Elon Musk Launches A.I. Firm xAI To Take On OpenAI
Billionaire entrepreneur, Elon Musk has launched his long-teased artificial intelligence startup xAI on Wednesday, unveiling a team comprised of engineers from the same big U.S. technology firms that he hopes to challenge and build an alternative to ChatGPT.
Lucid Shares Drop As A Result Of Tesla Price War
Lucid Group (LCID.O) said its second-quarter production dropped from the previous three months while deliveries stayed flat, sending the shares of the luxury electric vehicle maker down by 12% yesterday.
Pending U.S. Decision On GM’s Request To Deploy Self-Driving Cars
U.S. regulators will soon decide on a petition filed by General Motors’ (GM.N) Cruise self-driving technology unit seeking permission to deploy up to 2,500 self-driving vehicles annually without human controls, a top auto safety official informed.
Today’s News
A 14-month low in the U.S. dollar has trickled through the global currency markets as traders consider the impact of a cooling U.S. inflation on the Feds most aggressive tightening cycle in a generation. The Swiss franc rose to the strongest level since 2015 against the U.S. currency, while Japan’s yen climbed more than 1% to consolidate its gains below 140 per dollar. The euro spiked to USD 1.11, and the British pound touched USD 1.30 — both hitting their strongest levels in over a year.
“It breathes more life into the view that the Fed is closer to the end of its cycle,” said Bipan Rai, CIBC’s global head of foreign-exchange strategy. “We can’t say that definitively for a few of the other major central banks out there, which is a powerful cue for a weaker U.S. dollar.”
Excluding food and energy sources, the U.S. consumer price index which economists view as the better indicator of underlying inflation, advanced just 4.8% from a year ago, the lowest since late 2021 but still above the Fed’s projected target.
This has resulted in the following:
Asian Equities Primed To Rally
Asian stocks followed gains in U.S. equities after the American inflation rate slid to a two-year low, easing pressures on global markets from rising interest rates in the world’s biggest economy.
An Asian share gauge headed for the highest close in more than three weeks, supported by gains in Hong Kong, Japan and Australia. Sony Group Corp. climbed as much as 4.9% in Tokyo after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. upgraded its recommendation to buy from neutral.
U.S. Inflation At 3% Flags Rate Setting
The U.S. inflation rate slid to a two-year low, a major step towards ending the cost-of-living emergency and possibly the Federal Reserve’s historic monetary tightening as well. This has led Senator Elizabeth Warren to call on Fed chairman Jerome Powell to halt interest rate increases.
“Take yes for an answer, chairman Powell, and let’s stop with the rate increases,” Ms. Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in an interview on live television.
Senator Backs Tougher Fed Bank Rules
Senator Elizabeth Warren has famously called Jerome Powell, the central bank’s chairman, a “dangerous man to be running the Fed” and voted against his denomination to the post.
At 3% last month, consumer-price inflation is now just one-third of the level it reached a year ago, which was the highest in four decades. And the details for June were also better than expected, with key measures of underlying inflation coming in below forecasts.
