Market Brief, North America

Financial markets are getting hit again this morning, with US equity indices, Treasuries, and the dollar all tumbling in synchrony as investors assess new threats to the Federal Reserve’s independence against an increasingly-forbidding growth backdrop in the world’s largest economy. The greenback dropped more than 1 percent on a trade-weighted basis in overnight markets after the Trump administration stepped up its attacks on Jerome Powell, threatening to demolish the Fed’s hard-won independence from political pressure. In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform last week, Trump argued that interest rates should be cut, saying “Powell’s termination cannot come...

Stock-index futures are edging lower and the dollar is weakening once more as the initial optimism sparked by yesterday’s tariff reversal yields to a more measured assessment of the risks still facing the US and world economies. Equity futures are setting up for a circa-1.5-percent loss at the North American open, ten-year Treasury yields are stuck near the 4.3 percent mark, and the greenback is heading toward a third day of losses against its major counterparts. The safe-haven Japanese yen is in the ascendant, and the euro is climbing after European Union officials announced plans to postpone retaliatory measures against...