Economy

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(Reuters) – Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler, the newest of the U.S. central bank’s seven board members, has run afoul of new ethics rules governing how officials and their families can trade and invest after her spouse bought stock in Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and another company without her knowledge this summer. In a government filing dated Oct. 24, Kugler reported the planned divestiture of Apple and Cava Group shares purchased by her spouse. Fed ethics rules sharply limit how the central bank’s officials and senior staff can invest their personal funds and require trading to be pre-cleared by central bank ethics officials. Those rules also cover spouses and minor children of top Fed staff. The purchases “were carried out by my spouse, without my knowledge, and I affirm that my spouse did not intend to violate any rules,” Kugler said in the financial disclosure form. “Upon learning about the purchases, I immediately notified ethics officials, and at their direction, I initiated divestiture of these assets as soon as possible under (Federal Open Market Committee) ethics policies.”The four sets of stock purchases happened over the summer, and each purchase amount ranged between $1,001 and $15,000. In a statement, a Fed spokesperson said “we can confirm that (Kugler) did alert the ethics office and acted at their direction, and in accordance with our policies.”The current Fed ethics rules were put in place in early 2022 after a series of controversies over the personal investing activities of some policymakers.The first involved the investing activities of the heads of the Fed’s regional banks in Boston and Dallas, and both left their posts in the fall of 2021. In a report early this year, the Fed’s Office of Inspector General, its in-house watchdog, rapped the two regional Fed bank chiefs for creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. Meanwhile, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and former Vice Chair Richard Clarida were cleared of wrongdoing by the watchdog. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic has also faced trouble over his personal investing. In September, the Fed watchdog said Bostic had broken rules then in place and had created the appearance that he acted on confidential information and the appearance of a conflict of interest. Bostic had traded in periods that were off limits, but the watchdog also found no evidence he had used confidential Fed information to govern his investing. The finding on Bostic is widely believed to be the final report on Fed officials’ trading. The process of tightening up loose ends around the new ethics system and ensuring compliance is ongoing. At the start of this month, the OIG flagged a range of work the central bank is still engaged in, including ways to ensure the accuracy of disclosures. More

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s export growth slowed to a seven-month low in October, missing market expectations, in a sign of cooling global demand that puts further pressure on a stuttering economic recovery. Outbound shipments from Asia’s fourth-largest economy rose 4.6% from a year earlier to $57.52 billion, compared with gains of 7.5% the month before and slowing for the third month, official data on Friday showed. A Reuters poll of economists had tipped a 6.9% rise. It was the 13th straight month exports grew in annual terms though they were the smallest increase since March. On average per working day, exports were down 0.2%, their first fall since September 2023. The trade data aligns with a survey showing South Korea’s factory activity shrank for a second month in October, with output falling by the most in 16 months.The trade-reliant economy barely grew in the third quarter, despite signs of recovery in consumer spending, as exports weakened, raising the chance for more stimulus to support growth.Exports of semiconductors were up 40.3% to $12.5 billion in October, which was lower than an all-time high of $13.6 billion in September. Sales of cars rose 5.5%. By destination, shipments to China rose 10.9% to a 25-month high of $12.2 billion. Those to the United States and European Union were up 3.4% and 5.7%, respectively. Imports rose 1.7% to $54.35 billion in October, after gaining 2.2% in September, also weaker than a 2.0% rise expected by economists. The country posted a monthly trade surplus of $3.17 billion, narrower than the previous month’s $6.66 billion. More

TOKYO (Reuters) – The dollar steadied against major peers on Friday, as investors awaited the U.S. jobs report to confirm economic resiliency heading into the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting and a close-call U.S. presidential election next week.The yen held onto to Thursday’s gains as investors continued to digest a less dovish message from the Bank of Japan (BOJ) in the previous session.The U.S. dollar started November off at a lower level after coming under pressure against the yen and on Thursday.Nonfarm payrolls data closes out the week, with economists polled by Reuters estimating 113,000 jobs were added in October, although analysts say that the number could be impacted by recent hurricanes in the U.S.That’s likely to make the October jobs report “incredibly hard to read,” Tapas Strickland, head of market economics at National Australia Bank (OTC:NABZY), wrote in a note.The unemployment rate, expected to come in at 4.1%, may offer a clearer picture of labour markets.”Such an outcome would likely see the unemployment rate coming in well below the FOMC’s September projections of the unemployment rate lifting to 4.4% in Q4 2024. And thus continue to question the need for rate cuts,” he said.Data overnight suggested upward price pressures continue to ease, adding to a trend of upbeat data and supporting bets that the Fed will cut interest rates by 25 basis points next week.The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, was up 0.03% at 103.91.The Japanese currency was last largely unchanged at 152.02 per dollar. On Thursday, the central bank maintained ultra-low interest rates but said risks around the U.S. economy were somewhat subsiding, signalling that conditions are falling into place to raise interest rates again.”We think the chances of a Dec. rate hike have somewhat increased after Gov. (Kazuo) Ueda’s press conference,” Morgan Stanley MUFG economists Takeshi Yamaguchi and Masayuki Inui wrote in a report on Thursday.Their base case remains for the BOJ to raise rates again in January to 0.5%, although they noted that factors such as dollar/yen and inflation data leading up to the year-end decision will be important. The euro stood just off a two-week high against the greenback, buoyed this week after data showed that the euro zone’s inflation accelerated more than expected in October. It was last down 0.02% at $1.0882.Sterling remained on the backfoot, down 0.06% to $1.2891, as investors continued to react after British finance minister Rachel Reeves launched the biggest tax increases since 1993 in her first budget. The pound slid to its lowest since mid-August at $1.28445 on Thursday.The Fed’s monetary policy decision next week comes just days after the U.S. presidential election on Tuesday.Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris remain neck and neck in several polls, but some investors have been putting on trades betting Trump will win, lifting the dollar and U.S. Treasury yields.Trump’s pledges to implement tax cuts, loosen financial regulations and raise tariffs are seen as inflationary and could slow the Federal Reserve in its policy easing path.In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap, last traded at around $70,132. More

