Rates and Bonds  

Bank of America economists last week had projected that the Federal Reserve wouldn't cut interest rates at a meeting later this month - a remarkable out-of-consensus call by the second-largest U.S. bank. But after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's testimony on Wednesday before the House of Representatives, the economists now say there's little point in resisting the central bank's apparent resolve to move forward with a reduction.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat who heads the House Financial Services Committee, tells Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that regulators aren't prepared for the emergence of cryptocurrencies, amid gnawing fears that Facebook's proposed digital currency, Libra, might serve to erode the supremacy of the U.S. dollar in the global financial system.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says during his every-six-months testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives that uncertainties over global trade 'continue to weigh on the outlook.'

Futures-market investors see it as an absolute certainty that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates later this month. But a few bold economists, including Pantheon's Ian Shepherdson, say the conviction isn't warranted.

Futures-market investors see it as a near-certainty that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates later this month, after raising them from 2015 through last year. But a new report from Goldman Sachs warns that shareholders in U.S. banks like JPMorgan may not have fully accounted for the risk of shrinking lending margins.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized his own Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, for keeping U.S. interest rates too high, despite a projected slowing in the economy. Yet a Labor Department report Friday showed that U.S. jobs growth continued at a strong pace in June, prompting some economists to assert that drastic monetary stimulus isn't warranted.