Town Hall News

By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks rallied on Friday, with the Dow posting its biggest one-day percentage gain since Jan. 6, as shares of Apple surged more than 4% after upbeat results and U.S. jobs data pointed to a resilient labor market. Adding to the bullish momentum, regional bank shares rebounded from declines tied to the collapse of First Republic Bank. Analysts upgraded a number of lenders […]

By Khalid Abdelaziz and Nafisa Eltahir PORT SUDAN, Sudan (Reuters) -Heavy gunfire echoed around Khartoum on Friday as civilians trapped in the Sudanese capital said the army and rival paramilitary were fighting without regard to their plight. Battles since mid-April have killed hundreds and wounded thousands, disrupted aid supplies, sent 100,000 refugees fleeing abroad and turned residential areas of Khartoum into war zones. “It’s been four days without electricity and […]

-Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee on Friday said it is “way too premature” to suggest that stronger-than-expected job gains in April mean the central bank will need to raise interest rates again when it meets again in June. “We know that credit conditions like the ones we are seeing now in the past have been correlated with recessions, credit crunches,” Goolsbee told Fox News. “It’s way too premature […]

Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee on Friday said it is ‘way too premature’ to suggest the stronger-than-expected job gains in April mean the central bank will need to raise interest rates when it meets again in June. “We know that credit conditions like the ones we are seeing now in the past have been correlated with recessions, credit crunches,” Goolsbee told Fox News. “It’s way too premature to […]

By Manya Saini and Chibuike Oguh (Reuters) – Shares in PacWest Bancorp jumped nearly 82% amid a broader rebound in U.S. regional banks on Friday after analysts upgraded a number of lenders they said were oversold, though some investors fretted the surge may be short-lived. Investor worries about the health of mid-sized lenders deepened in recent days following the collapse of First Republic Bank and PacWest’s announcement that it was […]

(Reuters) – Western Digital Corp said on Friday it had restored My Cloud services and expects customer access to its online store to be normalized in the week of May 15, more than a month after the data storage chip maker disclosed a security breach. Western Digital said it is progressing through the restoration process and majority of the impacted systems and services were operational. The “unauthorized party” obtained customer […]

By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) -King Charles greeted excited crowds gathering for his coronation before hosting a reception for world leaders at Buckingham Palace on Friday ahead of what will be the biggest ceremonial event in Britain for 70 years. Charles, 74, and his wife Camilla will be crowned at London’s Westminster Abbey in a glittering but solemn religious ceremony with traditions dating back some 1,000 years, followed by a […]

By Sinéad Carew and Naomi Rovnick NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – A global gauge of stocks rallied and U.S. Treasuries and gold sold off on Friday as strong U.S. jobs data brightened the economic outlook and traders pared expectations of Federal Reserve easing after a long spate of rate hikes. The non-farms payroll report showed U.S. employers added 253,000 new jobs in April, up from 165,000 in March and exceeding expectations […]

By Howard Schneider WASHINGTON (Reuters) – St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said on Friday he was ready to keep an “open mind” about whether to raise rates or hold them steady at the Fed’s June meeting, joining the “data dependent” stance of his colleagues after a year of urging them on to consecutive rate increases. Bullard said he felt the benchmark policy rate will ultimately need to “grind […]