Latest news with #ShrutiMishra
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
If something is going to break in the U.S. economy, it will probably happen this summer, BofA Global says
There are likely two distinct paths ahead for monetary policy in 2025, according to a pair of economists at BofA Global. Assuming the labor market holds up, President Donald Trump's tariffs will likely cause enough inflation to prevent the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates at all in 2025, the economists said. This is their base-case view for now. My job is offering me a payout. Should I take a $61,000 lump sum or $355 a month for life? My friend asked me to chip in $1,600 for her son's prom-night limo. Has the world gone mad? 'He doesn't seem to care': My secretive father, 81, added my name to a bank account. What about my mom? Israel-Iran clash delivers a fresh shock to investors. History suggests this is the move to make. The vanishing 'Buffett premium': Has Berkshire Hathaway lost the Oracle of Omaha's aura? But if something is going to break in the economy, the BofA team reckoned it would probably happen before the end of the summer, which could lead to a dramatically different path for interest rates. 'We think the outlook is bimodal. If the labor market holds up as we expect, there will probably be enough tariff-driven inflation to prevent the Fed from cutting. But if something is going to break in the economy, we think it will happen over the summer,' BofA economists Aditya Bhave and Shruti Mishra said in a report shared with MarketWatch on Tuesday. If the latter scenario comes to pass, they expect the Fed would quickly move to slash interest rates by 75 basis points beginning in September. Investors who have been monitoring the Fed's evolving forecasts regarding the path of interest rates might recognize that the BofA economists' expectations don't exactly line up with what senior central bankers have penciled in. As Bhave and Mishra pointed out, the latest batch of Fed forecasts, released last week, hinted that two distinct camps are forming within the Fed's policy-setting committee. Nearly half of the members of the Federal Open Market Committee who contributed forecasts to the central bank's latest 'dot plot' expect the Fed will remain on hold at least until next year. The other half expect at least two rate cuts in 2025, with the first likely coming in September. Fed governor Christopher Waller said late last week that the central bank could cut rates as soon as July. And on Monday, fellow governor Michelle Bowman said she would support a cut at the Fed's meeting next month. According to the BofA Global team, the expectations reflected by the median dot, typically interpreted by markets and the financial press as the central bank's baseline forecast, seem unrealistic: Such a scenario would likely involve a 'Goldilocks' combination of tepid inflation and a labor market that is modestly cooling but not substantially weakening. On Wall Street, 'Goldilocks' is a byword used to describe an environment where inflation is low and the labor market remains mostly intact. The BofA team just doesn't see this as very likely. The median dot's track record for accurately predicting the path of interest rates has been somewhat spotty, according to the BofA economists. They looked at how well the Fed's previous June projections have predicted rate moves later in the same year. 'At the June meetings in 2019, 2022 and 2024, not even one FOMC participant correctly forecast the change in policy over the rest of the year. The dots were more useful in other years, but forecasting is just very difficult in periods of elevated economic uncertainty,' they wrote. A hazy outlook for the economy and the labor market makes predictions especially challenging, the BofA team said. Fed Chair Jerome Powell reiterated during congressional testimony on Tuesday that he expects the central bank will remain on hold until more clarity emerges regarding how Trump's tariffs might impact inflation. Other economists have warned that a weakening labor market could create problems for the economy in the months ahead if the Fed waits too long to cut rates. 'Right now, the FOMC does not appear to be especially concerned about the labor market but [is] quite concerned about the outlook for consumer prices. I take the opposite view, with heightened concern about the labor market,' said Neil Dutta, an economist at Renaissance Macro. Dutta also saw signs that business investment remained sluggish, excluding spending related to artificial intelligence. So far, U.S. stocks haven't exhibited signs of much strain despite some softness in the labor market, including a recent uptick in weekly jobless claims. The S&P 500 SPX was recently trading at 6,077, up 0.9% on the day. This puts the index within striking distance of its record closing high from February. The Nasdaq Composite COMP and Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA were also trading higher on Tuesday. I'm 75 and have a reverse mortgage. Should I pay it off with my $200K savings — and live off Social Security instead? Coinbase's stock sees a 'golden cross.' Why it may not be a bullish signal to buy. S&P 500 nears record as stocks soar, oil sinks and investors throw caution to the wind Two ETFs that have beaten value stock indexes with this simple approach We're living in 'end times' when you can't retire on $1 million
Mint
09-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
It's a bleak job market for new college grads. These are the unluckiest.
