Watch Friday's full episode of the Halftime Report — June 20, 2025
"Fast Money Halftime Report" is on the front lines of CNBC's market coverage. Host CNBC's Scott Wapner and the Street's top investors get to the heart of the action as it's happening and help set the agenda for the rest of the day. Watch today's full episode on CNBC PRO.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Fed Daly eyes fall for possible policy shift
-- San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly voiced a cautiously optimistic outlook for monetary policy and economic conditions in a wide-ranging interview on CNBC, citing signs of balanced progress on both inflation and employment. While acknowledging the potential inflationary effects from tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty, Daly affirmed that 'the economy remains in a good place, and policies in a good place.' The May inflation report offered encouragement, according to Daly, particularly in the housing and services sectors, where price moderation has continued. 'The May data just confirmed an ongoing pattern… we saw inflation continue to come down,' she said, calling the developments 'great news, both for our inflation mandate, but also for American families.' Daly outlined three scenarios for how inflation might evolve during the summer, ranging from a delayed spike to muted pass-through effects due to corporate mitigation strategies. 'We're just going to have to wait and see and collect more information,' she noted, adding that feedback from national businesses showed 'a little more optimism, cautious optimism.' Asked about the likelihood of a rate cut in July, Daly signaled a preference for a more patient approach, saying, 'For me, I look more to the fall, and by then we'll have quite a bit more information.' She emphasized that unless the labor market saw meaningful and persistent weakening, immediate easing would be unlikely. On labor availability, Daly said wage growth has remained consistent with long-run economic fundamentals, and firms report improving conditions for hiring. 'Right now, we haven't seen a broad impact… firms are telling me that they have an easier time finding workers today than they did just last year.' Artificial intelligence, another emerging economic variable, has yet to disrupt job markets in a material way, according to Daly's discussions with business leaders. 'They repeat to us that this is not a way to reduce their payrolls as much as… to augment their payrolls,' she said, noting that employers are using AI to increase productivity rather than cut staff. Daly was measured in her assessment of using tariffs as a rationale for policy shifts, saying, 'I never trust just the theory. There's really three things you have to look at: the theory helps us, history also helps us, and then you have to talk to people.' While confident in current policy settings, Daly warned against complacency amid labor market softening, saying, 'If you ask me where we are in the labor market, I would say we're at a point where additional softening could easily turn into weakening, which I don't want to see.' She cautioned against policy inaction based on inflation fears that may never materialize. Related articles Fed Daly eyes fall for possible policy shift Fed keeps rates steady, but sees fewer cuts next year on stagflation concerns WATCH LIVE: Fed Chair Jerome Powell Holds Press Conference Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Fed governor breaks ranks with Powell, signals rate cuts could begin next month
The Federal Reserve has held off on cutting interest rates in 2025 to date, although one member of the board of governors is signaling that could change as early as next month. Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said in a Friday interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box" that he believes the central bank is in a position to start lowering rates starting next month. "I think we're in a position that we could do this as early as July," Waller told the outlet. "That would be my view, whether the committee would go along with it or not." Waller's remarks come after the Fed on Wednesday announced it would hold its benchmark interest rate steady at a range of 4.25% to 4.5% for the fourth consecutive meeting. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank is monitoring inflation data and the labor market amid the uncertainty created by the Trump administration's tariff policies. Federal Reserve Leaves Key Interest Rate Unchanged For Fourth Straight Meeting Powell explained that the Fed's "current stance of monetary policy leaves us well positioned to respond in a timely way to potential economic developments." Read On The Fox Business App He added that the labor market is "at or near maximum employment" while persistent inflation remains "somewhat above our 2% longer-run objective." Waller's view is that the central bank shouldn't wait for a deterioration in the labor market to take action, arguing that, "If you're starting to worry about the downside risk [to the] labor market, move now, don't wait. Why do we want to wait until we actually see a crash before we start cutting rates?" Nearly One-third Of $36T National Debt Needs Refinancing As Trump Demands Rate Cuts "So I'm all in favor of saying maybe we should start thinking about cutting the policy rate at the next meeting, because we don't want to wait till the job market tanks before we start cutting the policy rate," Waller told CNBC, adding that the Fed should "start slow" in lowering interest rates "just to make sure that there's no big surprises." "We've been on pause for six months to wait and see, and so far, the data has been fine," Waller said. "I don't think we need to wait much longer, because even if the tariffs come in later, the impacts are still the same. It should be a