Below expectations

US hiring rose in August but fell short of forecasts after downward revisions to the prior two months, a development likely to fuel ongoing debate over how much—and not whether—the Federal Reserve should cut interest rates. Nonfarm payrolls increased by only 142,000 last month, leaving the three-month average at the lowest since mid-2020, Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed Friday. The unemployment rate fell to 4.2%, the first decline in five months, reflecting a reversal in recent layoffs.

In remarks after the release of the jobs numbers, Fed Governor Christopher Waller said the latest batch of data “requires action,” adding he would advocate for “front-loading rate cuts if that is appropriate.” Sonu Varghese, a global macro strategist at Carson Group, offered that “the labor market is clearly softening, and the Fed needs to step in to cut off tail risks. The report seals the deal for a September rate cut, but the big question really is whether the Fed goes big.” —David E. Rovella

Stocks saw their worst week since March 2023 as investors continue to panic that the Fed’s effort to cool the economy has lasted too long, and that job growth will fall beyond what the central bank is shooting for. The S&P 500 dropped 1.7% and the Nasdaq 100 slumped 2.7% as data showed US payroll additions were 23,000 short of forecasts in August. Treasury two-year yields slipped as much as 15 basis points before paring the move. Here’s your markets wrap.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing achieved production yields at its Arizona facility on par with established plants back home, an early indicator that its marquee US project is on track to achieve its targets. The Taiwanese chipmaker’s yield rate in trial production at its first advanced US plant is said to be similar to comparable facilities in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan. TSMC had said it started engineering wafer production in April with advanced 4-nanometer process technology.

Top aides to President Joe Biden are said to have been crafting a proposal to create an American sovereign wealth fund that would allow the US to invest in national security interests including technology, energy and critical links in the supply chain. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Daleep Singh, have been working on the project for months and have met with economic experts on the National Security Council to debate the size, structure, funding, leadership and potential guardrails for a proposed fund.

China should explain widening discrepancies in its balance of payments (BoP) data that are obscuring growing global imbalances, a top US economist said. The country’s surplus in goods trade shown in the BoP data—compiled by its State Administration of Foreign Exchange—has significantly undershot that reported by customs data since 2022, according to Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former US trade and Treasury official. “These are enormous gaps that call into question some of the adjustments that China is making to that data,” Setser said on the sidelines of the Bund Summit in Shanghai. The gap is contentious as countries seek to gauge the true size of China’s trade surplus. Many accuse Beijing of unfairly subsidizing exports to drive growth. The US Treasury in June called for clarifications from Beijing on the difference.

OnlyFans paid owner Leonid Radvinsky $472 million in dividends last fiscal year, bringing his takings from the site to more than $1 billion in three years. Radvinsky made $338 million in 2022 and $284 million the year before that, according to UK financial filings. The 42-year-old US citizen is the sole owner of OnlyFans’ holding company, Fenix International. The London-based company, which skyrocketed in popularity during Covid-19 lockdowns and has a reputation for hosting pornographic and adult content forbidden on most other social networks, has been building up its stable of comedians, chefs, personal trainers and other types of creators to widen its user base.

It’s official: There are unlikely to be any major developments in the felony prosecutions of Donald Trump before the November election. Trump was convicted earlier this year in New York state court for trying to manipulate the 2016 presidential election campaign by way of a porn star-payoff and accounting fraud, and faces up to four years in prison. The judge today pushed back sentencing “in the interests of justice.” Though seen by many as a victory for Trump, a sentencing before the election could arguably have energized his supporters and donors in the same way the guilty verdict did. Officially a convicted felon, a first for a former US president (as were his four indictments and two impeachments), Trump still faces the possibility that a federal appeals court revives his prosecution for mishandling America’s top military secrets. The case was thrown out by US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, in the last of a series of unorthodox rulings by her in his favor. Then there are the Republican’s prosecutions over his alleged attempt to subvert American democracy by preventing President Joe Biden from taking office. A state case (in Georgia) is held up over an effort to remove the prosecutor, and the federal case—long delayed and subsequently watered down by the US Supreme Court—is just now resuming proceedings. If elected, Trump is widely expected to order the Justice Department to drop the federal cases.

In the later stages of the Cold War, US President Ronald Reagan appropriated a Russian saying, “Trust, but verify,” in reference to negotiating arms control with Moscow, Marc Champion writes in Bloomberg Opinion. Those days now seem stable, cordial even, compared with our present moment. The safety net of treaties from that era has unraveled, a war is raging in Ukraine, and Russian officials say they’re about to produce a revised doctrine on nuclear weapons use—in essence, a new nuclear threat. Once that appears, Champion suggests adapting the above approach to “distrust, and be vigilant.”

Your social media feeds this past summer were likely filled with images of Barcelona’s cobblestoned streets, Mallorca’s beaches and Venice’s bridges. But there’s one destination that soared in popularity among North American travelers—and managed to stay under the radar. The Azores, an archipelago of nine volcanic and densely forested islands 850 miles west of mainland Portugal, experienced a 203% year-over-year increase in flights from North America in July 2024. Here’s why.

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