Connect with us

Amazon rumored to be accepting Bitcoin, MicroStrategy pledges to buy more BTC despite losses, Bitcoin struggles at $40K: Hodler’s Digest, July 25-31

Coming every Saturday, Hodlers Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more a week on Cointelegraph in…

Published

on

Coming every Saturday, Hodlers Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top Stories This Week

 

Amazon plans to accept Bitcoin payments this year, claims insider

The crypto community was going wild at the beginning of this week after rumors circulated that Amazon was planning to accept Bitcoin payments.

The rumors started after Amazon posted a job opening for a digital currency and blockchain product lead on July 22. Four days later, an anonymous source within Amazon reportedly told London business newspaper City A.M. that the e-commerce giant was planning to start accepting Bitcoin (BTC) payments by the end of 2021.

This isnt just going through the motions to set up cryptocurrency payment solutions at some point in the future this is a full-on, well-discussed, integral part of the future mechanism of how Amazon will work, the source told City A.M., according to a report published on Sunday.

Chinese crypto journalist Colin Wu attributed Mondays surging market action, during which Bitcoin gained roughly 15% in less than three hours, to Amazons rumored plans.

How wrong that very self-assured sounding quote from an unnamed source turned out to be after the multinational giant refuted the speculation two days later.

Notwithstanding our interest in the space, the speculation that has ensued around our specific plans for cryptocurrencies is not true, a spokesperson said.

 

Bitcoin struggles at $40K after most confusing Jerome Powell press conference

Bitcoin rose above $40,000 on July 29, a day after the Federal Reserve hinted that it was getting closer to winding down its asset purchasing program that has boosted the economic recovery of the United States.

The digital gold previously approached $41,000 ahead of the critical Fed update. Unsurprisingly, it started losing upward momentum after the Federal Open Market Committee released its policy statement, followed by a press conference helmed by the Fed’s chairman, Jerome Powell.

Powell had previously said that the Fed’s asset purchases would continue until it sees substantial further progress in the U.S. economic recovery. However, for a while, it was unspecified as to what that actually meant, and Powell finally cleared that up after being questioned in a July 28 press conference.

Turns out that substantial further progress means strong labor numbers and gains towards maximum employment.

Maximum employment refers to the highest level of achievable employment that the economy can sustain while maintaining a stable inflation rate. Given the rise of inflation and the decline of jobs due to the pandemic, the Feds maximum employment targets may need further clarification.

BTC investors have been closely monitoring how soon the central bank might unwind its $120-billion-per-month bond-buying program due to its role in aiding the Bitcoin bull market.

 

Binance cuts withdrawal limits, rolls out tax reporting tool

Following increased scrutiny aimed at Binance from governments and financial institutions across the globe, the worlds biggest crypto exchange has been working on regulatory compliance.

In the latest attempt to maintain dialogue with global regulators, Binance introduced withdrawal limits and a new tax reporting system.

The company officially announced on July 27 a major update to its Know Your Customer policies, significantly reducing maximum withdrawal amounts for users who have not completed full identity verification.

Effective from the date of the announcement, new Binance accounts whose users have completed only basic account verifications will be unable to withdraw more than 0.06 Bitcoin per day, worth roughly $2,329 at the time of writing. Previously, the maximum daily withdrawal amount was capped at 2 BTC, or about $77,661.

On July 30, the platform also announced that it will be shutting down its crypto derivatives trading for customers across Europe, first starting with Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

This week, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO and founder of Binance, said he wanted the crypto exchange to work with local regulators as it establishes regional headquarters.

Zhao, also known as CZ, hinted that Binance would depart from its decentralized approach to finance and that wanted the exchange to coordinate with regulators as the company expands.

We want to be licensed everywhere, CZ said. From now on, were going to be a financial institution.

 

MicroStrategy pledges to buy more BTC despite paper loss on its holdings of $424.8M in Q2

MicroStrategy pledged to buy more Bitcoin despite reporting impairment losses of $424.8 million in Q2, after it stated that it was pleased by the results of its digital asset strategy in its July 29 Q2 report.

At a first glance, it appeared that MicroStrategy had lost the plot, as the Q2 report showed that as of June 30, MicroStrategy held an approximate 105,085 BTC with a carrying value of $2.051 billion, at an impairment loss of $689.6 million since acquisition. The average carrying amount per Bitcoin was an estimated $19,518.

Earlier this week Elon Musks Tesla also published a Q2 report which showed a $23 million impairment loss on its Bitcoin holdings.

As both firms categorize Bitcoin as an intangible asset, accounting rules mandate that they must report an impairment loss when the assets price drops below its cost basis. However, they are not required to report price appreciation in the specified asset until the position is realized through a sale.

The digital asset figures were calculated using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) a collection of commonly accepted accounting rules used for financial reporting. The firm also provided non-GAAP calculations, which in this report exclude the impact of share-based compensation expense and impairment losses and gains on sale from intangible assets.

