Luxury furniture retailer RH rose 9.5% and online retailer Wayfair jumped 6.3%. 

Stock for Williams-Sonoma, which sells kitchenware and home decor, increased 5.3%.

President Trump unveiling his tariffs based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act during a press conference in April. The Washington Post via Getty Images

Other American furniture retailers like Ethan Allen and La-Z-Boy rose 1% and 0.4%, respectively.

In a fact sheet shared late Wednesday, the White House said it was keeping tariffs on furniture, kitchen cabinets and vanities at the original 25% rate that Trump set in September.

Rates had been set to rise Thursday, New Year’s Day, to 30% on upholstered furniture and to 50% on kitchen cabinets and vanities.

Economists feared the tariff hikes could result in substantial price increases for customers, since furniture is a particularly tariff-sensitive category – and a large-ticket purchase for many American families.

In November, prices on furniture and bedding were up 3% over the year, according to the Consumer Price Index.

“The United States continues to engage in productive negotiations with trade partners to address trade reciprocity and national security concerns with respect to imports of wood products,” the White House fact sheet stated.

The White House said it was keeping tariffs on furniture, kitchen cabinets and vanities at the original 25% rate that Trump set in September. Paul Martinka

The Trump administration said it was delaying the higher tariffs until Jan. 1, 2027, due to ongoing trade talks, not because it was retreating from its tariff agenda.

It has been awaiting a Supreme Court decision on a vast batch of tariffs implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

If the Supreme Court finds that Trump overstepped his authority and decides overturns the IEEPA tariffs, the US government could be forced to refund as much as $168 billion to businesses, according to a recent analysis cited by CBS News.

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“Tariffs are an overwhelming benefit to our Nation, as they have been incredible for our National Security and Prosperity (like nobody has ever seen before!),” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Friday.

“Losing our ability to Tariff other countries who treat us unfairly would be a terrible blow to the United States of America.”

Trump is reportedly preparing to unleash a fresh wave of tariffs under alternative trade laws if the Supreme Court strikes down the levies.

Shares in Williams-Sonoma, which sells kitchenware and home decor, rose 5.3%. SRP – stock.adobe.com

The White House has continued to defend its use of tariffs as a national security measure to protect US industries – even as affordability concerns are a top concern for voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

The furniture industry saw mixed results last year. Shares in Wayfair surged more than 125% in 2025 as consumers prioritized value and deals.

RH ended the year down more than 50% – with its chief executive going viral for reacting live to the stock tanking.

“Oh s–t,” RH CEO Gary Friedman blurted out during the company’s earnings call in April as the stock plummeted. 

“It got hit when, I think, the tariffs came out,” he said. “Everybody can see in our 10-K where we’re sourcing from, so it’s not a secret, and we’re not trying to disguise it by putting everything in an Asia bucket.”

Williams-Sonoma, which owns West Elm and Pottery Barn, dipped more than 3% last year.

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In the Old Line State, Kalshi has dropped its request for a new injunction following an agreement with state officials to delay action until the Court of Appeals rules on Kalshi’s own appeal. 

This is a challenge to the ruling made earlier this month that denied preliminary injunctive relief against the state’s enforcement of gambling laws against Kalshi.

US District Judge Adam B. Abelson denied Kalshi’s position, in what is a significant defeat for their aims to offer prediction markets nationwide under federal jurisdiction and oversight.

A filing on August 13 in the Maryland District Court notes that Kalshi received written assurances from the Maryland Lottery and Gaming, confirming they will not enforce state gambling laws against Kalshi pending the appeal court’s decision.

The impact of this is that the company will likely stay in business in Maryland until August, at least.

Background on Kalshi

Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated platform that offers event or outcome-based ‘contracts’, typically on sports and political outcomes. The company had argued that the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) pre-empts state gambling laws, granting exclusive regulatory authority to the CFTC. 

However, Maryland, like several other states, issued a cease-and-desist order, claiming Kalshi’s sports event contracts constitute illegal gambling under state law. 

While the platform did not get the outcome it wanted in Maryland, it did in Nevada and New Jersey, where temporary injunctions were awarded.

However, further questions have been asked in Nevada, with the company asked for more detail on its position with a formal discovery process now deemed necessary.

Kalshi had contested that discovery is not needed as the case revolves around interpretations of federal and state law rather than facts. 

Nevada insists on formal discovery process against Kalshi

Pushing back, the Nevada defendants insisted the court needs disclosure of all the facts on Kalshi’s services and operations so it can decide on whether Nevada’s gaming laws are preempted.

It was further claimed that there is no “emergency” that overrides the need for the discovery process, with Kalshi’s claim that discovery would cause “severe harm” being unjustified.

“Kalshi seeks truly extraordinary relief, to prevent Defendants from taking any discovery to challenge its version of the facts,” said the defendants. 

“It has not come close to justifying that relief.

“Essentially, Kalshi wants to rush this litigation through to conclusion without affording Defendants or this Court the opportunity to discover facts about it, all while claiming that the cost of discovery will be so burdensome and harmful to it that it needs a decision within days.”

