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U.S President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s termination “cannot come fast enough”, while calling for the U.S. central bank to cut interest rates. Trump, in a post on his social media platform Truth Social, reiterated his stance on rate cuts, saying that Powell “should have lowered interest rates, like the (European Central Bank), long ago, but he should certainly lower them now.” The Fed’s benchmark interest rate is currently 4.25%-4.50%, where it has been since December following several rate cuts late last year. Trump’s comments come a day after Powell said at an event at the Economic Club of Chicago that the Fed’s “independence is very widely understood and supported in Washington and in Congress where it really matters.” Trump in his post said Powell was “always too late and wrong”, and critiqued the speech Powell made on Wednesday, calling it “another, and typical, complete mess!” Powell, who on Wednesday spoke for the first time since Trump paused some tariffs, also characterized the ongoing market volatility of recent weeks as a logical processing of the Trump administration’s dramatic shifts in trade policy not a sign of stress that warranted a Fed response. Powell warned Trump’s tariff policies risked pushing inflation and employment further from the central bank’s goals and said the Fed was “well positioned to wait for greater clarity”. Angela Christy and Gursimran Kaur, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
Yesterday, Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: HTZ) became one of the best-performing automotive-related stocks of the year after the car rental companys stock surged more than 56% in a single trading session. Today, the stock is up again by a double-digit percentage in premarket trading at the time of this writing. But why? Heres what you need to know. HTZ shares surged 56.44% yesterday Yesterday, Hertz had one of its best single-gain days in a long time. The companys stock price surged 56.44% in a single session after it was revealed that billionaire investor Bill Ackmans hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, took a sizable stake in the rental car company. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Pershing Square Capital Management announced in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on Wednesday that it had acquired 12.7 million HTZ shares, representing about 4.1% of the companys total stock. Once the news went public, HTZ shares surged, rising by a total of $2.06 for the day to end at $5.71a rise of 56.44%. Pershing Square Capital Management often takes activist positions in companies whose stock they purchase. The hedge funds foray into HTZ shares seems to be signaling to some investors that Ackmans firm may attempt to influence the direction of Hertzwhich some obviously see as a good sign considering the that challenges the car rental company has faced in recent years. Fast Company reached out to Pershing Square and Hertz for comment and will update this post if we hear back. Hertz woes As noted by the Wall Street Journal, Hertz was one of the original meme stocks to emerge around the time of the pandemic. The company filed for bankruptcy after the pandemic hitunderstandable considering that travel was screeching to a halt, which meant that both consumers and business people had less need to rent a car. In 2021, amidst its recovery push, Hertz staged an uplist initial public offeringmoving from an over-the-counter (OTC) market to the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Around the same time, Hertz decided to go all-in on the electric vehicle boom sweeping the nation, and it placed an order for 100,000 Teslas in an attempt to remake its image from that of a gas-guzzling car rental company to a modern, environmentally friendly tech-adjacent one. Unfortunately for Hertz, renters didnt take as well to the idea of EVs as the company had anticipated. One of the big drawbacks in renters’ minds was the uncertainty of whether they could find a charging station along their route. This led to fears that they may run out of power while heading to their destination. By 2024, Hetz was actively selling its fleet of electric vehicles, taking a depreciation hit on each car sold. Hertzs failed EV gamble led to the companys stock being downgraded shortly after. However, earlier this year, Hertz got an unexpected boost from what many would consider an unlikely sourcePresident Donald Trumps tariffs. In late March, the companys stock price surged 20% in a single day. The reasoning behind this surge was that if car prices were about to jump due to Trumps tariffs, the rental cars Hertz sells after use would likely become more appealing to buyers, who may now be seeking out used cars to purchase instead of new ones. But 2025 hasnt been all smooth sailing for Hertz either. Just a day before Pershing Square Capital Management announced its stake in Hertz, the car rental company announced that hackers may have stolen some of its customers’ social security numbers and credit card details. Still, investors have now seemed to have happily shrugged off that latest bit of bad news after learning Bill Ackmans hedge fund has taken a large stake in the company. HTZ shares up again in premarket today As of the time of this writing, HTZ shares are up another 10% in premarket trading this morninga healthy gain in addition to the companys massive surge yesterday. Currently, shares are sitting around $6.31 each. Year-to-date, HTZ shares have climbed 56% since yesterdays close. However, despite their recent surge, Hertz stock has been hammered pretty badly over the past several years. As of yesterdays close, Hertz stock was still down 13% over the past 12 months. And over the past five years, the companys stock price has fallen by over 74%, based on yesterdays close.
Category:
E-Commerce
A federal judge says some nonprofits awarded billions for a so-called green bank to finance clean energy and climate-friendly projects cannot have their contracts scrapped and must have access to some of the frozen money. The ruling is a defeat for President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, which argues the program is rife with financial mismanagement.The order late Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan “gives us a chance to breathe after the EPA unlawfully and without due process terminated our awards and blocked access to funds that were appropriated by Congress and legally obligated,” said Climate United CEO Beth Bafford.The lawsuit by Climate United Fund and other groups contends that the EPA, Administrator Lee Zeldin and Citibank, which held the grant money, illegally blocked the funds awarded last year and had jeopardized the organizations’ operations.Chutkan said Citibank must provide the money that was due to the nonprofits before the EPA had frozen their accounts in mid-February. The EPA immediately appealed.The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, commonly referred to as a “green bank,” was authorized by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under Democratic President Joe Biden. Its goals run counter to the Trump administration’s opposition to climate-friendly policies and its embrace of fossil fuels. Zeldin quickly made the bank a target, characterizing the $20 billion in grants as a “gold bar” scheme marred by conflicts of interest and potential fraud.A federal prosecutor resigned after being asked to open a criminal investigation, saying there was not enough evidence to move ahead. The FBI and Treasury Department, in coordination with the EPA, pressured Citibank to freeze the grants, which it did, according to the nonprofits.Last month, Zeldin announced the termination of the grants, saying “well documented incidents of misconduct, conflicts of interest, and potential fraud raise significant concerns and pose unacceptable risk.”Chutkan paused that move, saying the government provided no significant evidence of wrongdoing. But the Republican administration, in a recent filing, asserted it was allowed to end the contracts based on oversight concerns and shifting priorities.“EPA’s new admission that it ‘did not terminate for Plaintiffs’ noncompliance’ confirms that EPA’s invocation of ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ was arbitrary and pretextual” the nonprofits said in a court filing.Molly Vaseliou, the EPA’s associate administrator for public affairs, contended that the court lacked the power to reinstate the money. She did not provide any new evidence and repeated unsubstantiated allegations of program abuse and conflicts of interest.“We couldn’t be more confident in the merits of our appeal,” she said in a statement.The government has told the court the case is “just a run-of-the-mill (albeit large) contract dispute.”That argument is important because it could move the case to a different court that can only award a lump sum and not force the government to keep the grants in place. The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment Michael Phillis, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
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