Trump Decision On Next Fed Chair Not Imminent, White House Says

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The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits fell last week, but work opportunities are becoming scarce as businesses remain hesitant to hire because of an uncertain economic outlook, raising the risk of the unemployment rate increasing in June.

The weekly jobless claims report from the Labor Department on Thursday, the most timely data on the economy's health, also showed state unemployment benefit rolls in mid-June increasing to the highest level in 3-1/2 years. Though layoffs remain historically low, hiring has been tepid, with economists saying President DonaldTrump'sbroad import tariffs are making it difficult for businesses to plan ahead.

But the pace of labor market slowdown is unlikely to prompt the Federal Reserve to resume cutting interest rates before September, they said. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told lawmakers this week the U.S. central bank needed more time to gauge if tariffs raised inflation before considering lowering rates.

"The data are consistent with softening of labor market conditions, particularly on the hiring side of the labor market equation," said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics. "For now, we don't think the labor market is weak enough to prompt the Fed to cut rates before December, but the risk is increasing that once the Fed starts to lower rates, it will have some catching up to do."

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 236,000 for the week ended June 21, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 245,000 claims for the latest week.

The data included last week's Juneteenth National Independence Day holiday, which likely injected a downward bias.

Cutting through the technical distortions, layoffs have picked up amid the economic uncertainty that has seen the Fed pausing its monetary policy easing cycle. The U.S. central bank last week left its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 4.25%-4.50% range where it has been since December.

The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, jumped 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.974 million during the week ending June 14, the highest level since November 2021, the claims report showed.

The so-called continuing claims covered the week during which the government surveyed households for June's unemployment rate. Continuing claims increased between the May and June survey week, leading economists to expect that the unemployment rate rose to 4.3% in June from 4.2% in May.

A survey from the Conference Board this week showed the share of consumers who viewed jobs as being "plentiful" dropped to the lowest level in more than four years in June.

Stocks on Wall Street opened higher. The dollar slipped to a three-year low against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields fell.

GDP REVISED LOWER

The Trump administration's tariffs are distorting the economic picture and this was evident in other data on Thursday.

Gross domestic product decreased at a downwardly revised 0.5% annualized rate last quarter, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) said in its third estimate of GDP.

Thomson ReutersUS gross domestic product

The economy was previously reported to have contracted at a 0.2% pace. The revision reflected a sharp downgrade to consumer spending, which is now estimated to have increased at only a 0.5% pace instead of previously reported 1.2% rate.

The economy grew at a 2.4% rate in the fourth quarter.

Domestic demand growth was slashed to a 1.9% rate from the previously reported 2.5% pace.

A flood of imports as businesses rushed to bring in goods before the sweeping tariffs kicked in accounted for the bulk of the decrease in GDP. Consumer spending also slowed as the boost from pre-emptive buying of goods, especially motor vehicles, ahead of the import duties faded.

While the flow of imports has since subsided, exports are taking a hit from the trade tensions. A third report from the Census Bureau showed the goods trade deficit widened 11.1% to $96.6 billion in May, with exports dropping $9.7 billion to $179.2 billion. But goods imports were little changed at $275.8 billion, positioning GDP for a sharp rebound this quarter.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve is forecasting GDP accelerating at a 3.4% rate in the second quarter. Given the gyrations from imports, economists cautioned against interpreting the anticipated bounce back in GDP as a sign of economic strength.

Data on retail sales, the housing and labor markets have suggested economic activity is softening.

"The difficulty of accurately capturing the extraordinary foreign-trade and inventory gymnastics that companies undertook to avoid U.S. tariffs created serious measurement challenges that will linger for some time to come," said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP.

While a fourth report from the Census Bureau showed orders for long-lasting manufactured goods rebounded sharply in May because of strength in commercial aircraft bookings, the uncertain economic environment remained a constraint for business spending.

Orders for durable goods, items ranging from toasters to aircraft meant to last three years or more, jumped 16.4% last month after a 6.6% decline in April. Transportation equipment orders soared 48.3%, driven by a 230.8% surge in commercial aircraft orders, which are extremely volatile.

Boeingreported on its website that it had received 303 aircraft orders, including 150 from Qatar Airways placed during Trump's visit to the Gulf Arab country in May. That compared to only eight orders in April.

Non-defense capital goods orders accelerated 49.4% after plunging 19.1% in April. Shipments of these goods were unchanged after advancing 3.6% in April.

Outside the transportation industry, orders were moderate. Non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, rebounded 1.7% in May after a 1.4% decline in April. Shipments of core capital goods rose 0.5% after being unchanged in the prior month. Business spending on equipment accelerated sharply in the first quarter.

Source: TradingView

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Bitcoin cooled its upside at the June 25 Wall Street open as $108,000 became the key breakthrough level for bulls.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Having taken liquidity to the upside, Bitcoin rested on a cloud of bids as sellers lined up closer to all-time highs, per data from monitoring resource CoinGlass.

BTC 24-hour liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlass

Bitcoin Trend Accumulation Score chart. Source: Glassnode/X

Continuing, popular X commentator TheKingfisher identified $107,000 as a point where significant long liquidations should occur.

BTC/USDT order book liquidity data as of June 25. Source: Material Indicators/X

An accompanying chart showed recent daily green “buy” and red “sell” signals on another trading tool.

BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Keith Alan/X

Source: Cointelegraph