Aurelia Butler

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(Reuters) – A major fundraiser for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Florida on Saturday is expected to rake in a massive $43 million or more as the former president seeks to replenish diminished coffers in his rematch against Democrat Joe Biden.The event, slated to be his biggest fundraiser yet, is a much-needed opportunity for Trump, who has been routinely outraised by Biden and is in the midst of a financial squeeze due to ballooning lawyer fees and legal payouts. The dinner, hosted at billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson’s Palm Beach home, will allocate a portion of the money to be raised to a fundraising group that has spent tens of millions of dollars on Trump’s legal fees. While Trump has struggled to get some major traditional Republican donors on board, he retains the support of some heavy hitters. Co-hosts on Saturday, for example, include hedge-fund investor Robert Mercer (NASDAQ:MERC) and his daughter and conservative activist Rebekah, investor Scott Bessent, and casino mogul Phil Ruffin, according to the fundraiser invitation seen by Reuters.Paulson has been floated by Trump as a potential Treasury Secretary, according to two sources. Bessent has also been floated for the role, one of those two sources said.Paulson did not immediately respond to a request for information on the event.Trump’s campaign said last month that it will be unable to match Biden’s fundraising totals this year. His campaign, together with a joint fundraising committee, pulled in $20.3 million in February, compared with the more than $53 million raised by Biden’s re-election effort that month.More money is not always an indication of success, however. Trump beat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 after she raised $769.9 million, far more than the $433.4 million he raised.Trump, who clinched the Republican presidential nomination last month, can now raise money with the RNC ahead of the Nov. 5 election.The Trump 47 Committee, a new fundraising tie-up with the Republican National Committee, directs funds to the Save America leadership group before anything goes to the RNC, the invitation shows. The Trump 47 Committee is asking top donors to contribute up to $814,600 per person. The first $6,600 of any person’s contribution would go to Trump’s presidential campaign, according to the invitation. A maximum of $5,000 per person would then be allocated to Save America. After Save America gets its share, the RNC would get a cut of up to $413,000. In the cases of the biggest contributions, a raft of Republican state parties would get funds too. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden took an aerial tour on Friday of the collapsed Baltimore bridge that is blocking a key East Coast shipping lane, and he pledged federal help in rebuilding the span, an idea some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have resisted.A cargo ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, sending it splashing into the harbor and killing six people. Work to clear the wreckage and restore traffic through the Mid-Atlantic state’s shipping channel is ongoing.Aboard his Marine One helicopter, Biden flew over the scene of the disaster to get an aerial view. He met local officials for a briefing on the economic impact to the Baltimore port, an important shipping destination for ships to offload automobiles.Speaking with the fallen bridge behind him as an imposing backdrop, Biden vowed, “We will not rest” until the bridge is rebuilt and the area is back to normal.He called on Congress to approve funding for the new bridge as soon as possible.”I’m here to say your nation has your back and I mean it,” Biden said. “We’re going to get this paid for.”He also vowed that the parties responsible for the bridge collapse will help pay to repair the damage and “be held accountable to the fullest extent the law will allow.”Biden later met the families of the six people killed in the accident. The victims were all immigrants from Mexico and Central America, who were fixing potholes on the road surface of the bridge when it collapsed.Shortly before the president’s flyover, dive teams recovered the body of one of the missing highway repair workers, Maynor Yasir Suazo-Sandoval, 38, of Honduras, officials said. Three other bodies remain trapped beneath the underwater debris. Two others were previously recovered.Biden’s meeting with the families of these immigrant workers came as his rival Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric and cast migrants as dangerous criminals “poisoning the blood” of America.State and federal officials have raised alarms over the hardships the port’s closure could impose on the regional economy with thousands of port workers already idled. The Port of Baltimore ranks first in the U.S. for volume of autos and light trucks and farm and construction machinery handled, according to the state of Maryland. Most of that traffic has been suspended since the accident, though some terminal operations outside the affected area have resumed.The White House’s Office of Management & Budget (OMB), in a letter to Congress on Friday, asked the federal government to cover the bridge replacement, which federal officials say could cost at least $2 billion.Some Republican hardliners in the U.S. House of Representatives oppose using new federal dollars to fund the bridge’s reconstruction. Such a request could probably pass the Senate, controlled by Biden’s fellow Democrats, but may run into trouble in the narrowly divided House. The House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of roughly three dozen hardline Republicans who can wield outsized influence over House Speaker Mike Johnson, on Friday issued a series of demands in exchange for their cooperation. FUNDING FOR THE BRIDGEHours after the bridge collapse, Biden said the U.S. government would “pay the entire cost” of reconstruction and his administration announced $60 million in emergency relief last week. The administration will pursue all avenues to recover costs and “ensure that any compensation for damages or insurance proceeds collected will reduce costs for the American people,” Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young wrote on Friday. White House officials have held talks in recent weeks with Johnson’s office over billions in aid for Ukraine and Israel as well as money for the collapsed bridge, according to two officials familiar with conversations who asked not to be named.The spending measures separately have bipartisan support, but the White House is aware that Johnson must satisfy his hardline colleagues, which means many spending proposals will be tethered together in order to pass, the officials said. The Freedom Caucus, whose members helped oust Johnson’s predecessor last year, said Congress should seek “maximum liability” from foreign shipping companies.It also demanded that any aid be fully offset with spending cuts and that the Endangered Species Act and other regulations are waived to avoid delays. