Aurelia Butler

(Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will announce on Monday new plans to ease student debt that would benefit at least 23 million Americans, the administration said, addressing a key issue for young voters whose support he needs in the election this year.The plans, which Biden will detail in Madison, Wisconsin, include cancelling up to $20,000 of accrued and capitalized interest for borrowers, regardless of income, which the administration estimates would eliminate the entirety of that interest for 23 million borrowers.Progressive voters, whom Biden hopes will support him in November’s election, have long urged the White House to address student loan debt. The issue remains high on the agenda of younger voters, many of whom have concerns about Biden’s foreign policy on the war in Gaza and fault him for not achieving greater debt forgiveness.The new plans also include automatically cancelling debt for borrowers who are eligible for certain forgiveness programs, who entered repayment decades ago, who enrolled in low financial value programs, or who are experiencing hardship.If the plans, which have to go through a public comment period, are finalized, they would take effect as early as this fall, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said in a call with reporters.”We’re delivering as much relief as possible for as many borrowers as possible, as quickly as possible,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. “It means freedom from feeling like your student loan bills compete with basic needs, like groceries or healthcare.”When combined with previous actions the Biden administration has taken, these plans would benefit over 30 million Americans, Jean-Pierre said.To date, the Biden-Harris Administration has approved $146 billion in student debt relief for 4 million Americans, the administration said.Biden has vowed to continue working to deliver student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 30 ruling blocking his plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.The administration has studied the Supreme Court’s decision carefully in crafting the new plans, which would be done under Secretary Cardona’s authority under the Higher Education Act, senior administration officials said. As of June 2023, approximately 43.4 million student loan recipients had $1.63 trillion in outstanding loans, according to the Federal Student Aid website. Other members of the administration will travel across the U.S. on Monday to announce the new plans, including a trip from Vice President Kamala Harris to Philadelphia. More

(Reuters) -The upcoming solar eclipse is proving to be a good omen for travel firms, as some parts of the United States that fall in the “path of totality” see unprecedented demand for lodging from eager Americans waiting to catch a glimpse of the celestial event.In a total solar eclipse occurring on Monday April 8, the moon will blot out the sun for millions of people in Mexico, the United States and Canada. Airbnb listings along the U.S. path of totality, or the narrow strip stretching from Texas to Maine from where people will be able to view the sun’s corona, have seen occupancy levels skyrocket to nearly 90%, the vacation rental firm said.Occupancy for all active rental listings across the path in the United States, Canada and Mexico was at 92.4% for the night of April 7, up sharply from about 30% a few days prior, according to travel data firm AirDNA. “It is a nice bump in demand in a relatively slow period of the year. Typically April isn’t a high point for short-term rental demand,” said Jamie Lane, chief economist at AirDNA. Short-term rental listings in New Hampshire and Missouri, for example, are seeing demand surge 514% and 338%, respectively, for the week, AirDNA added.Hotel, rental car and flight bookings have also tripled, data from consultancy firm Navan showed, with room prices in some cities seeing a more than two-fold rise. Niagara Falls, for instance, saw prices surge 249%.Rental car company Hertz said advanced car bookings for April 6 jumped 3,000% in cities along the path of the eclipse. The company has been preparing for more than a year to meet the rush by boosting staffing and cars in high-demand areas. With most hotels and rental properties being fully booked or listed at higher prices, some Americans are exploring the options of campsites and recreational vehicles to catch a glimpse of the eclipse. “Demand for eclipse camping has been huge – we’ve experienced a massive spike in bookings for stays this week,” said Alyssa Ravasio, founder and CEO of camping firm Hipcamp, which saw weekly bookings in the region surge 9,000%.The company is also seeing a surge in international visitors, with campers from countries including Japan, Iceland, Germany and Australia, Ravasio said. More

