Good evening, this is Markets Desk with your top stories.
The White House and its allies are pressing hard to reshape the Federal Reserve, actively exploring paths to remove sitting Board Governors after the Supreme Court blocked the firing of Governor Lisa Cook this week. The push signals an escalating confrontation over central bank independence, with real implications for rate policy and bond market credibility heading into the second half of the year.
Shifting to energy markets, Iran's ambassador to Beijing has confirmed that China and other aligned nations will receive preferential treatment on fees for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran is now framing as a matter of national security. The Hormuz corridor handles roughly a fifth of global oil flow, and any tiered access regime introduces a structural risk premium that crude traders cannot ignore.
Closer to home, new housing affordability data shows that residents in eleven states, concentrated in the American interior, including Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio, can still keep housing costs below thirty percent of income. That threshold matters to the Fed as well, since shelter inflation remains one of the stickiest components holding core price readings above target.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