Nevada defendants are set to formally request that Kalshi disclose all communications with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the federal government regarding the platform’s designation and status, as well as further details relating to Kalshi’s event contracts. 

In Maryland and Nevada, there are significant legal hurdles ahead before Kalshi’s case concludes in those states.

Image credit: Kalshi

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The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected Apple’s request to put the provisions on hold as the tech company appeals the judge’s order, which came in a long-running antitrust lawsuit brought by “Fortnite” maker Epic Games.

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in April found Apple in contempt of an earlier injunction order she issued in the Epic Games case.

A judge rejected Apple’s request to pause key parts of a federal judge’s order requiring the iPhone maker to immediately open its lucrative App Store to more competition. Apple CEo Tim Cook, above. AFP via Getty Images

Apple in a statement said it was “disappointed with the decision not to stay the district court’s order, and we’ll continue to argue our case during the appeals process.”

The judge on April 30 ordered Apple to end several practices that she said were designed to circumvent the injunction, including a new 27% fee Apple imposed on app developers when its customers complete an app purchase outside the App Store.

The court also prohibited Apple from restricting where developers place links to make purchases outside of an app.

Epic Games founder and chief executive Tim Sweeney said in a post on X after the appeals court ruling that the “long national nightmare of the Apple tax is ended.”

In its emergency appeal, Apple said the ruling blocked the company from “exercising control over core aspects of its business operations” and forced it to give free access to its services.

“Fortnite” maker Epic Games has said Apple is trying to continue evading competition and collecting fees the judge had barred. AFP via Getty Images

Epic Games countered that Apple was trying to continue evading competition and collecting fees that the judge had barred.

Apple has faced a “surge of genuine competition” since Gonzalez Rogers issued her April injunction, as developers updated apps with “better payment methods, better deals, and better consumer choice,” Epic said.

Epic Games sued Apple in 2020 to loosen its control over transactions in applications that use its iOS operating system and how apps are distributed to consumers.

Epic Games sued Apple in 2020 to loosen its control over transactions in applications that use its iOS operating system and how apps are distributed to consumers. AP

Apple mostly won the case, but Gonzalez Rogers in 2021 said Apple must allow developers to more easily steer consumers to potentially cheaper non-Apple payment options.

Apple defied that court order to maintain a revenue stream worth billions of dollars, Gonzalez Rogers wrote in April.

She also said Apple had misled the court about its efforts to comply with her injunction and referred the company and one of its executives to federal prosecutors for a possible criminal contempt investigation.

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At the Federal Reserve’s final gathering of 2024, Chair Jerome H. Powell announced that the U.S. central bank was embarking on a “new phase” in how it would set interest rates.

The Fed planned to “move cautiously” with cuts going forward, Mr. Powell told reporters at the time, reflecting officials’ thinking that they could afford to be patient with scant signs of an impending recession and lingering inflationary pressures. On Wednesday, the Fed is set to put that approach into action, pressing pause on further reductions for the first time since they began lowering borrowing costs in September.

The question now looming large over Wall Street and Washington is just how long the Fed will be on hold.

For President Trump, who in his first week in office claimed to have a better understanding of interest rates than officials at the Fed, a pause of any length is likely to be seen as too long. Speaking to attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said that as his economic policies drove down the price of oil, he would “demand that interest rates drop immediately.”

But for policymakers and the economists, investors and former Fed officials who follow their actions closely, the timeline looks very different.

“There is no compelling reason to cut,” said Loretta Mester, who retired as president of the Cleveland Fed in June. “I would want to see convincing evidence that inflation has resumed moving down and right now, I don’t think we have that.”

Officials at the central bank have laid the groundwork for this moment over the course of many months. After delivering a shock-and-awe half-point cut in September — prompted by concerns that the labor market was at risk of weakening too much — the Fed steered through what it described as a “recalibration” phase. It reduced interest rates by a more traditional quarter-point in November and December, reflecting the fact that inflation, while still high, had eased enough for them to feel comfortable lowering borrowing costs further.

Rates are now set in a range of 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent, after recently peaking above 5 percent.

But the decision to cut rates again in December was a close call. One Fed official voted against it and a record of the meeting released earlier this month showed that other officials grappled with recent data that suggested progress on getting inflation back down to the Fed’s 2 percent target was stalling.

Fed officials also had to contend with the specter of a seismic shake-up in economic policy upon the election of Mr. Trump and his imminent return to the White House.

Compared with forecasts released three months earlier, policymakers halved their projections for interest rate cuts in 2025 to just half a percentage point in December, as they raised their expectations for inflation over the course of 2025 and 2026.

For some officials, that shift incorporated assumptions about what another Trump term would bring, given his promises to enact tariffs on trading partners, slash red tape, lower taxes and deport millions of immigrants. Others adjusted their forecasts based on the incoming data alone, underscoring the debate still underway about whether the Fed’s policy settings are tuned right for the current circumstances.

Regardless of the reasons, “almost all participants judged that upside risks to the inflation outlook had increased,” minutes from the December meeting said.