one-off level effect and not cause persistent inflation." Trump Urges Fed's Powell To Cut Interest Rates By Full Percentage Point: 'Rocket Fuel!' President Donald Trump has been a vocal critic of the Fed's reluctance to cut interest rates in the face of economic uncertainty that stems in large part from tariffs and trade policy. Trump has also lambasted Fed Chair Powell, calling him a "stupid person" and "numskull" in recent weeks as he lobbies for interest rate cuts. Following Waller's comments, the odds of a rate cut at the Fed's next meeting in July ticked slightly higher but remained a relative long shot, rising from 12.5% to 14.5%, according to the CME FedWatch tool, which tracks the probability of rate moves. The tool showed that the market sees the subsequent meeting in September as a more likely time for the next rate cut, with a 61.8% chance of a 25-basis point cut at that article source: Fed governor breaks ranks with Powell, signals rate cuts could begin next month
CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
AI avatars in China just proved they are ace influencers. It only took a duo 7 hours to rake in more than $7 million
Key Points A Chinese entrepreneur raked in $7.65 million after streaming using an interactive digital avatar. That was more than what he earned from his previous livestream, which he hosted personally. "This is a DeepSeek moment for China's entire livestreaming and digital human industry," an analyst said. Chinese influencer Luo Yonghao and co-host Xiao Mu tried out livestreaming on Sunday, June 15, 2025, using interactive digital avatars based on Baidu's generative artificial intelligence model. Screenshot BEIJING — Avatars generated by artificial intelligence are now able to sell more than real people can, according to a collaboration between Chinese tech company Baidu and a popular livestreamer. Luo Yonghao, one of China's earliest and most popular livestreamers, and his co-host Xiao Mu both used digital versions of themselves to interact with viewers in real time for well over six hours on Sunday on Baidu's e-commerce livestreaming platform "Youxuan", the Chinese tech company said. The session raked in 55 million yuan ($7.65 million). In comparison, Luo's first livestream attempt on Youxuan last month, which lasted just over four hours, saw fewer orders for consumer electronics, food and other key products, Baidu said. Luo said that it was his first time using virtual human technology to sell products through livestreaming. "The digital human effect has scared me ... I'm a bit dazed," he told his 1.7 million followers on social media platform Weibo, according to a CNBC translation. Luo started livestreaming in April 2020 on ByteDance's short video app Douyin, in an attempt to pay off debts racked up by his struggling smartphone company Smartisan. His "Be Friends" Douyin livestream account has nearly 24.7 million followers. Luo's and his co-host's avatars were built using Baidu's generative AI model, which learned from five years' worth of videos to mimic their jokes and style, Wu Jialu, head of research at Luo's other company, Be Friends Holding, told CNBC on Wednesday. VIDEO07:49 AI & future of workforce: Andrew Yang on how the technology will impact jobs "This is a DeepSeek moment for China's entire livestreaming and digital human industry," Wu said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. DeepSeek, China's version of OpenAI, rattled global investors in January with its claims of rivaling ChatGPT at far lower costs and using an open-source approach. AI avatars can sharply reduce costs since companies don't need to hire a large production team or a studio to livestream. The digital avatars can also stream nonstop without needing breaks. "We have always been skeptical about digital people livestreaming," Wu said, noting the company had tried out various kinds of digital humans over the years. But he said that Baidu now offers the best digital human product currently available, compared to the early days of livestreaming e-commerce five or six years ago. A growing industry Livestream shopping took off in China after the pandemic forced businesses to find alternative sales channels. More people are turning to livestreaming to earn money from commissions and virtual gifts amid slower economic growth. Livestreaming generated so many sales on Douyin last year that the app surpassed traditional e-commerce company to become China's second-largest e-commerce platform — and ate into the market share of lead player Alibaba, according to a report from Worldpanel and Bain & Company last week. Both and Alibaba's Taobao also offer livestreaming sales portals. Meanwhile, other Chinese companies, including tech giant Tencent, have developed tools to create digital people that can be used as news anchors. In late 2023, several businesses started trying out virtual human livestreamers during the Singles Day shopping holiday. But analysts have cautioned that products sold via livestreams tend to have a high return rate as they are often impulse purchases. The biggest challenge for using virtual humans to livestream is no longer the technology, but compliance and platform requirements, Wu said. Digital humans need to be trained to adhere to regulations about product advertising, while major livestreaming platforms may have different rules about allowing virtual people to host the sessions, he said. Weekly analysis and insights from Asia's largest economy in your inbox Subscribe now For example, Douyin has rolled out restrictions on using the technology, especially if the virtual people do not interact with viewers. While Luo's next virtual human appearance hasn't been set yet, Wu said he expects it will be very soon. And in the future, he said, digital humans could easily livestream in multiple languages to reach users outside China.
