Aurelia Butler

The economy will keep going in a “pretty good way” unless there is a policy mistake or exogenous shock, he added, speaking at an event at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank. “We have wages now beating prices, nominal wages growing faster than prices, and that dynamic in our economy creates a pretty persistent flywheel,” he said. “In the absence of a policy mistake or an exogenous shock, we think that sort of keeps things going in a pretty good way.” Republican U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday rejected a stopgap funding bill advancing in the Senate, bringing Washington closer to its fourth partial shutdown of the U.S. government in a decade with just four days to go. More

(Reuters) -Micron Technology on Wednesday forecast a wider than expected first-quarter loss, and its shares sank 2.4% even as it prepares to ramp up production of new product lines and said it was working to become a supplier to Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) The Idaho-based chipmaker’s first-quarter revenue forecast exceeded Wall Street estimates, powered by demand for its memory chips from the rapidly growing artificial intelligence sector.Micron (NASDAQ:MU) said it is working with Nvidia, the world’s most valuable chip company, to qualify its newest high-bandwidth memory chips for use in Nvidia’s computing chips.Demand for high-bandwidth memory chips, a market led by Nvidia supplier SK Hynix, for use in AI has also raised investor hopes that Micron will be able to weather a slow recovery in other end markets. Micron Chief Executive Sanjay Mehrotra told analysts during a conference call that the company expects “several hundred million” dollars worth of revenue from its new high-bandwidth chips next year. The company expects its gross margins to become positive again in the second half of its fiscal 2024.Micron essentially sat out the current generation of high-bandwidth chips and instead made a bet that it could profit by selling higher performing chips starting next year, Sumit Sadana, Micron’s chief business officer, told Reuters in an interview.”We have samples in the hands of customers, that compared to samples from our competitors, blow away everyone,” Sadana said. “In fact, the power consumption is so much lower for higher performance that some of our customers didn’t believe the data till they actually tested it out.”Micron expects adjusted revenue of $4.40 billion, plus or minus $200 million, for the current quarter, compared with estimates of $4.20 billion, according to LSEG data.The company forecast an adjusted loss per share of $1.07, steeper than the analyst estimates of a 95 cents per share loss.Revenue for the fourth quarter stood at $4.01 billion, compared with estimates of $3.91 billion. More

(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets from Jamie McGeever, financial markets columnist.Sometimes markets get up a head of steam and it becomes very difficult to slow the momentum, far less reverse it.There’s a case to make that this is where markets – U.S., Asian and global, across asset classes – find themselves, feeding off each other and accelerating self-fulfilling loops.Right now, these are ‘doom’ loops – rising U.S. bond yields, a rampant dollar, higher oil prices, tightening financial conditions, deepening growth fears, decreasing risk appetite and increasingly fragile equity markets.Wall Street’s performance on Wednesday illustrated this phenomenon – despite plunging the day before, it barely recovered any ground at all. Asian stocks barely clawed back any of the previous days’ losses either, and world stocks racked up a ninth straight decline.These moves are unlikely to provide a springboard for Asian markets on Thursday, and beyond Australian retail sales there is nothing on the economic or policy calendar likely to do so either.Recent rebounds in the S&P 500 have been sporadic and limited. The index has risen 0.5% or more only twice this month, and has not posted a gain of 1%. It has fallen at least 0.5% six times, three of those being 1% declines or more.Meanwhile, U.S. bond yields, the dollar and oil all rose again on Wednesday, and Treasury yield spreads over other bonds widened. The 10-year U.S.-Chinese spread is now 190 basis points, the widest since 2006, and the 2-year U.S.-Japanese spread is well above 500 bps and pushing dollar/yen closer to the 150.00 level.Still no intervention from Japan though.In China, the turmoil, intrigue and uncertainty surrounding Evergrande is deepening, as Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the company’s chairman had been placed under police surveillance.The world’s most indebted developer with more than $300 billion in total liabilities is at the center of an unprecedented liquidity crisis in China’s property sector, which accounts for roughly a quarter of the economy.China’s creaking property market is depressing world copper prices – often seen as a bellwether for the global economy – so Evergrande’s debt restructuring has implications far beyond China’s borders.There are signs that Beijing’s steps to boost the economy in recent months may be having an effect. Profits at China’s industrial firms for the first eight months of the year fell 11.7%, but that was down from a 15.5% contraction for the first seven months.A modest recovery may be underway. But it can take a long time for momentum to build or change course.Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Thursday:- Australia retail sales (August)- Germany CPI inflation (September, prelim)- Fed Chair Jerome Powell speaks (By Jamie McGeever; Editing by Josie Kao) More

