Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

A division of Blackstone Group, the world’s largest asset manager, is paying $6.7 billion to buy QTS Realty Trust, which operates data centers, and take it private, the Wall Street Journal reported. Blackstone Infrastructure Partners will pay $78 a share for QTS, more than 20 percent above the stock’s recent closing price. When Blackstone assumes...

Burdening cryptocurrency markets with rules will discourage investors, warned Hester Peirce, one of two Republicans among the five commissioners governing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “I am concerned that the initial reaction of a regulator is always to say, ‘I want to grab hold of this and make it like the markets I already...

Boston-based bank and asset manager State Street, with $40 trillion in assets in custody or under management, is creating a digital currency division to lead the bank into blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies, digital currencies issued by central banks, and trading in tokens, the bank announced last week. The new unit will be called State Street Digital...

ForUsAll Inc., which provides 401(k) retirement plans to about 400 employers, has partnered with Coinbase Global to allow workers to invest up to 5 percent of their retirement money in various cryptocurrencies. ForUsAll’s ground-breaking step is not universally appreciated. “There is way too much volatility” in crypto to make it part of a retirement plan,...

Campbell Soup rode a surge in sales during the eat-at-home economic shutdown, but has seen sales slump 12 percent in this year’s first quarter, shrinking the company’s gross profit margin from 34.5 percent to 31.7 percent, as people returned to restaurants amid shortages of basic supplies. Now the company has announced it will raise prices...

Retail sales will grow by 10.5 to 13.5 percent this year, compared to 2020, and will exceed $4.44 trillion, the National Retail Federation (NRF) has forecast. In February, the NRF predicted growth of just 6.5 to 8.2 in retail sales percent this year. “The economy and consumer spending have proven much more resilient than initially...

The burgeoning U.S. economic recovery is pushing prices up, pacing inflation at 5 percent year-over-year last month, more than twice the U.S. Federal Reserve’s stated target rate of 2 percent and faster than any time since August 2008. The core inflation rate, which leaves out food and energy, grew at an annualized rate of 3.8...

The U.S. federal budget deficit grew to a record $2.1 trillion during the first eight months of the current fiscal year, the U.S. treasury reported. Federal receipts leaped 29 percent to $2.6 trillion during the period, thanks to increased corporate and personal income tax receipts, reflecting a reviving economy and consumer spending reinvigorated by a...

The U.S. Federal Reserve and treasury department are downplaying the current inflation rate at the risk of driving the global economy into crisis, a new report by Deutsche Bank economists warns. The vast amounts of stimulus cash being pumped into the U.S. economy while no steps are being taken to rein back inflation could too...

In May, the U.S. inflation rate reached 5 percent for the preceding 12 months, the biggest surge since August 2008 when it touched 5.4 percent, the U.S. labor department reported. The rate accelerated faster than economists had expected, according to the Financial Times. The core inflation rate, which leaves out food and energy, was a...