Latest news with #US850
Sydney Morning Herald
28-04-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Trump's macho crew, it turns out, is a vicious little sewing circle
Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent got into a white-hot shouting match in a West Wing hall, within earshot of Trump and his guest, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy. The fight started about their different opinions on who should lead the IRS, but then spilled over into the efficiency of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk's team. 'Bessent criticised Musk for overpromising and underdelivering budget cuts with DOGE,' Axios' Marc Caputo reported. 'Musk clapped back by calling Bessent a 'Soros agent' and accusing him of having run 'a failed hedge fund.'' Musk also had a nasty spat with Peter Navarro, Trump's top trade adviser, earlier this month over Teslas and tariffs. Musk posted on his social platform X that 'Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks'. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, dismissed that hair-pulling incident, saying, 'Boys will be boys.' There was once a fear that women would be too emotional at the top, but look at Elon. He maniacally jumps around the stage, and he is known to mist up in the middle of interviews about his work and his love life. And if you don't want an unstable creature at the top, particularly at that bastion of masculinity, the Pentagon, why would you hire Pete Hegseth? The lightweight former Fox weekend anchor, who promised to forgo his louche ways, made dunderheaded blunders with Signal that could have jeopardised American troops, and invited a nest of vipers into the Defence Department. (He even ordered up a spiffy makeup studio next to the Pentagon briefing room, as CBS reported.) Hegseth followed his boss's reality-show lead and produced the Real Housewives of the Pentagon, casting fellow military veterans as top advisers, even if none of these men had the requisite experience to run a sprawling, global organisation, and they had no interest in learning. Instead, they lit up the Pentagon with bawdy meetings, vicious rivalries and power feuds. The bad-mouthing led to three firings and, on Thursday, the abrupt departure of Hegseth's chief of staff. Having his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox producer, by his side at the Pentagon, where she is known as the 'human leash', has not kept Pete on the straight and narrow. Loading Hapless Hegseth fought back by accusing reporters of publishing 'hoaxes' and using 'disgruntled former employees' to smear him. But the man in charge of a department with a budget of approximately $US850 billion seems flighty and shaky, unable to find loyal consiglieres and unable to stick to the Pentagon's classified message system, which is among the best in the world for a reason: It protects US troops. When General Jim Mattis was Trump's defence secretary in the first term, he conveyed the idea that he was the adult who would make sure the highchair king in the Oval Office did not do anything crazy with the military. But who is the adult now?
Perth Now
22-04-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
Wall Street bounces back as investors focus on earnings
Wall Street's main indexes have recovered some ground as investors focused on corporate earnings after US President Donald Trump's mounting criticism of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell led to a sharp sell-off in the previous session. Investors sifted through a slew of quarterly earnings, with dozens more due through the week, for indications on how companies are navigating the uncertainty caused by tariffs and their expectations for a hit to future earnings. "There's still a lot of uncertainty in the air with where tariffs will land ... but if we can look past that, the fundamentals in the markets still look very good," said Eric Sterner, chief investment officer for Apollon Wealth Management. "Earnings are expected to grow 10 per cent for this first quarter, so corporate profits are still very healthy." Shares of industrial conglomerate 3M Co, the biggest gainer on the blue-chip Dow, jumped 3.4 per cent after the company beat first-quarter profit expectations. Verizon fell 2.4 per cent after posting a higher quarterly subscriber loss. Northrop Grumman slumped 8.7 per cent after it reported a sharp drop in profit while RTX tumbled 8.0 per cent after the company flagged a potential hit of about $US850 million ($A1.3 billion) to annual profit from tariffs. In early trading on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 568.66 points, or 1.49 per cent, to 38,739.07, the S&P 500 gained 69.03 points, or 1.34 per cent, to 5,227.23, and the Nasdaq Composite added 240.11 points, or 1.51 per cent, to 16,111.01. Megacaps also recovered, with Nvidia rising 1.1 per cent and Apple up 1.7 per cent. All sectors on the S&P 500 inched higher, with consumer discretionary taking the lead. Tesla, which will kick off earnings for the "Magnificent Seven" group of megacap stocks after markets close, rose 2.1 per cent. The mood, however, remained fragile as investors awaited Trump's next move in his relentless tussle with Powell over interest rates, fuelling concerns about the US central bank's autonomy and the future monetary policy path, which pushed Wall Street down more than 2.0 per cent on Monday. Clarity on US tariff policy and the outcome of negotiations with individual countries on reciprocal levies are also in focus. Indexes have fallen sharply this year as Trump's erratic trade policies rattled markets, with the S&P 500 more than 14 per cent below its February 19 record closing high. A close 20 per cent below that mark would confirm that the index has entered a bear market. The Nasdaq Composite confirmed it was in a bear market earlier this month. The International Monetary Fund slashed its forecasts for growth in the US on Tuesday to 1.8 per cent in 2025, from 2.8 per cent growth in 2024. Commentary from several Fed speakers is expected through the day. Their remarks will be parsed for clues on the central bank's policy outlook and view on rising tensions with the White House. Shares of Invesco leapt 8.7 per cent after the asset manager reported higher-than-expected quarterly profit. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 9.24-to-1 ratio on the NYSE, and by a 4.52-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq. The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and one new low while the Nasdaq Composite recorded 11 new highs and 27 new lows.
