SECURITY: Waltz Will "Drive Peace Home" At Meeting With Ukrainians Next Week
Mar-07 17:45
White House National Security Advisor Mike Waltz has joined President Donald Trump at the Oval Office to speak on Ukraine-Russia ceasefire talks. LIVESTREAM
- Trump repeats that Ukraine "doesn't have the cards" says he's "finding it easier to deal with Russia." Trump confirms that US and Ukrainian officials will meet in Saudi Arabia "sometime next week" but manages expectations that a deal can be struck with Kyiv. Trump: "We're trying to help [Ukraine] and they need to get on the ball and get the job done."
- Waltz says: "The fighting needs to stop. Both sides need to get to the table." Says: "We had good engagements," with Ukraine and Russia and claims Ukraine had a "great opportunity" to "bind its economy to the US" through the mineral sharing agreement. He says that although the mineral deal "didn't go so well" he thinks it will get "back on track."
- Waltz says the meeting with Ukrainian officials will happen "in Saudi Arabia next week" and talks are aimed at getting "a ceasefire in place and drive peace home".
- Trump says he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to get the war "ended" but expresses less confidence Ukraine wants the same. Says, "I don't quite get it." Later adds: "If they don't want to settle we're outta there."
- Trump says "there are interesting days ahead" regarding Iran: "We're down to the final moments. We can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon... Something is going to happen very soon with Iran... Hopefully we can have a peace deal... I'd rather see a peace deal that the other, but the other would solve the problem."
Want to read more?
Find more articles and bullets on these widgets:
Historical bullets
US OUTLOOK/OPINION: Risk Of Downward Seasonal Revisions For Payrolls
Feb-05 17:44
There are two seasonal considerations to be made with the upcoming payrolls report for January.
- January has a particularly pronounced seasonal pattern with large layoffs following the festive period.
- There were average job losses approaching 3.0 million in each January through 2017-17 whilst it’s been closer to 2.7 million through 2021-24. A reluctance to fire staff amidst historically tight labor market conditions saw just 2.5 million net payroll declines in Jan 2023, driving strong seasonally adjusted payrolls growth, before a more typical 2.8m in Jan 2024.
Conditions are looser this time around but the apparent “low hire low fire” approach to employment should continue to help bolster seasonally adjusted payrolls growth for this month at least.
- Latest data for January aside, we’ll be closely watching the revisions to the seasonal factors over the past five years. As things currently stand, months at the start of the year have been seen less favorable factors than they used to with payback from more favorable factors late in the year.
- The past three months have seen particularly favorable factors: our calculations show that by using the Dec’24 factor rather than Dec’23 factor (for example), it boosted seasonally adjusted nonfarm payrolls growth 56k higher in Dec and almost 100k in each of the Nov and Oct reports.
- Those three months coincided with a much stronger than expected December (256k vs cons 165k), an in-line Nov (194k vs cons 205k) and a sizeable miss for Oct (12k vs cons 100k).
- We don’t know how these factors will be revised but our bias is that risks are skewed to the downside for revisions to recent trends for seasonally adjusted payrolls growth.
FRANCE: Bayrou Govt Survives No Confidence Vote, Clears Path For 2025 Budget
Feb-05 17:41
The government of French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou has survived a 'no confidence' vote, clearing the path for the government to adopt a 2025 budget.
- The vote is in line with expectation, as MNI noted in an earlier bullet: FRANCE: Bayrou Gov't Safe In Today's Votes; Gov't Expects Budget Adopted Mid-Feb
- France24 noted ahead of the vote that although the National Assembly, Socialists, and National Rally declined to back the no-confidence motion, "it is unlikely to be the only challenge to [Bayrou's] shaky administration in the coming months."
- RN leader Jordan Bardella said that although, "it's a bad budget... we need a budget... We need to avoid uncertainty because many of our fellow citizens... are extremely worried about possible long-term instability."
- Socialist leader Olivier Faure said toppling the government over the budget would only have resulted in France having "a prime minister further to the right," adding: "We chose to give France a budget."
- Bloomberg notes: "Bayrou has now largely completed his two most pressing missions: adopting a budget and breaking the unity of the leftist New Popular Front alliance," but, "will still likely struggle to adopt new legislation in the coming months given the fragmented parliament and the diminished power of Macron’s coalition."
LOOK AHEAD: Thursday Data Calendar: Weekly Claims, Unit Labor Cost, Fed Speak
Feb-05 17:39
- US Data/Speaker Calendar (prior, estimate)
- 6-Feb 0730 Challenger Job Cuts YoY (11.4%, --)
- 6-Feb 0830 Initial Jobless Claims (207k, 213k)
- 6-Feb 0830 Continuing Claims (1.858M, 1.870M)
- 6-Feb 0830 Nonfarm Productivity (2.2%, 1.2%)
- 6-Feb 0830 Unit Labor Costs (0.8%, 3.4%)
- 6-Feb 1130 US Tsy $95B 4W & $90B 8W bill auctions
- 6-Feb 1430 Fed Gov Waller fireside chat (no text, Q&A)
- 6-Feb 1710 Dallas Fed Logan, future challenges for Mon-Pol