The non-GAAP figures paint a different picture for MicroStrategys digital asset holdings, with the BTC cost basis at $2.741 billion but its market value is $3.653 billion, which reflects an average cost per BTC at $26,080 and a market price of $34,763 as of June 30.

This may be the reason why MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor continues to double down on BTC and pursue the hodl modl.

 

PayPal set to launch crypto trading in the UK and may embrace DeFi

On July 30, it was revealed that global payments platform PayPal is looking to expand its crypto trading services to the U.K. market, with the firm also revealing that it is looking at embracing DeFi.

According to the companys second-quarter earnings call on July 28, PayPal was very keen to pat itself on the back after the firm noted how well it performed during Q2 with its crypto trading services. CEO Dan Schulman stated that the U.K. is likely to be the next country where crypto trading is offered, and maybe even next month.

Speaking on DeFi, Schulman suggested that PayPal was looking into what the next generation of the financial system looks like and how to integrate smart contracts and decentralized apps into the platform:

How can we use smart contracts more efficiently? How can we digitize assets and open those up to consumers that may not have had access to that before? There are some interesting DeFi applications as well. And so we are working really hard.

Schulman also revealed that revenues of PayPal-owned mobile payment service Venmo grew by 183% year-over-year and that there has been strong adoption and trading of crypto on Venmo as well. Venmo launched crypto trading services to an estimated 70 million users in mid-April.

Paypals 2020 entrance into crypto was widely cited as one of the early catalysts for last years meteoric bull run, with the firm first announcing it would introduce U.S. crypto trading service in November.

Winners and Losers

 

 

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $38,906 Ether at $2,357 and XRP at $0.72 The total market cap is at $1.53 trillion, based on CoinMarketCap data.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Quant (QNT) at 70.71%, Amp (AMP) at 55.88%, and Terra(LUNA) at 43.75%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Compound (COMP) at -5.79%, Mdex (MDX) at -5.35%, and Shiba Inu (SHIB) at -5.19%.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraphs market analysis.

 

 

Most Memorable Quotations

 

I think central bank digital currencies were concocted in hell by Satan himself.

Rich Checkan, president of Asset Strategies International

 

You even have some in the House that sit not too far from me on the House Financial Services Committee that would call blockchain basically a financial 9/11.

Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina, member of the House Financial Services Committee and Congressional Blockchain Caucus

 

They claim to enable transparency. Their backers talk about the democratization of banking. Theres nothing democratic or transparent about a shady, diffuse network of online funny money.

Sherrod Brown, United States Democratic Senator

 

Spending America deeper into a hole is a stupid, inflationary & altogether undesirable way to drive ppl to digital assets. I want USD to continue as the world’s reserve currency. We need to reign in spending & support financial innovation on US soil.

Cynthia Lummis, United States Republican Senator

 

When the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic hit and forced many economies into partial and total lockdowns, it reinforced the need to pursue digitization.

Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice President of Ghana

 

There has been an enormous failure by the big banks to reach consumers all across the country. Digital currency and central bank digital currency may be an answer there.

Elizabeth Warren, United States Senator and former presidential candidate

 

We continue to be pleased by the results of the implementation of our digital asset strategy. Our latest capital raise allowed us to expand our digital holdings, which now exceed 105,000 bitcoins. Going forward, we intend to continue to deploy additional capital into our digital asset strategy.

Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy CEO

 

Bitcoin Mining is the most ESG friendly business in the world. Bitcoin miners are 24/7 consumers of energy that can be placed near wasted power assets. Bitcoin miners help energy companies plan/control their demand this brings in revenue to divest from coal and invest in renewable energy assets.

Will Szamosszegi, CEO and founder of Sazmining Inc., from Markets Pro Q&A

Prediction of the Week

 

Ethereum price can hit $14K if the March 2020 chart fractal holds

Now that it looks like the cryptomarkets are picking back up, numerous bullish predictions are beginning to resurface. The recent flip in sentiment makes one wonder whether the highly coveted moon may once again be in sight.

Earlier this week TradingView user TradingShot spotted an extremely bullish fractal on the Ethereum chart which indicated that ETH may close 2021 above $14,000.

The Ethereum fractal involves three technical indicators: a 50-day simple moving average (SMA), a Fibonacci channel and a relative strength index.

Ether closed above its 50-day SMA in July 2021, the first time since the May 2021 bearish buzzkill market correction. As TradingShot pointed out, breaking above the 50-day SMA has historically predicted bull runs. For instance, a run-up above the 50-day SMA in April 2020 took the ETH/USD exchange rate from around $170 to over $500 in September 2020 in only 137 days.

