Stocks Slump as Trump Casts Fed Chair Doubts, Bayer Appeal, More
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
News when you want it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Monica Ricks. And that's your closing bell on Wall Street and hopes for an upbeat day deflated over concerns about President Trump's pick to lead the Federal Reserve. We'll get those details for you in just a bit. But first, the Dow lost 83 points down about two tenths percent. The Nasdaq was down 15 points.
What caused the recent slump in stock prices?
The S&P slipped just four points. The 10-year Treasury yield at 4.2 percent. The two-year yields at about 3.6 percent. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson says interest rates are near the level that neither slows nor stimulates the economy, which he says now puts officials in a good position to determine the extent and timing of policy adjustments based on incoming data. Jefferson expects the unemployment rate to hold steady in 2026 and says recent data suggests inflation is on track towards hitting the Fed's 2% target. President Trump expressed some reluctance today in nominating Kevin Hassett as the next Fed chair.
I actually want to keep you where you are if you want to know the truth.
Trump says if Hassett were to leave his post as director of the National Economic Council, it would deprive the administration of one of its most powerful messengers on the economy.
Kevin Hassett is so good. I'm saying, wait a minute. If I move him, these Fed guys, certainly the one we have now, they don't talk much. I would lose you. It's a serious concern to me.
Hassett has been a top contender to succeed Fed Chair Jerome Powell. But Trump's effort to fill Fed vacancies is already facing some roadblocks in the Senate. Bloomberg's Stuart Paul explains why.
Earlier this week, we saw Senator Tom Tillis, one of the members of the Senate Banking Committee, say that he would not consider any nomination to the fed from the president until the entire doj probe of chairman powell and the federal reserve is brought to a conclusion now tillis is an important member of the senate banking committee he's not running for re-election in 2026 so he gets to assert a little bit more legislative independence and a little bit more oversight independence And if he refuses to vote for any Trump nominee, you cannot get any nominee through the Senate Banking Committee into the floor of the Senate.
That's Bloomberg's Stuart Paul on Bloomberg Intelligence. President Trump has said he plans to announce his nominee for Fed chair in the next few weeks. Shares of Bayer fell 1.4% today following news that it landed on the Supreme Court's docket. Justices have agreed to hear Bayer's appeal targeting lawsuits over its Roundup weed killer. The company's paid billions in verdicts and settlements over the years, but still faces about 67,000 claims that the key ingredient in Roundup causes cancer. Canada and China just reached a wide-ranging agreement to lower trade barriers and rebuild its ties. Under this new deal, Canada will allow Chinese electric vehicles into its market at a tariff rate of about 6 percent, down from the current rate of 100 percent, in exchange for visa-free travel to China.
The agreement also includes tariff concessions, with Canada anticipating a drop in canola tariffs from 85 to about 15 percent combined by March 1st. Beijing plans to suspend anti-discrimination duties on other farm products. President Trump's threatening fresh tariffs on goods from nations that oppose his push to take control of Greenland.
I may put a tariff on countries if they don't go along with Greenland because we need Greenland for national security.
But a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is in Denmark today to reassure Danes that Congress is opposed to Trump's threat to seize the territory. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is among them.
When it comes to matters of relationships with our friends, with our allies, as we have here in Denmark, as we have in Greenland, that it is not a subject of Republicans versus Democrats. It is a recognition, again, of a strong and a continuing relationship over decades.
Murkowski speaking to reporters after meeting with leaders in Copenhagen today.
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