Tag: Government Bonds

Hong Kong Security Law Could Damage City’s Image as Financial Hub

Paul Chan, the top finance official of Hong Kong, traveled to Paris, London, Frankfurt and Berlin last September to lure foreign investors. Last month he abolished taxes on foreigners’ purchases of Hong Kong real estate. And he is soon set to host an international art show, as well as conferences for big money funds and […]

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Japan Raises Interest Rates for First Time in 17 Years

Japan’s central bank raised interest rates for the first time since 2007 on Tuesday, pushing them above zero to close a chapter in its aggressive effort to stimulate an economy that has long struggled to grow. In 2016, the Bank of Japan took the unorthodox step of bringing borrowing costs below zero, a bid to […]

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What to Know About California’s Proposition 1 for Mental Health Care

California has about 12 percent of the nation’s population but more than a quarter of America’s homeless people — 181,000-plus at last count. There are many reasons for this outsize problem, including generations-old state laws that deinstitutionalized mentally ill people as well as high housing costs that have since priced tens of thousands out of […]

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What History and Economics Suggest About Biden-Trump, Round 2

Politics and economics have always been intertwined, often in ways that were mystifying in real time. We’re living in another of those perplexing moments. With the Super Tuesday primary results and a couple of important Supreme Court rulings behind us, it looks as if voters will face an election rematch between President Biden and his […]

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China’s New Economic Agenda, a Lot Like the Old One: Takeaways

Beijing was abuzz with politics on Tuesday. China’s annual legislative meeting — the National People’s Congress, when Communist Party leaders promote their solutions for national ills — opened for business. The event is a chance for the leaders to signal the direction of the economy and outline how and where the government will spend money […]

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Japan’s Economy Slips Into Recession and to No. 4 in Global Ranking

The Japanese economy contracted at the end of last year, defying expectations for modest growth and pushing the country into a recession. Japan’s unexpectedly weak economy in the fourth quarter was the result of a slowdown in spending by businesses and consumers who are grappling with inflation at four-decade highs, a weak yen and climbing […]

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As China’s Markets Stumble, Japan Rises Toward Record

There’s a shift underway in Asia that’s reverberating through global financial markets. Japan’s stock market, overlooked by investors for decades, is making a furious comeback. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index is edging closer to the record it set on Dec. 29, 1989, which effectively marked the peak of Japan’s economic ascendancy before a collapse that […]

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Economics Textbooks Are Finally Getting a Vital Update

To steer the economy, the Federal Reserve sets a target for the federal funds rate, which is the rate that banks charge one another for overnight loans. Until 2008, the Fed influenced the federal funds rate by adding or subtracting reserves from the banking system. It did so through the buying and selling of bonds, […]

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After a Rip-Roaring 2023, the Markets Are Taking a Breather

Note that the average fund substantially lagged the broad stock market averages. Most funds are actively managed, by professionals trying to beat the market. By contrast, broad low-cost index funds, which merely seek to mirror the markets, generally did their job well. For example, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund returned 12.3 percent for […]

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Mortgage Rates and Inflation Could Draw Attention to the Fed This Election

This year is set to be a big one for Federal Reserve officials: They are expecting to cut interest rates several times as inflation comes down steadily, giving them a chance to dial back a two-year-long effort to cool the economy. But 2024 is also an election year — and the Fed’s expected shift in […]

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Stocks On Track to End Longest Winning Streak in 20 Years

Wall Street’s longest winning streak in almost 20 years is close to ending, as stock investors’ celebrations over slowing inflation and the potential for cuts to interest rates have been dialed down as traders air caution over the lingering risks to the market. The S&P 500 index is on track for a weekly loss — […]

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Fed Minutes Showed Officials Feeling Better About Inflation

Federal Reserve officials wanted to use their final policy statement of 2023 to signal that interest rates might be at their peak even as they left the door open to future rate increases, minutes from their December meeting showed. The notes, released on Wednesday, explained why officials tweaked a key sentence in that statement — […]

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Wall Street’s Bond ‘Vigilantes’ Are Back

Typically, the esoteric inner workings of finance and the very public stakes of government spending are viewed as separate spheres. And bond trading is ordinarily a tidy arena driven by mechanical bets about where the economy and interest rates will be months or years from now. But those separations and that sense of order changed […]

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Powell, Fed’s Chair, Unleashes the Bulls

Higher for (not much) longer The “everything rally” has gone global, sending stocks and bonds soaring in Asia and Europe and lifting U.S. stock futures, after investors got their clearest signal yet that the Fed would begin cutting interest rates soon. Hopes are growing, too, on Thursday that other central banks will follow suit. The […]

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S&P 500 Hits 2023 Record, Reversing Summer Losses

