Regulatory uncertainty and a lack of transparency have left trade on China’s seven pilot carbon exchanges in the doldrums, which could undermine efforts to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, suggesting the labor market continues to expand at a solid clip even as economic growth has stalled.
The now-settled labor dispute at the West Coast ports appears to have slowed the flow of imports and exports. The strong dollar, weak global demand as well as lower crude oil prices also likely impacted the trade balance in February.
U.S. consumer spending barely rose in February as households used the windfall from lower gasoline prices to boost savings to the highest level in more than two years, the latest sign that the economy hit a soft patch in the first quarter.
Snowy and cold weather and the now-settled labor dispute at the country’s West Coast ports, which disrupted the supply chain, hurt economic activity early in the year. The persistent weakness in retail sales could temper expectations for a June interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid last week rose to its highest level since May, but economists dismissed the increase as weather-related and said the jobs market remained solid.
California’s watchdog agency recommended on Wednesday that the legislature repeal a new law that caps the size of school district budgets, warning that over 91 percent of the state’s districts would have violated the new rules if they had been in place in 2014.
Crude oil would cost at least $150 a barrel due to supply disruptions in the Middle East and North Africa were it not for rising production in North Dakota and Texas, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) chief Adam Sieminski said in an interview on Wednesday.
The U.S. economy contracted at a much steeper pace than previously estimated in the first quarter, but there are indications that growth has since rebounded strongly.
U.S. chief executives are slightly less positive about the economy’s growth prospects this year and fewer of them expect to increase their capital expenditures in the next six months, according to a quarterly by the Business Roundtable released on Tuesday.
“Trillions of dollars in liabilities — reflecting amounts promised to state and local government workers — are not appropriately reflected on government books, thereby seriously misleading investors about the riskiness of their investments in municipal securities,” said Daniel Gallagher, one of the five members of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates U.S. financial markets.
“In the private sector, the SEC would quickly bring fraud charges against any corporate issuer and its officers for playing such numbers games,” he also said in a presentation to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, which writes the rules for public sector debt that the SEC enforces.
The reform will slow the growth of green energy, which accounts for 25 percent of Germany’s electricity, and force new investors in green power to take some risk.
A commission of experts appointed by the German parliament has recommended Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to abolish all subsidies for green energy, highlighting mounting opposition to plans to reform instead of scrap the system.
The U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in almost two years in the third quarter, the government said on Friday as it revised its estimates of business and consumer spending higher.
Home resales hit a near one-year low in November and new filings for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, putting a wrinkle in an otherwise brightening economic picture.