Mortgage Rates Dropped This Week Amid Fresh Signs of Job Market Weakness

The U.S. Supreme Court postponed on Wednesday a decision on whether to let Donald Trump remove the government's top copyright official in the latest battle over the Republican president's targeting of federal officials.

The action by the justices temporarily leaves in place Shira Perlmutter as the U.S. register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office after a lower court blocked Trump's firing of her while her legal challenge to her removal proceeds.

The Supreme Court's order indicated that it would issue a decision on Perlmutter's case after it hears arguments that have already been set in two other cases involving Trump's firing of a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission and his attempt to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

Perlmutter was notified on May 10 by a Trump administration official that she had been fired. Her duties as the government's top copyright official have included serving as the primary adviser for Congress on copyright issues.

Trump's move to terminate Perlmutter came a day after her office circulated a report finding that some unauthorized uses of copyrighted works carried out by tech firms to train generative artificial intelligence systems may be unlawful. Her lawyers have said in legal papers that Trump sought to remove her from her job because he disagreed with the report's findings on AI.

Trump in mid-May also fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who has not challenged her removal. The president then moved to replace Hayden with Todd Blanche, his former criminal defense attorney and current deputy attorney general, the No. 2 role at the Justice Department.

Blanche, in his capacity as acting head of the Library of Congress, which oversees the U.S. Copyright Office, purported to ratify Trump's decision to remove Perlmutter.

Perlmutter on May 22 sued to block her firing. She argued among other things that Trump lacked the authority to appoint Blanche as acting Librarian of Congress because that office is not an executive branch agency, but rather is part of the legislative branch.

The U.S. Constitution divides the powers of the U.S. government among the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

Washington-based U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, in July rejected Perlmutter's request to preliminarily block her firing, finding she had not suffered "irreparable harm" that would justify reinstating her.

On appeal, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in September embraced Perlmutter's argument and reinstated her while her case continued to play out.

Judge Florence Pan, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, wrote that Trump's purported ouster of Perlmutter amounted to an "attempt to reach into the Legislative Branch to fire an official that he has no statutory authority to either appoint or remove."

"The president's purported removal of the Legislative Branch's chief adviser on copyright matters, based on the advice that she provided to Congress, is akin to the president trying to fire a federal judge's law clerk," wrote Pan, joined by J. Michelle Childs, a fellow Biden appointee.

The D.C. Circuit's ruling prompted Trump's filing to the Supreme Court. Lawyers for the administration argued in court papers that Trump's appointment of Blanche as acting Librarian of Congress was authorized by federal law. They also argued that Trump's power under the Constitution's Article II, which delineates presidential authority, permitted him to fire Perlmutter directly because her office is part of the executive branch.

The administration has repeatedly asked the justices this year to allow the implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has sided with the administration in almost every case that it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.

The court has in a series of decisions in recent months allowed Trump to remove various officials. It has scheduled arguments in two cases involving presidential powers to remove certain types of officials, including his moves to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter.

Source: Investing

Macro-Economic Headwinds Ease

Retail Earnings Were Good, Guidance Was Increased

The AI Trade Is Reignited

Source: investing

An ageing line-up

A stock trading at 327 times 2025 earnings

Source: marketscreener

Source: kitco

LONDON, Nov 26 (Reuters) - British finance minister Rachel Reeves announced a big tax-raising budget on Wednesday that will take more money from workers, people saving for a pension and from investors to give herself greater room to meet her deficit-reduction targets.

Britain's fiscal watchdog cut its forecasts for economic growth for the coming years - a setback for struggling Prime Minister Keir Starmer who promised voters last year he would speed up the economy - and said spending was due to rise.

But in a figure closely watched by investors assessing Britain's borrowing risks, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the government will now have more than double its previous buffer for meeting its fiscal targets.

The OBR - in forecasts published in error before Reeves began her annual tax and spending speech to parliament, and first reported by Reuters - said the tax hikes would amount to an annual 26.1 billion pounds ($34.5 billion).

That will push Britain's tax-to-GDP ratio to 38.3% of economic output, a fresh post-war high, although this will still be lower than the euro zone's average of 41% last year.

In her first budget last year, Reeves ordered 40 billion pounds of tax hikes - the biggest since the 1990s - and she promised at the time that they would be a one-off.

"No doubt, we will face opposition again. But I have yet to see a credible, or a fairer alternative plan for working people," Reeves said to cheers from Labour Party lawmakers, many of whom are likely to welcome her higher welfare spending.

GROWTH FORECASTS CUT

The main spending measure was the removal of a two-child limit on welfare payments to poor families - a move popular with Labour lawmakers but lacking support among Britons as a whole.

