After spending the past two years fighting inflation, Jerome Powell and the Fed finally cut interest rates in September and declared a soft landing was in their sights. But will the pilots suddenly pull in the landing gear? 

That was the main fear in a survey conducted by the National Association for Business Economics, which asked economists to name the biggest risk to the US economy in the next year. Nearly 40% of the 32 economists surveyed cited a “monetary policy mistake” as the “greatest downside risk to the US economy over the next 12 months.”

Risky Business

In a speech in Nashville on Monday, Powell tried to push back against that, stressing that the central bank remains on its toes — and that monetary policy and rate cuts over the next year are “not on any preset course.” That seems to hold true even in the near-term. Though remarks and projections by Fed officials following last month’s meeting indicated a quarter-point rate cut in each of the central bank’s November and December meetings, Powell emphasized that future data will inform any decision made. Investors are pricing in a cut of 75 basis points by the end of this year, meaning they expect another supersized half-point cut in either November or December. 

Powell did offer one clue, saying the Fed is aiming to move monetary policy to “a more neutral stance” — one that neither stimulates nor restricts the economy. Even if the Fed executes perfectly, economists (being economists) say there are plenty of other things to worry about: 

• 23% of economists said the outcome of the upcoming 2024 presidential election was the “biggest downside risk” to the US economy. An equal amount cited the escalation of conflict in the Middle East — which seems more likely with each passing day — as the biggest risk.
• The group is slightly pessimistic overall: 55% said the US economy is more likely to perform worse than expected next year, though 66% still said they don’t expect a recession until at least 2026.

Up, Up, and Away: While economists can debate all they want, equities traders are still feeling their oats, with stocks rallying right before the bell following Powell’s remarks. That caps off a more than $2.5 trillion rally in the third quarter for the S&P 500, marking its fourth consecutive quarter of gains — the longest streak since 2021. Whether Powell is a hawk or a dove is a bit in the eye of the beholder, but the market remains a bull.

The Murdoch family empire hit a stubborn point of resistance yesterday. For once, it didn’t stem from the Shakespearean drama pitting patriarch Rupert and his anointed favorite son against a litigious band of mutineering children.

News Corp subsidiary REA Group has abandoned its monthlong quest to take control of UK property portal Rightmove, which steadfastly rejected four “unattractive” bids and demanded a final offer Monday. It didn’t get one.

Like Son, Like Father

When the credits roll in the Murdoch dynasty’s real-life succession battle, real estate will get top billing. 

It was Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son, Lachlan, who convinced his magnate father to take out a stake in REA, the owner of an Australian property portal, in 2001. The family-controlled News Corp would go on to be majority owner, using the lucrative property business to subsidize the declining revenues at Rupert’s beloved Australian media properties. More real estate portals were added in North America and abroad, adding cash flow to offset underperforming media assets.

That seemed to be the plan with Rightmove: It’s the most popular property website in the UK, with an 80% market share. News Corp — now with Lachlan, the favorite son, as chair — would hitch its struggling media properties to another real estate business. Its tabloid The Sun has bled £515 million ($689 million) in losses in the last five years as print sales have cratered, and News Corp’s UK business has had to pay out tens of millions to victims of illegal phone hacking by its journalists. But the negotiations rapidly collapsed:

• Rightmove rejected REA’s fourth offer and asked it to submit a final put-up-or-shut-up bid by 4 p.m. UK time Monday. The demand came just four weeks after REA’s first bid was revealed.
• REA chose to walk away before the deadline, leaving its final bid at £6.2 billion ($8.3 billion), up from an initial offer of £5.6 billion ($7.5 billion). Rightmove pilloried the final offer as “unattractive,” asserting News Corp “continues to materially undervalue” the UK property firm, which analysts say could benefit from lower interest rates.

Not to be outdone, News Corp CEO Robert Thomson shot back, stating, “We applaud REA’s financial discipline as it is foolhardy to overpay for an asset, even if it patently had positive potential.”

Family Feud: The success of the Murdoch venture into real estate helped cement the more conservative-leaning Lachlan as Rupert’s chosen heir over siblings Prudence, Elisabeth, and James. Rupert is currently engaged in a legal battle against his three politically moderate children to hand Lachlan sole control of the family’s empire — which, in addition to their Australian and UK media properties, includes Fox News, Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post.

Of course the maker of “Fortnite” wants to turn its fight with Google into a battle royale.

Epic Games on Monday filed a lawsuit against both Google and Samsung, pulling the South Korean electronics giant into its long-running legal beef with the Android-maker. Epic alleges in the suit that Google and Samsung conspired to suppress third-party app stores, a.k.a. anything other than the Google Play Store.

The Legal Battle Bus

Epic Games is possibly the biggest player in an ongoing war between app developers and the two Big Tech companies that dominate app stores: Apple and Google. It’s a war that’s pulled in a wide range of combatants, from fellow Big Tech companies like Meta down to music streaming platforms and even tiny email service providers. While the developer ire against Apple has perhaps been the most intense, essentially the arguments against both Apple and Google are the same: Because they have a duopoly on how apps get installed on your phone, they exert too much restrictive control.

Epic Games notched a major win in that fight at the end of last year, winning an antitrust case it filed against Google. But the fight isn’t over yet:

• Epic’s new lawsuit against Google and Samsung accuses the two companies of using a default feature called “Auto-Blocker” on Samsung phones, which blocks users from downloading apps from anywhere other than Google or Samsung’s stores.
• In August, Epic launched its own app store on mobile — the makeup of the mobile app market is even more crucial to Epic’s success now than it was when it filed its first lawsuit against Google in 2020.

Bruised Apples: Epic Games also scored a win against Apple this year, as new European Union legislation meant the Epic Games Store could open on both Android devices and iPhones. Our condolences to parents of European tweens, as it’ll be even harder to pry them away from the game now.