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Research on hundreds of tropical storms finds that mortality keeps rising for more than a decade afterward, for reasons you might not expect.Over the past week, the official death toll from Hurricane Helene has surpassed 100 as the vortex creeping inland from Florida submerged homes and swept away cars. But the full weight of lost lives will be realized only years from now — and it could number in the thousands.A paper published in the journal Nature on Wednesday lays out the hidden toll of tropical storms in the continental United States. Looking at 501 events from 1930 to 2015, researchers found that the average tropical storm resulted in an additional 7,000 to 11,000 deaths over the 15 years that followed.Overall during the study period, tropical storms killed more people than automobile crashes, infectious diseases and combat for U.S. soldiers. It’s such a big number — especially compared with the 24 direct deaths caused by hurricanes on average, according to federal statistics — that the authors spent years checking the math to make sure they were right.“The scale of these results is dramatically different from what we expected,” said Solomon Hsiang, a professor of global environmental policy at the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University, who conducted the study with Rachel Young, the Ciriacy-Wantrup postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.The pair used a technique that has also provided a more complete understanding of “excess deaths” caused by Covid-19 and heat waves. It works by looking at typical mortality patterns and isolating anomalies that could have been caused only by the variable under study — in this case, a sizable storm.Previously, researchers examined deaths and hospitalizations after hurricanes over much shorter periods. One study published in Nature found elevated hospitalizations among older Medicaid patients in the week after a storm. Another, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, associated higher death rates with U.S. counties hit by cyclones. A study in The Lancet found that across 14 countries, cyclones led to a 6 percent bump in mortality in the ensuing two weeks.Deaths from tropical storms in the U.S. have been spiking Fatalities connected to storms that struck as many as 15 years ago – measured as the number of deaths above what would otherwise be expected – are rising faster as storms increase in frequency.
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BRUSSELS (Reuters) -France, Greece, Italy and Poland will vote on Friday for tariffs of up to 45% on imports of electric vehicles (EVs) made in China, officials and sources said, enough to get the European Union proposal passed in a move likely to increase trade tensions with Beijing.The European Commission, which is conducting an anti-subsidy investigation into EVs made in China, has sent its proposal for final tariffs to the EU’s 27 member states ahead of a vote expected on Friday.Under EU rules, the Commission can impose final or “definitive” tariffs for the next five years unless a qualified majority of 15 EU countries representing 65% of the EU’s population votes against the plan.France, Greece, Italy and Poland will vote in favour, officials and sources of those countries said. Together, they represent 39% of the EU population.The Commission can also submit a new, amended proposal if it chooses.The EU executive has said it is willing to continue negotiating an alternative to tariffs with China and could re-examine a price undertaking – involving a minimum import price and typically a volume cap – having previously rejected those offered by Chinese companies.One option under negotiation is minimum import prices calculated using criteria such as the range, battery performance and length of the electric vehicle, along with whether it is two- or four-wheel drive, a source familiar with the matter said.An alternative is a commitment to investment in the EU, with quotas for a transitional period.The tariffs range from 7.8% for Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) to 35.3% for SAIC and other companies deemed not to have cooperated with the EU investigation. These tariffs are on top of the EU’s standard 10% import duty for cars. More
(Reuters) – Wall Street was poised for a slightly lower open on Wednesday after geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and a domestic port strike left investors nervous, while a survey allayed concerns about a rapid cooldown in the labor market.In a dour start to the final quarter of the year, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq logged their biggest one-day drops in nearly a month on Wednesday, after Iran fired missiles against Israel in retaliation for its attacks in Lebanon.Markets held their ground since, after Israel and the U.S. vowed to strike back, with oil prices climbing more than 3% as traders priced in possible supply disruptions from the oil-rich region. SLB and Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) added 1.7% and 1.6%, respectively, in premarket trading. [O/R]Defense stocks such as Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) and RTX gained 0.7% and 1%, respectively, after the broader S&P 500 aerospace and defense index hit a record high in the previous session.”Sentiment is dominated by the risk of escalating conflict in the Middle East and there is a lack of information on how strong the response is going to be from the Israelis,” said Jay Hatfield, portfolio manager at InfraCap.Meanwhile, the ADP National Employment report showed the economy added 143,000 private jobs in September, compared with estimates of 120,000, according to economists Reuters polled. Odds of a quarter-percentage-point rate reduction at the Fed’s November meeting are at 64.2%, up from 42.6% a week ago, according to the CME Group’s (NASDAQ:CME) FedWatch Tool.”The ADP report was strong and that might be mitigating the volatility, because we’re not in a complete information vacuum,” Hatfield said.Dow E-minis were down 89 points, or 0.21%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 13 points, or 0.23% and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 24.25 points, or 0.12%.Futures tracking the small-cap Russell 2000 index slipped 0.7%, while safe-haven Treasury bonds dipped after Tuesday’s surge. [US/]The CBOE Volatility Index, Wall Street’s fear gauge, hovered near a three-week high and was last at 19.49.Comments from Fed policymakers including Beth Hammack and Alberto Musalem are scheduled through the day, while the focus will stay on Friday’s non-farm payrolls data for September.Markets ended September higher after the U.S. Federal Reserve kicked off its monetary-policy-easing cycle with an unusual 50-basis-point rate cut to shore up the jobs market, which has taken on a greater importance in the central bank’s dual mandate of price stability and low unemployment.Investors also monitored a dockworkers’ strike on the East and Gulf coasts which entered its second day. The walkout could cost the American economy roughly $5 billion a day, analysts at JPMorgan estimated. Some companies such as Walmart (NYSE:WMT), Merit Medical Systems (NASDAQ:MMSI) and McCormick (NYSE:MKC) said they had planned for the strike. Their shares were flat in premarket trading.Analysts said the spike in oil prices, along with the port strike, could raise inflation, which neared the central bank’s 2% target recently.Dow-component Nike (NYSE:NKE) slid 7.8% after withdrawing its annual revenue forecast just as a new CEO is set to take the helm.Humana (NYSE:HUM) tanked 21.7% after it said it expects the total number of members enrolled in its top-rated Medicare Advantage plans for those aged 65 and above to decrease for 2025. More
Private companies added 143,000 jobs in September, an acceleration from 103,000 in August and better than the 128,000 consensus forecast, ADP reported Wednesday.
