PayPal beats profit targets, flags spending pull forward amid economic uncertainty
PayPal beat Q1 earnings expectations, reporting $1.33 per share versus analysts' $1.16 estimate, and maintained its full-year profit forecast amid economic uncertainty from Trump-era tariffs. While consumer spending remained strong, the company is focusing on high-margin growth and branded checkout enhancements like Venmo monetisation and Fastlane to retain market share.
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Economic Times
11 minutes ago
- Economic Times
Dollar holds gains ahead of inflation data; Aussie awaits RBA
The U.S. dollar remained stable as markets awaited a crucial consumer inflation report, influencing expectations for potential Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. The Australian dollar held steady before the Reserve Bank of Australia's policy decision. Traders are closely watching inflation data for clues about the Fed's next move, especially concerning a possible rate cut in September. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads The U.S. dollar held steady on Tuesday, with markets braced for a key consumer inflation report later in the day that could shape expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts The Australian dollar was steady hours before a policy decision by the Reserve Bank of Australia The U.S. dollar index - which measures the currency against six counterparts, including the euro and yen - was steady at 98.497 as of 0046 GMT, after advancing 0.5% over the past two to that, the dollar had retreated as U.S. President Donald Trump's dovish-leaning pick to replace a Fed governor, and similarly inclined potential candidates for chairman, led traders to increase easing addition, Fed officials have sounded increasingly uneasy about the labour market, signalling their openness to a rate cut as soon as inflation could cement bets for a reduction next month, but if signs emerge that Trump's tariffs are fuelling price pressures, that might keep the central bank on hold for currently put the odds of a quarter-point cut on September 17 at about 89%."Risk-reward heading into U.S. CPI this week is for a modest USD bounce as any upside surprise will challenge market pricing of almost a full cut by September," TD Securities strategists wrote in a research note."A downside surprise, on the other hand, is unlikely to move Fed pricing and the USD as much," they said."The reasoning is that for the Fed to consider an outsized cut of 50 basis points, the catalyst will be further deterioration in the labour market and not a downside CPI miss."Economists polled by Reuters expect core CPI to have risen 0.3% in July, pushing the annual rate higher to 3%.The greenback rose 0.1% to 148.28 yen on Tuesday. The euro was flat at $ dollar on Monday largely ignored Trump's signing an executive order extending a pause in sharply higher tariffs on Chinese imports for another 90 days, a move that some market participants said was the United States and China seeking to close a deal averting triple-digit import tariffs, a U.S. official told Reuters that chip makers Nvidia and AMD had agreed to allocate 15% of China sales revenues to the U.S. government, aiming to secure export licences for yuan was flat at 7.1935 per dollar in offshore Aussie fetched $0.6518 , little changed from Monday with economists and investors widely expecting a quarter-point rate reduction from the RBA, after second-quarter inflation came in weaker than expected and the jobless rate hit a 3-1/2-year the risk of a surprise has been amplified by a change in decision-making at the central bank, and many traders were caught out when the policy board refrained from lowering rates last month. Cryptocurrency bitcoin was unchanged at around $118,845, after it climbed as high as $122,308.25 on Monday that took it close to the all-time peak of $123,153.22 from mid-July.
Mint
13 minutes ago
- Mint
Who is E J Antoni? Trump's new pick to lead Bureau of Labor Statistics
US President Donald Trump nominated economist E J Antoni as the new Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner on Monday. The BLS is the primary federal agency responsible for collecting and reporting key economic data, including employment, wages and inflation figures. Antoni's nomination comes just ten days after Trump fired the statistics agency's previous leader, chosen by former President Joe Biden, Erica McEntarfer, over a "rigged" jobs report, following a weak US job market report for July. "Our Economy is booming, and EJ will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE," Trump said on Truth Social. Trump praised Antoni on Truth Social, calling him 'highly respected' and committed to ensuring 'honest and accurate' economic data. Antoni currently serves as the chief economist at the influential US conservative think tank Heritage Foundation. If confirmed by the Senate, Antoni will lead BLS, which is an agency within the Department of Labor, and will be in charge of leading over 2,000 staff at the agency, as per official BLS data. The agency's monthly inflation data is under close scrutiny after the removal of Erica McEntarfer, reported Reuters. Antoni will oversee the production of key economic data that is closely watched by economists, investors, business leaders, public policymakers and consumers. The agency's monthly reports on the US job market and inflation have a visible and real-time effect on stock, bond and currency markets around the world. Antoni has frequently appeared on US media outlets to critique inflation trends and advocate for conservative economic strategies. In his post, Trump described the US economy as 'booming' and expressed confidence that Antoni would 'do an incredible job' in his new role. He holds a master's and doctoral degrees in Economics from Northern Illinois University, west of Chicago and has been associated with the Heritage Foundation for over three years. He has also worked with organisations such as FreedomWorks, Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Committee to Unleash Prosperity, where he spent around five years as a senior research fellow.
