To The Moon

For Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, deciding when to cut interest rates is hard enough: Too soon, and inflation could rise again. Too late, and unemployment might shoot higher.The challenge is doubly difficult this year because he is doing it in the glare of election-year politics.Allies of former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, have already argued that the central bank is seeking to help President Biden by signaling that cuts are coming.Meanwhile, some Democrats inside and outside the West Wing are nervous that the current president's re-election prospects will be jeopardized by a central bank that keeps rates too high for too long after both the Fed and the administration misjudged inflation.In a letter Tuesday, Sen. Sherrod Brown , who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and is up for re-election this fall, urged Powell to lower interest rates soon in an effort to make housing more affordable. "Restrictive monetary policy is no longer the right tool

TOKYO -Toyota Motor reported a more than doubling of second-quarter profit on Wednesday, helped by a weak yen and strong sales, and raised its full-year forecast by 50%.The world's top-selling automaker said operating profit for the three months to the end of September rose 155.6% from a year earlier to 1.44 trillion yen .The Japanese automaker said it sold more cars in all global regions, including the United States, Asia and its home market, over the six months to end-September compared to the same period a year earlier.Toyota lifted its full-year profit forecast to 4.5 trillion yen from 3 trillion yen, largely due to favourable effects from foreign exchange rates. It expects the weaker yen to account for 1.18 trillion yen of the revision to the full-year profit.Toyota unveiled in June a sweeping revamp of its battery-powered vehicle strategy and committed to technologies to improve the driving range and cut costs of electric vehicles.It also faces a battle in Southeast Asian market