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European Championship won’t save German economy, study shows

The European Championship to be held in Germany this summer is unlikely to turn into a summer fairytale for the euro zone’s largest economy as it struggles for growth, a study by a leading institute and seen by Reuters showed on Friday. “The experience of the Football World Cup in 2006 shows that major sporting events are not economic fireworks,” said Michael Groemling, head of the Institute of the German Economy IW Koeln. Germany’s industry-heavy economy has struggled since Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which pushed up energy costs, ...

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WTO hits road block over advancing dispute reform talks

The World Trade Organization is struggling to find an ambassador to lead negotiations on fixing its hobbled dispute system by the year-end, trade sources said, as the body’s chief urged countries to keep striving for a deal. The commitment to continue such efforts in 2024 was one of the few concrete outcomes at the WTO Abu Dhabi meeting last month which has some minor successes but failed to strike major global agreements. The talks are aimed at agreeing reforms to the WTO’s top appeals court, known as the Appellate Body, ...

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Central bank sensitive shares face week of data

A look at the day ahead in Asian markets. Investors in Asia may favor playing it conservative ahead of a slew of economic indicators in coming days, especially with Japan’s stock market notching consecutive record highs and market closures on Friday for many centers, including Hong Kong. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was hardly unique last week, extending its rally on Thursday and Friday. While dovish central bank signals emanated from the Federal Reserve, Swiss National Bank and Bank of England, it was the Bank of Japan that kicked off the hectic ...

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US new home sales unexpectedly fall in February

Sales of new U.S. single-family homes unexpectedly fell in February, but data for the prior month was revised higher, pointing to underlying strength as a shortage of previously owned houses on the market persists. New home sales slipped 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 662,000 units last month, the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said on Monday. The sales pace for January was revised up to 664,000 units from the previously reported 661,000 units. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast new home sales, which account for more than 10% ...

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Fed’s Bostic scales back to single rate cut on inflation concerns

Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Raphael Bostic said on Friday he now expects just a single quarter-point interest rate cut this year instead of thetwo he had projected, citingpersistent inflation and stronger-than-anticipated economic data. “I’m definitely less confident than I was in December” that inflation will continue to fall towards the Fed’s 2% target, Bostic toldreporters after a forum. Price pressure concerns led him to scale back this year’s rate-cut outlook and push back the likely start date, he added. Bostic had previously said rate reductions might start as soon ...

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Fed’s Goolsbee says he sees three rate cuts this year

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee said on Monday that at the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting last week he penciled in three rate cuts for this year. At that meeting, the U.S. central bank kept its benchmark overnight lending rate in a target range of 5.25%-5.5%, while the median estimate for interest rate reductions that policymakers projected for the year was three. “I was at the median for this one,” Goolsbee said in an interview with Yahoo Finance, while declining to say when he thought an easing in borrowing ...

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China plans new rules on market access, data flows Premier Li tells global CEOs

China will carefully study issues of market access and cross-border data flows and will soon issue new regulations in these areas, Premier Li Qiang told an audience of global CEOs and Chinese policymakers on Sunday. “We cordially welcome companies from all countries to invest in China and deepen their foothold in China,” Li said. China is also pushing to develop emerging industries such as biological manufacturing and will step up development of artificial intelligence and the data economy, Li told the China Development Forum in Beijing. Beijing on Tuesday eased ...

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Federal Reserve expected to cut rates, lift Biden’s prospects

The U.S. Federal Reserve looks on track to cut interest rates as the presidential campaign season heats up, potentially delivering President Joe Biden a boost as polls show Americans dislike his handling of the economy. The Fed could play an outsized – and potentially uncomfortable – election-year role by helping shape attitudes about stubbornly high inflation and mounting housing costs that have been a drag on Biden’s reelection efforts. Rate cuts will also invite critics – Republican challenger Donald Trump chief among them – to argue an agency set up ...

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AI will fundamentally transform the job market but the risk of mass unemployment is low

The rise of AI has sparked intense debate about the impact it could have on the labour market and future employment. On the one hand, if digital technologies complement labour, they could enhance or improve human skills and create space for more social interaction and creative work. On the other hand, certain types of jobs could disappear if these technologies replace human skills and take the place of labour. However, the fear of job losses is nothing new. Previous technological progress has always been controversial, even sparking riots. Yet, mass ...

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Fed’s Cook says cautious approach needed to policy easing

The U.S. central bank needs to proceed carefully as it decides when to begin cutting interest rates, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook said on Monday, citing, as many of her colleagues have, the rough balance now between the dangers of easing monetary policy too soon and those of moving too slowly. With inflation falling but still high, and the labor market still strong, “the risks to achieving our employment and inflation goals are moving into better balance,” Cook said in remarks prepared for delivery to an event hosted by Harvard ...

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China pushes banks to speed approvals of new loans to private developers, say sources

Chinese regulators are pushing banks to speed up approvals of new loans to cash-starved private property developers, people with knowledge of the matter said, a bid to revive homebuyer sentiment that risks denting lenders’ asset quality. The effort uses the “whitelist” mechanism, Beijing’s latest support measure aimed at easing the sector’s unprecedented liquidity squeeze and spurring home purchases, as new home prices fell in February for an eighth straight month. Most top domestic banks have so far shied away from significantly bolstering credit exposure to the crisis-hit sector despite repeated ...

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ECB moving towards rate cut, Italy’s Panetta says

The European Central Bank (ECB) is moving towards an interest rate cut as inflation is falling rapidly and approaching the bank’s 2% target, Bank of Italy Governor Fabio Panetta said on Monday. Addressing an event in Rome, Panetta said the inflation trend was making a rate cut “possible.” “The consensus emerging – especially in recent weeks – within the ECB governing council points in this direction,” he said. Source: Reuters

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China job ad sparks social media outcry over ‘middle-age’ unemployment

A job advertisement in China seeking cashiers aged 18 to 30 at a grocery store has ignited debate on social media about the perils of “middle-age unemployment”, amid a scramble to fill jobs across age groups and energise a sluggish economy. With tens of millions of college graduates set to join the workforce in the next few years, the nation of 1.4 billion is grappling with the threat of high youth unemployment, but people over 30 also face unrelenting pressure in finding jobs. “It’s not easy,” said a commenter in ...

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Fed gets an earful about ‘stranglehold’ from high rates

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and fellow Fed governors on Friday heard firsthand from business and community leaders how the Fed’s interest rate hikes, along with ongoing price and labor market pressures, are affecting Americans. Higher interest rates together with instability in commodity prices “has a stranglehold on the American agriculturalist right now, which leads to a stranglehold on all of rural America,” said Whitney Ferris-Hansen, who owns and operates J/W Farms and Ranch in Burlington, Colorado. “An increase in rates is always expected and planned for, but the speed ...

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Greek current account turns to surplus in January

Greece’s current account turned to surplus in January compared to the same month last year on strong tourism and an improvement in secondary income account, the Bank of Greece said on Friday. Central bank data showed the current account surplus was 1.7 billion euros ($1.84 billion) in January, compared with a deficit of 162 million euros in January 2023. “The surplus of the secondary income account rose considerably compared with January 2023, due to higher net receipts in the other sectors of the economy,” the bank said. Tourism receipts rose ...

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