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TOKYO (Reuters) -Bank of Japan policymakers were divided on how quickly the central bank should raise interest rates further, minutes of the bank’s July meeting showed, highlighting uncertainty on the timing of the next increase in borrowing costs.At the July meeting, the BOJ raised short-term interest rates to 0.25% and unveiled a detailed plan to slow its massive bond buying, taking another step towards phasing out a decade of huge stimulus.At least two in the nine-member board saw scope to raise rates further, with one saying the BOJ should hike borrowing costs in a “timely and gradual” manner to avoid being forced to do so rapidly later, the minutes showed on Thursday.Another member said the BOJ must raise rates further once it was confirmed that firms were increasing capital expenditure, wages and prices, according to the minutes.Several others, however, warned against proceeding too quickly in phasing out stimulus.”Normalisation of monetary policy must not be an end in itself,” one member was quoted as saying, adding that the BOJ must monitor various risks and move carefully.”The BOJ should avoid a situation where market expectations for future rate hikes increase excessively,” as inflation expectations have yet to be anchored at its 2% target and prices remained vulnerable to downside risks, another member said. More
(Reuters) -Micron Technology shares surged roughly 14% in after-hours trading after the memory maker forecast higher than expected first-quarter revenue due to the thirst for its memory chips used in artificial intelligence computing.Micron (NASDAQ:MU) is one of the only three providers of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips along with South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung (KS:005930), which has allowed the U.S. firm to cash in on demand for semiconductors that help power generative AI technology.HBM is a space-saving, power-efficient type of dynamic random access memory chip, or DRAM, crucial for AI-focused graphics processing units, that aid in processing vast amounts of data.”Demand from data center customers continues to be strong and customer inventory levels are healthy,” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said on a conference call with analysts.The company said in June its HBM chips, used in the AI processors designed by Wall Street darling Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), were sold out for the 2024 and 2025 calendar years with pricing already determined.Micron expects to report record revenue of about $8.7 billion, plus or minus $200 million, in the first quarter and forecast a jump in gross margin to about 39.5% for the same period.Analysts had expected revenue of $8.28 billion for the first quarter and adjusted gross margin of 37.7%, according to LSEG data.The AI boom has also helped Micron cushion the hit from a memory chip inventory glut in PC and smartphone markets.Personal computers infused with AI technologies are expected to have more memory chips, helping firms such as Micron.AI PCs may have over 30% more DRAM and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s push to have users shifting to Windows 11 from an older version, may expand the market, especially for commercial PCs in 2025, said Summit Insights senior research analyst Kinngai Chan.Micron’s results typically set the tone for the chip sector as it reports ahead of peers and serves a broad client base spanning the PC, data center and smartphone industries.”HBM, high capacity memory and data center flash storage, each of these three product categories will be multiple billions of dollars in revenue in 2025,” Micron’s Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana said.For the first quarter, the company forecast an adjusted profit of $1.74 per share, plus or minus 8 cents, compared with analysts’ estimates of $1.65. More
In a major address in Pittsburgh, the vice president praised business and used technical language to court economy-minded voters skeptical of big government.Vice President Kamala Harris wants voters to know that she is not a socialist.That was the clear, unspoken theme of Ms. Harris’s nearly 40-minute economic policy speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. It was why she paraphrased Warren Buffett, cited a survey of top economists and praised entrepreneurs in language that echoed Republican Senator Mitt Romney’s presidential run a dozen years earlier.Ms. Harris is locked in a tight presidential race with former President Donald J. Trump. Polls show that the economy remains the biggest issue in the race and that many undecided voters have concerns about Ms. Harris’s ability to make things better. Mr. Trump has tried to deride Ms. Harris as a socialist, if not a communist. Polls suggest those attacks have raised doubts in some swing voters’ minds about how Ms. Harris would wield government power to manage the economy.And so, in what was billed as a major economic address with only weeks to go in the campaign, Ms. Harris sought to put those doubts to rest. In muted and technical language that seemed designed to court on-the-fence voters skeptical of the government’s ability to solve major economic problems, Ms. Harris embraced capitalism and called herself a pragmatist who would not govern by ideology.In front of an audience filled with business owners and entrepreneurs at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, Ms. Harris promised to build an economy that gains strength from a growing middle class, grounded in “fairness, dignity and opportunity.”“I promise you I will be pragmatic in my approach,” she said. “I will engage in what Franklin Roosevelt called bold, persistent experimentation. Because I believe we shouldn’t be constrained by ideology, and instead should seek practical solutions to problems, realistic assessments of what is working and what is not, applying metrics to our analysis, applying facts to our analysis and stay focused, then, not only on the crises at hand but on our big goals, on what’s best for America over the long term.”A moment later, she added: “Look, I am a capitalist.”Ms. Harris could have chosen a different path — one that many progressives have urged her to take. She could have more clearly delineated who she sees as the villains of the economy — namely big corporations.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
