EconReporter Notes

Federal Reserve decided to cut rate by an supersized 0.5 percentage point. The decision finally ended the weeks-long market debate of whether the central bank would cut 25 or 50 basis points. One important thing, though, didn't reach the headline: The Fed has never been this "confused" about where the natural rate should be.

The vacancy-to-unemployed ratio currently stands at 0.91 — meaning there are fewer open jobs than unemployed workers. At the peak of post-COVID labor market tightness, that ratio exceeded 2. This structural difference is the strongest argument the Fed has for looking through the Iran War energy shock.

The US government on April 22 received USD 11.7 billion from customer duties in a single day, the first time we can observe a substantial increase in import duties revenue resulted from the new of tariff from the second Trump administration.

US trade deficit continues to widen in December after hitting recent year low in October. The total import was USD 70.3 billion higher than export in the last month of 2025, according to the US Census Bureau. 

Inflation projections by Fed officials show that PCE inflation will not reach 2% by the end of 2025. Why the Fed expects to cut rate next year then?

One of the leading indicators Bank of England (BoE) uses to predict the future direction of goods inflation is the manufacturing producer price index (PPI) growth rate. The close relation, however, has broken down in the past year.

The Bank of Canada on Wednesday held its policy interest rate unchanged at 2.25%, which is exactly what the market expected. The focus is now on the central bank's assessment of the Iran War's impact on the economy.