Why the U.S. Supreme Court might keep Trump’s tariffsOn their face, President Trump’s trade tariffs are illegal because
Congress did not approve them and because
routine trade is not the “emergency” that Trump claims. But the U.S. Supreme Court may rule to leave them in place anyway because of the logistical difficulty of undoing them, according to former Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar. “The government is coming to court and saying, ‘We would have to unwind billions or trillions of dollars. It could bankrupt our nation,’”
she said.
Trump considers cooking oil ban for China“I believe that China purposefully not buying our Soybeans, and causing difficulty for our Soybean Farmers, is an Economically Hostile Act. We are considering terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil, and other elements of Trade, as retribution. As an example, we can easily produce Cooking Oil ourselves, we don’t need to purchase it from China,”
the president said on Truth Social. Investors took it as a signal that there would be no immediate compromise in the trade war,
sending the S&P 500 down 0.16% on the day.
Trump preps list of programs he will eliminateThe U.S. government shutdown shows no sign of coming to an end. Yesterday
the president said he was drawing up a list of “egregious socialist, semi-communist” government programs that he would eliminate permanently if Democrats in Congress don’t help him pass his spending bill. “We're closing up programs ... that we wanted to close up or that we never wanted to happen,” Trump said. “We're not going to let them come back.”
Dimon issues private credit warning: “When you see one cockroach, there are probably more” JPMorgan Chase
wrote off $170 million in debt it was owed in the collapse of auto parts supply company First Brands, the company reported in
its Q3 earnings call, and JPM CEO Jamie Dimon warned there may be more cracks in the private credit markets to come: “I probably shouldn’t say this, but when you see one cockroach, there are probably more. Everyone should be forewarned on this one.” Apollo Global Management chief Marc Rowan
also warned of “late-cycle accidents” but Blackstone president Jonathan Gray
said it was not a systemic problem.
Powell hints at further rate cutsIn a speech on Tuesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell
hinted that the institution is likely to cut rates again as a weak job market trumps inflation concerns. Policy changes may need to “take another step toward a more neutral stance,” Powell said at the National Association for Business Economics.
Amazon is preparing a new round of layoffsAmazon is
planning to lay off as much as 15% of the company’s human resources staff, according to sources familiar with the situation, with other departments likely to be affected as well. Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel declined to comment on the situation.
Mark Cuban says employees deserve more stockBillionaire Mark Cuban
wrote in a post on X that companies should be better incentivized to give shares to their employees as stock gains multiply. The post was in response to a recent report from Oxfam showing that billionaire wealth has increased by $33 trillion since 2015.
Sam Altman says OpenAI will allow “erotica for verified adults”“Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases,”
he said. Separately, Deutsche Bank reported that subscriptions at OpenAI have “
flatlined.”
