News

Moody’s Ratings updated its policies to make it simpler to determine how much of hybrid bond issues to consider as equity. “That shift in methodology helped to fuel the rebirth of this market.”

Employees of Seattle-based Weyerhaeuser Company filed a class-action lawsuit over the transfer of plan assets to Athene Annuity & Life Assurance, alleging a breach of fiduciary duty, according to law firm Schlichter Bogard.

Policymakers don’t expect to reach their 2% inflation goal until 2027, so “from here on out, it is going to be much harder to get rate cuts without much further improvement on inflation.”

However, officials reduced their expected number of rate cuts for next year from four to two.

In his first term, Trump bashed the Fed for allowing higher interest rates in the U.S. vs. Europe to drive up the dollar and hurt exports. Next year will likely bring more of the same, as the U.S. economy remains considerably stronger, meaning rates here will likely fall more slowly than in the Eurozone.

Nevertheless, the Fed may feel compelled to raise interest rates as soon as the first signs of a tariff-led bump in inflation emerge.

But the PPI components that feed into the Fed’s preferred inflation measure—the PCE price index—were favorable across the board in November.

The core CPI increased 0.3% for a fourth straight month, solidifying bets that the Fed will lower interest rates next week.