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Poorer by the hour, richer by the payroll

American employers added 165,000 jobs in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.

The AI boom now runs on borrowed money

The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.52 per cent on Thursday, to 24,315, its worst day since April 2025.

Gridlock helps bonds until the debt ceiling

Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in Tuesday's midterm elections, CBS News projected, with a handful of races still being counted.

Oil fell. The Fed's problem didn't

Oil fell by more than 7 per cent on Monday, its sharpest one-day drop in months, after Tehran said contacts with Washington aimed at ending the eight-month conflict were continuing.

At 7.3%, the housing market stalls

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage in America fell last week, to 7.32 per cent from 7.40 per cent, according to Freddie Mac's weekly survey published on October 22.

Jio's record IPO sells very little of Jio

The Treasury rally that oil can't explain

Two weeks ago the yield on the ten-year Treasury note closed at 5.31 per cent, its highest close in about two decades, and talk on Wall Street was of 5.5 per cent and beyond.

India's inflation jump has a freight problem

India's consumer prices rose 5.54 per cent in the year to September, up from 4.83 per cent in August, according to provisional figures published by the Ministry of Statistics on October 12.

Gasoline did most of September's inflation

American consumer prices rose 0.6 per cent in September, after 0.4 per cent in August, and 3.7 per cent from a year earlier, up from 3.4 per cent in August.

India's rate rise is bigger than it looks

The Reserve Bank of India raised interest rates on Wednesday for the first time since February 2023.

The Fed gets two signals, and they disagree

For a week at the start of October the bond market was sure of one thing: the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates again this month.

The inflation drop that came from a rulebook

Why Treasury buybacks can't cap the 10-year

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to about 5.2 per cent on Monday, its highest level since July 2007, after closing last week at around 5.18 per cent.

The 10-year hits 5.1%, its highest since 2007

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield rose to 5.104 per cent on 25 September, its highest since the summer of 2007, just before the global financial crisis.

The bond sell-off, explained

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield jumped back to 5.0 per cent after the Federal Reserve's hawkish rate rise, handing heavy duration losses to portfolios around the world.

The Fed hikes, and its chair skips the dot plot

The Federal Open Market Committee raised the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 3.75–4.00 per cent on 18 September.

The rate hike the Fed can't avoid

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield rose to 4.954 per cent on 11 September after a very weak Treasury debt buyback showed that liquidity in the bond market is thinning as inflation refuses to fade.

Rising costs threaten company profits

The producer price index rose 0.4 per cent in August from July, and core wholesale prices rose 0.2 per cent.

The 10-year nears 5% as oil nears $100

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield rose to 4.818 per cent on 2 September, edging closer to the 5.0 per cent mark that traders treat as a line in the sand, while Brent crude sat near $99 a barrel.

Labor Day: Hiring is strong enough to worry the Fed

The August employment report, landing just before Labor Day, showed an American jobs market in fine health.

Anniversary: Four years, 500 pieces

This column turns four this month, with exactly 500 essays published since its launch in September 2022.

Blowout jobs, tighter Fed

Non-farm payrolls for August came in far above every Wall Street forecast. The report showed an economy in no need of help, and it left little room for anyone still arguing that the Fed should ease.

Is the oil shock turning into wage inflation?

Headline consumer price inflation rose to 3.4 per cent in July, pushed up by hundred-dollar crude.

What company filings say about tariff risk

Second-quarter 10-Q filings from across the Fortune 500 split companies into two groups.

Warsh speaks, bonds sell

Kevin Warsh gave his first big public speech as Federal Reserve chairman at a monetary policy conference on 25 August, and bond investors did not like it.

The market bets on a Warsh hike

The two-year Treasury yield rose to about 4.24 per cent on 21 August, as markets stopped pricing rate cuts from the Fed and started pricing a rise under its chairman, Kevin Warsh.

