2025-12-07 14:00

Fed's internal division over interest-rate cut draws investors' attention Markets pricing in an 84% chance of quarter-point cut Powell's guidance and dissent count being watched for clues about future Fed policy NEW YORK, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve meeting next week is expected to be one of its most contentious in years, and investors are focused on how divided policymakers are over an expected interest-rate cut and what Chair Jerome Powell signals about the path ahead. Five of the 12 voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee have voiced opposition or skepticism about further easing, while three members of the Washington-based Board of Governors favor a cut. Sign up here. The FOMC has not had three or more dissents at a meeting since 2019, and that has happened just nine times since 1990. That split puts the dissents under a microscope as investors look for signals at the Tuesday-Wednesday meeting on the Fed's policy direction and internal dynamics. "The Fed seems to be more divided than it has been in a very, very long time, and just how divided will be of interest because that will give some sense of perhaps where the Fed might lean in the future," said Michael Rosen, chief investment officer at Angeles Investments. Rosen added that the uncertainty stems from the Fed's challenge of balancing its twin goals of full employment and stable inflation. Inflation, as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, met expectations on Friday, while U.S. consumer sentiment improved in December. The reports didn’t change expectations for a cut next week. Economic data on Thursday showed jobless claims last week fell to the lowest in more than three years, easing fears of a sharp labor market deterioration and feeding rate cut expectations. A Chicago Fed estimate suggested the unemployment rate held near 4.4% in November. Markets are pricing in an 84% chance of a quarter-point cut at next week's meeting, LSEG data show. The Fed last lowered the policy rate on October 29, to a range of 3.75%-4.00% from 4.00%-4.25%, the second consecutive 25-basis-point cut this year. Powell later jolted markets when he said the likelihood of a cut in December was "not a foregone conclusion". Stocks reversed gains after that comment, as many investors had priced a rate cut as a done deal. Jeremiah Buckley, equities portfolio manager at Janus Henderson, said the December meeting does not matter much for markets in the long term. "Certainly, there could be some short-term volatility, but what they do over the first half of 2026, I think, matters more than December," he added. Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab index has risen 16.6% so far this year. Tony Roth, CIO, Wilmington Trust, does not expect stocks to move much if the Fed delivers a cut. "The Fed move is really baked in at this point. It's really going to be just about the Fed guidance," Roth said. "And I think they're going to be pretty cautious. They're going to talk about being data dependent." Complicating the Fed's deliberations is a backlog of economic data. The 43-day government shutdown, the longest in history, delayed the November employment print until December 16, after policymakers meet. The unemployment rate for October will remain unknown as the shutdown prevented the collection of data for the household survey used to calculate it. Although somewhat dated, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey data, due December 9, would give markets a glimpse into October's labor trends - especially layoffs - amid the current low-hiring, low-firing environment. Some observers don't believe the odds of a cut are as high as the markets imply, and are more interested in Powell's statements and how close the policy vote is. "We don't think that anything is definite yet," said David Seif, chief economist for developed markets at Nomura. "So, I definitely think the market is underpricing the risk that the Fed chooses not to cut at the December meeting." Seif said what would be interesting "particularly in the case of a cut, is how much dissent there is." With four regional presidents rotating off, their stance will reveal how much independence they intend to assert and the pressure they'll put on the Fed. "Because it really signals not just what they're willing to do against Chair Powell, but what they're willing to do against Powell's successor as chair. We're really trying to figure out how much the model at the Fed is changing into a much simpler situation with one person, one vote." https://www.reuters.com/business/wall-st-week-ahead-feds-internal-split-puts-spotlight-powells-rate-guidance-2025-12-05/

2025-12-07 13:34

FRANKFURT, Dec 7 (Reuters) - The European Commission could announce a package to support the local automotive sector, including a possible watered down version of its 2035 combustion engine phase-out, on December 16, an industry source briefed on the matter said. Brussels is so far planning to announce the package on December 10, but EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said earlier this week that the package could be delayed until January. Sign up here. The source said that December 16 was a target but could still change. A spokesperson for the European Commission declined to comment on the new date, which was first reported by Germany's Tagesspiegel Background. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/eu-could-announce-package-support-auto-industry-december-16-industry-source-says-2025-12-07/

2025-12-07 11:45

Kellogg says peace deal 'almost there' Remaining issues are Donbas and nuclear power plant - Kellogg Kremlin says US should make radical changes Russia and Ukraine have suffered 2 million casualties - Kellogg MOSCOW, Dec 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's outgoing Ukraine envoy said a deal to end the Ukraine war was "really close" and depended on resolving just two major issues but the Kremlin said there had to be radical changes to some of the U.S. proposals. Trump, who says he wants to be remembered as a "peacemaker" president, says that ending Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two has so far been the most elusive foreign policy aim of his presidency. Sign up here. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who is due to step down in January, told the Reagan National Defense Forum that efforts to resolve the conflict were in "the last 10 metres" which he said was always the hardest. DONBAS AND NUCLEAR POWER PLANT THE KEY ISSUES NOW The two main outstanding issues, Kellogg said, were on territory - primarily the future of the Donbas - and the future of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, which is under Russian control. "If we get those two issues settled, I think the rest of the things will work out fairly well," Kellogg said on Saturday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California. "We're almost there." "We're really, really close," said Kellogg. After President Vladimir Putin held four hours of Kremlin talks last week with Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Putin's top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, said "territorial problems" were discussed. That is Kremlin shorthand for Russian claims to the whole of Donbas, though Ukraine is still in control of at least 5,000 square km (1,900 square miles) of the area. Almost all countries recognise Donbas as part of Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that handing over the rest of Donetsk would be illegal without a referendum and would give Russia a platform to launch assaults deeper into Ukraine in the future. Ushakov was quoted by Russian media on Sunday as saying that the United States would have to "make serious, I would say, radical changes to their papers" on Ukraine. He did not clarify what changes Moscow wanted Washington to make. Zelenskiy said on Saturday that he had had a long and "substantive" phone call with Witkoff and Kushner. The Kremlin has said it expects Kushner to be doing the main work on drafting a possible deal. TWO MILLION MEN KILLED OR INJURED, KELLOGG SAYS Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who served in Vietnam, Panama and Iraq, said the scale of the death and injuries caused by the Ukraine war was "horrific" and unprecedented in terms of a regional war. Kellogg said that, together, Russia and Ukraine have suffered more than 2 million casualties, including dead and wounded since the war began. Neither Russia nor Ukraine disclose credible estimates of their losses. Russia currently controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, all of Luhansk, more than 80% of Donetsk, about 75% of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions. A leaked set of 28 U.S. draft peace proposals , opens new tab emerged last month, alarming Ukrainian and European officials who said it bowed to Moscow's main demands on NATO, Russian control of a fifth of Ukraine and restrictions on Ukraine's army. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-envoy-kellogg-says-ukraine-peace-deal-is-really-close-2025-12-07/

