The Struggle for Reliable US Economy Data, Lagarde's Headache, & Europe's Solar Panels Get Hacked

Your morning briefing, the business news you need in just 15 minutes.

On today's podcast:

(1) Fresh inflation figures are likely to make the Federal Reserve more cautious about the pace of interest-rate cuts — but not quite yet.

(2) Traders increased bets on interest-rate cuts from the European Central Bank following a similar move in Federal Reserve expectations, and now see 158 basis points of easing through the end of 2025, the most in a week.

(3) US President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month, CBS reported, citing multiple sources.

(4) US economic indicators can move global markets by trillions of dollars at a time. The agencies that collect and publish those statistics have been pleading for an extra few million, to maintain the integrity of the financial world’s most important numbers.

(5) A closely watched gauge of UK house prices hit its highest in over two years in November as buyers were buoyed by a Bank of England interest-rate cut and an end to uncertainty over Labour’s first budget.

(6) All it takes is one hacker and a batch of faulty solar panels to threaten the safety of Europe’s electric grid.

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