BEIJING (Reuters) -The U.S. and China are deepening co-operation on financial stability issues, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday, with more simulations of financial shocks due after a recent exercise on tackling the failure of a large bank.Wrapping up four days of meetings in China, Yellen issued a stern warning to Chinese banks that facilitating transactions providing material support or dual-use goods to Russia for its Ukraine war effort would lead to “significant consequences.” Yellen said the financial stability exercises were developed by a U.S.-China financial working group formed last year when she first visited to try to rebuild economic ties.The group, led by representatives of the U.S. Treasury and the People’s Bank of China, last met in Beijing in January. “Just like military leaders need a hotline in a crisis, American and Chinese financial regulators must be able to communicate to prevent financial stresses from turning into crises with tremendous ramifications for our citizens and the international community,” Yellen told a news conference.She discussed financial stability issues on Monday with PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng at the central bank’s headquarters in Beijing.Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior U.S. Treasury official said the new exercises would take place in April or May. One would cover operational resilience co-ordination risks prompted by a major external shock, such as a natural disaster, a cyberattack on a bank, or a new pandemic, while the other would cover insurance system impacts from climate change risks.There was no immediate comment from the PBOC.The exercises will help establish lines of communication between U.S. and Chinese regulators and identify areas of potential cross-border contagion and other risks, the U.S. official said.The official did not disclose specific results, but said both Chinese and U.S. officials made suggestions on how to better coordinate during episodes of stress.NO NAMES MENTIONED”It’s generic in the sense that there was no trigger of concern about a particular bank. There was no name of a bank or anything like that used,” the official added.Risks from cross-border external shocks came into sharp focus last November, when a ransomware attack on the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s (ICBC) U.S. arm disrupted its systems and left some $9 billion worth of trades temporarily unsettled in the U.S. Treasury debt market.The Treasury has long held such simulations with other countries that have large financial systems, such as Japan, Britain and European countries. The official said the U.S. and China have not had such exercises and consultations so far.Although direct financial linkages between the U.S. and China are not large enough for China’s economic slowdown to affect U.S. growth, the official said it was important to start to map out risks. “Countries with large financial systems need to do this with each other. And we simply hadn’t been doing it with China. So now we’ve started in that direction,” the official said.On Friday in the southern city of Guangzhou, Yellen mentioned the large bank failure exercise as a tangible example of improved economic dialogue between Washington and Beijing. More

China gears up to release a deluge of key data and U.S. banks kick off the earnings season.Here’s your week ahead primer in world markets from Yoruk Bahceli in Amsterdam, Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Kevin Buckland in Tokyo, and Dhara Ranasinghe and Amanda Cooper in London.1/ SEEKING THE GREEN LIGHTThe European Central Bank meets on Thursday in what is likely the final hurdle before it starts cutting interest rates.Traders see a nearly 100% chance of a 25 basis-point cut in June, so a green light is crucial to uphold market sentiment. A flurry of policymakers have explicitly signalled June as the date of a first move. Even Austria’s uber-hawk governor Robert Holzmann is not opposed.Data showing inflation falling unexpectedly to 2.4% in March should give the ECB further confidence.So the ECB is very likely to signal rate cuts are coming.The question is how explicit policymakers will be about June, given they want to review first-quarter wage growth figures that will be released in May.2/ A CRUDE CIRCLERising geopolitical turmoil and supply disruption in a number of production hot-spots are pushing oil prices back towards $90 a barrel for the first time in months.Central banks tend to focus on so-called core measures of inflation that strip out energy and food prices. But for businesses on the ground, there’s no taking the crude price out of the equation. And the assumption that the U.S. Fed might cut rates by less than its peers has pushed the dollar up almost across the board this year.That in turn has undermined the purchasing power of big buyers in China, Japan, India and South Korea, raising their energy import bills.All this complicates life for those countries’ monetary authorities, which have either intervened, or threatened to intervene, to prop up their currencies to prevent a vicious-circle type of pickup in inflation.3/ BANK LINE UP    Quarterly reports from major banks will soon kick off earnings season.    