After several twists and turns this year, stock investors are in a celebratory mood. The S&P 500 set a new high for the year on Friday, a day after clocking its best month of 2023 in November, in a rally that quickly erased the benchmark index’s steep drop over the summer. The reversal has come […]

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Jerome Powell Says It’s Too Soon to Guess When Rates Will Drop

Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, suggested on Friday that the central bank may be done raising interest rates if inflation and the economy continue to cool as expected, saying that central bankers could raise interest rates further if that became necessary. “It would be premature to conclude with confidence that we […]

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Fed Officials Thought Rates Could Rise More if Inflation Stayed Stubborn

Federal Reserve officials are contemplating whether they will need to raise interest rates again to cool the economy and ensure that rapid inflation will fully fade, and minutes from their meeting earlier this month laid out the contours of that debate. “Participants noted that further tightening of monetary policy would be appropriate if incoming information […]

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Stock Market Rallies After CPI Inflation Report

Stocks soared on Tuesday, after an inflation reading raised hopes that the Federal Reserve’s campaign to slow inflation may have reached its limits. The S&P 500 rose 1.9 percent on Tuesday, while the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies’ stocks, which are more exposed to the ups and downs of the economy, climbed roughly 5 […]

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Fed Chair Recalls Inflation ‘Head Fakes,’ Pledges to Do More if Needed

Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, on Thursday expressed little urgency to make another interest rate increase. But he made clear that policymakers remain willing to adjust policy further if doing so proves necessary to cool the economy and fully restrain inflation. Mr. Powell and his Fed colleagues left their interest rates […]

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Huge Reversal in Bonds and Rally in Stocks Cap Wild Week for Markets

Stocks and bonds rallied on Friday, extending a sharp reversal after fresh data about the health of the U.S. labor market capped a tumultuous week for investors. The 10-year government bond yield, which underpin rates on everything from mortgages to business loans, dropped more than 0.1 percentage points on Friday, another large decline for a […]

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What to Watch for as the Federal Reserve Meets This Week

Strong consumer spending may keep officials alert. While the Fed is dealing with the possibility that higher market-based interest rates will weigh on the economy, they are also confronting another potential challenge: Economic data have remained surprisingly strong in recent months. On one level, this is good news. Consumers are shopping and companies are hiring […]

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Bank of Japan Takes Another Step Away From Easy Money

The people who work the levers of Japan’s economy are in a bind: The country’s low interest rates, which they have long used to goose growth, are now well out of step with other big economies. Bridging that gap is tricky. The yen is at a near-record low against the U.S. dollar, threatening to inflict […]

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The Bond Market Is Flexing Its Muscles

The bond market is stirring. The business world and the Federal Reserve have been forced to take notice. Politicians in Washington may need to do so soon. After years of low interest rates, yields throughout the vast global bond market are soaring. Just this past week, the yield on the world’s most important fixed-income benchmark, […]

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What’s Happening in the Bond Market?

The interest rates on mortgages, credit cards and business loans have shot up in recent months, even as the Federal Reserve has left its key rate unchanged since July. The rapid rise has startled investors and put policymakers in a tough spot. The focal point has been on the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, which underpins […]

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Powell Says Strong Economic Data ‘Could Warrant’ Higher Rates

Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, reiterated the central bank’s commitment to moving forward “carefully” with further rate moves in remarks prepared for delivery on Thursday. But he also said that the central bank might need to raise interest rates more if economic data continued to come in hot. Mr. Powell tried […]

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Investors Are Calling It: The Federal Reserve May Be Done Raising Rates

Investors are betting that the Federal Reserve, which has raised interest rates to their highest levels in 22 years, may finally be finished. Several top Fed officials have indicated in recent days that the central bank’s effort to cool the economy through higher borrowing costs is being amplified by recent market moves that are essentially […]

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Africa Needs Its Debts Paused So It Can Prepare for Climate Catastrophe

When poor countries are forced to default on their foreign debt, as Ghana and Zambia have done, they pay a heavy price. Cut off from credit of any kind, spending on health, education and dealing with the damaging effects of climate change comes to a juddering halt. Countries in the West often plead with us […]

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Stocks Slip as Strong Jobs Report Pushes Bond Yields Higher

Markets shuddered on Friday after a fresh report on hiring pointed to a much stronger labor market than economists had expected, igniting concerns among investors that the Federal Reserve would need to clamp down on the economy more forcefully as it battles to bring inflation under control. The Labor Department reported that employers added 336,000 […]

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Why the Jobs Report Might be Pivotal for a Jittery Stock Market

Stocks are sliding, government bond yields are soaring, and investors are reacting strongly to incremental economic information, parsing it for even the slightest hints about the path ahead. . Such sensitivity among investors has left markets jittery — veering between fears that the economy is running too hot and worries about a downturn so sharp […]

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