A word of caution, however, based on this authors 20-second analysis: The last time ETH hit all-time highs around the $4,000 to $4,300 price range in mid-May, it stayed there for roughly five days before crashing sharply and forcing the bulls into hibernation.

FUD of the Week

 

Warren urges Treasury Secretary Yellen to combat rising crypto threats

Earlier this week, U.S. Democratic Senator and anti-crypto proponent Elizabeth Warren called on Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other regulators to develop a comprehensive and coordinated framework for addressing risks in the cryptocurrency market.

As the demand for cryptocurrencies continues to grow and these assets become more embedded in our financial system, consumers, the environment, and our financial system are under growing threats, Warren said in a letter to Yellen.

According to Warren, an under-regulated cryptocurrency market poses a significant risk to major financial players, such as hedge funds and banks. What Warren is forgetting, however, is that hedge funds and banks are usually bailed out with taxpayer money in times of financial crises, so they really have nothing to worry about.

The senator is renowned for pushing back against cryptic currencies or whatever they are called, and has described assets like Dogecoin as a fourth-rate alternative to real currency.

It appears she hasnt seen enough memes from the DOGE community to be swayed on the value of Dogecoin as of yet.

 

IMF issues veiled warning against El Salvadors Bitcoin Law

The International Monetary Fund, or IMF, warned this week that the consequences of a country adopting Bitcoin as a national currency could be dire.

The IMF didnt specify which country it was talking about, but one thinks it may be El Salvador the first nation to adopt Bitcoin as a national currency.

According to assertions from IMF marketing department financial counselor and director Tobias Adrian and legal department general counsel and director Rhoda Weeks-Brown,

countries adopting cryptocurrencies as national currencies or granting crypto assets legal tender status risks domestic prices becoming highly unstable.

They also emphasized that the assets could be used contrary to Anti-Money Laundering and financing of terrorism measures, in addition to having issues surrounding macroeconomic stability and the environment.

 

Law professor calls for crypto mining regulation during US Senate hearing

Just as everyone was getting excited about the majority of the global BTC hash rate migrating out of China to the U.S., one little-known law expert has to come to ruin it all.

Professor Angela Walch of the St. Marys University School of Law attended the July 27 crypto hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs to call for stricter regulations on people who keep the crypto sector moving smoothly.

Thankfully, she wasnt asking for a China-esque ban and, in addressing the committee, Walch claimed that miners held meaningful power over the way blockchain networks operate. She asserted that they can potentially exploit the role of transaction ordering, which could become a major issue for cryptocurrencies.

In stressing the point, professor Walch likened the miner extractable value paradigm where miners earn more profits from ordering transactions in a certain way as being akin to a bribe.

She may have a point, though sometimes it does feel like youre bribing someone to get an Ethereum transaction through the books when tokenized cats clog up the network and send gas fees to the moon.

 

Best Cointelegraph Features

Blockchain tech is holding NFTs back because of these three design flaws

Three design flaws in blockchain tech are holding the NFT sector back and they need to be tackled for it to reach its full potential.

Powers On… Why the fear of ICO enforcement and liability is coming to an end

Eleven class actions against crypto firms and their founders started with a bang and will end with a whimper as they should.

Traders anticipate ‘DeFi Summer 2.0 after TVL and token prices rise

A rally in blue-chip DeFi tokens and the sectors rising total value locked has traders hopeful that a prolonged rally will take place.

Read More

Continue Reading

Spread & Containment

The Coming Of The Police State In America

The Coming Of The Police State In America

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The National Guard and the State Police are now…

Published

on

The Coming Of The Police State In America

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The National Guard and the State Police are now patrolling the New York City subway system in an attempt to do something about the explosion of crime. As part of this, there are bag checks and new surveillance of all passengers. No legislation, no debate, just an edict from the mayor.

Many citizens who rely on this system for transportation might welcome this. It’s a city of strict gun control, and no one knows for sure if they have the right to defend themselves. Merchants have been harassed and even arrested for trying to stop looting and pillaging in their own shops.

The message has been sent: Only the police can do this job. Whether they do it or not is another matter.

Things on the subway system have gotten crazy. If you know it well, you can manage to travel safely, but visitors to the city who take the wrong train at the wrong time are taking grave risks.

In actual fact, it’s guaranteed that this will only end in confiscating knives and other things that people carry in order to protect themselves while leaving the actual criminals even more free to prey on citizens.

The law-abiding will suffer and the criminals will grow more numerous. It will not end well.

When you step back from the details, what we have is the dawning of a genuine police state in the United States. It only starts in New York City. Where is the Guard going to be deployed next? Anywhere is possible.

If the crime is bad enough, citizens will welcome it. It must have been this way in most times and places that when the police state arrives, the people cheer.

We will all have our own stories of how this came to be. Some might begin with the passage of the Patriot Act and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security in 2001. Some will focus on gun control and the taking away of citizens’ rights to defend themselves.