Job gains were fairly widespread, with leisure and hospitality leading at 34,000, followed by construction (26,000) and education and health services (24,000).
Private sector hiring picked up in September, indicating the labor market is holding its ground despite some signs of weakness, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday.
Companies added 143,000 jobs for the month, an acceleration from the upwardly revised 103,000 in August and better than the 128,000 consensus forecast from economists polled by Dow Jones.
While hiring increased, the rate of pay growth took another step down. The 12-month gain for those staying in their jobs nudged lower to 4.7%, while tumbling to 6.6% for job switchers, down 0.7 percentage point from August.
Job gains were fairly widespread, with leisure and hospitality leading at 34,000, followed by construction (26,000), education and health services (24,000), professional and business services (20,000) and other services (17,000).
Information services was the lone category posting a loss, down 10,000.
Service providers accounted for 101,000 of the total, with goods producers adding the rest.
From a size standpoint, all of the growth came from companies with more than 50 employees. Small firms saw a loss, with those employing fewer than 20 workers down by 13,000.
The ADP count comes two days ahead of the Labor Department’s nonfarm payrolls report, which is expected to show growth of 150,000, following August’s disappointing showing of 142,000, of which 118,000 came from private sector hiring.
While the ADP report serves as a precursor to the official count, the two can differ, sometimes by wide margins.
Federal Reserve officials are watching the jobs numbers closely as they contemplate the next move for monetary policy and interest rates. In a speech Monday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell characterized the labor market as “solid” while noting that it has “clearly cooled” over the past year.
The Fed is expected to follow up its half percentage point rate cut in September with further reductions in November and December. The main question is whether the central bank will move in the same large increment or pivot back to a more conventional quarter-point move.
Futures market pricing currently points to a quarter-point cut in November then a half-point move in December. Powell indicated that consecutive quarter-point moves are the more likely scenario now, though policymakers remain attuned to the data and will adjust accordingly. More
BENGALURU (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar will hold steady in coming months despite an expected series of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, according to median forecasts from FX strategists polled by Reuters who were, however, largely split on the currency’s broad direction.Since July the greenback has lost almost all the near-5% gains against a basket of major currencies accumulated through mid-year on expectations the Fed would reduce its funds rate from what many considered an overly-restrictive level. However, the currency has been mostly stable in recent weeks.With price pressures now broadly thought to have been tamed, the central bank started easing last month with an oversized half-percentage-point cut to forestall any further weakening in the job market in the world’s largest economy.The Fed was expected to cut its key policy rate by 25 bps in both November and December, according to a majority of over 100 economists in a separate snap Reuters survey taken after the September meeting.While in line with the Fed’s own projections and chair Jerome Powell saying policymakers were not “in a hurry” to cut rates, that expectation was shallower than the near-72 bps of easing interest rate futures are currently pricing.Despite this, the dollar would remain resolute in coming months with the euro, currently around $1.11, seen holding that level by year-end and through end-March, according to median forecasts of nearly 80 strategists in a Sept. 30-Oct. 2 Reuters poll.The common currency was then expected to strengthen about 2% to $1.13 in a year, the survey showed, consistent with calls for dollar weakness analysts have held for the majority of this year.”While it has been our view a global soft landing combined with Fed easing should, if realized, eventually result in broad dollar weakness, the path to get to that destination at least in the near-term could be treacherous,” noted Meera Chandan, FX strategist at JP Morgan.Analysts who answered a separate question were split on the dollar’s broad direction over the remainder of the year with slightly over half, 35 of 62, saying it was more likely to trade weaker than they predict. The rest said stronger.”The Fed seems to be very much in risk-management mode and wanting to achieve a soft landing and though employment data is slowing it’s not falling off a cliff either,” said Alex Cohen, FX strategist at Bank of America.”What markets have generally been pricing – a 50 bps cut in November followed by 25 bps in December – we are forecasting that as well. Barring any major upside surprise in labor market data, that’s the path they’ll be on – and that coincides with a softer dollar.”Respondents on the other end of the spectrum highlighted safe-haven demand from increasing risks of widening conflict in the Middle East as being one of a few possible tailwinds for the dollar in coming weeks.The outcome of the November U.S. presidential election and financial markets now fully pricing an October European Central Bank rate cut were also mostly viewed as potential dollar-positive events, the poll found.”The dollar can probably strengthen further, more so into the U.S. election as we don’t think the market is fully pricing any premium for potential Trump tariffs,” said Dan Tobon, head of G10 FX strategy at Citi.”We also think there’s more room for markets to price in a more dovish ECB, though that’s more of a bearish euro view than a view of broad dollar strength.”The Japanese yen, up over 11% since July, was projected to be the top-performer among major currencies, rising over 6% to about 136/$ in a year.(Other stories from the October Reuters foreign exchange poll) More