Those looking for a test case to gauge the fallout of U.S. trade and policy measures and the potential impact of artificial intelligence should look to this year's college graduates. The challenges the Class of 2025 face in securing a job provide a glimpse at the troubles brewing under a still relatively strong labor market—and how they could spill over into the broader economy over time. For the first time since 1980, recent and new college grads have a higher unemployment rate than the national average—close to 6% versus the national average of 4.2%, according to Oxford Economics. Typically, college graduates fare better than the average employee, especially during downturns. But that isn't the case for 22- to 27-year-olds this year. The uncertainty around trade and other policies, as well as the cuts by Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and university funding, have led many companies to hit pause on any big decisions—including hiring—as they try to assess how much potential trade-related price increases they can absorb or pass on, and how much help they could get from the fiscal tax bill. Broadly, unemployment remained steady in May at a rate of 4.2%, but the number of jobs the U.S. added slowed to 139,000, reflecting some of the uncertainty among employers. Bank of America U.S. economist Shruti Mishra says the U.S. labor market is in the middle of a 'low hiring, no firing" situation but are still scarred from the difficulty staffing back up after the pandemic, which led to a trend of 'labor hoarding." 'Firms may not fire workers just yet because they want to see how policy unfolds: Tariffs could be a nothing burger with de-escalation and firms also know they could get a fiscal bill by the fourth quarter that has measures related to capital spending that will help companies restart investment," Mishra tells Barron's. The result: A two-sided jobs market. Those who have a job see the market as relatively strong and chances of losing the job for now low, and those without one are struggling. Job postings on Handshake, used by many college placement offices, have declined by 15% over the past year, while the number of applications per job has increased by 30%. Even though new college graduates account for just 5% of the labor force, they have had outsize impact on the unemployment rate. Oxford Economics Senior U.S. Economist Matthew Martin estimates that 85% of the rise in the unemployment rate since mid-2023 is concentrated in new market entrants. 'The hiring rates are much lower than what you would expect with a 4.2% unemployment rate," says Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors, which manages investments for nonprofits and pensions. 'Recent grads have a canary in the coal mine element." Sahm sees a disconcerting setup for what could come: The already low hiring rate married with extra costs and uncertainty hitting companies could mean the unemployment rate rises quickly if layoffs happen. Often unemployment rates peak after a recession is already over, as companies tend to cut costs and take other steps before resorting to layoffs. That is one reason economists keep tabs on other earlier indicators of trouble, and some cracks are appearing. Job growth in white-collar sectors like finance, insurance and professional services are slowing, which is uncommon outside of a recession, Bank of America's Mishra says. Yet output continues to grow even as employment slows, signaling the possibility something else is at play. 'It could be that white-collar positions, especially in tech and finance, will probably see the first impacts of AI since these sectors are likely to be among the first to take jump into AI," she added. Take the prospects for computer science and math graduates hitting the market: Employment for those 27 or older with those majors is up 0.8% since 2022, but recent grads with these backgrounds are faring much worse. They have seen an 8% decline in employment compared with graduates in other fields, who have a 2% increase in employment, says Oxford Economics' Martin. Beyond technology, economists see other potential signs of weakness. Healthcare and private education have accounted for the majority of job gains in recent months, but DOGE and other government-oriented policies are targeting these sectors. The overall impact may become more tangible in the third and fourth quarters, as companies deal with rising costs—whether by absorbing them, passing them on or cutting expenses, including possibly jobs. 'The biggest risk to our outlook of moderating growth is that the slow hiring and no firing transitions into mass layoffs that take us from a stagflation situation into a recession," Mishra says. Another concern is the outlook for the Plan B for some graduates—remaining in school for an advanced degree—also looks more uncertain given the threat of funding cuts to universities. 'You can't understate how serious the threat to universities is right now," says Matthew Nestler, senior economist at KPMG. 'Their business model is truly facing an existential threat. That means not refilling postdoctoral positions and PhD candidates getting their offers rescinded. This is an odd combo of labor market uncertainty with low hiring and the main channel where students can turn coming down." This complicated backdrop could mean a prolonged period of unemployment for recent grads. Studies have shown that graduates who start work during a recession can earn less for at least 10 to 15 years than those who enter during a more prosperous time. While the economy isn't in a recession, for college grads looking for a job it may just as well be. The question is whether their experiences spillover into the broader economy. Write to Reshma Kapadia at
The Hindu
22-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Why the popularity of vegan food skyrocketed in Bengaluru after the pandemic
