Investors look past Powell investigation

Opposition to the Trump administration’s criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is growing.

On Sunday evening, Mr. Powell said federal prosecutors were investigating him over his testimony before Congress related to the central bank’s $2.5 billion headquarters renovation project.

Powell suggested the survey reflected President Donald Trump’s frustration with the Fed’s refusal to cut interest rates as aggressively as he had requested.

The investigation immediately sparked a wave of bipartisan criticism.

“The reported criminal investigation against Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell is an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine his independence,” Monday’s statement said. It was signed by former Fed chairmen, economists, and other senior officials who served in past Democratic and Republican administrations.

Some Republicans also pushed back, with North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis saying he would block President Trump from making appointments to the Fed.

Former CEO Lloyd Blankfein goldman sachswent further, calling the criminal investigation an “attempted murder-suicide” on the part of multiple U.S. agencies.

Despite the turmoil, US markets rose. S&P500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average Even if it closes at a new high.

“I’m surprised the market isn’t more concerned,” said former Federal Reserve Chair and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. This is a “very appalling” situation, she added.

But Jim Leventhal, chief market strategist at Cerity Partners, told CNBC there are too many short-term “good things” for investors to focus on, such as a healthy economy and earnings.

That doesn’t mean there’s a clear path forward for the market. President Trump announced on Monday that he would impose 25% tariffs on countries that do business with Iran.

Although his post on Truth Social did not mention China, it is Iran’s largest trading partner. In other words, new tariffs could complicate the fragile trade truce between China and the United States, or even trigger retaliation from China, analysts say.

If the pace of development in recent weeks is any indication, investors may need to brace for more obstacles in the coming days.

—CNBC’s Dan Mangan, Jeff Cox and Yun Li contributed to this report.

Hedge funds had their best year since 2009. These two strategies brought the most returns

The global hedge fund industry achieved an annualized return of 12.6% across all strategy types last year, the highest since the global financial crisis.

This profit was primarily driven by stock-picking strategies that bet long and short on the stock market, and macro managers that utilize stocks, bonds, commodities, and currencies to trade big macroeconomic themes.

Both of these strategies rose more than 17% for the year, according to new data released by industry tracker Hedge Fund Research.

— Hugh Leask