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Wall Street’s Next Test After Fed: $6.5 Trillion ‘Triple-Witching’

(Bloomberg) -- As Wall Street traders come to grips with the Federal Reserve’s plans to slow the pace of interest-rate cuts, Friday’s US options expiration that has historically stoked turbulence offers a final hurdle to end-of-year calm.Most Read from BloombergNew York City’s Historic Preservation Movement Is Having a Midlife CrisisNYPD Car Chases Are Becoming More Frequent — and More DangerousDakar’s Air Quality Plummets as Saharan Dust Descends on SenegalThe quarterly “triple-witching” will s

El Salvador says it will keep buying bitcoin despite IMF warning

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) -El Salvador said on Thursday it would keep buying bitcoin, possibly at an accelerated pace, a day after the government reached a financing agreement with the International Monetary Fund that had said it should limit its exposure to the cryptocurrency. Stacy Herbert, El Salvador's national bitcoin office director, wrote on X that bitcoin would remain legal tender in the Central American country, and that the government would keep adding to its strategic reserves.

More hawkish Fed policy committee may increase dissent in 2025

A slightly more hawkish set of Federal Reserve regional bank presidents will become voters on the U.S. central bank's rate-setting panel in 2025, raising the chance that any further interest rate cuts next year could spur more dissents like the one seen on Wednesday from the head of the Cleveland Fed. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has already signaled a pause in the rate cuts in January, saying on Wednesday that policymakers will move cautiously, with further reductions in borrowing costs contingent on seeing more progress in lowering inflation. All 12 regional Fed presidents discuss and debate monetary policy at each of the U.S. central bank's eight annual meetings, and many have said their status as voter or non-voter has no bearing on their sway around the policy-setting table.