The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's crypto task force held its first public meeting with experts on Friday, focusing on how securities laws might apply to digital assets as the Trump administration looks to overhaul cryptocurrency regulations.
Among the participants of the roundtable were John Reed Stark, former chief of the SEC's Office of Internet Enforcement, Miles Jennings, the general counsel for Andreessen Horowitz's crypto arm, a16z, and former SEC Commissioner Troy Paredes. Republican SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce is leading the task force, which is charged with developing rules and guidance for crypto.
"Spring signifies new beginnings and we have a new beginning here, a restart of the commission's approach to crypto regulation," said Peirce.
The crypto industry has long clashed with regulators over how federal securities laws translate to digital assets, with many arguing that crypto tokens are more akin to commodities. Tokens classified as securities would require firms to register with the SEC and provide certain disclosures to investors.
President Donald Trump, who campaigned on promises to be a "crypto president," has pledged to reverse an industry crackdown under former President Joe Biden's SEC, which sued multiple crypto companies, including Coinbase and Kraken, alleging they had flouted its rules. The SEC's new leadership has agreed to withdraw or pause many of those cases.
The task force on Friday debated whether crypto tokens require a new, separate regulatory framework, different from how the SEC oversees securities such as equities.
Jennings urged the SEC to take a "technology-neutral" approach, “looking at what differentiates a system like Ethereum from ownership of equity in Apple (AAPL.O, opens new tab."
Some, including Democratic SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, expressed concern that the regulator would loosen rules for cryptocurrencies by allowing them to operate under a distinct regime.
“Modifying the law to facilitate the success of a chosen product category is fraught with risk," said Crenshaw. "Risk not only of weakening regulatory protections for that category but of creating the negative domino effect on other areas of the market protected by the same laws.”
The task force's first roundtable comes as Trump has sought to broadly overhaul policies toward cryptocurrency. Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order to establish a strategic reserve of cryptocurrencies and held a summit for industry leaders at the White House.
A U.S. appeals court on Friday refused to pause a judge's ruling requiring the Trump administration to reinstate 25,000 workers at 18 federal agencies who lost their jobs as part of the Republican president's purge of the federal workforce.
A panel of the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said there was no reason to pause the decision because the judge in Baltimore, Maryland is expected to decide next week whether to extend it further, in a lawsuit brought by 19 Democrat-led states and Washington, D.C.
U.S. District Judge James Bredar last week said the agencies that engaged in mass firings of probationary employees did not follow the required procedures for conducting layoffs of federal workers, and temporarily ordered their reinstatement.
The states on Thursday moved for a preliminary injunction that would leave Bredar's ruling in place pending the outcome of the lawsuit or appeals, which could take months or longer to resolve. Bredar has scheduled a hearing for March 26.
The Trump administration in court filings on March 17 said the agencies were working to reinstate the fired employees, while temporarily placing them on paid leave.
The 18 agencies involved in the case include the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Treasury Department.
The White House and the agencies did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The office of Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, which is spearheading the lawsuit, did not immediately have a comment.
Probationary employees typically have less than one year, and sometimes less than two years, of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal employees.
The mass firings of probationary workers were the first step in broader efforts by Trump and top adviser Elon Musk to drastically shrink the federal workforce and slash government spending.
Most agencies have said they fired a few hundred probationary workers, but others terminated far more. The Treasury Department fired about 7,600 people, the Department of Agriculture about 5,700, and the Department of Health and Human Services more than 3,200, according to court filings.
The states in their lawsuit claim the mass firings were improper because agencies failed to follow a federal regulation requiring them to give state and local governments 60 days' notice of mass layoffs, which will lead to a spike in unemployment claims and demand for social services.
On March 13, hours before Bredar issued his ruling, a judge in San Francisco separately ordered that probationary workers at six agencies be reinstated, but on different legal grounds. That case involves five of the agencies subject to Bredar's ruling and the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Trump administration has appealed that decision and asked a San Francisco-based appeals court to pause it pending the outcome of the case.
The judges' rulings did not bar agencies from firing probationary workers, but took issue with the manner in which the terminations were conducted.
On Friday, Trump-appointed 4th Circuit Judge Allison Rushing wrote separately that while it would not be appropriate to block Bredar's ruling at the moment, the judge lacked the authority to order reinstatements nationwide rather than only in the states that sued.
