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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world

US Treasuries have recovered all the ground lost in a dramatic sell-off sparked by Donald Trump’s election victory, after Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell said it was too early to judge whether the incoming president’s policies would change the interest rate outlook.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury declined to 4.27 per cent in on Friday, below the level where it closed on November 5, the day before the US election result sent a “Trump trade” tearing across global financial markets.

Investors betting that Trump’s plans for tariffs and tax cuts would fuel growth and inflation piled into stocks and dumped bonds on Wednesday, betting that the path of interest rates would need to be higher than previously thought. The 10-year Treasury yield jumped to 4.48 per cent, a four-month high, as the results of the election came in.

But traders have unwound some of those bets over the subsequent two days, with the dollar also giving up part of its gains.

“I don’t buy that Trump will cause a wave of inflation,” said Matthew Morgan, head of fixed income at Jupiter Asset Management. He pointed to the cooling jobs market as evidence for the manager’s view that market expectations of higher inflation had been overdone.

US stocks rose at the Wall Street open, with S&P 500 up 0.3 per cent and on course for its strongest week of the year, having gained more than 4.5 per cent.

Some investors viewed the initial market reaction to Trump’s victory as a “knee-jerk” response to his campaign rhetoric on tariffs, questioning whether these represented an initial negotiating position and whether broad-based tariffs could get through Congress.

The reversal in mood was encouraged by the Fed’s move on Thursday to cut its benchmark interest rate, as expected, by a quarter-point. Powell said the central bank would not “speculate” on the substance of the election victor’s policies and their effects.

He was also emphatic that he would not step down early if asked to do so. Investors had worried that, if elected, Trump might use his position to frustrate the Fed’s independence or any move to put up interest rates.

“Ultimately, as Powell said last night, anyone whose job it is to predict the economy will tell you how hard it is,” said William Vaughan, an associate portfolio manager at Brandywine Global Investment Management. “It is important to focus on announced policies rather than pre-election rhetoric, which can often be extreme to win an election.”

Traders in swap markets are putting an about 90 per cent probability that the Fed will cut rates by another quarter point at its next meeting in December.

A federal judge on Thursday struck down a Biden administration policy that aimed to ease a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who are married to U.S. citizens.

The program, lauded as one of the biggest presidential actions to help immigrant families in years, allowed undocumented spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens to apply for a green card without first having to leave the country.

The temporary relief from deportation brought a brief sense of security to some 500,000 immigrants estimated to benefit from the program before Texas-based U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker put it on hold in August, days after applicants filed their paperwork.

Barker ruled Thursday that the Biden administration had overstepped its authority by implementing the program and had stretched the legal interpretation of relevant immigration law “past its breaking point.”

The short-lived Biden administration initiative known as “Keeping Families Together” would have been unlikely to remain in place after Donald Trump took office in January. But its early termination creates greater uncertainty for immigrant families as many are bracing for Trump’s return to the White House.

Trump’s election victory this week sets the stage for a swift crackdown on undocumented individuals after the Republican ran on promises of “mass deportation.” The president-elect energized his supporters on the campaign trail with a litany anti-immigrant statements, including that immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of the nation.

During his first term, Trump appointed Barker as a judge in Tyler, Texas, which lies in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a favored venue for advocates pushing conservative arguments.

Barker had placed the immigration initiative on hold after Texas and 15 other states, led by their Republican attorneys general, filed a legal challenge accusing the executive branch of bypassing Congress to help immigrant families for “blatant political purposes.”

Republicans argued the initiative created costs for their states and could draw more migrants to the U.S.

The policy would have applied to people who have been living continuously in the U.S. for at least 10 years, do not pose a security threat and have utilized the existing legal authority known as “parole in place” that offers deportation protections.

Those married to a citizen by June 17, the day before the program was announced, could pay a $580 application fee and fill out a lengthy application explaining why they deserve humanitarian parole. If approved, applicants would have three years to seek permanent residency and obtain work authorization.

It was not immediately clear Thursday whether anyone had received approval under the program, which only accepted applications for about a week before the federal judge placed it on hold.

Noncitizen spouses are already eligible for legal status but often have to apply from their home countries. The process typically includes a years-long wait outside of the U.S., which can separate family members with different immigration statuses.

SAN DIEGO (KGTV)— Concerning spam-like text messages are being reported to authorities across the country, and now the FBI is getting involved. A viewer sent this screenshot of a text she received from an unknown number.

Tali Letoi

The viewer who asked not to be named says she felt ‘horrified and fearful’ after receiving a message like this. She’s not alone.

Many black people nationwide have reported getting similar messages post-Election Day where they’re told they’ve been “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.”

But this latest trend raises the question of how people are able to do this. One local expert weighed in on how it’s possible to receive certain peoples’ private information.

“There have been several data breaches, and each one of those data breaches contain sensitive information,” says Nikolas Behar, an adjunct professor of Cybersecurity at the University of San Diego. “And when we take pieces from each one of those data breaches and we cross-compare it with things like social media, publicly available profiles, we can discern certain targets, whether it’s gender or race.”

More than ten states have reported similar texts, some even on college campuses, which has put authorities at the local and federal levels on high alert.

In a statement to ABC 10News, the FBI said:

“The FBI is aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter.

As always, we encourage members of the public to report threats of physical violence to local law enforcement authorities.”

While it remains unclear who is responsible, the FTC is urging those who get the messages to make them as spam or junk so that they’re reported to the messaging app. And Behar says it’ll possibly be the new norm.

“So it’s difficult to protect against this type of attack. And it’s unfortunately something that we’re gonna have to start grappling with.”