Author: starbpo

Card fees brought in more than $2 billion for American Express Co. for the first time in the second quarter. This was the 24th straight quarter of double-digit growth from card fees. “A super important metric for us,” said Chief Financial Officer Christophe Le Caillec, “the fact that we made over $2 billion in card-fee revenue. It means that people are buying into the value proposition and renewing their membership.” In the second quarter, Amex AXP, -2.74% saw “a lot of stability” in spending trends. Customers from the United States who travelled abroad and younger cardholders in general did especially…

New evidence that inflation is going down in the U.S. comes from the consumer price index, which fell for the first time in four years. The drop was mostly due to lower prices for petrol RB00, -0.18% and used cars. The June CPI report also showed that housing costs were rising more slowly. Even though the Federal Reserve doesn’t like the CPI as a measure of inflation, Thursday’s report makes it more likely that the bank will lower interest rates by September. A few weeks ago, the CPI report would have been very helpful for President Joe Biden’s campaign to…

Five of the Federal Reserve’s 12 regions reported flat or falling activity in the last two months, according to a survey released by the Fed on Wednesday. This suggests that the U.S. economy has been slowing down. Three more weak districts were found than in the last survey, which was done in May. According to the Fed’s Beige Book survey, people are becoming more frugal, which means that housing spending hasn’t changed much. The Fed survey found that in almost every district, stores were discounting items or price-conscious customers were only buying necessities, settling for lower quality items, buying fewer…

The numbers: For the second month in a row, industrial production went up in June. This was due to more people buying cars and air conditioners because it has been so hot this summer. The Federal Reserve said that output went up 0.6% last month, following a much bigger rise in May. The Wall Street Journal polled economists and found that they thought production would rise by 0.3%. Important facts: As people turned up their air conditioners to escape the summer heat, gas and electric utilities saw a 2.8% rise in production. Government records show that June was the hottest…

Last week, 243,000 Americans applied for unemployment benefits, which was the same number as the previous week and the highest number in almost a year. This was due to a rise in new jobless claims in Texas after Hurricane Beryl hit the state on July 8. The number of new claims went up by 20,000 in the seven days ending July 13. This is up from 223,000 the week before, the government said Thursday. Even if the hurricane’s effects are taken into account, the number of new claims seems to have gone up from very low levels earlier in the…

The numbers show that the leading index for the economy fell again in June, making it four months in a row that it has gone down. This shows that U.S. growth has slowed since the beginning of the year. The Conference Board, which is privately owned, said that the index fell 0.2% last month. Before briefly going up in February, the index had been going down for two years in a row. The leading index is a tool used to find out if the economy is getting better or worse. The Wall Street Journal asked economists to predict a 0.3%…

The Nasdaq may only be beginning to have problems. Technology stocks may be on their way to a crash like the long bear market that followed the burst of the dot-com bubble. That’s what Albert Edwards of Société Générale thinks. An often-bearish strategist wrote a client note on Thursday that questioned every part of the bull case for the AI boom, which has helped push major U.S. stock indexes to all-time highs. He began with the idea that the market can safely move away from Big Tech’s control without causing the S&P 500 to drop. In the past, markets that…

This was the last speech that Donald Trump gave at his party’s convention in Milwaukee on Thursday night. He repeated his promises to lower taxes and stop inflation by increasing the production of fossil fuels in the U.S. During his lengthy speech, Trump said, “I will end the terrible inflation crisis right away, bring down interest rates, and lower the cost of energy.” He also said, “We will drill, baby, drill,” and he said that would “lead to a large-scale decline in prices.” Lower the cost of energy “Reduce the cost of all household goods, transportation, and manufacturing,” he said.…

On Friday, a problem with the CrowdStrike cybersecurity platform is thought to have caused major airlines to cancel flights and businesses around the world to experience IT outages. The Federal Aviation Administration’s system status page says that American Airlines, Delta, and United all grounded flights around the world. American said it could resume operations at 5 a.m. Eastern, though. The financial markets were open, but the London Stock Exchange’s feed for sending out news about companies was down. In London in the middle of the morning, the FTSE 100 UK:UKX fell 0.5%. Futures on U.S. stocks ES00, -0.05% went down.…

There is no way to know what will happen to the U.S. stock market if Vice President Joe Biden drops out of the 2024 presidential race. The only similar event in history is when Lyndon B. Johnson dropped out of the 1968 presidential race, but there are many more differences between now and then. On the surface, this historical parallel looks good for stocks in case Biden does step down. The S&P 500 SPX closed 2.5% higher the next day after LBJ dropped out of the 1968 race on March 31, 1968. The U.S. market was also near its lowest…