Joe Biden twice on Saturday about the plan. “I expect to finish the writing of the bill, checking with the White House and speaking to the president again tomorrow afternoon,” said…

Consumer price growth slowed to below 10% for the first time in seven months, but core readings have surged to decades-high levels The UK’s consumer price index (CPI) dropped to 8.7% in annual terms in April but remains higher than expected, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Wednesday. The CPI, also referred to as headline inflation, slid below 10% for the first time since August last year, although it is still the second highest in Western Europe after Austria. It also came in above the Bank of England’s (BoE) forecast, which predicted inflation to…

Analysts expect sales of wood to gradually recover thanks to trade being redirected eastward Foreign sales of Russian timber saw a further decline in the first quarter of this year, dropping more than 20% to 4.5 million cubic meters, according to the latest data by the Russian forest regulator, Roslesinforg, as quoted by Russian business daily Kommersant. The drop is largely attributed to the sanctions that the EU introduced against Russia over its military operation in neighboring Ukraine. The bloc had previously been among the major importers of Russian timber. According to the Federal Customs Service of Russia, in 2021,…

The Financial Times reported that Saudi Arabia is in talks to join the new “Development Bank” of the “BRICS” group as a new member. A source in the new BRICS Development Bank told the newspaper: “In the Middle East, we attach great importance to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and we are currently conducting a professional dialogue with it.” In its article, the newspaper indicated that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s accession to this organization will strengthen relations between members of the bank, which was established by “the largest emerging economies in the world as an alternative to the Bretton…

China’s largest rating agency CCXI downgraded the sovereign credit rating of the United States in view of the situation related to the US public debt ceiling. “China Chengxin International Credit Rating Co (CCXI) downgraded the United States’ sovereign credit rating from AAA to AA+ on May 25, 2023 Beijing time, and placed the rating on review list with possible downgrade,” the agency said in a WeChat social network post. The agency said that the escalating contradictions between the two parties (Republicans and Democrats) in the United States complicate the horizon of resolving the debt ceiling crisis. She pointed out that…

US media reports revealed that the agreement to prevent debt default in the United States includes a two-year increase in the national debt ceiling in return for reducing federal spending. “The agreement, in principle, raises the debt ceiling for a period of two years, limits non-defense spending for 2024, and increases it by 1% in the fiscal year 2025,” CNN reported, quoting an unnamed source. The network quoted a source familiar with the talks as saying that the debate between the White House and the Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, over the issue of the national debt ceiling…