2025-12-07 10:33

PARIS, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Unless there is a sharp reversal in the final three months of the year, the French economy is likely to grow by at least 0.8% in 2025, outpacing the 0.7% that the government had anticipated, Finance Minister Roland Lescure said on Sunday. "We will most likely exceed the government's growth forecast for this year. We had predicted 0.7%, but I think we will have at least 0.8%. That's good news," Lescure told LCI television. Sign up here. "So we would really need to have a bad fourth quarter, which I don't believe will happen, for us to be below 0.8%, so 0.8% is within reach," he added. France's economy grew 0.5% in the third quarter, final data from statistics office INSEE showed in November, reflecting resilience in the euro zone's second-largest economy. https://www.reuters.com/business/french-economy-lkely-grow-least-08-2025-finance-minister-says-2025-12-07/

2025-12-07 10:10

ACEH TAMIANG, Indonesia, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Hit by deadly floods, Indonesians in the region around Aceh Tamiang are grappling with worsening diseases and a lack of medical care as workers struggled to help dozens of residents at the lone hospital in the area. Cyclone-induced floods and landslides last week devastated three provinces on Indonesia's Sumatra island, including Aceh, killing at least 940 people, with an additional 276 people listed as missing, government data showed on Sunday. Sign up here. As residents lost their homes to pools of mud and debris, diseases got worse. Diseases included diarrhoea, fever or myalgia, triggered because the "environment and places of stay have not recovered post-disaster," Indonesia's health ministry said last week. At the only hospital in Aceh Tamiang, a patient and medical workers told Reuters on Sunday of worsening diseases there. Reuters' witnesses said medical equipment was covered with mud, syringes were scattered on the floor and floods swept medicines away. "These workers do not know what tired means," said Ayu Wahyuni Putri, who gave birth to her child days before the floods hit. Nurhayati, a 42-year-old nurse, said the hospital was nearly paralysed due to a lack of medicine. Workers tried to save ventilators at an intensive care unit for babies, but were unsuccessful as rising water covered them. A baby died, while six others survived, she said. "People know me as a nurse. When I couldn't do something, it felt devastating. I can only give the available medicine," she said, hoping that the hospital would be reactivated. "This is an extraordinary disaster. Everything is destroyed." Ruined bridges made it nearly impossible for medical workers to go around Aceh, said Dr. Chik M. Iqbal, who traveled by boat to reach Aceh Tamiang, adding that emergency rooms would only be up and running on Monday. Some 31 hospitals and 156 smaller health centres across the three provinces were impacted by the floods, the health ministry said on December 5. On Sunday, President Prabowo Subianto visited Aceh, ordering authorities to fix bridges and dams, as well as cancel state-backed microloans for farmers. Local government officials on Sumatra have called on the national government in Jakarta to declare a national emergency to free up additional funds for rescue-and-relief efforts. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/everything-destroyed-indonesias-aceh-grapples-with-disease-after-floods-2025-12-07/

2025-12-07 09:55

NEW DELHI, Dec 7 (Reuters) - India does not have any immediate plans to add coal power generation capacity beyond 2035, a top power ministry official said on Sunday. "India wants to secure its energy requirements," Pankaj Agarwal, secretary at the power ministry told Reuters on the sidelines of a power ministry event. "As on 2035, we want to have a coal capacity of 307 gigawatts." Sign up here. He said it would be "premature to say what we want to do beyond 2035". India this year proposed increasing its coal power capacity by 46% from the current 210 GW while doubling its non-fossil fuel capacity of 500 GW by 2030. Agarwal said the coal power plans are in line with the country's energy requirements. India, facing grid challenges due to the integration of surplus clean energy into the grid, has curbed power output for most months this year. Agarwal said the country may take a call on adding more coal capacity after taking three years to understand how power demand is growing and the speed of integration of clean energy into the grid. India should also evaluate grid challenges and the cost of storing excess clean energy in batteries and sending it to the grid before taking decisions on adding more coal capacity beyond 2035, he said. India's coal-fired generation, which typically accounts for about 75% of electricity output, has fallen on an annual basis in seven of the 11 months this year, the most since 2020 as temperate weather reduced cooling demand. Still, several Indian utilities are signing long-term contracts with coal-fired power generators to meet a projected surge in evening demand. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/india-has-no-immediate-plans-add-coal-power-capacity-beyond-2035-official-says-2025-12-07/