Tag: Markets

Wall Street Rally Hits Wall of Hot Jobs, Cold Earnings Data

NEW YORK—Wall Street’s big rally to start the year wilted on Friday after a surprisingly strong jobs report fueled worries about inflation and higher interest rates. The S&P 500 fell 1 percent for its first drop in four days, though it took an up-and-down route to get there. The bond market was more decisive in…


Fed Chair Powell Says No Rate Cuts This Year, Markets Hear It Differently

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had a clear message on Wednesday: as “gratifying” as it is that inflation has begun to slow, the central bank is nowhere near to reversing course or declaring victory. “It’s going to take some time” for disinflation to spread through the economy, Powell said in a news conference following the…


Strong Jobs Report Revives Fears of Inflation and More Aggressive Fed

Positive jobs reports can be bad news for the market. The latest strong jobs report, for example, revived Wall Street fears of continued inflation and a more aggressive Federal Reserve as markets were volatile on the news. Stocks opened lower following the jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, with a brief rally…


Annual Labor Productivity Saw Biggest Drop in 49 Years in 2022

U.S. worker productivity saw its largest annual decline in 2022 in nearly five decades, despite an improvement in the fourth quarter. Nonfarm labor productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, fell 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter from the year-ago period, the Department of Labor reported on Feb. 2. Total worker productivity for 2022, in…


Outsourcing Investment or Taking More Risk?

Commentary In 2022, the S&P 500 Index returned -19.64 percent. If you run the same numbers and include dividend reinvestment, the sting was a little less, with a return of -18.32 percent.  Not great, for sure. Those kinds of returns have people asking questions about how they are invested. To be clear, if you get a return of…


ECB Set to Raise Rates Again in May, Policymakers Say

VILNIUS/PRAGUE—The European Central Bank is likely to raise interest rates again in May after an already signaled hike in March, two policymakers said on Friday, with one arguing that the peak or “terminal” rate is at least starting to appear on the horizon. The ECB raised rates by a half a percentage point to 2.5…


Celebrities Including Madonna, Tom Brady Mired in Lawsuits for Pushing Crypto, NFTs

Celebrity superstars who leveraged their fame to endorse digital assets like cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) face a series of civil lawsuits by investors who lost fortunes when the sizzling bull run for all things crypto iced over and those assets plunged in price. From movie stars to celebrity athletes, many have found themselves named…


US Layoffs Reach Two-Year High as Big Tech Cut Thousands of Jobs in January

American companies announced last month the largest number of layoffs since September 2020, after tech firms cut positions at the second-highest pace on record as they prepare for a potential recession. The layoffs included 102,943 workers in January, more than twice the amount in December and up 440 percent from the same month in 2022, according…


Wall Street Tumbles at Open as Jobs Data Fans Higher Rate Worries

Wall Street’s main indexes opened lower on Friday after data showed the economy added jobs at a rapid pace last month, feeding into fears that the Federal Reserve could keep interest rates higher for longer in its fight against inflation. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 127.64 points, or 0.37 percent, at the open to…


Dollar Slips as Euro Picks Up Ahead of US Jobs Data

LONDON—The dollar slipped on Friday as investors awaited the latest U.S. jobs figures, after jumping in the previous session following a raft of central bank decisions. The U.S. currency dipped against the euro, reversing earlier gains. The euro was last up 0.17 percent to $1.093, remaining far above September’s 20-year low of $0.953. The Federal…