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Another two Federal Reserve officials on Friday added their voices to the wave of U.S. central bankers downplaying any urgency to cutting rates amid sticky inflation, with one warning a failure of price pressures to further abate might even push the central bank to raise rates again.Although inflation has fallen quite a bit and will likely continue to move back toward the 2% target “we are still not yet at the point where it is appropriate to lower the policy rate, and I continue to see a number of upside risks to inflation,” Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman told a gathering of the Shadow Open Market Committee in New York. Those inflation potentialities could change the outlook for future policy decisions, she said. “While it is not my baseline outlook, I continue to see the risk that at a future meeting we may need to increase the policy rate further should progress on inflation stall or even reverse,” Bowman warned.For now, the central bank governor said Fed policy is well positioned for the current vigor of the economy, and if inflation continues its retreat back to 2%, she said “it will eventually become appropriate to gradually lower the federal funds rate to prevent monetary policy from becoming overly restrictive.” Bowman’s hawkish take on monetary policy followed similar commentary from Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Lorie Logan, who tilled similar soil. “I believe it’s much too soon to think about cutting interest rates,” Logan said in a speech text prepared for delivery before a gathering at Duke University. To get to rate cuts, “I will need to see more of the uncertainty resolved about which economic path we’re on,” she said. Logan was also worried about the future of inflation after its unsteady start to the year. “The key risk” is less about inflation rising than stalling out at current levels, she said. Bowman and Logan were the latest Fed officials over the course of the past week to voice concern about the “bumps” the Fed was encountering so far this year along the path to returning inflation to its target. The combination of strong job market data and limited progress on inflation in the last couple of months has amplified the calls among top officials – including Chair Jerome Powell – to be “patient” as they approach the decision on when to cut rates.HEADWINDS TO RATE CUTS The two Fed officials spoke in the wake of the release of very strong hiring data. The jobs report showed a very strong employment sector, with payrolls adding a better-than-expected 303,000 jobs in March, amid a decline in the unemployment rate to 3.8% from 3.9% in February. The strength of hiring reinforced the idea that with the economy on a strong footing, the Fed has space to allow its current monetary policy setting, which has the federal funds rate at between 5.25% and 5.5%, to be left in place for a while to further lower inflation without causing broader economic pain. The course of economic data as well as guidance from Fed policymakers has helped investors pare back expectations of rate cuts. According to the futures market for federal funds, traders see almost no chance of a cut at the May Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and are split on the prospects of a June easing. At the FOMC meeting last month Fed policymakers continued to expect three cuts for this year albeit with less conviction relative to their forecast from the end of last year. The jobs data on balance pushed back against the need to start cutting rates, economists said. “The Fed does not know what path the data is going to take” which has clouded how much guidance they’re able to give about future policy choices, said Thomas Simons, U.S. economist with investment bank Jefferies. That said, “today’s data will not motivate Fed officials to lean more towards a rate cut any time soon.” TD Securities economists agreed. In a note to clients they wrote the robust jobs report “may reinforce the idea of patience among some Fed officials in terms of upcoming policy decisions.” They added, “we remain of the view that the evolution of consumer price inflation remains the key determinant in the short term, which raises the stakes for next week’s CPI report.”The March consumer price index is scheduled for release next Wednesday and market participants will be closely watching for evidence whether factors that made the index stronger-than-expected at the start of the year are abating. JP Morgan’s Chief U.S. Economist Michael Feroli wasn’t waiting for CPI to change his call, however. “(T)he apparent absence of any cracks developing on the (labor) demand side should lessen the urgency to ease policy, and we are pushing back our call for the first Fed cut from June to July,” he said. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Don Hankey, the billionaire businessman whose company Knight Specialty Insurance provided the $175 million bond that Donald Trump posted in his New York civil fraud case, told Reuters that the fee his firm charged the former U.S. President was low.Hankey, who backed Trump as a presidential candidate in 2016 and has said he supports his re-election, has maintained that providing the bond was a business decision. He declined to disclose the fee, but said it was low because Knight did not think there was much risk involved. Lawyers say surety companies typically charge a fee of between 1% and 2% of the face value of the bond. Hankey said he now feels Knight did not charge Trump enough because of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ subsequent scrutiny of the bond, as well as the media attention around it.”We thought it would be an easy procedure that wouldn’t involve other legal problems and it’s not turning out that way. We probably didn’t charge enough,” Hankey said in an interview. “We have been getting a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls. Maybe that’s part of the reason he had trouble with other