NEW YORK (Reuters) -Global equity long/short hedge funds erased their gains for the year on Thursday as stocks plunged after the Trump administration announced sweeping tariffs. The funds showed a 1.7% fall on the day, Goldman Sachs said. As of Thursday, long/short hedge funds were down 1.6% for the year.
President Trump just made the job of the Federal Reserve that much more difficult as he unveiled the steepest tariffs in more than 100 years, taking markets by surprise.
Investment guru Alexander Blume thinks that the U.S. government’s potential purchase of Bitcoin could easily lead to an appreciation in its value by 15-20%.
Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook said on Thursday that the central bank can take its time to assess a highly unsettled environment before moving interest rates again, amid risks inflation could worsen due to tariffs. “Amid growing uncertainty and risks to both sides of our dual mandate, I believe it will be appropriate to maintain the policy rate at its current level while continuing to vigilantly monitor developments that could change the outlook,” Cook said in a speech at the University of Pittsburgh. “For now, we can afford to be patient but attentive" with monetary policy "well positioned" to deal with what lies ahead, she said.
The U.S. Department of Energy said it has identified 16 federal sites, including storied nuclear research laboratories such as Los Alamos, where tech companies could build data centers in a push to accelerate commercial development of artificial intelligence technology. The sites are “uniquely positioned for rapid data center construction, including in-place energy infrastructure with the ability to fast-track permitting for new energy generation such as nuclear,” the agency said in a statement Thursday. The move follows an executive order signed in January by outgoing President Joe Biden that sought to remove hurdles for AI data center expansion in the U.S. while also encouraging those data centers, which require large amounts of electricity, to be powered with renewable energy.
Railroad stocks dropped after President Trump’s announcement Wednesday of tariffs on U.S. trading partners. The post New US tariffs hit railroad stocks in early trading appeared first on FreightWaves.