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    Would a Strong Job Market Stop Fed Rate Cuts? This Official Says No.

    Mary C. Daly, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said that the central bank shouldn’t act “out of fear.”Federal Reserve officials predicted at their last meeting that they would make two more quarter-point rate cuts before the end of 2024 as inflation continued to slow and the job market cooled further.But in the weeks since, labor data have come in stronger, opening a big question: What does it mean for the interest rate outlook if the job market does not slow from here?One Fed official suggested on Tuesday that the central bank should keep lowering interest rates as expected even if the economy is chugging along, so long as inflation continues to cool. Policymakers, she suggested, should not try to slow the economy down if evidence suggests that price increases are coming under control.“I’m very opposed to cutting off expansion out of fear,” Mary C. Daly, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said during an interview on Tuesday morning, ahead of a speech she delivered at New York University.She pointed out that back in 2019, in the year leading up to the pandemic, the job market was very strong but that it did not lead to rapid inflation. In that experience, low unemployment allowed for solid wage gains, and it pulled new people into the labor market.“We should not kill off job growth and good growth as long as it doesn’t produce inflation,” she said. “If we could get 2019 again, I’d be all for it — why not?”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Factbox-IPO-bound Hyundai Motor India’s operations

    The company, India’s No. 2 carmaker behind Maruti Suzuki, is offering shares in a range of 1,865 rupees to 1,960 rupees ($22 to $23) apiece.Here are some facts about Hyundai (OTC:HYMTF)’s India operations.* Hyundai set up its India operations in 1996, starting with the Santro hatchback, once its most sold car.* Hyundai currently has a roughly 15% share of India’s car market. It sold 614,721 cars in India and exported 163,155 in the year to March 2024.* Hyundai has one factory outside of Chennai in southern Tamil Nadu state, also dubbed the Detroit of Asia. The factory has a capacity of 824,000 vehicles per year and is running at a utilisation rate of 94%, leaving little room for growth that would help compete with Maruti Suzuki.* Hyundai aims to reach production of about one million vehicles a year with the acquisition of a former General Motors (NYSE:GM) plant in western Maharashtra state. The plant is expected to start operations only by the second half of the year to March 2026.* Hyundai has 1,377 dealers across India.* In India, the carmaker sells 13 models, with the Creta and Venue sport-utility vehicles as well as the Grand i10 Nios hatchback among its most popular.* Hyundai’s current factory is also a key export hub, manufacturing cars that are shipped to South Africa, the Middle East as well as Latin America. More

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    American interest rates need to rise

    Save over 65%$99 for your first yearFT newspaper delivered Monday-Saturday, plus FT Digital Edition delivered to your device Monday-Saturday.What’s included Weekday Print EditionFT WeekendFT Digital EditionGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionSpecial featuresExclusive FT analysis More

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    Global public debt to pass $100tn this year, says IMF

    Save over 65%$99 for your first yearFT newspaper delivered Monday-Saturday, plus FT Digital Edition delivered to your device Monday-Saturday.What’s included Weekday Print EditionFT WeekendFT Digital EditionGlobal news & analysisExpert opinionSpecial featuresExclusive FT analysis More

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    Kremlin backtracks from comments on Saudi BRICS membership

    Saudi Arabia has been invited to join BRICS but has not yet formally done so. Last week, however, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov described it as a BRICS member and said its foreign minister would attend the summit in the Russian city of Kazan.Asked to clarify Saudi Arabia’s status in BRICS, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “The summit will take place now, we will supply additional information on who will represent Saudi Arabia, whether it will be represented at this summit, and we will draw conclusions from this.”High-level Saudi involvement in the Oct. 22-24 summit would be a boost for Russia, which last week called on its partners in the group to work together to create new global financial institutions as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund.BRICS, originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, and China, has expanded to include South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Moscow sees the development of the group as an important part of its strategy to counter U.S. global influence and defeat Western attempts to isolate it with sanctions over the war in Ukraine.”Russia is not isolated. In the modern world, it is very difficult to isolate any country, especially a state like the Russian Federation,” Peskov said.Saudi Arabia is a key partner for Russia. The two countries cooperate closely in the OPEC+ group of oil-producing countries.President Vladimir Putin has cultivated a warm personal relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and visited him in Riyadh last December, declaring at the time that Russia’s ties with the kingdom were at an “unprecedented level”. More

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    Brazil’s Haddad backs limiting spending as fiscal issues worry markets

    WHY IT’S IMPORTANTBrazil’s government has been seeking new sources of revenue to meet fiscal targets that include reducing its fiscal deficit to zero, but market participants question its ability to fulfill that goal as it has been loath to adopt broad spending cuts.BACKGROUNDBrazil has a target of zero deficit for the year with a tolerance margin of 0.25 percentage points of gross domestic product (GDP) in either direction, as established by a fiscal framework passed last year.KEY QUOTES”The fiscal framework will not work if spending is not limited,” Haddad told newspaper Folha de S.Paulo.”What Faria Lima Ave (Brazil’s Wall St) is pointing out – in my opinion, with some exaggeration when it comes to the pricing of Brazilian assets – is that the spending dynamics going forward are worrying,” he added.”They could have an impact on the debt, and the government has to take action. The Finance Ministry has this on the table, 100%, with the same level of concern.”BY THE NUMBERSHaddad said that real rates of 6.5-7% on public debt were “a problem” and that he has been defending to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that a fiscal adjustment is needed to stabilize the fiscal situation in the long term.He noted that government revenues need to be at around 19% of GDP and expenses below that for Brazil to reach a fiscal surplus, stabilize its debt growth and in turn prompt the central bank to lower interest rates. More

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    Factbox-US companies to hire thousands of seasonal workers for holiday season

    Retailers are expected to add fewer seasonal jobs this shopping period than last year due to a softer labor market and tighter consumer spending, according to a forecast from Challenger, Gray & Christmas in September.Here is a list of companies that have announced hiring plans for the holiday season so far:Company Hiring plans – Hiring plans – 2023 2024 Target 100,000 100,000 Macy’s 31,500 full- 38,000 full- and and part-time part-time seasonal employees workers Bath & Body 32,700 32,500 Works United Parcel (NYSE:UPS) 125,000 100,000 Services 1-800-Flowers. 8,000 8,000 com Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) 250,000 250,000 Dick’s 8,000 8,600 Sporting Goods Kroger (N:KR) Said it 25,000 was “seeking to hire thousands of associates” More