By Stephen Culp NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. stocks followed the example of their European counterparts, gaining ground on Monday while gold and copper touched all-time highs powered by investor optimism over cooling inflation and easing central bank policy. All three major U.S. stock indexes were green, led by the tech-heavy Nasdaq. Copper, a barometer of economic sentiment, surged to a record high after China announced steps to shore up its crisis-hit property sector. “Historically, when … Read more…

By Douglas Gillison (Reuters) – U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chair Martin Gruenberg on Thursday faced a second day of grilling before lawmakers on Capitol Hill as he battles to survive the fallout from a sexual harassment scandal at his agency. Appearing alongside fellow top banking regulators from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Office of the Comptroller, Gruenberg reiterated his apologies to staff and acceptance of responsibility for leading an organization that had allowed serious … Read more…

By Bernard Orr, Guy Faulconbridge and Andrew Osborn BEIJING/MOSCOW (Reuters) – China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Thursday pledged a “new era” of partnership between the two most powerful rivals of the United States which they cast as an aggressive Cold War hegemon that was sowing chaos across the world. Xi greeted Putin on a red carpet outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where they were hailed by marching People’s … Read more…

By John Kruzel WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism in a challenge brought by the payday loan industry, handing a victory to President Joe Biden’s administration and a setback to the agency’s conservative critics. The 7-2 decision, authored by conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, reversed a lower court’s ruling that the CFPB’s funding design violated a provision of the U.S. Constitution called the “appropriations clause” … Read more…