My own version of events is closer in time. It began four years ago this month with lockdowns. That’s what shattered the capacity of civil society to function in the United States. Everything that has happened since follows like one domino tumbling after another.

It goes like this:

1) lockdown,

2) loss of moral compass and spreading of loneliness and nihilism,

3) rioting resulting from citizen frustration, 4) police absent because of ideological hectoring,

5) a rise in uncontrolled immigration/refugees,

6) an epidemic of ill health from substance abuse and otherwise,

7) businesses flee the city

8) cities fall into decay, and that results in

9) more surveillance and police state.

The 10th stage is the sacking of liberty and civilization itself.

It doesn’t fall out this way at every point in history, but this seems like a solid outline of what happened in this case. Four years is a very short period of time to see all of this unfold. But it is a fact that New York City was more-or-less civilized only four years ago. No one could have predicted that it would come to this so quickly.

But once the lockdowns happened, all bets were off. Here we had a policy that most directly trampled on all freedoms that we had taken for granted. Schools, businesses, and churches were slammed shut, with various levels of enforcement. The entire workforce was divided between essential and nonessential, and there was widespread confusion about who precisely was in charge of designating and enforcing this.

It felt like martial law at the time, as if all normal civilian law had been displaced by something else. That something had to do with public health, but there was clearly more going on, because suddenly our social media posts were censored and we were being asked to do things that made no sense, such as mask up for a virus that evaded mask protection and walk in only one direction in grocery aisles.

Vast amounts of the white-collar workforce stayed home—and their kids, too—until it became too much to bear. The city became a ghost town. Most U.S. cities were the same.

As the months of disaster rolled on, the captives were let out of their houses for the summer in order to protest racism but no other reason. As a way of excusing this, the same public health authorities said that racism was a virus as bad as COVID-19, so therefore it was permitted.

The protests had turned to riots in many cities, and the police were being defunded and discouraged to do anything about the problem. Citizens watched in horror as downtowns burned and drug-crazed freaks took over whole sections of cities. It was like every standard of decency had been zapped out of an entire swath of the population.

Meanwhile, large checks were arriving in people’s bank accounts, defying every normal economic expectation. How could people not be working and get their bank accounts more flush with cash than ever? There was a new law that didn’t even require that people pay rent. How weird was that? Even student loans didn’t need to be paid.

By the fall, recess from lockdown was over and everyone was told to go home again. But this time they had a job to do: They were supposed to vote. Not at the polling places, because going there would only spread germs, or so the media said. When the voting results finally came in, it was the absentee ballots that swung the election in favor of the opposition party that actually wanted more lockdowns and eventually pushed vaccine mandates on the whole population.

The new party in control took note of the large population movements out of cities and states that they controlled. This would have a large effect on voting patterns in the future. But they had a plan. They would open the borders to millions of people in the guise of caring for refugees. These new warm bodies would become voters in time and certainly count on the census when it came time to reapportion political power.

Meanwhile, the native population had begun to swim in ill health from substance abuse, widespread depression, and demoralization, plus vaccine injury. This increased dependency on the very institutions that had caused the problem in the first place: the medical/scientific establishment.

The rise of crime drove the small businesses out of the city. They had barely survived the lockdowns, but they certainly could not survive the crime epidemic. This undermined the tax base of the city and allowed the criminals to take further control.

The same cities became sanctuaries for the waves of migrants sacking the country, and partisan mayors actually used tax dollars to house these invaders in high-end hotels in the name of having compassion for the stranger. Citizens were pushed out to make way for rampaging migrant hordes, as incredible as this seems.

But with that, of course, crime rose ever further, inciting citizen anger and providing a pretext to bring in the police state in the form of the National Guard, now tasked with cracking down on crime in the transportation system.

What’s the next step? It’s probably already here: mass surveillance and censorship, plus ever-expanding police power. This will be accompanied by further population movements, as those with the means to do so flee the city and even the country and leave it for everyone else to suffer.

As I tell the story, all of this seems inevitable. It is not. It could have been stopped at any point. A wise and prudent political leadership could have admitted the error from the beginning and called on the country to rediscover freedom, decency, and the difference between right and wrong. But ego and pride stopped that from happening, and we are left with the consequences.

The government grows ever bigger and civil society ever less capable of managing itself in large urban centers. Disaster is unfolding in real time, mitigated only by a rising stock market and a financial system that has yet to fall apart completely.

Are we at the middle stages of total collapse, or at the point where the population and people in leadership positions wise up and decide to put an end to the downward slide? It’s hard to know. But this much we do know: There is a growing pocket of resistance out there that is fed up and refuses to sit by and watch this great country be sacked and taken over by everything it was set up to prevent.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 16:20

Read More

Continue Reading

Government

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

Published

on

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

Read More

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

Published

on

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

Read More

Continue Reading

Trending