(Reuters) -Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Japan is not in an environment for an additional rate increase, in an apparent effort to shake off his reputation as a monetary hawk, after a meeting with Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda on Wednesday.”I do not believe that we are in an environment that would require us to raise interest rates further,” Ishiba told reporters on Wednesday night in the most explicit remark to date from a prime minister pushing back against further rate hikes.The yen weakened after Ishiba’s remarks as markets interpreted them as reducing the chance of a near-term interest rate hike. The dollar was last up 0.77% against the yen at 144.71 yen per dollar.A majority of economists polled by Reuters on Sept. 4-12 had expected the BOJ to raise rates again by year-end.Ishiba, who was officially appointed as prime minister on Tuesday, had been seen by markets as endorsing the BOJ’s policy normalisation, in part because of his comments to Reuters in August that a gradual hike in ultra-low rates will help boost Japan’s profitability.His comments, as well as his focus on pulling Japan fully out of economic stagnation, underscore the new administration’s preference for the BOJ to go slow in hiking rates, analysts say.Ishiba’s newly-appointed economy minister, Ryosei Akazawa, also voiced hope on Wednesday that the BOJ would be cautious about raising rates further.While the BOJ’s current policy rate, at 0.25%, was “abnormal in global standards,” Japan’s priority was to “pull out of deflation,” Akazawa said.BOJ SET TO MOVE ‘CAUTIOUSLY’ Speaking after the meeting with Ishiba, Ueda said he told the premier that the BOJ would move cautiously in deciding whether to raise interest rates further.”I told the prime minister that we are supporting the economy with loose monetary conditions,” Ueda said in his first meeting with Ishiba since he became prime minister.Ueda added the BOJ will raise interest rates if economic and price developments move in line with its forecast.”But I said we will adjust the degree of monetary support cautiously, as we can afford to spend time scrutinising (economic) developments,” he said.The BOJ ended negative rates in March and raised short-term borrowing costs to 0.25% in July on the view Japan was making progress towards durably achieving 2% inflation.Ueda was forced to roll back his remarks, made when the BOJ hiked rates in July, that the bank would keep raising borrowing costs after the hawkish remarks triggered a market rout.In a speech delivered on Wednesday before the meeting with Ishiba, Ueda said the BOJ will be “extremely” vigilant for the time being to economic fallout from unstable markets and global economic uncertainities.The BOJ next reviews rates on Oct. 30-31, when the board also releases fresh quarterly growth and price forecasts. It holds another meeting in December.”The remarks from Ishiba and Akazawa clearly sound negative against a near-term, additional rate hike. A rate hike in October is now out of the question,” said Yoshimasa Maruyama, chief market economist at SMBC Nikko Securities.”The hurdle for another rate hike by year-end has also risen,” he said. More
Ports in these regions handle a “meaningful” 30% share of American imports and exports, the analysts noted, adding that water is “the main channel” used to transport these goods.As a result, a prolonged strike could disrupt local production and a reduction in exports, bump up the prices of items like food and beverages, and impact crucial US payrolls figures, the analysts said.Shipments of everything from food to cars have been blocked on ports stretching from the state of Maine in the US Northeast to Texas in the country’s south since the dockworkers initiated the work stoppage earlier this week. Along with improved compensation, the workers are also asking for protections against automation.The walkout comes after talks failed between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), which represents around 45,000 of the dockworkers, and the United States Marine Alliance (USMX) employer organization. The ILA had been pushing for a revamped six-year contract to be agreed on before a deadline of midnight on Sept. 30.However, the ILA refused the USMX’s final offer put forward on Monday, arguing that it did not meet the demands of its members.The USMX had said it had proposed an almost 50% wage increase, an improvement from an earlier offer, and “strongly supports a collective bargaining process,” CNN reported. The group, which represents shipping firms and port authorities, also reportedly called for the ILA to clear a path for a return to the negotiating table.But ILA leader Harold Daggett has said that the workers are “prepared to fight as long as necessary,” Reuters reported. More
