Japan’s unemployment rate unchanged, retail sales miss estimates
Japan’s unemployment rate for October was steady from September’s reading of 2.6%, according to official data. The figure is slightly higher than the mean expectation of 2.5% from economists polled by Reuters.
The jobs-to-applicant ratio, which measures active job openings per jobseeker, was at 1.35. That indicates that there are 135 jobs available for every 100 applicants, signaling a still tight labor market in Japan.
The nation’s retail sales rose 4.3% in October on an annualized basis, missing expectations of 5% increase predicted in a separate Reuters poll .
The latest reading marks the first softening in retail sales growth that it’s seen since June this year.
– Jihye Lee
Fed should keep hiking into next year, Bullard says
James Bullard at Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said Monday that the Fed should continue to raise its benchmark interest rate in the coming months and that the market may be underestimating the chance that the Fed has to get more aggressive.
“We’re going to have to continue pursue our interest rate increases into 2023, and there’s some risk that we’ve have to go even higher than [5%],” Bullard said at a Barron’s Live webinar.
Bullard made waves in financial markets earlier this month when he said the Fed’s hikes have had “only limited effects” on inflation so far and that the benchmark interest rate may need to rise to between 5% and 7%.
Bullard, who is a voting member of the FOMC, said that the Fed will need to hold off any rate cuts next year even if the inflation picture starts to show consistent improvement.
“I think we’ll probably have to stay there all through 2023 and into 2024, given the historical behavior of core PCE inflation or Dallas Fed trimmed mean inflation. They will come down, I think. That’s my baseline. But they probably won’t come down quite as fast as markets would like and probably the Fed would like,” Bullard said.
— Jesse Pound
Cryptocurrency prices drop but quickly recover after BlockFi declares bankruptcy
The price of bitcoin took a dip on Monday after BlockFi officially announced it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the wake of FTX’s bankruptcy.
Bitcoin briefly dropped to as low as about $16,000 but has rebounded already. It was last lower by just 1% to above $16,300, according to Coin Metrics. The action in the ether price showed a similar bounce.
BlockFi has been in bad shape since the spring, following the blowup of the Terra project that led to the implosion of Three Arrows Capital. At that time, the company accepted a bailout from FTX that would help it stave off bankruptcy. Of course, FTX is now managing its own bankruptcy.
— Tanaya Macheel
CNBC Pro: Goldman Sachs names the global automakers exposed to a China slowdown
Many global companies are heavily exposed to China, including some of the world’s biggest automakers, which generate between 20% and 40% of their worldwide sales in the country, according to Goldman Sachs.
In a note to clients on Nov. 22 — before the latest protests — the investment bank mapped out the global auto industry’s exposure to Chinese consumers.
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Ganesh Rao
Stocks end Monday’s session lower
After a winning Thanksgiving week, the three major indexes ended Monday down as investors sold off amid mounting concerns over supply chain disruptions amid Covid-related protests in China.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.45%, or 497.57 points, and closed at 33,849.46. The S&P 500 also shed 1.54% to end at 3,963.94. The Nasdaq Composite slipped 1.58% and ended at 11,049.50.
— Alex Harring