"The district court lost sight of who the Plaintiffs are and what injury they claim when it concluded a nationwide injunction was warranted," Rushing wrote.
The three-judge panel also includes judges appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan, a Republican, and Joe Biden, a Democrat.
President Donald Trump announced Friday that Boeing will build the Air Force’s future fighter jet, which the Pentagon says will have stealth and penetration capabilities that far exceed those of its current fleet and is essential in a potential conflict with China.
Known as Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, the manned jet will serve as a quarterback to a fleet of future drone aircraft designed to be able to penetrate the air defenses of China and any other potential foes. The initial contract to proceed with production on a version for the Air Force is worth an estimated $20 billion.
The 47th president, who announced the award at the White House with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Air Force leadership, said with a grin that the new fighter would be named the F-47.
Gen. David Allvin, chief of staff of the Air Force, said, “We’re going to write the next generation of modern aerial warfare with this.” And Hegseth said the future fleet “sends a very clear, direct message to our allies that we’re not going anywhere.”
Critics have questioned the cost and the necessity of the program as the Pentagon is still struggling to fully produce its current most advanced jet, the F-35, which is expected to cost taxpayers more than $1.7 trillion over its lifespan. In addition, the Pentagon’s future stealth bomber, the B-21 Raider, will have many of the same cutting-edge technologies in advanced materials, AI, propulsion, and stealth.
More than 1,100 F-35s have already been built for the U.S. and multiple international partners.
A fleet of about 100 future B-21 stealth bombers at an estimated total cost of at least $130 billion is also planned. The first B-21 aircraft are now in test flights.
With evolving drone and space warfare likely to be the center of any fight with China, Dan Grazier, a military procurement analyst, questions whether “another exquisite manned fighter jet really is the right platform going forward.” Grazier, director of the national security reform program at the Stimson Center, said $20 billion is “just seed money. The total costs coming down the road will be hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Few details of what the new NGAD fighter would look like have been public, although Trump said early versions have been conducting test flights for the last five years. Renderings by both Lockheed Martin and Boeing have highlighted a flat, tail-less aircraft with a sharp nose.
The selection of Boeing, which has faced intense pressure from Trump over cost overruns and program delays on Air Force One, came after an independent analysis by the Air Force, an official said on the condition of anonymity to provide additional details on the selection. The Boeing offer was still determined to be the “best overall value to the government,” the official said.
The Air Force has not specified how many aircraft will be produced. In a statement, however, Allvin said there would be more F-47s produced than F-22s, the advanced fighter jet it’s replacing. There are now about 180 F-22 fighter jets in service.
The Air Force later issued a statement saying the number 47 was chosen for a number of reasons: “It honors the legacy of the P-47, whose contributions to air superiority during World War II remain historic. Additionally, the number pays tribute to the founding year of the Air Force, while also recognizing the 47th President’s pivotal support for the development of the world’s first sixth-generation fighter.”
A separate Navy contract for its version of the NGAD fighter is still under competition between Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
Last year, the Biden administration’s Air Force secretary, Frank Kendall, ordered a pause on the NGAD program to review if the aircraft was still needed or if the program, which was first designed in 2018, needed to be modified to reflect the past few years of warfighting advances.
That review by think tanks and academia examined what conflict with China would look like with NGAD and then without it — and determined that NGAD was still needed. Kendall then left the decision on which firm would build the fighter jet to the incoming Trump administration, a defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to provide details on the decision-making.
NGAD will bring “an entirely different level of low observability,” the official said. It will also have a much longer range than the F-35 or other current fighter jets, so it will require less refueling. A future unmanned version of NGAD also is planned as the Pentagon improves the AI for the aircraft, the official said.
JPMorgan Chase isswapping out "equity" for "opportunity"in its workforce diversity efforts. DEI is now DOI there, with Chief Operating Officer Jenn Piepszak explaining in a memo that "the‘e’ always meant equal opportunityto us, not equal outcomes." The banking giant has had a complicated relationship with DEI recently: CEOJamie Dimonhas appeared tostand firmamid political pressure, while simultaneously criticizing company spending on certain diversity programs as"stupid,"including anti-bias training.
U.S. PresidentDonald Trump's administration will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a Federal Register notice on Friday, the latest expansion of his crackdown on immigration.
