Business Matters with Don Ma

Former President Donald Trump says that, if he becomes President, he should have a say in the fed's interest rate decisions - a policy that impacts the world economy. Stellantis is laying off almost 2,500 factory workers from an assembly plant outside of Detroit. The automaker is ending production of the Ram 1500 Classic truck. The layoffs will be effective as early as Oct. 8, the company said.

JP Morgan now raising the odds of a recession by the end of this year to 35-percent. That’s up from 25-percent. The news comes after a weaker than expected July jobs report and the sharp sell-off in global equities over the unwinding of the yen-funded carry trades.American budgets are being stretched. A new report shows the average credit card balance is more than $6,300 and more are falling behind on payments.

$17-point-eight trillion dollars. That's the latest number for U-S household debt on, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And the largest on record. Auto loan and mortgage debt rose and credit card debt reached an all-time high. Important news for investors coming out of Japan today. The country's central bank signalling it will hold off raising interest rates while markets are quote 'volatile'. Normally Japanese interest rates are not something we're all that worried about. But after the Bank of Japan raised rates for only the second time in 17 years last week it sent global markets into a tizzy.

We've been covering how the unwinding of a popular trade has rippled through global markets. JP Morgan and UBS saying today that the unwind is only 50% done. For years, investors around the world have been taking advantage of Japan's 0% interest rate policy. The low rates in essence allowed investors to borrow money for next to nothing, and use it to buy stocks, bonds, or anything else in the global financial market. This has been a safe and profitable trade over the years. But that all changed last week after the Japanese central raised interest rates above 0% for the first time in 17 years. Google may be the one who lost an antitrust lawsuit but Apple is likely going to take a hit too.A federal judge ruled that Google paying companies to make its search engine the default browser violates U-S antitrust law. For two decades, Google has paid Apple a chunk of its search revenue made on Apple devices. Court documents estimated that number to be around 20-billion-dollars in 2022. Google may have to scrap that deal with Apple.

All three major US indexes in the deep red today. And it wasn't just the United States. Japan's Nikkei closing over 12% lower today. It's worst day since 1987. That's when Black Monday hit Wall Street. We look at what the unwinding of the yen carry trade may have to do with it.A federal judge has ruled that Google’s payments to make its search engine the default browser violates U-S antitrust law. The $26 billion dollars in payments effectively blocked any other competitors from succeeding in the market, according to the judge.

The US economy added just 114,000 jobs compared to 175,000 expected. The unemployment rate rising to its highest level since October 2021. This is all according to new government data released today. Hourly wages rose just 3.6% from July 2023, the smallest year-over-year gain since May 2021.The big loser on Wall Street today is Intel. The company's stock falling a massive 27%. It's now down 50% in the past 12 months. Earnings missing estimates on the top and bottom line. Announcing its laying off 15% of its staff. That's over 17,000 people by some estimates.

The stock market flashing red today as warning signs flash in other areas of the economy too. Weekly jobless claims now at an 11-month high. Today's labor market report also showing also the total number of people on jobless rolls is at the highest since 2021. Manufacturing data suggesting a slow down in the broader US economy. ISM data showing the manufacturing sector contracted in July for the fourth consecutive month. It's now at its lowest level in eight months.

Chairman Jerome Powell today acknowledging weakness in the jobs market and the economy. He says the broad sense among the Fed committee is that things may be deteriorating to a point where the economy will soon need stimulus. That could come as soon as September in the form of a rate cut.500 million dollars. That’s how much Delta says the CrowdStrike-Microsoft outage will cost the airline. Delta shares down today. The massive I-T outage earlier this month forced Delta to cancel more than five-thousand flights, leaving hordes of flyers stranded.

Microsoft Shares down over 6% in after-hours trading. Revenue from Microsoft's flagship cloud product Azure disappointing. We talk to RP Capital Solutions CIO, Vijay Marolia. Facebook parent company Meta's shares down over half a percent today. It will pay a $1.4 billion settlement to Texas over claims the company used biometric data of users without permission. The Texas lawsuit alleged that Meta was in violation of a state law.

2023 saw the worst underwriting loss in a century for home insurers. That’s according to rating agency A-M Best. It found insurance providers were hit with a 15-billion dollar net underwriting loss. That’s when an insurance company has to pay out more in claims than expected.The Justice Department is asking a federal appeals court to uphold law that would ban TikTok. It gives Chinese owner ByteDance until January to sell TikTok’s U-S assets or else be banned. The British government is warning Brits to get ready for some economic pain. The UK announcing a raft of cuts to dig itself out of a $28-billion-dollar spending hole. In a statement to the House of Commons, its Finance Minister pledged to make the “necessary”, “urgent” and “incredibly tough” choices to restore the country’s economic stability.