Mint
13 minutes ago
- Mint
The US marches toward state capitalism with American characteristics
A generation ago conventional wisdom held that as China liberalized, its economy would come to resemble America's. Instead, capitalism in America is starting to look like China. Recent examples include President Trump's demand that Intel's CEO resign; the 'golden share" Washington will get in U.S. Steel as a condition of Nippon Steel's takeover; and the $1.5 trillion of promised investment from trading partners Trump plans to personally direct. This isn't socialism, in which the state owns the means of production. It is more like state capitalism, a hybrid between socialism and capitalism in which the state guides the decisions of nominally private enterprises. China calls its hybrid 'socialism with Chinese characteristics." The U.S. hasn't gone as far as China or even milder practitioners of state capitalism such as Russia, Brazil and, at times, France. So call this variant 'state capitalism with American characteristics." It is still a sea change from the free market ethos the U.S. once embodied. We wouldn't be dabbling with state capitalism if not for the public's and both parties' belief that free-market capitalism wasn't working. That system encouraged profit-maximizing chief executives to move production abroad. The result was a shrunken manufacturing workforce, dependence on China for vital products such as critical minerals, and underinvestment in the industries of the future such as clean energy and semiconductors. The federal government has often waded into the corporate world. It commandeered production during World War II and, under the Defense Production Act, emergencies such as the Covid pandemic. It bailed out banks and car companies during the 2007-09 financial crisis. Those were temporary expedients. Former president Joe Biden went further, seeking to shape the actual structure of industry. His Inflation Reduction Act authorized $400 billion in clean energy loans. The Chips and Science Act earmarked $39 billion in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Of that, $8.5 billion went to Intel, giving Trump leverage to demand the removal of its chief executive over past ties to China. (Intel so far has refused.) Biden overrode U.S. Steel's management and shareholders to block Nippon Steel's takeover, though his staff saw no national security risk. Trump reversed that veto while extracting the 'golden share" that he can use to influence the company's decisions. In design and name it mimics the golden shares that private Chinese companies must issue to the CCP. Biden officials had mulled a sovereign-wealth fund to finance strategically important but commercially risky projects such as in critical minerals, which China dominates. Last month Trump's Department of Defense announced that it would take a 15% stake in MP Materials, a miner of critical minerals. Many in the West admire China for its ability to turbo charge growth through massive feats of infrastructure building, scientific advance, and promotion of favored industries. American efforts are often bogged down amid the checks, balances and compromises of pluralistic democracy. In his forthcoming book, 'Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future," author Dan Wang writes: 'China is an engineering state, building big at breakneck speed, in contrast to the United States' lawyerly society, blocking everything it can, good and bad." To admirers, Trump's appeal is his willingness to bulldoze those lawyerly obstacles. He has imposed tariffs on a broad array of countries and sectors, seizing authority that is supposed to belong to Congress. He extracted $1.5 trillion in investment pledges from Japan, the European Union and South Korea that he claims he will personally direct, though no legal mechanism for doing so appears to exist. (Those pledges are already in dispute.) There are reasons state capitalism never caught on before. The state cannot allocate capital more efficiently than private markets. Distortions, waste and cronyism typically follow. Russia, Brazil and France have grown much more slowly than the U.S. Chinese state capitalism isn't the success story it seems. Barry Naughton of the University of California, San Diego has documented how China's rapid growth since 1979 has come from market sources not the state. As President Xi Jinping has reimposed state control, growth has slowed. China is awash with savings, but the state wastes much of it. From steel to vehicles, excess capacity leads to plummeting prices and profits. The U.S. hasn't fared any better. Interventions made in the name of national security or kick-starting infant industries lead to boondoggles like Foxconn's promised factory in Wisconsin or Tesla's solar panel factory in Buffalo, N.Y. State capitalism is an all-of-society affair in China, directed from Beijing via millions of cadres in local governments and company boardrooms. In the U.S., it consists largely of Oval Office announcements lacking any policy or institutional framework. 'The core characteristic of China's state capitalism is discipline, and Trump is the complete opposite of that," Wang said in an interview. State capitalism is a means of political, not just economic, control. Xi ruthlessly deploys economic levers to crush any challenge to party primacy. In 2020 Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, arguably the country' most famous business leader, criticized Chinese regulators for stifling financial innovation. Retaliation was swift. Regulators canceled the initial public offering of Ma's financial company, Ant Group, and eventually fined it $2.8 billion for anticompetitive behavior. Ma briefly disappeared from public view. Trump has similarly deployed executive orders and regulatory powers against media companies, banks, law firms and other companies he believes oppose him, while rewarding executives who align themselves with his priorities. In Trump's first term, CEOs routinely spoke out when they disagreed with his policies such as on immigration and trade. Now, they shower him with donations and praise, or are mostly silent. Trump is also seeking political control over agencies that have long operated at arm's length from the White House, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Federal Reserve. That, too, has echoes of China where the bureaucracy is fully subordinate to the ruling party. Trump has long admired the control Xi exercises over his country, but there are, in theory, limits to how far he can emulate him. American democracy constrains the state through an independent judiciary, free speech, due process and the diffusion of power among multiple levels and branches of government. How far state capitalism ultimately displaces free-market capitalism in the U.S. depends on how well those checks and balances hold up. Write to Greg Ip at
