Weekend Macro Roundup: The Federal Reserve boldly kicks off rate cuts with 50 basis points, Trump suspected of another attempted assassination

PANews reported on September 21 that several noteworthy macro events occurred this week, as follows:

1. The Federal Reserve boldly initiated a rate cut cycle with a 50 basis point reduction, marking the first U.S. interest rate cut since March 2020. Dot plot projections indicate another 50 basis point cut by the Fed this year and an additional 100 basis points next year. Board member Bowman voted in favor of a 25 basis point reduction. JPMorgan correctly predicted the Fed's 50-basis-point cut this week, with its chief U.S economist Michael Feroli maintaining that there will be another similar decrease in November depending on upcoming employment report results. Goldman Sachs believes that due to unemployment rates and PCE forecasts being very close to current levels, it is likely for further cuts from the Fed; they predict an additional decrease of up to 75 basis points within this year.

2. Trump was suspected of facing another assassination attempt when gunfire broke out near his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15th local time. Law enforcement sources stated that agents found a man carrying an AK-47 rifle near Trump's golf course and exchanged fire with him at least four times; however, it remains unclear whether the suspect fired any shots himself. In response to social media users asking "Why are they trying to assassinate Trump?" Elon Musk commented on platform X saying no one has tried to assassinate Biden or Harris along with a thinking emoji attached . Vice President Harris expressed her deep concern about today’s possible assassination attempt against Trump.

3.The number of initial jobless claims in America reached approximately 219 thousand people during the week ending September14th , which was less than expected (230 thousand) after revising last period's figure (231 thousand).

4.Trump used BTC for cryptocurrency transactions for the first time when he bought cheeseburger using Bitcoin at PubKey Bar in New York City. This is considered his first Bitcoin transaction, which Trump called a "historic moment". The official X account of PubKey Bar announced this news and mentioned that the transaction occurred at block height 861871. Afterwards, Trump distributed burgers to bar customers, calling them "crypto burgers". Earlier this week, Trump helped launch World Liberty Financial - a decentralized finance project that has been in development by his family members.