The move, effective April 24, cut short a two-year "parole" granted to the migrants under former President Joe Biden that allowed them to enter the country by air if they had U.S. sponsors
Trump, a Republican, took steps to ramp up immigration enforcement after taking office, including a push to deport record numbers of migrants in the U.S. illegally. He has argued that the legal entry parole programs launched under his Democratic predecessor overstepped the boundaries of federal law and called for their termination in a January 20 executive order.
Trump said on March 6 that he would decide "very soon" whether to strip the parole status from some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled to the U.S. during the conflict with Russia. Trump's remarks came in response to a Reuters report that said his administration planned to revoke the status for Ukrainians as soon as April.
Biden launched a parole entry program for Venezuelans in 2022 and expanded it to Cubans, Haitians, and Nicaraguans in 2023 as his administration grappled with high levels of illegal immigration from those nationalities. Diplomatic and political relations between the four countries and the United States have been strained.
The new legal pathways came as Biden tried to clamp down on illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Trump administration's decision to strip the legal status from half a million migrants could make many vulnerable to deportation if they choose to remain in the U.S. It remains unclear how many who entered the U.S. on parole now have another form of protection or legal status.
In a notice set to formally publish in the Federal Register on Monday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said revoking the parole status would make it easier to place the migrants in a fast-track deportation process known as "expedited removal."
Under a Trump-era policy implemented in January, expedited removal can be applied to certain migrants in the U.S. for two years or less.
A lawsuit filed late Friday accuses the Trump administration of unlawfully shutting down the Voice of America and asks a federal court to restore the outlet that for decades has supplied news about the United States to nations around the world — including many that lack a free press of their own.
The case, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, was brought by Voice of America reporters, Reporters Without Borders, and a handful of unions against the U.S. Agency for Global Media and Kari Lake, the failed Arizona candidate who is President Trump’s representative there.
“In many parts of the world, a crucial source of objective news is gone, and only censored state-sponsored news media is left to fill the void,” the lawsuit said.
Lake has described the broadcast agency as a “giant rot” that needs to be stripped down and rebuilt.
Voice of America dates to World War II as a source of objective news, often beamed into authoritarian countries. Funded by Congress, it is protected by a charter that guarantees its product pass muster for journalistic rigor.
The suit accuses the administration of taking a ‘chainsaw’ approach
The lawsuit charges that the Trump administration has effectively shut it down unlawfully in the past week. Republicans have complained that the news source is infected by left-wing propaganda, a contention its operators say isn’t backed up factually.
“The second Trump administration has taken a chainsaw to the agency as a whole in an attempt to shutter it completely,” the lawsuit said. There was no immediate response Friday to a request for comment from the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Voice of America and a handful of sister networks.
In an interview with Newsmax earlier this week, Lake described Voice of America as “like having a rotten fish and trying to find a portion that you can eat.”
In a post on X, she said the Agency for Global Media is “a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer — a national security risk for the nation — and irretrievably broken. While there are bright spots within the agency with personnel who are talented and dedicated public servants, this is the exception rather than the rule.”
Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders in the United States, said his organization was compelled to act to protect Voice of America and the broader press freedom community.
There are other media-related actions, too
At VOA’s sister operation, Radio Free Asia, unpaid furloughs took effect on Friday for roughly 240 people in the operation’s Washington office, or 75% of the staff members, spokesman Rohit Mahajan said. Radio Free Asia has also moved to cancel freelance contracts with people who helped the agency gather news overseas.
Radio Free Asia also expects to file a lawsuit to keep congressionally-appropriated funding flowing, Mahajan said.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty filed suit on Tuesday, asking the U.S. District Court in Washington to compel the U.S. Agency for Global Media to make its next payment. RFE/RL currently broadcasts in 23 countries across Europe and Asia, in 27 different languages.
In its lawsuit, the organization called the denial of funding unprecedented and said it has already forced operations to be significantly scaled back. “Without its congressionally appropriated funds, RFE/RL will also be forced to stop the vast majority of its journalistic work and will be at risk of ceasing to exist as an organization,” they argued.
Johnson & Johnson has laid out plans to raise U.S. investments by 25% to more than $55 billion over the next four years, as a threat of drug import duties by the Trump administration compels companies to expand their manufacturing operations domestically.
The pharmaceutical giant (JNJ.N), opens new tab said on Friday it planned to build four new plants as part of its investment, one of which would be set up in Wilson, North Carolina, where it officially broke ground earlier in the day. J&J did not disclose where it plans to build the other plants.