Following strong fourth-quarter results to end-2023, S&P 500 companies are expected to post a 5% year-on-year rise in first-quarter earnings, according to LSEG IBES.    Investors are counting on robust corporate profit this year to support rising valuations as the stock market has rallied to record highs. The S&P 500’s price-to-earnings ratio is hovering at its highest in about two years.    JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup and Wells Fargo all report results on April 12. Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) and BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) are among other notable companies set to provide quarterly updates in the days ahead.Focus is also on Wednesday’s March inflation data after numbers out on Friday showed U.S. employers hired far more workers than expected last month and lifted wages at a steady clip – potentially delaying anticipated rate cuts this year.4/ RED SHOOTS    Promising signs of a long-awaited turnaround in China’s economy keep building, helping keep stocks close to multi-month highs into a two-day public holiday from Thursday.    The Shanghai Composite recently enjoyed its biggest rally in a month after data showed the fastest expansion in manufacturing for more than a year. That was followed by even more hopeful numbers showing an acceleration in services activity, hinting that consumer animal spirits might finally be stirring.    The coming days bring a parade of fresh indicators that could support or subvert that optimism: consumer and producer price indexes on Thursday and trade data on Friday.These will be important litmus tests of consumer appetite. The consumer price index meanwhile will be key since the first rise for six months in the previous batch of data is what helped Chinese stocks scale post-November peaks, though figures were potentially skewed by Lunar New Year holidays.5/ DELICATERate setters elsewhere in the world are sandwiching the ECB: Canada and New Zealand meet on Wednesday, Singapore and South Korea on Friday.No rate changes anticipated, but traders want a sense of when rate cuts will come and how policymakers will navigate a delicate balancing act. Markets have trimmed bets for a June Canada rate cut after news the economy grew by 0.6% in January, its fastest growth rate in a year.New Zealand is in technical recession but with inflation still above 4.5%, easing is not expected until August. Singapore is grappling with sticky inflation and the risk of elevated price pressures for longer as recent Taylor Swift concerts fuelled service-sector price rises. And Korea’s central bank said in February it was too early to pivot with the path for inflation, at 3.1%, uncertain. Markets only bet on it cutting rates late this year. (Graphics by Pasit Kongkunakornul, Sumanta Sen, Vineet Sachdev and Kripa Jayaram, Compiled by Karin Strohecker; Editing by Christopher Cushing) More

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The new quarterly earnings season kicks off this week, with the banking giants JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) all reporting results on Friday. Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) and BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) are among other big names set to provide quarterly updates during the week.The benchmark S&P 500 index is up more than 9% year-to-date, following its strongest first-quarter performance since 2019. But the bar may be rising for stocks to keep advancing at that pace, increasing pressure on companies to deliver strong results.Mundane earnings growth could give investors less reason to hold onto stocks, at a time when elevated yields bolster the attractiveness of bonds.Investors will also listen for companies’ views on the economy and inflation, to gauge whether the current environment of resilient growth and cooling consumer prices can continue.U.S. stock futures edged slightly higher Monday, rebounding after a losing week although gains are likely to be limited ahead of the release of key inflation data and the new corporate earnings season.By 04:05 ET (08:05 GMT), the Dow futures contract was 40 points, or 0.1%, higher, S&P 500 futures climbed 2 points, or 0.1%, and Nasdaq 100 futures rose by 20 points, or 0.1%.The main Wall Street indices ended last week with solid gains, but still recorded sharp weekly losses amid uncertainty over when the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates.The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.3% last week, posting its worst weekly performance since March 2023. The S&P 500 index declined nearly 1% during the period, its biggest weekly loss since early January, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.8%, suffering its fourth negative week in five.Investors are eagerly awaiting the release of consumer price inflation figures for March on Wednesday, following Friday’s payrolls data that showed the U.S. economy added far more jobs than expected last month.The