April 2025

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he doesn’t believe a high-profile Supreme Court case over former President Donald Trump’s dismissal of two Democrats from federal labor boards poses a threat to the Fed’s independence. Speaking at the Economic Club of Chicago, Powell acknowledged the case is being closely watched but said, “I don’t think that decision will apply to the Fed.”

Background to this is here:

• Fed independence fears continue to simmer amid Supreme Court labor board case

Powell emphasized that the Fed operates independently of political pressure and reaffirmed its commitment to making policy decisions based solely on data and analysis to fulfil its dual mandate. “We’re never going to be influenced by any political pressure,” Powell said.

The case, involving Cathy Harris and Gwynne Wilcox, has raised concerns that a Supreme Court ruling in Trump’s favour could weaken safeguards protecting independent agencies like the Fed. Lawyers for Harris warned the decision could open the door to political interference at the central bank.

Powell said the Fed’s independence remains “widely understood and supported” across Washington, including in Congress.

Under current law, Fed governors—appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate—can only be removed “for cause,” not over policy disagreements.

As for policy remarks, this from earlier:

• Powell sees strong possibility that trade progress will move Fed away from goals
• Fed’s Powell: Well positioned to wait for greater clarity before making changes to stance

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.

Financial Times reporting:

• Intel has informed Chinese clients it will start needing a license to sell some of its advanced artificial intelligence processors

The FT is gated but Reuters supply some summary infor:

• Intel told clients last week that its chips would require a license for exporting to China if they have a total DRam bandwidth of 1,400 gigabytes (GB) per second or more, input-output (I/O) bandwidth of 1,100 GB per second or more, or a total of both of 1,700 GB per second or more, according to the report.
• Intel’s Gaudi series as well as Nvidia’s H20 far exceed these requirements, the report said.

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.

US stocks are closing mostly lower but rarely modestly into the close. It could’ve been worse:

• Dow industrial average fell -699.57 points or -1.73% to 39669.39.
• S&P index fell -120.93 points or -2.24% to 5275.70.
• NASDAQ index fell – -516.01 points or -3.07% to 16307.16.
• Russell 2000 fell -19.44 points or -1.03% to 1863.47.

Shares of Nvidia moved down sharply by $7.71 or -6.87% at $104.49.

Other big losers included:

This article was written by Greg Michalowski at www.forexlive.com.

New Zealand inflation data and Aussie jobs report are a couple of focal points for the calendar ahead.

The slight tick higher expected for NZ CPI will not prevent further rate cuts from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. Not in this tariff-war-led pre-recession environment.

Last month’s Australian jobs report showed a substantial drop in jobs, expected to be partially reversed today. Hmmm. Let’s see about that!

As a caveat to both these reports, they are for pre-April, i.e. they don’t capture the initial impact of Trump’s Liquidation Liberation Day reciprocal tariff economic destruction.

This snapshot from the ForexLive economic data calendar, access it here.

The times in the left-most column are GMT.

The numbers in the right-most column are the ‘prior’ (previous month/quarter as the case may be) result. The number in the column next to that, where there is a number, is the consensus median expected.

This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at www.forexlive.com.