Karen Maley

The big question is whether the Fed can cut interest rates at all this year given the stubbornness of US inflation.

It’s rare for central banks to be able to pull off a “soft landing”, and even rarer for them to do so when official rates are below nominal economic growth.

Jerome Powell’s “higher for longer” message has worsened the sell-off in US bond markets, deepening the pain for investors who placed big bets that 2024 would see interest rate cuts.

Chinese industrial firms are facing intense downward pressure on their profit margins as they lack pricing power both in their domestic and export markets.

The billionaire is dealing with falling earnings at his EV-maker Tesla, a fight over his multi-billion pay packet and a stoush with the Australian government.

Perhaps investors are finally losing patience with the hundreds of billions of dollars being ploughed into artificial intelligence as the world’s leading tech companies vie for supremacy.

Investors’ hopes of rate cuts are waning as problems in the US housing market look set to keep house price and rental inflation bubbling along.

Investors are becoming increasingly alarmed as the buoyant US economy and high US interest rates risk triggering renewed instability throughout the Asian region.

If the Fed concludes overnight that US inflation is stuck at around 3 per cent, it’s unlikely to cut rates at all this year and that will weigh on asset prices, including shares.

Lingering inflation has caused hopes for US interest rate cuts to wither. And that means the US central bank risks becoming dragged into a divisive US presidential campaign.