Fisher-Price recalling over 366K dumbbell toys due to potential choking hazard
(NEW YORK) — Toy giant Fisher-Price is recalling hundreds of thousands of dumbbell toys due to a potential choking hazard.
The dumbbell toys were included in the Fisher-Price Baby Biceps Gift Set, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the recall on Thursday. About 366,200 recalled units were sold in the United States, with another 37,850 sold in Canada.
Fisher-Price states on its recall website that the gray caps on the dumbbell toys can separate, leading to a potential choking hazard for infants. The company recommends taking away recalled toys from kids immediately.
The CPSC states that the dumbbell toys were sold between April 2020 through August 2024 and were part of Fisher-Price’s Baby Biceps Gift Set, which includes three additional toys and is marketed as suitable for children ages 3 months and up.
According to Fisher-Price and the CPSC, the dumbbell component features a plastic gray bar and red and orange plastic “weights” with gray caps on each side of the bar. The recalled dumbbell toys bear the model number GJD49 on the back of the kettlebell toy in the gift set.
The toys were manufactured in China and Vietnam and sold in the U.S. at stores nationwide, according to the CPSC. The toys were sold at Buy Buy Baby, Fred Meyer, Hobby Lobby, Kohls, Marshalls, Target, TJMaxx and Walmart stores and online at Amazon.com, Target.com, Walmart.com, Zulily.com and other websites, retailing for about $18.
Fisher-Price says it has received seven reports of incidents where the gray caps separated from the toy, but has not received any reports of injuries as a result of the incidents.
Customers with the recalled dumbbell toys can reach out to Fisher-Price for a $10 refund on the company’s recall website, which also provides instructions on how to dispose of the recalled toys. Fisher-Price says a receipt or proof of purchase is not required to receive a refund for the dumbbell toy.
ABC News has reached out to Fisher-Price for comment.
(NEW YORK) — Mortgage rates this week dropped to their lowest level in more than a year, delivering some long-sought relief for homebuyers.
The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage stands at 6.47%, Freddie Mac said on Thursday. That figure marks a drop of more than a percentage point from a peak attained last year after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates in an effort to fight inflation.
The Fed has held interest rates steady at their highest level in two decades, however. So, why are mortgage rates plummeting?
Experts who spoke to ABC News attributed the drop to a widely held expectation that the Fed will begin to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September. A weaker-than-expected jobs report last week bolstered those expectations, triggering a drop in yields for 10-year treasuries, which in turn sent mortgage rates plummeting, they added.
The yield on a 10-year Treasury bond, or the amount paid to a bondholder annually, fell sharply last week after the Fed signaled a coming interest rate cut and a disappointing jobs report days later appeared to affirm such expectations. Mortgage rates closely track the movement of 10-year treasuries.
“These 10-year treasury rates are going to directly translate into lower mortgage rates, part of which we’re observing in the recent data,” Julia Fonseca, a professor at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told ABC News.
The chances of an interest rate cut in September are all but certain, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment. Market observers are split roughly down the middle about whether the Fed will impose its typical cut of a quarter of a percentage point or opt for a larger half-point cut.
“That jobs report made markets reevaluate the path of future interest rate cuts,” Lu Liu, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who studies real estate, told ABC News.
“Because the mortgage rates are priced off of current treasury rates, the treasury rates have already incorporated these expectations for future rate cuts,” Liu added.
Experts disagree about the outlook for mortgage rates, since the trajectory depends on future economic performance and the Fed’s response to it, which can prove difficult to predict, they said.
The economy has been gradually cooling for months, alongside falling inflation. The U.S. has repeatedly defied previous warnings of an impending recession, though economists disagree about whether current conditions pose an impending risk.
Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor of real estate at Columbia University Business School, said he expects the economic slowdown to continue. That will trigger interest rate cuts and falling mortgage rates, he added.
“We’ve reached peak interest rates,” Nieuwerburgh told ABC News. “Mortgage rates are likely to come back down for the next several years.”
However, he acknowledged the difficulty of predicting economic outcomes and the possibility of a reversal that could lead to interest rate hikes. “Never say never,” Nieuwerburgh said.
Liu, of the University of Pennsylvania, said market observers will closely watch incoming data to determine whether the recent jobs report is part of a larger trend indicating an accelerated economic slowdown.
For months, many observers have expected a “soft landing,” in which inflation returns to normal while the economy averts a recession. However, the steeper-than-expected cooldown of the labor market may indicate that the economy is headed toward a downturn after all, Liu said.
“People are concerned that the risk of a hard landing has increased,” Liu said. “Right now, it’s a wait-and-see moment.”
Still, the current drop in mortgage rates may not rekindle the housing market, experts said, citing a phenomenon known as the “lock-in effect.”
While mortgage rates have fallen, they remain well above the rates enjoyed by most current homeowners, who may be reluctant to put their homes on the market and risk a much higher rate on their next mortgage. In turn, the market could continue to suffer from a lack of supply, keeping home prices at elevated levels, said Fonseca, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
As of March, roughly 60% of homeowners carried a mortgage rate at or below 4%, Fonseca added.
“We still might see those borrowers reluctant to give up those mortgage rates,” she said. “If they’re locked in, we might not see very much movement.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Reserve has held interest rates steady at a 23-year high since last July — but a rate cut is widely expected in the coming months. On Wall Street, the outlook for an interest rate cut has shifted from if to when.
