#federal-reserve

#federal-reserve

SHV tracks the ICE Short US Treasury Securities Index, holding U.S. Treasury bonds with remaining maturities of one year or less, making it trade more like a cash equivalent.

TLT holds U.S. Treasury bonds with remaining maturities greater than 20 years, collecting fixed semi-annual coupons that are passed through as monthly distributions.

SPTI holds U.S. Treasury securities in the intermediate maturity range, offering a 3.76% dividend yield and an expense ratio of just 0.03%, making it one of the cheapest ways to own Treasury income.

A mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning. The judge added that the government provided essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime. He accused the government of presenting thin and unsubstantiated allegations against Powell.

The U.S. Federal Reserve confirmed yesterday that its trading desk did conduct a rare "rate check" on the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen on behalf of the White House earlier this year. The move is often regarded as a precursor to actively intervening in currency markets. In this case the implication would be that the U.S. Treasury wanted to strengthen the yen versus the dollar (or, vice versa, weaken the dollar versus the yen).

Futures are trading lower in front of the consumer price index report, as we head into the close of a rollercoaster week that saw a little of just about everything. After opening strongly on Thursday, stocks immediately rolled over. By the first hour mark, they were down sharply, and although stocks didn't close at the lows, they remained down for the rest of the session.

Unemployment remained little changed from December, falling slightly to 4.3% with 7.4 million people unemployed. Both of these figures are higher than they were a year ago, when the jobless rate was 4.0%, and the number of unemployed people was 6.9 million. The jobs report beat estimates; the unemployment rate fell, and the internals of the report were fine too.

Scott Bessent used a Senate appearance to defend President Donald Trump's campaign to slash interest and raise tariffs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has faced questions from the United States Senate about President Donald Trump's ongoing campaign to slash interest rates, despite concerns that such a move could turbo-charge inflation. Bessent appeared on Thursday before the Senate's Financial Stability Oversight Council. There, he received a grilling from Democrats over rising consumer prices and concerns about Trump's attempts to influence the Federal Reserve, the US central bank.