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A global index of stocks closed Wednesday’s choppy session slightly lower to extend the previous day’s sharp sell-off, as oil prices rallied and U.S. Treasury yields climbed along with the dollar.U.S. crude oil futures briefly nudged above $94 per barrel, intensifying concerns about rising gasoline prices and their impact on inflation and consumer spending. And the dollar index hit a 10-month high as it pushed the euro to a 9-month low, keeping the yen in intervention territory as investors bet the United States will cope better with higher interest rates than other economies.Stocks and bonds have been dropping in price in recent weeks as investors prepared for the prospect that central bankers will hold interest rates “higher for longer” than previously expected, to try to squeeze inflation out of global economies.Irene Tunkel, chief U.S. strategist at Montreal-based BCA Research, saw the increase in oil prices, interest rates and the U.S. dollar as a “triple whammy for U.S. equities” as investors worried about the impact on the economy. And on top of this, they are also monitoring Detroit’s auto worker strikes and as well as the uncertainty of a potential U.S. government shutdown in coming days.”Investors are filled with apprehension right now over interest rates, the price of oil and labor relations,” said Steven Wieting, chief investment strategist at Citi Global Wealth. “The volatility of the bond market is spilling over into the stock market.”The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 68.61 points, or 0.2%, to 33,550.27, the S&P 500 gained 0.98 points, or 0.02%, to 4,274.51 and the Nasdaq Composite added 29.24 points, or 0.22%, to 13,092.85.The pan-European STOXX 600 index earlier closed down 0.18%. MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.15%. Trading during the day was choppy however with a 0.7% decline at session low and a 0.2% increase at the intraday peak.Late in the session, Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, said people were looking for a reason to push the market higher given how over-sold it looked. The global index had lost 1.2% on Tuesday and Wednesday marked its ninth consecutive daily decline. It has fallen 4.7% since the start of September, tracking for its biggest monthly loss in a year. In U.S. Treasuries, after falling as low as 4.49% earlier in the day, benchmark 10-year notes were up 5.4 basis points to 4.612%, from 4.558% late on Tuesday. The 30-year bond was last up 2.2 basis points to yield 4.718%, from 4.696%. The 2-year note was last was up 6.3 basis points to yield 5.1395%, from 5.077%.In currencies, investors are on the lookout for government intervention in the Japanese yen as it has been approaching 150 per dollar, which is seen as the level at which Japan could intervene. The yen fell 0.39% versus the greenback at 149.65 per dollar after hitting its weakest level against the U.S. currency in roughly a year. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of major currencies, eying its fourth straight day of gains, was last up 0.461%, while the euro down 0.65% to $1.0501. Sterling was at $1.2133, down 0.20%.”The U.S. is most able to cope with these new challenges — higher interest rates and higher energy prices,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist at Bannockburn Global Forex in New York, citing the depth of U.S. capital markets and households that are more immune to rising interest rates. “Yes, these are major headwinds, but the U.S. still looks like the driest towel on the rack. The news from Europe isn’t really that good,” Chandler added.Oil prices surged on Wednesday marking their highest settlement in 2023 after a steep drop in U.S. crude stocks compounded worries of tight global supplies.U.S. crude settled up 3.6% at $93.68 per barrel, in its highest settlement since August 2022. It had touched $94.04 during the session. Brent settled at $96.55, up 2.76% on the day, for its highest settlement since November 2022. More