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Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Friday, May 17th, and this is your

F.T. News briefing. U.S. federal agencies are breathing a sigh of relief, and U.S. property funds are having a major cash flow problem.

Plus, high interest rates in the U.S. are starting to do a number on foreign currencies.

We do have a sort of relatively strong dollar

and that's putting stress on particular parts of the global system.

I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day. The US Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the way the country's top consumer finance watchdog is

funded is constitutional. If the court had ruled against the Consumer Financial

Protection Bureau, it would have raised existential questions about the agency.

But it also could have opened the door to challenges against other federal agencies that do not

receive funding by Congress on an annual basis such as the Federal Reserve.

Unsurprisingly, Democrats and Republican lawmakers had some pretty different reactions to

the ruling. President Joe Biden praised it while Republicans criticized the decision.

Nine. Nine countries have cut interest rates so far this year, Argentina, Hungary,

Hungary, Peru, the Czech Republic, those are just a few of them, and more Central Banks have strongly

suggested they might start lowering rates soon too. Now that is great in all, but the big

one everyone cares about, of course, is the U.S. Federal Reserve.

To explain why we're hanging on Fed Chair Jerome Powell's every word, as the F.T.'s markets columnist

Katie. Hi Katie.

Hey Mark, how you doing?

I am doing well.

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