Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT

At their meeting on 16 and 17 March, officials of the U.S. Federal Reserve expressed confidence in an increasingly strong U.S. economic recovery and said they expect to keep interest rates near zero through 2023, barring unexpected jolts to the economy. The group also showed no interest in curtailing the central bank’s bond purchase program,...

The U.S. Dollar Index, which gauges the dollar’s value against six other major currencies, climbed 3.6 percent in this year’s first quarter, its best stretch since 2018, the Financial Times reported. The buck’s three-month performance seemed to contradict forecasts by the majority of analysts who predicted the dollar would lose about 3 percent this year...

Consumer confidence bounced from 90.4 in February to 109.7 in March in the Conference Board’s monthly index of consumer sentiment. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal had expected a reading of only 96.8. The index charted 132.4 in February 2020 on the cusp of the pandemic. The confidence index measures shoppers’...

The Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) measurement of the U.S. economy’s service sector strength shot to a record 63.7 in March from 55.3 in February, the institute reported, and it beat expectations of all economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Readings above 50 signal expansion. All 18 categories of services ISM monitors gained in March. The figure...

During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden proposed that any corporation with an income of $100 million or more pay a minimum 15-percent tax. In his $2.3-trillion infrastructure plan, Biden has raised that threshold to $2 billion and would allow companies to take deductions for research and development, green energy, and affordable housing. That higher threshold...

President Biden proposes to spend $2.3 trillion to refurbish U.S. infrastructure, which he defines to include care for children and the elderly and affordable housing, among an expanded concept of economic infrastructure detailed in his plan. The plan would spend the money over eight years and be paid for over 15 years by raising corporations’...

Last Wednesday, John Coates, acting director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Corporation Finance Division, said there are “significant and yet undiscovered issues” related to special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, that are “not going to stop them… but they are… as yet incompletely worked through mechanisms.” SPACs are shell companies that issue stock...

Last week, the Dow closed at a record high and so did the S&P 500, which closed at 4,128.80, its 20th record high this year.  For the first time in six months, the index showed gains for three consecutive weeks. Its 2.7-percent growth for the week was its one-week best since early February. The Dow...