combination of strong employment data and slow progress on inflation in the last couple of months has created doubt that the Fed’s first interest rate cut will arrive in June.Boeing’s pile of troubles received another addition on Sunday after an engine cover on a Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV) aircraft – a Boeing 737-800 – fell off during takeoff in Denver and struck the wing flap.This resulted in the Federal Aviation Administration opening an investigation.Southwest said the flight returned to Denver International Airport and landed safely after experiencing a mechanical issue. Boeing (NYSE:BA) CEO Dave Calhoun announced last month he would leave by the end of the year, with the aircraft manufacturer under intense criticism since a door plug panel tore off a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 jet at 16,000 feet.In the aftermath of the incident, the FAA grounded the MAX 9 for several weeks, barred Boeing from increasing the MAX production rate and ordered it to develop a comprehensive plan to address “systemic quality-control issues” within 90 days.The Justice Department has also opened a criminal investigation into the MAX 9 incident.Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) Investors Service placed Boeing’s ratings on review for a downgrade late last month, with the company’s stock having fallen almost 30% year to date. Bitcoin edged higher Monday, and while further immediate strength now appeared uncertain, future gains are set to be impressive, according to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse.At 04:10 ET, the world’s largest cryptocurrency traded 2.4% higher at $71,040, after recouping a bulk of its weekly losses over the weekend.Bitcoin, as well as the broader crypto market, benefits from a low-rate, high-liquidity environment, and Friday’s red-hot U.S. payrolls report created uncertainty over the likelihood of a Fed rate cut in June. The digital currency still remained well within a trading range established over the past month, as it struggled for direction after hitting record highs in March. Still, the combined market capitalization of the cryptocurrency market is likely to double this year, said Garlinghouse, in an interview with CNBC.The CEO of the blockchain startup cited macro factors including the arrival of U.S. Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, as well as the upcoming so-called bitcoin “halving.”The first spot Bitcoin ETFs were approved in January by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, while the Bitcoin halving is set to happen later this month, and sees the total mining reward to bitcoin miners halving. The last such event took place in 2020.“The overall market cap of the crypto industry … is easily predicted to double by the end of this year … [as it’s] impacted by all of these macro factors,” Garlinghouse said.Oil prices fell sharply Monday on raised confidence of a possible ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, easing concerns of supply disruption from the oil-rich Middle East.By 04:10 ET, the U.S. crude futures traded 1.1% lower at $85.95 a barrel, while the Brent contract dropped 1.1% to $90.15 per barrel.Teams from Israel and Hamas met in Egypt for renewed ceasefire talks, just days before the Eid holidays this week, while Israel pulled out some troops from southern Gaza. The moves have resulted in a lessening of tensions in the region, and follow the U.S. urging Israel to tone down its offensive against Gaza over human rights violations.Oil prices had surged to five-month highs last week after Iran threatened military action against Israel over alleged strikes on an embassy in Syria.Expectations of tighter oil supplies have also boosted crude prices in recent weeks, and continued to remain in play.The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies recently reiterated that its production cuts will remain in place until end-June, while top producer Russia also flagged deeper production cuts. 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Orders for 53,438 cars and 5,173 motorcycles were booked during the event held from March 27 to April 7, Grand Prix International said in a statement.EVs accounted for about 32.8% of the car orders, the company said, following a 21.5% share at the previous event.Toyota received orders for 8,540 cars, followed by China’s BYD (SZ:002594) with 5,345 cars, according to Grand Prix.”Electric vehicles from China caught people’s attention,” the company said.Chinese car makers were in the spotlight amid the growing challenge to Japanese auto giants that have long dominated Thailand’s vehicle market.Chinese automakers have committed to invest more than $1.44 billion in production facilities in Southeast Asia’s largest auto manufacturing hub. Thailand is looking convert about 30% of its annual vehicle production into EVs by 2030.The expansion by Chinese EV makers in Thailand comes against the backdrop of intensifying competition at home where car makers are racing to cut prices. More