Applications for US unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level in almost four years, indicating employers are firing more workers. Initial claims rose by 27,000 to 263,000 in the week ended Sept. 6, the highest since October 2021, according to data from the US Department of Labor. That’s significantly higher than the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists, which predicted 235,000 applications.
Thursday’s figures are just the latest in a quickening drumbeat of worsening news for President Donald Trump on the economic front, from jobs to manufacturing and inflation. Last week, a monthly report on employment showed the whole of the US added just 22,000 jobs in August, building on the previous month’s sobering jobs data, which spurred Trump to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and install a loyalist. More recent BLS revisions also cut by half job growth numbers during most of the last year of the Biden Administration. —Natasha Solo-Lyons
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NATO is said to be preparing a defensive military response to the Russian drone incursion in Poland to strengthen deterrence across its eastern flank. The defensive alliance is also said to be preparing a political response to what most western officials believe was an intentional act by the Kremlin.
Poland on Thursday asked allies for additional air defense systems and counter-drone technology to better protect against any Russian aggression. NATO forces shot down drones that crossed into Poland early Wednesday during Vladimir Putin’s latest massive air strike on Ukraine.
Meanwhile, European allies’ offers of assistance have started coming in. Germany pledged to extend and expand air policing over Poland as well as intensify support for Ukraine and work toward the 19th package of sanctions against Russia. As for the US, NATO’s biggest and most powerful member, Trump on Thursday said that maybe the drone incursion was a “mistake.”
The sudden collapse of a Texas subprime car lender is sending shock waves from border-town dealerships all the way to the upper echelons of Wall Street, ensnaring giants including JPMorgan and BlackRock and raising concern that pain in the multibillion-dollar market for bundled auto loans is starting to mount.
The sector has long been viewed as a canary in the coal mine when it comes to more systemic economic issues. Just hours after reports emerged late Tuesday of an alleged fraud scheme, Tricolor Holdings filed for bankruptcy and said it plans to liquidate, marking the latest and most painful blow yet to a risky lending business that’s been buffeted by a surge in interest rates and weakening jobs market.
Billionaire Gautam Adani’s efforts to get US fraud charges against him resolved are said to have stalled,prolonging the regulatory overhang that has hobbled the Adani Group’s global expansion plans. Any progressAdani had been making with American officials faltered in recent months after Trump began to assail India on issues like trade and Russian oil following a disagreement about India’s recent conflict with Pakistan and how it ended.
Gautam Adani, chairman of Adani Group Photographer: Indranil Aditya/Bloomberg
Gold has eclipsed its inflation-adjusted peak set more than 45 years ago as growing anxiety about the US economic trajectory under Trump—including the independence of the Federal Reserve, the reliability of US economic data and uncertainty over his trade war—takes bullion’s blistering three-year bull run deeper into uncharted territory.
The spot price of gold has surged about 5% so far this month, with prices hitting an all-time high of $3,674.27 an ounce on Tuesday. It’s set more than 30 nominal records already in 2025, but the latest leg of the rally has also taken it through an inflation-adjusted peak set on Jan. 21, 1980, when prices topped out at $850.
JPMorgan Chase is working up plans for what could be the biggest office building in London as the Wall Street giant assesses options for the long-term future of its European headquarters. The bank has appointed Foster + Partners to draft new designs for a plot of land in London’s Canary Wharf district that the lender has owned for almost two decades. The architecture practice has been working on proposals for the Riverside South site that it will present to JPMorgan in the coming weeks.
