News when you want it with Bloomberg News Now, I'm Amy Morris. Trump administration officials are exploring opening an anti trust investigation into US homebuilders to tackle the country's housing affordability crisis. Bloomberg Real Estate reporter pack Clark says the administration's interest in homebuilders comes as the cost of buying a home is at its most expensive in decades, with the industry facing high levels of unsold homes.
All this goes back to October, when the President put out on a social media post that homebuilders are I mean. He likened them to OPEC and complained that builders are sitting on more lots than ever.
Bloomberg Real Estate reporter pack Clark tells Bloomberg Business Week Daily the Department of Justice could open the probe in the coming weeks. Homebuilders shares are about one percent lower, and The Wall Street Journal reports the Justice Department is investigating whether Netflix has engaged in anti competitive tactics as it probes the streaming giants proposed acquisition of Warner Brothers,
Discovery Studios, and HBO Max streaming service. A racist post on President Trump's social media account depicting former President Obama and his wife Michelle Obama as Primates in a Jungle has been taken down. The White House initially defended the post, accusing critics of false outrage, but that post was deleted after widespread backlash. Black and white Republicans joined civil rights
advocates in criticizing the post as racist. The Dow has surged eleven hundred points topping fifty thousand for the first time, as the stock market stormed back to recover much of its losses from earlier this week. We do check markets for you all day long here at Bloomberg. The S and P five hundred up one point eight percent, Nasdaq up one point nine percent, the Dow up two and a quarter percent, the ten year treasury yield at four point two percent, the two year yield at three point
four to nine percent. Bitcoin more than twelve percent higher, reclaiming almost all of yesterday's losses, now up to seventy thousand dollars. Amazon shares down more than seven percent after it's much higher than expected two hundred billion dollars annual capital spending forecast underline concerns on how much big tech companies are spending on AI related investments. Black Rock CIO
of global fixed income. Rick Reader says AI is having an impact on markets and is the way for companies to protect themselves.
You hear the discussion about capex and the capax was too high, and you know, I would argue, there's some other things that play there. Cap X is your moat. CAPEX and R and d SPAN are the way companies can build their moat. And it's actually data utilization and the companies that are exploiting data effectively that are building bigger moats. That is at the core of what is happening.
Reader was on Bloomberg Open Interest, JP, Morgan Chase, Goldman, Sachs, and Bank of America all boosting their bonus pools for bankers and traders by at least ten percent. The payouts reflect a strong year for the nation's largest banks, collectively posting their largest annual profit since twenty twenty one. Consumer sentiment in the US has improved to its highest level in six months. The University of Michigan survey shows a bump to fifty seven point three. That's up from fifty
six point four. Survey director Joanne Chu tells Bloomberg that's really not a lot.
So this improvement is very very small.
It's less than one index point.
It's well within the.
Margin of error that should be interpreted as a no change.
Concerns persist about the job market and the impact of inflation on personal finances. Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostik says it's important to keep interest rates at a level that returns inflation to two percent.
Once inflation gets entrantion people's minds, it changes how the economy evolves, and it's one of the reasons why I think that we need to keep our policy in a restrictive posture so that we get inflation back to two percent. That's paramount.
Bostik, who is to step down from his role at the end of this month, spoke to Bloomberg TV's Mike McKee in an exclusive interview. Federal Reserve Vice Chair Philip Jefferson says he's cautiously optimistic about the outlook for the economy.
I expect the disinflationary process to resume this year once increaseds passed through more fully to prices. In addition, projected strong productivity growth may be a source of further help in bringing inflation down to our two percent targets.
Jefferson told an event in Washington that with the FED strongly committed to returning inflation to its target, the risk of a one time shift leading to sustained inflation is low. President Trump is reportedly expected to sign an executive order today that will quadruple the amount of Argentine beef purchased by the US. CBS quotes an unnamed senior administration official who says the plan will lower beef costs for consumers. The deal would allow Argentina to export one hundred thousand
tons of beef to the US. Iran says it has agreed with the US to continue indirect talks to de escalate tensions. Iran's foreign minister says discussions were limited to nuclear issues. US officials say they should include Iran's missiles and tehran support for regional militias. Tehran described the first day of those times positive. Attorney General Pam Bondi says a suspect in the September twenty twelve terrorist attack on US diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya has been arrested and
is now in US custody. FBI Director Cash Patel.
Our Special Flight Operations Unit, and countless others, along with the agents in the New York Field Office who never forgot Benghazi and never let the world forget it, endured over a decade to bring yet another terrorist who killed four Americans to justice.
Hottel says foreign partners aided in the arrest, but he did not give any more details. Savannah Guthrie's brother has renewed the family's plea for their mother's kidnapper to contact them, saying that they want to hear from her and they need proof she's alive. Authorities have not identified any suspects or persons of interest in the kidnapping of eighty four year old Nancy Guthrie. The FBI is offering up to fifty thousand dollars for information. That's news when you want
it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Amy Morris, and this is Bloomberg