{"id":1445,"date":"2025-07-17T01:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T01:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/1445\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T01:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T01:03:07","slug":"trump-says-he-talked-about-the-concept-of-firing-jerome-powell-stocks-went-for-a-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/1445\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he ‘talked about the concept of firing’ Jerome Powell. Stocks went for a ride"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump sent the U.S. stock market on a jagged round trip Wednesday after saying he had\u00a0\u201ctalked about the concept of firing\u201d the head of the Federal Reserve<\/a>. Such a move could help Wall Street get the lower interest rates it loves but would also risk a weakened Fed unable to make the unpopular moves needed to keep inflation under control.<\/p>\n

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% after whipping through an earlier drop and subsequent recovery.<\/p>\n

The Dow<\/a> Jones Industrial Average gained 231 points, or 0.5%, and the Nasdaq<\/a> composite added 0.3% to its record set the day before.<\/p>\n

Stocks had been rising modestly in the morning, before news reports saying that Trump was likely to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell quickly sent the S&P 500 down by 0.7%.<\/p>\n

When later asked directly if he was planning to fire Powell, Trump said, \u201cI don\u2019t rule out anything, but I think it\u2019s highly unlikely.\u201d That helped calm the market, and stocks erased their losses, though Trump added that he could still fire Powell if \u201che has to leave for fraud.\u201d Trump has been\u00a0criticizing a $2.5 billion renovation project<\/a>\u00a0underway of the Fed\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s main problem with Powell has been how the Fed has not cut interest rates this year, a move that would have made it easier for U.S. households and businesses to get loans to buy houses, build factories and otherwise boost the economy. Lower interest rates could also help the U.S. government, which is set to borrow and add a lot more to its debt after approving a wide range of tax cuts.<\/p>\n

Powell, meanwhile,\u00a0has been insisting<\/a>\u00a0that he wants to wait for more data about how Trump\u2019s stiff proposed tariffs will affect the economy and inflation before the Fed makes its next move.<\/p>\n

The Fed has two main jobs: keeping the job market strong while keeping inflation under control. Lowering interest rates would help boost the economy but would also give inflation more fuel when tariffs may be set to push prices for U.S. households higher.<\/p>\n

A report on Wednesday said\u00a0inflation at the wholesale level slowed<\/a>\u00a0to 2.3% last month, which was better than economists expected. It\u2019s an encouraging signal, but it came a day after another report suggested that Trump\u2019s\u00a0tariffs are pushing up the prices U.S. shoppers are paying<\/a>\u00a0for toys, apparel and other imported products.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s tariffs are making their weight felt across financial markets. ASML, the world\u2019s leading supplier of chipmaking gear, warned that it can\u2019t guarantee growth next year, after delivering an expected 15% growth in sales for 2025.<\/p>\n

Conditions still look strong for ASML\u2019s customers in the artificial-intelligence business, but CEO Christophe Fouquet said in a video that \u201cthe level of uncertainty is increasing, mostly due to macroeconomic and geopolitical consideration. And that includes, of course, tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shares that trade in the United States of ASML, which is based in the Netherlands, fell 8.3%.<\/p>\n

Stocks of several U.S. companies reporting stronger profits for the latest quarter than analysts expected helped offset that.<\/p>\n

Johnson & Johnson jumped 6.2% after the drug and medical device giant beat analysts\u2019 sales and profit targets and raised its full-year forecasts for both. CEO Joaquin Duato said it expects \u201cgame-changing approvals and submissions\u201d in the second half of 2025 on an array of products, including for lung and bladder cancer.<\/p>\n

PNC Financial Services Group<\/a> added 0.9% following its better-than-expected quarterly report, thanks in part to loan growth despite what CEO Bill Demchak called \u201can uncertain macro environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

GrabAGun<\/a>, an online retailer of firearms and ammunition, swung sharply after combining with Colombier Acquisition Corp. II and taking its spot on the stock market under the ticker symbol \u201cPEW.\u201d Donald Trump Jr., the son of President Trump, is joining the company\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

The stock quickly went from an early gain of 19% to a drop of 31% before finishing with a loss of 23.9%, with several halts in trading along the way.<\/p>\n

All told, the S&P 500 rose 19.94 points to 6,263.70. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 231.49 to 44,254.78, and the Nasdaq composite gained 52.69 to 20,730.49.<\/p>\n

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury fell to 4.45% from 4.50% late Tuesday. It had been as low as 4.44% earlier in the day, but it climbed following the reports that Trump was likely to fire Powell.<\/p>\n

A new Fed chair friendlier to Trump could mean lower short-term interest rates but also the opposite effect on longer-term yields. That\u2019s because a less independent Fed would raise worries that it may also let inflation run higher in the future by being slow to raise interest rates.<\/p>\n

In stock markets abroad, indexes mostly fell amid relatively modest movements.<\/p>\n

Stocks rose 0.7% in Jakarta after Trump said Tuesday that he plans to charge\u00a0imports from Indonesia<\/a>\u00a0a tariff of 19%, instead of the 32% that he had threatened earlier, after reaching a trade deal.<\/p>\n

Indonesia\u2019s central bank also cut its key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points on Wednesday, to 5.25%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have calculated everything and discussed everything. The most important thing for me is my people, as I must protect the interests of our workers,\u201d Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto told reporters, adding that \u201cthis is our offer, and we are not able to give more (to the United States).\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Business Writers Matt Ott, Kelvin Chan and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump sent the U.S. stock market on a jagged round trip Wednesday after saying he had\u00a0\u201ctalked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[45,49,48,1376,2071,1375,100],"class_list":{"0":"post-1445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-federal-reserve","13":"tag-jerome-powell","14":"tag-markets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}