Some of her ideas build on unfinished business in President Joe Biden’s economic agenda but expand their scope and size.Here’s what we know so far:INDUSTRIAL INCENTIVESHarris on Wednesday pledged new tax credits to spur more domestic manufacturing and to invest in sectors that will “define the next century,” including biomanufacturing, aerospace, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and blockchain, advanced nuclear power, and batteries.She also said she would offer tax incentives for expanding “good union jobs” in long-standing iron, steel, coal and other traditional industrial communities. Details on the size and scope of the incentives and investments were not announced.Harris announced new investments in U.S. basic technology research, through the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s National Laboratories and other institutions.She also announced plans to cut red tape to speed the construction of new infrastructure and industrial projects and to use the Defense Production Act and other tools to boost U.S. capacity to process critical minerals and reduce reliance on supplies from China.TAX ON THE WEALTHY Harris has echoed Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on households that earn less than $400,000 a year.She has quietly endorsed most of the nearly $5 trillion in tax hikes over a decade in Biden’s fiscal 2025 budget proposal, which would boost the top income tax rate to 39.6% from 37%.These include a new 25% minimum tax on people with fortunes exceeding $100 million, including on unrealized capital gains. For those earning more than $1 million annually, Harris has proposed raising the long-term capital gains tax rate paid after selling assets like stocks to 28% from 20%, an increase far smaller than the 39.6% full top income tax rate proposed by Biden.TAX ON BUSINESSES Harris has proposed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28%, partially reversing former President and Republican rival Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law, which cut company tax rates to 21% from 35%. The step would raise $1 trillion for the federal government over a decade, budget experts estimate, but cut into company profits, Wall Street says. Big U.S. companies pay a far lower effective tax rate than their foreign competitors at an average of 16%, a Reuters analysis showed. Any broad corporate tax changes would need to be passed by Congress. CHILD TAX CREDIT Harris has kept Biden’s proposal to permanently restore a one-year, COVID-19-era increase in the Child Tax Credit to as much as $3,600 per child from $2,000 currently, which is scheduled to drop to $1,000 after 2025. She also has proposed a $6,000 bonus onetime credit for families with newborns.Trump’s vice presidential running mate, JD (NASDAQ:JD) Vance, has floated raising the annual Child Tax Credit to $5,000, but the idea has not been adopted as an official Trump policy proposal.AFFORDABLE HOUSINGHarris has detailed plans to spur new construction and reduce costs for renters and homebuyers, largely through tax incentives. They include tax credits for builders of homes for first-time buyers and affordable rental units, along with a $25,000 tax credit to help first-time buyers with down payments for the next four years. Harris is also proposing a $40 billion “innovation fund” to encourage local governments to build more affordable homes, doubling a Biden budget proposal that would make competitive grants to local governments that show they can get results. U.S. home prices have risen 50% in the last five years and rents have risen 35%, according to real estate firm Zillow (NASDAQ:ZG), largely due to a housing shortage. Harris has set a goal to increase U.S. housing construction by 3 million units over the next four years.SMALL BUSINESS TAX CREDITHarris also has deviated from Biden’s economic plan by proposing to increase the tax deduction to up to $50,000 for new small business start-up costs from $5,000 currently to support entrepreneurs. The 33 million U.S. small businesses were responsible for 70% of net new jobs created since 2019, according to Small Business Administration data.CHILD CARE “My plan is that no family, no working family, should pay more than 7% of their household income in child care,” Harris told the National Association of Black Journalists in September. U.S. parents are currently paying as much as 19.3% of median family income per child for care, Department of Labor figures show. The 7% figure echoes the Child Care and Development Block Grant, a program Harris has touted that currently supports about 1 million children in low-income families. Harris’ campaign has not detailed how the child care plan would work.HIGH GROCERY PRICES Harris has vowed to enact the “first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries” that aims to stop big corporations from unfairly exploiting consumers while generating excessive profits. Defining such excessive price hikes is not clear, but some proposals in the U.S. Senate show a potential path to enactment. More