Although Britain's next national election is not due until 2029, the authority of Reeves and Starmer has been questioned within their centre-left party.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think tank, highlighted how the government planned to increase spending in the short term while much of the push to raise taxes would hit later on.

"The additional spending and borrowing in the short-term is readily believable. The future restraint, just before the next election? One could be forgiven for treating that with a healthy dose of scepticism," IFS director Helen Miller said.

The OBR cut its forecasts for growth in the UK economy which it now saw averaging 1.5% over the five-year forecast period, 0.3 percentage points slower than it expected in March.

The downgrade was linked to lower productivity growth which the OBR said reflected a long period of past underperformance due to headwinds including Brexit.

Reeves vowed to do better than the watchdog expected. "We beat the forecasts this year and we will beat them again," she told parliament.

BORROWING COSTS FALL

British 30-year government bond yields - which are sensitive to concerns about higher borrowing - were sharply lower at 1515 GMT, down 7 basis points on the day, suggesting investors were largely comfortable with the budget plan.

Sterling rose against the U.S. dollar and the euro.

The OBR said the headroom - the amount of extra spending or tax cuts possible for the government while staying within its budget rules - now stood at almost 21.7 billion pounds in four years' time.

In March, the OBR had forecast headroom of 9.9 billion pounds, a historically low level which was eaten up by a downgrade of the country's economic outlook, higher-than-expected borrowing costs and a U-turn in July on welfare reform.

Ian Stewart, chief economist at Deloitte, said the OBR's assumption of faster wage growth had come to the rescue of Reeves as it would boost tax receipts.

"However, today's announcements will likely have a longer-term impact on growth, as the chancellor is raising an extra 26 billion pounds a year in tax," Stewart said.

The OBR said a three-year extension of the freeze on income tax thresholds - which was first introduced by the previous Conservative government - would raise an extra 8.0 billion pounds in the 2029/30 financial year.

Reeves said in her first budget last year that she was returning stability to the public finances after the shocks delivered by Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic and the "mini-budget" crisis of former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss.

This year, the generosity of pension incentives was scaled back with social security charges on salary-sacrifice pension contributions raising almost 5 billion pounds.

Increasing tax rates on dividends, property and savings income would raise 2.1 billion pounds, the OBR said, while an annual tax on homes worth more than 2 million pounds was expected to raise 0.4 billion in 2029/30.

"Today's autumn budget marked the third-largest tax-raising budget since 2010," Sanjay Raja, chief UK economist, at Deutsche Bank said. "Put simply, while this year's budget paled in comparison to the chancellor's spending announcements from 2024, tax raising measures were indeed historic."

Reeves maintained a freeze on the rate of fuel duty dating back to 2011 but she introduced a new mileage-based charge on electric cars.

SPENDING UP, GROWTH DOWN

Public spending was due to grow every year as a result of the measures in the budget - reaching an extra 11 billion pounds in 2029/30 - primarily to pay for the welfare measures.

A think tank that focuses on poverty reduction welcomed the removal of the two-child cap, along with actions to lower energy bills and an increase in the minimum wage.

"But there is more to do," Alfie Stirling, insight and policy director at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said. "Housing costs and bills are still too high, our safety nets are too frail, and the cost to workers of caring for their loved ones is too great."

Source: Reuters

The Trump administration is again seeking to end humanitarian protection for Haitians in the U.S., saying their legal status will end on February 3, a government notice published on Wednesday said, a move that comes despite spiraling violence in Haiti that has displaced more than 1 million people.

The notice announcing the end of Temporary Protected Status for some 353,000 Haitians said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had determined there were "no extraordinary and temporary conditions" in the country that would prevent migrants from returning.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has moved to end most enrollment in the TPS program as part of a broader clampdown on legal and illegal immigration. As a presidential candidate in 2024, Trump took particular aim at Haitian migrants in the U.S., alleging without evidence that they were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

JUDGE BLOCKED EARLIER MOVE TO END PROTECTION

Former President Joe Biden's administration extended TPS for Haitians in 2024, citing "simultaneous economic, security, political, and health crises" in Haiti, fueled by gangs and a lack of a functioning government. The extension gave them protections through February 3, 2026.

Shortly after Trump took office, Noem moved to end Haiti TPS ahead of its scheduled expiration, but a federal judge blocked that in July, saying Haitians' interests in being able to live and work in the U.S. "far outweigh" potential harm to the U.S. government.

More than 1.4 million Haitians have been displaced by violence and instability, according to the International Organization for Migration.

UNICEF estimated in October that over 6 million people - more than half the population, including 3.3 million children - need humanitarian assistance.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security notice announcing the end of Haiti TPS states that "certain conditions in Haiti remain concerning," including large-scale displacement, but that "permitting Haitian nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the U.S. national interest."

Source: Reuters