Trump dusts off a 1930 law to hit Canada

The administration imposed an immediate 50 per cent tariff on imports from Canada on 19 August, using Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930.

Which companies can pass on higher costs

Headline consumer price inflation picked up again in July to 3.4 per cent year on year.

Long-term rates climb as Iran talks stall

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury rose steadily to 4.705 per cent on 10 August, and the 30-year yield broke through 5.251 per cent, after diplomatic talks with Iran broke down entirely.

Back to school: Borrowing costs top 5%

The yield on the benchmark 30-year Treasury rose to 5.251 per cent on 10 August, just as families were shopping for the new school year.

What Americans now pay in tariffs

Under the new Section 301 regime, the average tariff paid on goods entering America has settled into two tiers, according to a detailed review of federal trade policy.

Three Fed officials want a hike

The Federal Open Market Committee voted 9–3 on 29 July to leave rates unchanged, and all three dissenters wanted an immediate rise of 25 basis points.

Banks brace for higher rates

The Federal Open Market Committee held the federal funds rate at 3.50–3.75 per cent at its 29 July meeting.

The peace deal collapses, and oil jumps

Front-month Brent rose 16 per cent in five trading sessions to $88 a barrel after Middle East peace talks broke up without an agreement on 28 July.

One tariff ends, another begins

The temporary 10 per cent tariffs imposed under Section 122 reached the end of their 150-day statutory life at midnight on 24 July, and at that moment the administration unveiled a tough new tariff regime under Section 301.

America's emergency oil is running out

The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has fallen to its lowest level since 1983, according to Department of Energy figures.

The tariff refund boost to earnings

Court-ordered tariff refunds have taken over the second-quarter earnings calls. Big consumer-products groups and retailers are reporting large net income beats, and the refunds, not their operations, account for all of the gain.

Tariff refunds mean more government borrowing

The Treasury has updated its borrowing plans, and they make for sober reading. Paying the court-ordered $166 billion in tariff refunds will mean a large and immediate increase in net Treasury bill issuance for the rest of the fiscal year.

Is it oil or tariffs pushing prices up?

A new statistical breakdown of the mid-2026 rise in inflation takes up the question that divides the Federal Reserve.

Paying tariffs while suing to get them back

Importers are paying Section 122 tariffs at the border every week while paying lawyers to win the same money back.

Independence Day: Energy independence, tested

American crude output is running close to record highs, and total US petroleum stocks, including the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, still fell by 79 million barrels over the spring.

Proving your supply chain is clean will cost you

The administration launched its broad Section 301 investigation into alleged forced labour in foreign supply chains on 2 June, and compliance and logistics teams are now counting the cost.

Trump's temporary tariff is about to expire

The administration's temporary 10 per cent tariff, imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, lapses by law on 24 July, when its 150-day statutory life runs out.

The Fed's hawks start to multiply

The Federal Open Market Committee ended its June meeting with the federal funds rate unchanged at 3.50–3.75 per cent.

Hormuz reopens, on paper

The news wires announced on 23 June that the Strait of Hormuz was open again, after regional powers signed a multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) at a formal ceremony.

Steel tariffs hit everything made of steel

Customs officials on 19 June moved the Section 232 steel tariffs of 25 to 50 per cent onto a "full-value" basis for thousands of imported finished goods, a heavy blow to American fabricators and the factories they supply.

Is oil being priced in yuan now?

Large volumes of internationally traded crude are now being priced, invoiced and settled only in Chinese yuan.

Iran closes the strait again

Iran's navy closed the Strait of Hormuz completely again on 12 June, blaming unprovoked provocations at sea, and the Gulf truce was over.

A peace deal nobody has signed

The Persian Gulf peace agreement that mediators had talked up so loudly was still unsigned on 9 June, and markets lurched.

Oil tankers stuck at sea

More than twenty-two merchant ships, twelve of them ultra-large crude carriers and eight of them container ships, are still at anchor and going nowhere across the northern Indian Ocean.