Happy Tuesday and welcome back to Overnight Finance, the newsletter that will never spy on you. I’m Sylvan Lane, and here’s your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line.
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THE BIG DEAL: President Trump kept up his war against Amazon on Tuesday, tweeting another string of criticisms at the technology titan he claims is ripping off the U.S. Postal Service.
“I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy. Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne [sic] by the American Taxpayer. Many billions of dollars. P.O. leaders don’t have a clue (or do they?)!” Trump tweeted Tuesday.
Trump has insisted for days that Amazon is costing the USPS millions of dollars in lost shipping fees. While USPS does give Amazon a shipping discount because of the volume of packages it ships and has a deal with the company to ship packages on Sundays, the postal service’s financial troubles stem from other issues. Plus, Amazon’s prominence could be helping the postal service, though the company pays comparatively little in taxes versus other tech firms.
Despite the outpouring of contrary evidence, Trump hasn’t backed down from his claims against Amazon.
“Only fools, or worse, are saying that our money losing Post Office makes money with Amazon,” Trump tweeted Monday. “THEY LOSE A FORTUNE, and this will be changed. Also, our fully tax paying retailers are closing stores all over the country…not a level playing field!”
Much of Trump’s antagonism comes from his displeasure with The Washington Post, the newspaper owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, but operated independently of the tech giant.
The Post has written countless stories about the Trump administration and the special counsel investigation into Trump’s campaign that have enraged the president and his allies.
Trump insists that the Post acts a “lobbyist” for Amazon, a baseless claim disputed by everyone affiliated with both companies and one that would be a breach of journalistic ethics and the public trust.
Trump has reportedly been obsessed with damaging Amazon, and his constant attacks are weighing on the company’s stock. While share prices for Amazon jumped 1.4 percent today in a broader stock market rally, its stock has fallen 10 percent since the start of last week, when Trump began his assault on the company.
Even so, it doesn’t appear that Trump will do anything to materially harm the way the company does business… for now. Bloomberg News reported today that there are “no active discussions” in the White House “about turning the power of the [Trump] administration against the company.”
What comes next: Amazon isn’t the first company Trump has attacked on Twitter. The president has criticized Boeing and Carrier for various reasons, though those feuds were short lived in a quickly changing news cycle.
But Trump’s ire with Amazon could be different, given Bezos’ ownership of The Washington Post. The president routinely bashes media outlets, mainly CNN, for their coverage of him. So long as Trump treats Amazon and the Post as the same entity, he’s liable to keep tweeting away.
LEADING THE DAY
Williams to take reins of NY Fed: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced Tuesday that John C. Williams, president of the San Francisco Fed, will become its next president. Williams, a voting member of the interest rate-setting Federal Open Markets Committee, was long expected to be chosen by the independent Fed board tasked with filling the New York spot.
Williams worked under former Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen while she led the San Francisco reserve bank, and has received praise for his research on interest rates and other critical monetary policy issues. His experience on the FOMC and academic credentials earned him wide support across ideological lines, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and several progressive non-profits called for a more diverse candidate for a Fed system dominated by white men.
Williams’ critics say the Fed suffers from dangerous groupthink that often obscures the needs of vulnerable minority communities. They’ve also highlighted his previous insistence in 2015 and later that the U.S. economy had reached full employment despite future drops in the U.S. unemployment rate.
Warren has also taken issue with the way Williams handled the various scandals involving Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, despite the Fed board’s jurisdiction over enforcement actions against banks. She’s called on Williams to testify before the Senate Banking Committee before his appointment is finalized, which is highly unlikely to happen.
Reactions:
- “John’s groundbreaking research helped establish the intellectual foundation for the Federal Reserve’s determination to support American households and businesses by pushing short-term interest rates very low and adopting non-traditional strategies to lower longer-term interest rates, such as those on mortgages.” — Janet Yellen, former chair of the Federal Reserve Board and president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
- “I believe that President Williams can and will do a great job and I will continue to keep the discussion about diversity a top priority.” — Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee.
- “We hope that John Williams’s tenure as president will not be characterized by the same disregard for the public as his appointment was.” — Fed Up, a coalition of progressive non-profits focused on reshaping the central bank.
Treasury makes recommendations for changing community banking law: The Treasury Department on Monday called on federal regulators to update a 1977 law meant to prevent mortgage discrimination and encourage banks to invest in struggling areas in which they operate.
Treasury released close to a dozen recommendations of ways federal regulators could update the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to reflect the fundamental changes in banking seen since its passage more than 40 years ago. The department said the law is too rigid and outdated.
“Treasury believes it is important that a bank’s CRA activity align with the needs of the communities that it serves, is made in a manner consistent with a bank’s safety and soundness, and is subject to efficient and effective supervision that does not create unintended disincentives to serving communities as intended by the statute,” the department wrote.
I’ll walk you through the suggestions right here.
MARKET CHECK: Recharging. After an absolutely brutal Monday of losses, U.S stocks bounced back on Tuesday with notable gains across all sectors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained almost 400 points, a 1.65 percent spike, while the Nasdaq and Standard and Poor’s 500 index increased 1 percent and 1.2 percent each.
GOOD TO KNOW
- Speaker Paul Ryan and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady touted the new GOP tax law at Southwest Airlines’ Dallas headquarters — shining attention on Republicans’ signature legislative accomplishment that they hope will help the party in this fall’s midterm elections.
- Construction employment has posted five straight years of steady jobs gains but payrolls remain below peak levels hit during the housing boom, a new analysis released on Tuesday shows.
- The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday announced fraud charges against two men behind a $32 million cryptocurrency investment scheme hawked by celebrities such as Floyd Mayweather Jr. and DJ Khaled.
- President Trump announced that he’s planning to nominate Justin Muzinich, a Treasury Department aide who was involved in the administration’s tax-cut efforts, to be deputy secretary of the department.
DJ Gribbin, President Trump’s infrastructure policy adviser, is departing the White House as the administration’s rebuilding plan appears to have hit a wall in Congress.
Businesses seeking to lower their 2018 bills are splitting in two, changing their legal status and reclassifying workers, according to The Wall Street Journal.
- Even with this year’s correction, stocks and other assets are still high by historical standards, Fed Governor Lael Brainard said in a speech Tuesday, writes CNBC.
ODDS AND ENDS
- Because every story has a financial regulatory angle, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer is requesting that the Treasury Department hand over any information it has about the “suspicious activity report” (SAR) filed about President Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 nondisclosure payment to her in 2016.
Edelman Financial has released its yearly study of trust in major institutions, and the results aren’t pretty for the financial services sector. Here’s more on why trust in the US Financial sector dropped 20 points.