The data reported since the turn of the year has allayed some concerns but has not eliminated them completely. Overall inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, rose more than expected in December to 2.9 percent compared with the same time last year — the third month in a row it has accelerated. The backdrop was more encouraging looking beyond the broader gauge, however, with a “core” measure that strips out volatile food and fuel prices confirming that the underlying trend was slowing.

Job growth has also stayed surprisingly strong in what economists said was a potential sign that businesses have regained steam after a summer slump.

Yields on government bonds, which underpin borrowing across the economy, have risen sharply since November. That reflects, in part, changing expectations about the economic outlook and in turn how much the Fed can lower interest rates. Some officials have argued that this may help the central bank’s efforts to temper activity across businesses and households, but that depends on how long higher borrowing costs are sustained.

“What we learned over the year was that the economy could tolerate high interest rates a bit more than the Fed expected,” said Joseph Gagnon, a former senior Fed staffer. He believes the level of interest rates that neither hastens nor holds back growth — dubbed the “neutral” rate — has risen compared to its level before the pandemic, to around 3.5 percent. Most officials as of December forecast it around 3 percent in the longer run.

The big wildcard is Mr. Trump and how ardently he plans to follow through on his campaign promises. He has already signed a raft of executive orders aimed at ending the cost-of-living crisis that has raged since the pandemic, eliciting skepticism from economists who question how effective his energy-focused approach will be. He threatened tariffs on Colombia and vowed to soon impose levies on products from America’s largest trading partners, Canada, Mexico and China.

Economists expect policies like that to result in higher prices for Americans. The question is whether they will cause just a one-off increase for consumers or kick off successive rounds of price spikes that would require the Fed to act.

That would mark a departure from his first term, when the more limited tariffs Mr. Trump imposed did not lead to surging prices. Transcripts of Fed meetings from that period indicated little consternation about the impact on inflation, although the policies did cause enough concern about the hit to growth to lead the central bank to lower interest rates by 0.75 percentage points.

Karen Dynan, a professor at Harvard who was the chief economist at the Treasury Department during the Obama administration, said it would be “dicey to apply the old conventional wisdom that you should look through supply shocks at this point” because of the high starting point for inflation this time around. While Americans’ expectations of how inflation will evolve over time have stayed more or less in check despite recent increases, Ms. Dynan said this situation should not be “taken for granted.”

“If tariffs come on the high side and if deportations bite more than expected, you could very well imagine inflation going back up and that could put the Fed on pause for the whole year,” added Mr. Gagnon, who is now at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Against this backdrop, the bar for additional interest rate cuts appears to have risen. Traders in federal funds futures markets roughly expect the Fed to lower rates twice this year, starting in June. A cut sooner than that point, such as in March, would require more tangible proof that inflation was headed lower.

Donald Kohn, a former vice chair of the Fed, said officials will also probably need confirmation that the inflation risks they fear “aren’t crystallizing.”

“As long as the economy remains resilient, there’s a case for waiting to see how these things play out and what the effects are,” he said.

The post The Fed Is About to Hit Pause on Rate Cuts. Here’s Why. appeared first on Our Story Insight.

February 2, 2022, 11:37am

Ambo Anthos, the Dutch publisher of Rosemary Sullivan’s The Betrayal of Anne Frank, has indefinitely suspended printing of the book after central elements of research were called into question. The book’s thesis—that the Frank family’s location was leaked to the Nazis by Arnold van den Bergh, a Jewish notary—has been criticized as lacking evidence by, among others, the Anne Frank Fund.

In an email to its authors, Ambo Anthos wrote that it should have taken a more “critical stance” on the book. “We await the answers from the researchers to the questions that have arisen and are delaying the decision to print another run,” read the email in part, according to Reuters and The New York Times. “We offer our sincere apologies to anyone who might feel offended by the book.”

According to The New York Times, The Betrayal of Anne Frank argues that van den Bergh had access to a list of Amsterdam Jews in hiding, compiled by the Jewish Council; Apparently, the investigators produced no evidence of this list ever existed, and no scholar of the Jewish Council knows of such a list. In an earlier New York Times interview, media producer Pieter Pieter van Twisk, whose company Proditione led the attempt to identify who betrayed Anne Frank, told The Times there was “circumstantial evidence” of the list’s existence—but the three sources whose testimony he cited were all Nazi collaborators.

WWII historian Bart van der Boom told the Times this insinuation that the Jewish Council kept a list of Jews in hiding is “totally unfounded, and worse, very, very unlikely. It’s almost unthinkable.”

Van Twisk told Reuters the book’s research team was “completely surprised” by Ambo Anthos’s choice: “We had a meeting last week with the editors and talked about the criticism and why we felt it could be deflected and agreed we would come with a detailed reaction later.”

“Simply to disseminate an assertion that then in the public discussion becomes a kind of fact borders on a conspiracy theory,” John Goldsmith, president of the Anne Frank Fund, told Reuters. “Now the main statement is: a Jew betrayed Jews. That stays in the memory and it is unsettling.”

HarperCollins, The Betrayal of Anne Frank’s US publisher, has made no public statement about the book.

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