We were in the teetering, tottering, terrible twos stage of running our vegan restaurant, Carrots, in 2015, when an experienced person in the F&B industry said, 'Vegan food will fail. Switch to vegetarian!' I might have crumbled under his smugness. But over a decade of being vegan in India had made it clear to me which direction vegan cuisine was heading. We were just ahead of the curve. Soon more vegan restaurants and home bakeries cropped up across the city. But the real snowballing began during the lockdown '2020 and 2021 skyrocketed vegan options in Bengaluru,' says Shruti Mishra, an entrepreneur and marketing consultant who jets between Bengaluru and the Silicon Valley. Due to the pandemic, many food businesses (including my own) succumbed to difficult market conditions. But underneath, a tectonic shift was happening. Concerns about health made people take a sharper look at their eating habits. When you look into where your food comes from, it is hard to ignore the practices in animal agriculture, and also its impact on global warming. In a Venn diagram of ethical food production, better health and environment, veganism sits squarely in the middle. Two significant things happened with the increase in awareness. First, people became plant-forward in their diet, and those who were ethically inclined turned vegan. We saw an influx of people in our 'Bengaluru Vegans' Telegram group which had about 80 members before the pandemic and is at 191 now. The Facebook group has 5600 members. Second, being stuck indoors, more vegans dabbled in entrepreneurship. Several plant-based home kitchens sprouted up across the city serving a range of foods from cupcakes to hummus dips. People who had been regular guests at our restaurant reached out to me for mentoring on starting their own vegan food businesses. My sadness at shutting down my own business was quickly overpowered by the joy of helping new small businesses start and grow in the quickly changing F&B ecosystem. ''Vegan' became a buzz word,' says Shruti. . Not wanting to be left behind, more restaurants started making an effort. Nikhil Gupta introduced vegan dishes at The Pizza Bakery and Paris Panini three years ago thanks to an increase in demand. These include pizzas, multi-grain wraps and sandwiches. 'It's a small part of our business, but it's a growing one,' he says. While many food businesses have become more inclusive of vegans in recent times, others who began years ago find it much easier now. Pallavii Gupta, partner at Santé Spa Cuisine, which has two outlets in Bengaluru, worked hard to train her team about vegan food in 2018. By 2023, when she founded The Kind Roastery, she says awareness about vegan cuisine had grown so drastically in the industry, it was easy to include loads of vegan options on their menu such as Corn Ribs, Lemon Poppyseed Cake, and Vegan Sourdough Beirut. . Vinay Chaitanya of The Digitale Chef started out his patisserie and café as mostly vegan with vegetarian options, but turned his entire menu vegan because alternatives like mylks (plant-based milks) and butters became easily available. His Chocolate Truffle Cake and Artisanal Breads are loved by vegans and non-vegans alike. It is not just the vegans that order vegan dishes nowadays. Curiosity is growing. Those who enjoy exploring new cuisines or have allergies to animal products, and people who dine out with vegans. Namu Kini, who curates the 'Namu Recommends Vegan Markets' in the city, talks about 'the vegan veto'. When a vegan dines out with friends or family, if a restaurant does not cater to their needs, their entire group will choose to dine somewhere else. 'If a restaurant does not offer good vegan food, it is not just that one vegan they miss out on. Once our entire family of 12 wanted to celebrate at a five-star restaurant. The chef refused to veganise anything, so we did not dine there. They lost business.' Shailaja Vishwanath, a Bengaluru-based holistic wellness coach, and Karthic Ashokan, a young entrepreneur who enjoys scouting for vegan food, take their non-vegan friends and family to fully vegan restaurants, like Café Graze. They say their loved ones are amazed by how amazing their Special Festival Thalis and Sunday Brunches taste. Upasana Bijoor and Mahalakshmi Raghunath, who run Cafe Graze, say two-thirds of their guests are vegan and whole foods plant-based. These guests bring non-vegans, who return because they enjoy the food, especially their range of dessert themed Healthy Smoothie Bowls. . Upasana adds, 'Our Cashew Mylk Masala Chai is a bestseller!' As demand for high quality plant-based cuisine grows globally, Bengaluru refuses to be left behind. More vegan options appear in the city each day. Vegan food is a cuisine in its own right. A quick warning, some restaurants may misunderstand or misuse the 'vegan' label. Be sure to check the ingredients before you order, especially if you have any allergies. Susmitha S is a vegan chef and lifestyle expert
South China Morning Post
02-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
US jobs growth likely slowed in April as economy braces for tariff impact, poll shows
US employment growth probably decelerated in April and the jobless rate held steady, illustrating healthy yet moderating labour demand entering a period when trade policy risks chilling hiring decisions. Advertisement Non-farm payroll growth probably decelerated to 138,000 last month after blowing away expectations in March, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The joblessness rate is seen unchanged at 4.2 per cent. The data due Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics offers the first look at the labour market since the Trump administration imposed expansive punitive tariffs. The surveys behind the report were conducted the second week of April, when Trump put some levies on hold and sharply raised those on Chinese goods, creating heightened uncertainty among businesses big and small. 'Immigration and trade restrictions are likely to weigh on payrolls in the coming months, but we do not think they'll have a substantial impact in April,' Shruti Mishra, an economist at Bank of America who anticipates a 165,000 payroll gain, said in a note. 'That said, risks are to the downside.' A waitress at an event in New Orleans, Louisiana. Photo: Corbis Leisure and hospitality
South China Morning Post
02-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
US jobs growth probably slowed in April as economy braces for tariff impact, poll shows
US employment growth probably decelerated in April and the jobless rate held steady, illustrating healthy yet moderating labour demand entering a period when trade policy risks chilling hiring decisions. Advertisement Non-farm payroll growth probably decelerated to 138,000 last month after blowing away expectations in March, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The joblessness rate is seen unchanged at 4.2 per cent. The data due Friday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics offers the first look at the labour market since the Trump administration imposed expansive punitive tariffs. The surveys behind the report were conducted the second week of April, when Trump put some levies on hold and sharply raised those on Chinese goods, creating heightened uncertainty among businesses big and small. 'Immigration and trade restrictions are likely to weigh on payrolls in the coming months, but we do not think they'll have a substantial impact in April,' Shruti Mishra, an economist at Bank of America who anticipates a 165,000 payroll gain, said in a note. 'That said, risks are to the downside.' A waitress at an event in New Orleans, Louisiana on 24 November 2011. Photo: Corbis Leisure and hospitality