insurance companies,” Hankey said, adding that despite the issues, he did not regret providing the bond. Trump posted the $175 million bond on April 1, as he appeals a $454 million fraud judgement against him for overstating his net worth and the value of his real estate to dupe banks and insurers, in a case brought by James.On Thursday, James’ office questioned the $175 million bond, asking that Knight provide proof that it has enough assets to pay if Trump’s appeal fails. A New York judge will hold a hearing on the matter on April 22.Hankey, whose net worth is pegged by Forbes at $7.4 billion, said he was taken aback by James’ questioning the bond. “I’m surprised they’re coming down harder on our bond or looking for reasons to cause issues with our instrument,” he said.Hankey, who runs a group of businesses including a provider of subprime automotive loans that has been reprimanded by regulators for predatory behaviour involving customers, said Trump offered collateral for the $175 million in cash.He said the cash is held at a brokerage firm and pledged to Knight, and that Knight can access it if needed.”I don’t know if it came from Donald Trump or from Donald Trump and supporters,” Hankey said of the cash Trump provided for collateral. Hankey said he first approached Trump’s representatives to discuss how he could help Trump with the bond, before the former president managed to get it reduced on appeal from $454 million to $175 million. Trump would have had to “come up with a lot of collateral or somebody else would,” Hankey said.Hankey said he understood from Trump’s representatives that Trump did not have $454 million in cash.Trump last month said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social that he had “almost five hundred million dollars in cash.” In an April 2023 deposition with James, he said he had “substantially in excess of $400 million in cash.”A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to a request for comment. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. stock market is the most expensive it has been in around two years. Its valuation could be put to the test as companies report earnings in coming weeks.The S&P 500 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.The benchmark index trades at 20.7 times its estimated earnings for the next 12 months, near a more than two-year high of 21.2 hit in late March, according to LSEG Datastream. Unremarkable earnings growth could give investors less reason to hold onto stocks, at a time when elevated yields on Treasuries bolster the attractiveness of bonds. Investors will also listen for companies’ views on the economy and inflation, to gauge whether the so-called Goldilocks environment of resilient growth and cooling consumer prices can continue. Signs of stubborn inflation have diminished expectations in recent weeks for how deeply the Federal Reserve will cut rates this year. Stocks rose after another stronger-than-expected employment report on Friday. “If we’re going to continue to make significant gains in the stock market, we have to not just meet, but probably exceed … what those estimates are for earnings,” said Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management.Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL), BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), and JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) are among the companies scheduled to release their first quarter results next week. Investors will also be watching for March U.S. consumer price data, expected on April 10.Analysts expect to see earnings growth of 5% in the first quarter, according to LSEG data. That would be the lowest since the second quarter of 2023. They expect margins to be squeezed by high interest rates, rising commodity costs, and falling corporate pricing power due to slowing inflation. Earnings grew by 10.1% in the fourth quarter of 2023. The results of megacaps such as Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) could be key for investor sentiment, following a divergence in the share price performance of the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks that led markets higher last year. Chipmaker Nvidia, for instance, is up 78% in 2024, while Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares have fallen over 30% due to concerns over its margins and demand. The electric vehicle maker has canceled the long-promised inexpensive car that investors have been counting on to drive its growth into a mass-market automaker, Reuters reported on Friday.”These businesses now need to justify these high valuations,” said Bryant VanCronkhite, a portfolio manager at Allspring Global Investments. “The market is looking for every company to talk about their demand drivers and articulate what they see coming ahead.”At the same time, investors will be watching whether evidence of continuing strength in the U.S. economy flows through to rising revenues and earnings for industrial, energy, and other sectors that are closely tied to growth. Shares of these companies have largely performed well this year in a rally that has spread beyond technology and growth names.“If the U.S. economy starts to bounce from here you want exposure to industries with real economy end-markets,” said Justin Menne, head of US equities for Harbor Capital Advisors, who is overweight shares of energy companies. Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW), said she expects “punishment” of companies that fail to meet expectations.”What will be critical beyond the beat rate will be the margin stories,” she said.As always, the Fed will loom large in investors’ minds. A robust earnings season and expectations of growing price pressures from companies could be seen as further evidence that the economy is too strong for the central bank to cut rates without risking an inflationary rebound. March U.S. employment numbers backed up that narrative. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 303,000 jobs last month, far above expectations. Futures markets show investors expect the Fed to deliver around 70 basis points of rate cuts this year, compared to 150 basis points they had factored in January. Yet weaker earnings could indicate cracks in the economy’s strength. Some investors believe that could boost the case for the Fed to ease monetary policy. “That bad news could actually be good news for the market because it leads to those Fed rate cuts that everyone is hoping for,” said Kevin Mahn, chief investment officer at Hennion & Walsh Asset Management. More