The central bank will issue its latest interest rate decision on Wednesday after a months-long stretch of data has established the key conditions for a rate cut: cooling inflation and slowing job gains.
Still, economists expect the Fed to leave interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, offering the central bank time to ensure current trends hold ahead of its next meeting in September.
The chances of an interest rate cut at the Fed’s meeting in September stand at more than 85%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment. The same tool shows the odds of a rate cut on Wednesday at a meager 5%.
The economy appears to be hurtling toward interest rate cuts later this year, nevertheless. Such an outcome would deliver long-sought loan relief for households and businesses saddled with expensive debt.
Price increases have slowed significantly from a peak of more than 9%, though inflation remains a percentage point higher than the Fed’s target rate of 2%. An outright drop in prices in June compared to the month prior marked a major sign of progress in slowing inflation.
The labor market has continued to grow but its breakneck pace has cooled. The unemployment rate has ticked up this year from 3.7% to 4.1%.
The Fed is guided by a dual mandate to keep inflation under control and the labor market strong. The monthslong stretch of good news for inflation alongside bad news for unemployment has prompted the Fed to give additional consideration to its goal of keeping Americans on the job, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last month.
“For a long time, since inflation arrived, it’s been right to mainly focus on inflation. But now that inflation has come down and the labor market has indeed cooled off, we’re going to be looking at both mandates. They’re in much better balance,” Powell said at a meeting of The Economic Club of Washington, D.C.
“That means that if we were to see an unexpected weakening in the labor market, then that might also be a reason for reaction by us,” Powell added.
However, robust economic data released last week may complicate the path toward a rate cut.
The U.S. economy grew much faster than expected over three months ending in June, accelerating from the previous quarter and defying concerns about a possible slowdown, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
If the Fed cuts interest rates as the economy is heating up, the central bank risks rekindling rapid price increases.
After the economic data came out last Thursday, the odds of a September interest rate cut fell to about 80%. The dip in sentiment proved temporary, however. The odds have risen seven percentage points since then.
(NEW YORK) — Stock market gyrations this week came after a disappointing jobs report stoked concerns about an economic slowdown. The uncertainty drew heightened attention as the U.S. speeds toward this fall’s presidential election.
However, the economy has been gradually cooling for months, alongside falling inflation. The U.S. has repeatedly defied previous warnings of an impending recession, though economists disagree about whether current conditions pose an impending risk.
What is certain is that the economic outlook carries murky implications for the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, experts told ABC News.
A stretch of market turmoil in August will not meaningfully impact the outcome of the election, experts said, nor would a mild economic cooldown over the coming months. However, they added, an acute bout of economic weakness would damage prospects for Harris.
“On balance, it’s a wash in terms of the economic impacts on election prospects,” Stephen Roach, senior fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School, who previously spent three decades working at Morgan Stanley. “It would take a much more severe downturn to begin to have a negative impact on the quasi-incumbency that Kamala Harris brings to the campaign.”
The recent stock market downswing was sparked by a disappointing jobs report on Friday. Employers hired 114,000 workers in July, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs. On Monday, the S&P 500 suffered its worst trading session since 2022. The index has since recovered nearly all of those losses.
The unemployment rate has increased this year from 3.7% to 4.3%, its highest level since 2021. That trend has triggered a recession indicator known as the “Sahm Rule,” which says that a rise of 0.5 percentage points in the unemployment rate within a 12-month period typically precedes a recession.
However, the labor market is still growing and the unemployment rate remains at a historically low level. Meanwhile, U.S. gross domestic product grew at a solid rate over three months ending in June, accelerating from the previous quarter and exceeding average growth in 2023.
“People aren’t micro-focused on what happens during two days in August when the election is in November,” Jon Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University who studies perceptions of the economy, told ABC News. “There’s a lot of reason to say, ‘Let’s not get worked up yet.’”
However, a potential acceleration of the economic cooldown poses a risk for Harris, according to the experts.
Over the past year, the Federal Reserve has held interest rates steady at their highest level since 2001. Those high borrowing costs have weighed on consumers and businesses, slowing price increases while cooling the job market and putting the U.S. at risk of a recession.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell last week indicated that the central bank may cut interest rates at its next meeting in September. Such a move is widely expected by investors.
A sharp rise in the unemployment rate over the coming months could imperil prospects for Harris, Francesco D’Acunto, a Georgetown University finance professor who studies how people understand economic news, told ABC News.
“It’s really important for the Democratic ticket that the labor market is resilient until at least the election,” D’Acunto said, noting that he considers an imminent recession unlikely.
Ray Fair, a professor at Yale University who oversees a model that forecasts elections based on economic conditions, told ABC News that the election outlook has remained largely unchanged since the beginning of the year.
An update of the election forecast last month, only a few days after Harris replaced President Biden on the Democratic ticket, put Harris in a virtual tie with Trump. “From an economic point of view, the election is very close,” Fair said, noting that a mild economic slowdown had favored Republicans while falling inflation had benefited Democrats.
It would take a severe economic downturn over the coming months for that outlook to change, Fair said.
On Sunday, Goldman Sachs economists raised the probability of a U.S. recession in the next year from 15% to 25%.
D’Acunto, of Georgetown University, said enough time remains for economic performance to shift the election prospects for Harris or Trump. But, he added, it is unlikely that conditions will change to the degree that would be necessary.
“Of course, it’s very hard to predict what will happen,” D’Acunto said.