The 25% increase is compared to the company's investments in the past four years. At least two investors said most of these investments were already planned.
"The $55 billion number also includes a portion of their regular, annual R&D and IT spending. So, they've thrown a lot in there to get to a big, splashy number," said Jeff Jonas, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, which holds shares of J&J.
U.S. companies such as Eli Lilly (LLY.N), open new tab and Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab are investing in domestic production amid the Trump administration's push to manufacture locally.
The proposed levy could affect companies such as J&J and Pfizer (PFE.N), opening new tabs as they have sprawling operations outside the U.S.
Apple also plans to invest $500 billion in the U.S. over four years, though this may include existing commitments.
"In the short term, they are trying to lobby for a tariff exemption. In the medium/longer term, everyone is moving even further towards a local manufacturing strategy. Even if there is a tariff deal, the era of free trade and unrestricted globalization is over," Jonas said.
Tariffs, according to him, are unlikely to hit J&J's medicine business but could have a minor impact on the medical devices unit.
J&J, the world's largest drugmaker by revenue, said it already has more manufacturing facilities in the U.S. than in any other country. It also plans to expand existing U.S. sites and build new research and development infrastructure.
Analysts' expect J&J's medicines sales to cross $60 billion by 2028
Brian Mulberry, portfolio manager at J&J investor Zacks Investment Management, said if J&J can capture their future pharmaceutical revenue from domestically produced products, then that "certainly will be better in the face of the proposed tariffs".
J&J's site in Wilson, where it plans to invest more than $2 billion, is expected to create 5,000 jobs during the construction stage, and more than 500 positions across the state.
The site will produce treatments for cancer, immune, and neurological diseases, the New-Jersey-based company said.
It's a highly unpredictable and nervy environment for investors to navigate, as reflected by the lack of clear direction across world markets this week.
The MSCI World equity index snapped a four-week losing streak for a rise of 0.7%, the S&P 500 rose 0.5%, and the Nasdaq eked out a gain of 0.17% - just avoiding its worst run since the 2022 bear market - while European stocks gained more than 1% for their best week in five weeks.
U.S. high-yield credit spreads tightened from the previous week's six-month wides but gold rose, while Treasury yields edged lower yet the dollar crept higher.
Those hoping for more clarity on the political, policy, or data fronts next week may be disappointed - trading could be every bit as messy and lacking in direction, especially with the end of the quarter approaching.
It's not just quarter end looming either - attention is also turning to April 2, when President Trump is expected to announce more tariffs, including reciprocal levies on many countries.
As policymakers made clear this week, the uncertainty is weighing on businesses and consumers, and potentially putting a freeze on investment, hiring,g and spending. Investors may decide to put their plans on ice too.
One of the strongest investment trends this year has been the reallocation of capital out of Wall Street to markets overseas. U.S. stocks have underperformed the rest of the world by around 13 percentage points.
Europe has been a particular beneficiary of these flows due to Germany's historic fiscal policy shift that may substantially boost German - and eurozone - growth. But how much juice is left in that transatlantic swing and the reversal of the 'U.S. exceptionalism' trade, at least in the near term?
Next week promises to be just as nervy. And foggy.
I'd love to hear from you, so please reach out to me with comments at jamie.mcgeever@thomsonreuters.com. You can also follow me at @ReutersJamie and @reutersjamie.bsky.social.
[Latest Market Data segment]
This Week's Key Market Moves
Gold rises 1%. Remarkably, this is gold's 11th weekly gain out of the last 12, accumulating total gains of 16%.
The Nasdaq rises 0.5% on Friday to yield a very slender gain on the week, its first in five weeks. That averted its worst run since April-May 2022 when the index was deep in bear market territory.
Europe's Stoxx 600 index rises 1.2%, its biggest rise in five weeks. A final push next week, and the index is well positioned to notch its best quarter since 2020.
European defense stocks slip 0.5% though, their first loss in six weeks and only second in 13. They're still up 20% since Berlin's fiscal U-turn, but has the rally peaked?
UK 10-year gilt yields rise for a third week, and on Friday the bonds underperform French and German debt by the widest margin this year. Poor public finance figures are another headache for Finance Minister Rachel Reeves ahead of next week's budget update.
Turkey's markets plunge as concerns over the detention of President Tayyip Erdogan's main political rival persist. Stocks have their worst week since October 2008, the lira slumps 4%.
