Interest Rates
After a Burst of New Businesses, a Cooling Economy Intrudes
An unexpected result of the pandemic era has been a surge in entrepreneurial activity. Since 2020, applications to start new businesses have skyrocketed, reversing a decades-long slump. The reasons for the boom are manifold. Millions of people were suddenly laid off, giving them the time, and inclination, to start new businesses. Personal savings jumped, buoyed […]
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Why Hitting the Debt Ceiling Would Be Very Bad for the U.S. Economy
WASHINGTON — Washington and Wall Street are bracing for a revival of brinkmanship over the nation’s statutory debt limit, raising fears that the fragile U.S. economy could be rattled by a calamitous self-inflicted wound. For years, Republicans have sought to tie spending cuts or other concessions from Democrats to their votes to lift the borrowing […]
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Inflation slowed last month thanks to cheaper fuel and airfares.
Jan. 10 Jan. 11 Jan. 12 3,880 3,900 3,920 3,940 3,960 3,980 The stock market wobbled on Thursday morning as investors reacted to fresh data that showed price increases slowed in December but in some corners of the economy, inflation remains stubbornly high. The S&P 500 stock index fluctuated between small gains and losses in […]
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Fed President Backs Slowdown as Support Mounts for Smaller Rate Move
Susan M. Collins, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said she was leaning toward a quarter-point interest rate increase at the central bank’s next meeting — a slowdown that would signal a return to a normal pace of monetary policy adjustment after a year in which officials took rapid action to slow […]
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Good News on Jobs May Mean Bad News Later as Hiring Spree Defies Fed
America’s job market is remarkably strong, a report on Friday made clear, with unemployment at the lowest rate in half a century, wages rising fast and companies hiring at a breakneck pace. But the good news now could become a problem for President Biden later. Mr. Biden and his aides pointed to the hiring spree […]
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A Fed Pivot? Not Yet, Policymakers Suggest, as Rapid Inflation Lingers.
Federal Reserve officials on Tuesday made clear that they expected to continue raising rates to try to choke off the most rapid inflation in decades, putting them at odds with investors who had become more sanguine about the outlook for interest rate moves. Stocks prices rose following the Fed’s meeting last week, as investors celebrated […]
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Fed’s Kashkari says officials are ‘a long way’ from backing off inflation fight.
Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, suggested on Friday that markets had gotten ahead of themselves in anticipating that the central bank — which has been raising interest rates swiftly this year — would soon begin to back off. “I’m surprised by markets’ interpretation,” Mr. Kashkari said in an interview. […]
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Pay growth and prices picked up, keeping the Fed on track for rate increases.
Wages, prices and consumer spending all continued to climb, the latest government data showed Friday — fresh evidence that the economy remains resilient amid fear of a recession, but also that inflation is likely to remain a vexing problem for the Federal Reserve. Consumer prices climbed 6.8 percent over the year through June, according to […]
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U.S. Economy Shows Another Decline, Fanning Recession Fears
A key measure of economic output fell for the second straight quarter, raising fears that the United States could be entering a recession — or perhaps that one had already begun. Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, fell 0.2 percent in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That drop followed a decline of […]
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