US jobless claims fall to 3-month low
Applications increased by 7,000 to 241,000 in total during the week ended July 12, the Labor Department data showed.
This came against forecasts for a rise to 233,000, as the previous week's data was revised upward by 1,000.
The four-week average, a more stable measure, declined by 6,250 to 229,500, versus last week's revised average of 235,750.
This data underscored the labor market's resilience, even as trade tensions persist and new tariffs on several imports are set to take effect on Aug. 1.
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Asharq Al-Awsat
an hour ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Congress Approves Trump's $9 billion Cut to Public Broadcasting, Foreign Aid
The House gave final approval to President Donald Trump's request to claw back about $9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday as Republicans intensified their efforts to target institutions and programs they view as bloated or out of step with their agenda. The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won't be the last. Some Republicans were uncomfortable with the cuts, yet supported them anyway, wary of crossing Trump or upsetting his agenda. The House passed the bill by a vote of 216-213. It now goes to Trump for his signature, The AP news reported. 'We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step,' said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. Opponents voiced concerns not only about the programs targeted, but about Congress ceding its spending powers to the executive branch as investments approved on a bipartisan basis were being subsequently canceled on party-line votes. They said previous rescission efforts had at least some bipartisan buy-in and described the Republican package as unprecedented. No Democrats supported the measure when it passed the Senate, 51-48, in the early morning hours Thursday. Final passage in the House was delayed for several hours as Republicans wrestled with their response to Democrats' push for a vote on the release of Jeffrey Epstein files. The package cancels about $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and nearly $8 billion for a variety of foreign aid programs, many designed to help countries where drought, disease and political unrest endure. The effort to claw back a sliver of federal spending came just weeks after Republicans also muscled through Trump's tax and spending cut bill without any Democratic support. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that measure will increase the U.S. debt by about $3.3 trillion over the coming decade. "No one is buying the the notion that Republicans are actually trying to improve wasteful spending,' said Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. A heavy blow to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting The cancellation of $1.1 billion for the CPB represents the full amount it is due to receive during the next two budget years. The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense. The corporation distributes more than two-thirds of the money to more than 1,500 locally operated public television and radio stations, with much of the remainder assigned to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service to support national programming. Democrats were unsuccessful in restoring the funding in the Senate. Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced particular concern about what the cuts to public broadcasting could mean for some local public stations in their state. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the stations are "not just your news — it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your volcano alert.' As the Senate debated the bill Tuesday, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the remote Alaska Peninsula, triggering tsunami warnings on local public broadcasting stations that advised people to get to higher ground. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he secured a deal from the White House that some money administered by the Interior Department would be repurposed to subsidize Native American public radio stations in about a dozen states. But Kate Riley, president and CEO of America's Public Television Stations, a network of locally owned and operated stations, said that deal was 'at best a short-term, half-measure that will still result in cuts and reduced service at the stations it purports to save.' Inside the cuts to foreign aid Among the foreign aid cuts are $800 million for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and family reunification for refugees and $496 million to provide food, water and health care for countries hit by natural disasters and conflicts. There also is a $4.15 billion cut for programs that aim to boost economies and democratic institutions in developing nations. Democrats argued that the Republican administration's animus toward foreign aid programs would hurt America's standing in the world and create a vacuum for China to fill. 'This is not an America first bill. It's a China first bill because of the void that's being created all across the world,' Jeffries said. The White House argued that many of the cuts would incentivize other nations to step up and do more to respond to humanitarian crises and that the rescissions best served the American taxpayer. 'The money that we're clawing back in this rescissions package is the people's money. We ought not to forget that,' said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chair of the House Rules Committee. After objections from several Republicans, Senate GOP leaders took out a $400 million cut to PEPFAR, a politically popular program to combat HIV/AIDS that is credited with saving millions of lives since its creation under Republican President George W. Bush. Looking ahead to future spending fights Democrats say the bill upends a legislative process that typically requires lawmakers from both parties to work together to fund the nation's priorities. Triggered by the official rescissions request from the White House, the legislation only needed a simple majority vote to advance in the Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to break a filibuster. That meant Republicans could use their 53-47 majority to pass it along party lines. Two Republican senators, Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, joined with Democrats in voting against the bill, though a few other Republicans also raised concerns about the process. 'Let's not make a habit of this,' said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who voted for the bill but said he was wary that the White House wasn't providing enough information on what exactly will be cut. Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the imminent successful passage of the rescissions shows 'enthusiasm' for getting the nation's fiscal situation under control. 'We're happy to go to great lengths to get this thing done,' he said during a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. In response to questions about the relatively small size of the cuts -- $9 billion -- Vought said that was because 'I knew it would be hard' to pass in Congress. Vought said another rescissions package is 'likely to come soon.'