Charts of the Week
Not one, but two charts of the week this week.
The first highlights the scale of Wall Street's underperformance this year, and how quickly the 'U.S. exceptionalism' narrative has faded. Big Tech, which powered the rally in recent years, is lagging even more.
The second shows what a quarter it has been for gold bugs. The yellow metal is up 15%, its best quarter since 2016. If it can stretch that out to over 16% by March 31, it will be its best quarter since 1986.
What could move markets on Monday?
China BYD earnings (Q4)
Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) data from Japan, Germany, eurozone, the UK, United States (March)
, opens a new tab, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.
Yahoo isselling TechCrunch, the influential tech news site, to Regent, a private equity firm, for undisclosed terms. The sale, which underscores Yahoo’s shift to aggregation from journalism, comes a day after Regent acquired Foundry — the home to online titles such as PCWorld and Macworld. Regent says it’s excited to expand its reach with breaking tech news, while Yahoo notes the deal allows it to focus on its core brands such as Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance.
AsSpotifypushes into video, a recurrent internet problem keeps popping up on the streaming service -- porn. This past week, numerous of these sexually explicit programs even made it onto some of the top podcast charts, wedging themselves between shows from well-known podcasters and creators. This is the new reality on Spotify as the company emphasizes video. Over the past few months, the streaming service has been encouraging creators of all types to sign up for its new video partner program, which pays uploaders based on how long people consume their content. The message that there’s money to be made means various creators, regardless of whether their content conforms to Spotify’s guidelines, will likely try to get their wares onto the service and capture some attention. For its part, Spotify doesn’t allow porn on the service. Its terms specifically ban content that contains “sexually explicit material,” and the company took down the infringing programming after I reached out for comment. “We’ve reviewed the content in question and removed it for violating our Platform Rules,” a spokesperson told me over email. “These shows were never monetized via our Spotify Partner Program or with ads.” Still, these recent shows evaded the platform’s moderation system and even superseded well-known, legitimate podcasts on the charts. This suggests not only that the company’s efforts to exclude these types of uploads are failing but also that lots of people are engaging with the explicit material that does slip through, raising questions about how protected users might be from accidentally encountering it. Other sexually explicit content also showed up on the charts this week, including erotic audio that lacks video but still violates Spotify's rules. The push for video has also encouraged different types of videos to show up on the service, like recorded video game streams, meaning podcasters and musicians will have to compete against these YouTube-like programs for attention.
The Trump Administration is set to slash Small Business Administration jobs by at least 40% as part of a massive reorganization plan,The Wall Street Journal reports, citing anonymous sources. The effort will reportedly bring headcount back to pre-COVID levels, while expanding disaster loan support and recovery, per the Journal. In addition, President Trump said Friday that the SBA will assume the country'sfederal student loan portfoliofrom the Department of Education, an agency he wants todismantle.
Ticket reseller StubHub hasfiled to go public, with plans to list shares on the New York Stock Exchange using the ticker symbolSTUB. The company, which also owns ticket marketplace Viagogo, hasn't disclosed the offering's size or the price range for the share sale yet. StubHub had planned an IPO last year, as sales spiked from blockbuster Taylor Swift and Beyoncé tours. But the company backtracked because market conditions had turned"unfavorable,"Bloomberg reported at that time.
The average American worker feels less confident about the economy and their career these days. According to LinkedIn's latest Workforce Confidence survey, workers are feeling more pessimistic about their career growth, finances, and job prospects than they have in years. Confidence in each of those areas has hit never-before-seen lows since we started tracking worker sentiment in April 2020 — including during the early months of the pandemic when the economy took a dive and whole industries came to a standstill. Overall worker confidence (which is scored on a scale from -100 to +100) plummeted last month. It dropped to +24 in February, down from +33 at the start of the year. For comparison, in April 2020, at the outset of the pandemic, confidence was at +29. Overall sentiment peaked in January 2022 at +41. Scoring is based on factors like how confident workers feel in their abilities to hold onto their jobs or find a new one, to keep progressing in their careers and to keep improving their financial situation. Money matters are particularly pressing. Workers' confidence in their ability to better their financial situation over the next six months dropped to +15 this February, which is even lower than April 2020's score of +16. This pessimism comes amid a slowing job market, new economic policies, and predictions that artificial intelligence advancements will disrupt most professions.