BENGALURU (Reuters) – Australia’s central bank will hold its key interest rate at 4.35% on Tuesday and for the rest of the year, according to a Reuters poll of economists, as strong economic activity and sticky core inflation still warrant a cautious approach.Consumer price inflation fell to 2.8% last quarter, within the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2-3% target for the first time in three years, but core inflation, stripped of volatile components, remained elevated.During its post-COVID tightening cycle, the RBA raised rates by 425 basis points from 0.10% to 4.35%, less than many of its peers despite the risk of prolonged higher inflation.That was partly to promote job creation, part of the central bank’s mandate. The jobless rate has held relatively steady between 4.0% and 4.2% since April. With the employment market still strong and a relatively lower peak in interest rates, the RBA is likely to be slower to ease policy than other central banks in developed nations, in line with its peers in Asia.All 30 economists in the Oct. 30-31 poll expected the RBA to hold its official cash rate at 4.35% at the end of its two-day policy meeting on Nov. 5.All but one also expected the central bank to leave rates unchanged at the December meeting.”We are not expecting the RBA to change the official cash rate. Aside from that, what we could see at the margin is a slight softening in their language from hawkish to a bit more balanced,” said Craig Vardy, head of fixed income at BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) Australasia.”We think the data was pretty much in line with the RBA’s thoughts about the path of core inflation. That is, it’s still too high for them to think about cutting the cash rate in 2024…early 2025 is probably a bit more realistic.” All the major local banks – ANZ, CBA, NAB, and Westpac – forecast no rate change this year. However, all four expected the RBA to cut rates at its first meeting of 2025 in February.Nearly 70% of respondents who had a view into next year, 20 of 29, expected a 25 basis point cut in February to 4.10%. Of the remaining nine, eight predicted no change while one saw a bigger cut to 3.75%.Markets are not pricing in a first cut until April.Median forecasts in the survey showed the RBA cutting rates by 75 basis points next year, to end 2025 at 3.60%, compared with a total of 225 bps of cuts expected from the U.S. Federal Reserve.”(Core) inflation is not going to get into the target band until the middle of the third quarter…So without a recession, (the RBA) are probably not going to be in a hurry to cut rates sharply,” said My Bui, economist at AMP (OTC:AMLTF), forecasting three rate cuts next year.”Cutting rates is basically bringing it back to a more normal level, which in our view is slightly above 3%.”With the Fed easing much more swiftly than the RBA, the Australian dollar will regain all of its year-to-date loss of 3.5% by end-January and then trade around $0.68, according to a separate Reuters poll of foreign exchange strategists.(Other stories from the November Reuters global economic poll) More

BENGALURU (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar will hold on to its recent strength over coming months on robust domestic economic data and continued scaling back of bets for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, a Reuters poll found.Some analysts have attributed the dollar’s 4% October rally to speculation about the likely result of the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election. Others say the move is primarily due to resilient economic activity in the United States, particularly strong consumer spending and labor data.The latest opinion polls show a near-deadlock between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump in the final stretch of a tightly-fought presidential contest.Meanwhile, persistent U.S. economic outperformance has pushed financial markets to price in a higher year-end Fed funds rate than thought even a month ago. A separate Reuters survey of economists predicts two more quarter-point reductions this year.Based on interest rate differentials, the dollar’s recent momentum seems unlikely to fade quickly anytime soon. Fed peers, such as the European Central Bank, appear more likely to be aggressive in the near-term with rate reductions. “In the U.S., we started getting better economic data, so we started pricing in a more hawkish Fed relative to what we had been and in Europe we started getting weaker data and so we started pricing in a more dovish ECB,” said Dan Tobon, head of G10 FX strategy at Citi.”We’re basically just looking for the dollar to rally into the election, reverse that slightly and then chop around sideways like it’s been doing now.”The euro will trade around its current $1.09 level by the end of November before edging up about 1% in three months to $1.10, according to median forecasts from over 70 forex strategists polled by Reuters from Oct. 28-31.Yet, an overwhelming 90% majority of respondents, 28 of 31, to an additional question predicted better dollar performance in the immediate aftermath of a Trump victory. The currency is forecast to gain an additional 1.5% under that scenario and lose 1% if Harris wins, according to median responses.”We’re seeing risks to the dollar as asymmetric to the upside in case of a Trump victory and a bit more status quo, slightly maybe to the downside, in a Harris victory,” said Alex Cohen, FX strategist at Bank of America.”That’s mainly due to trade and tariff policy in a Trump administration that could … have a disproportionate impact on the dollar, pushing it higher both from expected inflation as well as from a trade perspective.”While both Trump and Harris have proposed policies that could reignite price pressures, Trump’s policies would be more inflationary of the two, according to 39 of 42 economists in a separate Reuters survey.Yet, the euro was forecast to rise to $1.11 by the end of April and then to $1.12 in a year, poll medians showed.”Our medium-term view of the dollar is it should ultimately trade negative in a soft landing environment. But given how strong U.S. data has been recently, there are definite additional upside risks to that forecast,” BofA’s Cohen added. More