Economy

Fed vs. inflation
Fed Chair Waller opens door to rate cut later this year

Federal Reserve member Christopher Waller continues to keep the door open for a rate cut later this year. A temporary boost in inflation driven by tariffs is expected to pass quickly enough, not least if tariffs are lowered, he tells the Wall Street Journal.

According to Waller, new trade barriers will likely push up prices in the short term, but the rise is not expected to be as stubborn as during the pandemic. This is mainly because the labor market and government stimulus are no longer pushing the economy “to its limits”.

A rate cut could therefore happen later this year, “not because the economy is weakening, but because inflation will be under control”, he says. 

Swedish growth
Double bids – bankruptcies are up and down

Will there be more or fewer bankruptcies in May?

According to new figures from credit information company UC, corporate bankruptcies decreased by 2 percent compared to the same period last year. In a press release, UC writes that this is a “cautious break in trend”, but that the future prospects for bankruptcies in Sweden are still characterized by uncertainty.

Figures from Creditsafe, however, show that bankruptcies increased by 3 percent in May compared to last year.

– The bankruptcy trend for May is in line with our expectations. But unfortunately, we still do not see the turnaround that is needed to get the economy going, says Henrik Jacobsson, CEO of Creditsafe, in a press release.

Savings profile after the gamble: “Close to crying”

Stock market profile John Skogman has lost about 200,000 on his “substantial bet” that the Fortnox bid would be successful, he tells Dagens Industri. Despite this, the day trader feels satisfied, because he thought the decline in the stock would be greater and says that it is getting “off the cheap”.

Skogman says he was close to tears when he read yesterday's news that major shareholder AMF had rejected the bid from EQT and Olof Hallrup. During the day, more major shareholders have said no to buying the company off the stock exchange.

– It felt like the share was going to fall much, much more than it did. I have sold out about 90 percent of my holding at 84.50 so I am very happy that I came out of this trade so unscathed, he tells the channel.

The bid level was 90 kronor per share. Since the share was trading at a few kronor below the bid level, Skogman was betting big on the bid going through, but now there is a lot of evidence that it will fall. All it takes is 10 percent of the shareholders to say no for the bid to fall.

At 12 o'clock, Fortnox shares are trading down 2.5 percent on the stock exchange.

Research: Gold is leaking to the Earth's surface – from the core

Gold and other materials have been leaking from the Earth's core to the surface, international media reports, citing new research in the prestigious journal Nature.

Geochemists have measured isotopes of ruthenium and tungsten in lava from volcanoes in Hawaii and in ancient rocks from Greenland, which made it possible to detect the leakage.

“When the first results came in, we realized that we had literally found gold! Our data confirmed that material from the core, including gold and other precious metals, is leaking into the Earth's mantle above,” says researcher Nils Messling in a press release.

More than 99.999 percent of the Earth's reserves of gold and other precious metals lie buried under 3,000 kilometers of solid rock. In total, up to one billion tons may have reached the surface, according to calculations from the Finnish business newspaper Kauppalehti.