Fed vice chair Richard Clarida, in comments to the Economic Club of NY on Thursday, hoped to calm turbulent markets by noting that central bank officials would indeed consider lower-than-desired inflation along with “global economic and financial developments” as part of any decision to move away from its current “patient stance” and “toward cutting interest rates” – NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch
A year later, the ongoing trade war with China and associated tariffs have pushed beyond the point of no return for many American manufacturers—many of whom have already begun rewriting contracts and shifting supply chains in “hard-to-reverse” ways – NYTimes
US companies are not the only ones rethinking the way they do business – Bloomberg
And, USMCA negotiations be damned, China’s far from the only country dealing with a tariff-obsessed White House – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
Uber delivered its first post-IPO earnings report, and it was a doozy. In the worst kind of way. The ride-hailing giant posted more than a $1 billion loss for the first three months of 2019. Revenue rose 20% to $3.1 billion, but that was the company’s “lowest quarterly growth rate since it began disclosing its results in 2017” – NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
A group of investors has resubmitted its $10 million settlement with Citigroup over the bank’s alleged Forex rigging to SDNY Judge Lorna Schofield in hopes that she’ll sign off this time. Judge Schofield denied the deal in November “when she told them she had to little information to determine whether the deal was fair, reasonable and adequate” – Law360
Amazon’s considering dropping into the mobile phone biz through a deal to buy T-Mobile’s Boost Mobile division – MarketWatch
The White House—via the Treasury Department and the FHFA—is reportedly close to unveiling a plan “to return mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to private-shareholder ownership” more than a decade after the federal government “seized the firms to save them from collapse” – WSJ
New York’s Dep’t of Financial Services revealed this week that it’s opened an inquiry into the unauthorized exposure of an estimated 885 million mortgage-related records by First American Financial Corporation – NYTimes
Activist investor Carl Icahn has filed suit against Occidental, arguing that the company’s $38 billion deal to buy Anadarko is “fundamentally misguided” and harmful to shareholders – WSJ and Law360
As if I needed to tell you die-hards out there—that disturbance in the Force you’ve felt is very real: Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge is officially open. Here’s a sneak peek – NYTimes
Have a great weekend.
