Author: News Room

(Bloomberg) — The International Monetary Fund lined up against former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers in the debate over where interest rates will gravitate to once inflation is beaten. In its latest World Economic Report, the IMF argued that rates in the US and other industrial countries will revert toward the ultra-low levels that prevailed prior to the pandemic, driven by aging populations and sluggish productivity growth. It sees the so-called natural or neutral rate – the inflation-adjusted short-term rate that neither pushes the economy ahead nor pulls it back – comfortably below 1% in the US in the coming…

© Reuters. By Andrew Goudsward (Reuters) – New York Governor Kathy Hochul on Monday nominated a judge to lead the state’s highest court after lawmakers rejected the Democrat’s previous pick from her own party. Rowan Wilson, an associate judge on the Court of Appeals, was named as chief judge of the same court, overseeing the state’s sprawling state judicial system. If confirmed, Wilson would be the first Black judge in the post, replacing Janet DiFiore who stepped down in August. “Judge Wilson’s sterling record of upholding justice and fairness makes him well-suited to lead the court at this critical time,” Hochul said…

It is too soon to know for sure whether the recent bank failures in the United States and the merger of Credit Suisse with UBS were isolated events or a harbinger of future troubles, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday. While market anxiety has been reduced in recent days, market sentiment remains “fragile” and strains are still evident, the international financial institution said, in its latest report on global financial conditions. “Concerns remain about vulnerabilities that may be hidden,” not just at banks, but in the shadow banking sector, the report said. “The impact of tighter monetary and financial conditions…

Hello and welcome to Financial Face-off, a MarketWatch column where we help you weigh financial decisions. Our columnist will give her verdict. Tell us whether you think she’s right in the comments. And please share your suggestions for future Financial Face-off columns by emailing our columnist at [email protected]. Is tax season fun for anyone? Maybe it is for accountants who love their job. Or for taxpayers who get an unexpectedly large refund (though that’s not necessarily something to celebrate.)  For most of us, filing our taxes is a necessary chore. Is it better to tackle your 1040 yourself with tax-prep software…

Cost controls helped CarMax report better-than-expected quarterly earnings and the stock was rising in premarket trading. The used-car seller reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings per share of 44 cents from $5.7 billion in sales. Wall Street was looking for profit of 20 cents a share from $6.1 billion in sales. A year ago, CarMax (ticker: KMX) reported earnings of 98 cents a share on sales of $7.7 billion. Comparable-store sales, a key metric for any retailer, fell 22%. Analysts were projecting a 27% drop. “Our deliberate steps to navigate the pressures facing the used car industry are driving sequential improvements in…

Cryptocurrency isn’t in favor with global authorities right now, to put it mildly. Fallen FTX wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried sits under house arrest in California, facing a lifetime’s worth of fraud and bribery charges. Do Kwon, the mastermind behind collapsed “algorithmic coins” Terra and Luna, was arrested in Montenegro at the request of his native South Korea. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission last month charged Binance, the world’s largest crypto bourse, with operating an “illegal” exchange and “sham” compliance.  One financial center is surprisingly heading in the opposite direction: Hong Kong. China’s offshore zone shared the mainland’s crypto-skeptic stance during Bitcoin’s…

The US government investigations into a leak of highly classified Pentagon documents are starting to take shape, with the Pentagon examining how the leak impacts US national security and the Justice Department launching a criminal investigation into who may have been behind the breach. The interagency probe is being led by the Pentagon’s Office of Intelligence and Security, according to three US officials, and could take months to complete. It will chiefly examine whether any sources and methods have been compromised since the documents, many of which are marked Top Secret, were posted on a social media platform earlier this…

EY has called off the plan to break up its audit and consulting businesses after months of internal disagreement and opposition from executives in the US.The Big Four firm communicated the decision on Tuesday in a note to partners, which was seen by the Financial Times.The plan, code named Project Everest, was approved by EY’s global leadership in September and would have represented the biggest shake-up in the accounting industry in more than two decades.The note, which was signed by EY’s 18-person global executive committee, said it was committed to pursuing a different deal in the future.“The global executive remains…

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