Asharq Al-Awsat
an hour ago
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Gold Eases on Firmer Dollar, Solid US Data
Gold prices edged lower on Thursday, weighed down by a stronger dollar and robust US economic data, while caution persisted as markets awaited clarity on tariff developments. Spot gold fell 0.3% to $3,337.43 per ounce by 0155 p.m. EDT (1755 GMT) after hitting a session low of $3,309.59. US gold futures settled 0.4% lower at $3,345.3. Following the latest US data, "there was a bit of rise in the dollar and US Treasury yields are higher. So, it's put a little weakness in the gold market," said Bob Haberkorn, senior market strategist at RJO Futures, Reuters reported. The dollar gained 0.3%, making the greenback-priced gold more expensive for foreign currency holders. US jobless claims fell last week, pointing to steady job growth in July, while retail sales data beat expectations, adding 0.6% last month, though some of the gain likely reflected tariff-driven price increases. Fed Governor Adriana Kugler said the Fed should not cut interest rates "for some time" as the impact of Trump administration tariffs begins to pass through to prices. Gold is often regarded as a hedge against uncertainty and inflation, but higher interest rates diminish its appeal, as it yields no interest. On the trade front, Japan's top trade negotiator held talks with the US Commerce Secretary on US tariffs, as Tokyo races to avert a 25% levy that will be imposed unless a deal is clinched by an August 1 deadline. "If Trump follows through on his threats and trade tensions escalate, it's not a stretch to imagine gold challenging — and potentially breaking- its record highs again," said Fawad Razaq, market analyst at City Index and Meanwhile, gold exports from Switzerland jumped 44% month-on-month in June as bullion flew back to the vaults in the United Kingdom from the US via Swiss refineries, Swiss customs data showed on Thursday. Palladium was up 3.8% at $1,277.78, reaching its highest level since September 2023. Fears of an escalating war in Russia, a major palladium exporter, are fuelling supply concerns and driving prices higher, Haberkorn said. Elsewhere, spot silver added 0.3% to $38.07 per ounce and platinum gained 3.1% to $1,460.13.
Al Arabiya
3 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Retirees, here's how to tweak the 4% rule to protect your nest egg
New retirees might enter a different environment than their predecessors–the economy or market might have changed slightly or dramatically. Morningstar researchers have investigated and identified their latest starting safe withdrawal rate. Hint: it's slightly lower than last year. Here to discuss this research is Amy Arnott a portfolio strategist with Morningstar. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. Q: You and your co-authors recently published your annual report on the state of retirement income. Can you talk about the main goal of this research and how it's different from other research that looks at retirement income strategies? A: The goal was to estimate how much you can safely withdraw from your portfolio during retirement. This is one of the most difficult questions that people will face during their financial lives. When you're saving for retirement it's pretty straightforward as long as you start early and you're consistent. But when it comes to your retirement portfolio and figuring out how to turn it into a paycheck for yourself that gets more complicated. There's the danger of running out of money during retirement but on the other hand a lot of people actually end up underspending. So there's a balance between spending enough that you can enjoy your retirement but not spending so aggressively that you might have to cut back later in life. Most retirement withdrawal research is based on looking at historical market data. This started with William Bengen's landmark paper in 1994 which looked at market data going back to 1926 and figured out the highest withdrawal rate you could have made that would've survived. That's the origin of the 4 percent rule. But we decided that instead of looking at past data we would do something more forward-looking using market estimates for possible future returns. Q: The latest starting safe withdrawal rate for the base case is 3.7 percent. How did you calculate that number and why is it a conservative estimate? A: The base case is the foundation of where all our research starts and it assumes that you want to create a steady paycheck equivalent throughout retirement. It assumes that you take a certain withdrawal rate say 4 percent and apply that to your starting portfolio balance. That becomes your first-year portfolio withdrawal and then each year after that you adjust that dollar amount for inflation. So you're basically keeping a steady spending amount and never changing it. The reason it's conservative is that we're looking for a very high probability of success. We're also looking for a very long time horizon assuming a 30-year retirement period. And finally we're using conservative estimates for market returns. So we build in a buffer so that we're not assuming the best-case scenario but also there's a bit of a cushion built into the numbers in case things don't go as well as expected. Q: The starting safe withdrawal rate has fluctuated over the years. In the previous report it was 4 percent. Why did it tick down? A: It comes down to the assumptions that we used for market returns. In both 2023 and 2024 we saw equity market returns of about 25 percent so very strong market performance. And the past 15 years were actually the best 15-year period for stocks that we've seen going back to 1970. So we now have a situation where valuations are relatively high on stocks which leads to the possibility that maybe future returns could be lower. So we reduced our return assumptions for stocks and across different sub asset classes and then also on the bond side. Since we had three rate cuts last year during 2024 bond yields are lower which again suggests that future returns are probably also going to be a bit lower. This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content go to Amy Arnott is a portfolio strategist for Morningstar. Ivanna Hampton is lead multimedia editor for Morningstar.
