People are watching the Federal Reserve and potential rate cut decisions too closely, said Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, and that’s a “huge constraint on economic growth.” The potential for interest rate cuts this summer is dwindling, with Fed Chair Jerome Powell stating that recent data indicates that it will take longer than expected to garner the confidence needed to make a move. Moynihan said there are more indications of a stable economy than the Fed would make it seem, citing strong consumer spending, business earnings and low unemployment. Bank of America researchers “say it takes ..read more

United Airlines would have reported a first-quarter profit, the company said, if it didn’t have to ground its Boeing 737 MAX 9 fleet for three weeks after a door plug blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight in January. Instead, the airline reported a pre-tax loss of $164 million for the quarter. Because the loss was less than expected, however, the airline’s shares rose more than 5% after the announcement. With 79 Boeing 737 MAX 9s in its fleet, United has more of the aircraft than any other airline, save for Alaska Airlines. Both airlines were required to cancel thousands of flights in January ..read more

Earlier this year, a Delaware judge voided a $56 billion pay package for CEO Elon Musk on the grounds that because he effectively controlled the board, the payout was unfair to stakeholders. Now, Musk’s company Tesla is requesting that shareholders re-approve the payout and move company headquarters to Texas. The pay package was first approved in 2018 and will now go back to shareholders on June 13’s annual meeting. However, with falling sales, tumbling stock prices and slowing EV demand, another authorization is less of a sure thing this time. Board Chair Robyn Denholm said Wednesday in a let ..read more

The expectation that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates this year has been thrown into doubt after Chair Jerome Powell said there has been “a lack of further progress” on reaching the Fed’s 2% target for lowering inflation. If rate cuts come at all this year, they wouldn’t be until at least September, according to economists. “My sense is they need two, probably three consecutive months of inflation numbers that are consistent with that 2% target,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “If that’s the bar, the earliest they can get there is September. I just don’t see ..read more

The U.S. Justice Department is reportedly close to filing a lawsuit against Live Nation, America’s biggest concert promoter and ticketing website, on the grounds that the company has broken antitrust laws. The parent company of Ticketmaster, Live Nation is being accused of using its market-leading position to suppress its competition, the Wall Street Journal reported. It’s anticipated that the lawsuit will be filed in the coming weeks. In 2022, Ticketmaster came under fire for its handling of Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tour, when millions of people were left in the lurch as system issues plagued ti ..read more

A rejuvenation of investment banking and growth in wealth management pushed Morgan Stanley’s first-quarter profit above what was expected, and the market responding by driving shares up 3.7%. The bank and financial services company saw ballooning client assets for its wealth and investment management divisions, while fixed-income underwriting thrived for the second consecutive quarter, thanks to higher bond issuance. Analysts had forecast an average profit of $1.66 a share, but the actual numbers rang in at $2.02 per share. Morgan Stanley reported total revenue of $15.14 billion, a jump from l ..read more

America’s health problems and the resulting decline in life expectancy is not only a problem for citizens, but could also have a “devastating impact” on the economy, wrote infectious disease physician and epidemiologist Céline Gounder for the Los Angeles Times. For every one-year increase in life expectancy, economic output could be boosted by 4%. Additionally, the country spends $4.5 trillion—17% of GDP—each year on health, with out-of-pocket costs skyrocketing, stretching people’s finances and sending more to bankruptcy. At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, legislators recognized the connec ..read more

Citing a “surprisingly resilient” economy, the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday upgraded its global growth forecast, now saying it will reach 3.2% in 2024—up just 0.1 percentage point from the Fund’s January prediction. This aligns with 2023’s growth forecast, as well as IMF’s 2025 conjecture. Following multiple economic crises, the global economy could achieve a “soft landing, said Chief Economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas. “Despite gloomy predictions, the global economy remains remarkably resilient, with steady growth and inflation slowing almost as quickly as it rose,” he wrote in a b ..read more

Jobs in artificial intelligence are most plentiful in San Jose, Seattle and San Fransisco, according to a report from UMD-LinkUp, a partnership between the University of Maryland, jobs website LinkUp and consulting firm Outrigger Group, but the remainder of the top 10 cities might come as a surprise. In the first quarter of 2024, around 142 new AI jobs per 100,000 residents were listed on LinkUp in San Jose, while Seattle had 74.4 and San Fransisco had 49.3. This accounted for around 7.5%, 4% and 3.2%, respectively, of all new jobs posted during Q1. However, AI jobs were also plentiful in Aust ..read more

The 10-year Treasury yield rose to its highest level since mid-November 2023, increasing by more than 13 basis points to 4.632%. Additionally, the two-year Treasury yield grew by almost 6 basis points and now is at 4.938%. Prices and yields move in opposite directors, with one basis point equal to 0.01%. Investors are reacting to a news of an increase of 0.7% in retail sales, higher than the 0.3% gain that was predicted by the Dow Jones consensus forecast. Last week’s report of a higher-than-anticipated increase in the consumer price index for March had an effect, too, as well as the potential ..read more