Bonds & Stocks
S&P 500 futures were little changed after a Federal Reserve official threw cold water on optimism for an interest rate cut early next year. New York Fed President John Williams told CNBC it was “premature” to be thinking about a March rate cut. Contracts on the US gauges erased early gains, though Nasdaq 100 futures clung to a 0.2% advance. Meanwhile, a measure of New York state factory activity came in well below estimates, signaling a slowdown in activity.
Economy
New York Federal Reserve Bank President John Williams pushed back against the idea that the central bank has begun to discuss interest-rate cuts. “We aren’t really talking about rate cuts,” Williams said in an interview on CNBC. He noted it’s “premature” to be thinking about cutting interest rates in March. “As Chair Powell said, the question is: Have we gotten monetary policy to a sufficiently restrictive stance in order to ensure that inflation comes back down to 2%? That’s the question in front of us,” he said.
World
When a Twitter account for Utah business coach Spencer Taggart began posting about hot-button political issues in 2020, it garnered widespread attention. Tweets about an endemic cultural divide in the US and support for Black Lives Matter were shared by two Chinese embassy officials. But Taggart didn’t write the tweets and hasn’t been on the social media platform, now called X, in five years. Rather, his identity had been hijacked by a massive pro-China propaganda network, according to the social media analysis firm Graphika.