The financial news that actually matters
Private employers added 41,000 jobs in December, a weak showing that reinforced the view that the U.S. labor market is cooling at the end of the year without fully rolling over. The figure, released Wednesday in the latest ADP National Employment Report, landed below already modest expectations and followed a revised decline in November. That…
U.S. job openings fell in November, another sign that the labor market entered the end of 2025 with less momentum than it had earlier in the recovery. Employers posted 7.1 million openings at the end of the month, down from a revised 7.4 million in October, according to the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor…
Oil prices surged to a five-month high in late January as traders weighed two forces that can move the market in a hurry: harsh winter weather in the United States and rising concern that tensions with Iran could disrupt global supply. The move was sharp enough to reset the mood across the energy complex, with…
January tends to bring a flood of financial resolutions, but advisors say the best reset is usually a simple one. Instead of overhauling everything at once, they often steer clients toward a short list of moves that can improve cash flow, strengthen savings habits, and make the rest of the year easier to manage. That…
January has long held a special place in market lore, and not just because it opens a new calendar year. Historically, U.S. stocks have often started the year with an upward bias, helping fuel the belief that January can deliver stronger returns than a typical month. That broad-market idea still has some factual support. Dow…
A new year is bringing a long list of rule changes for workers, renters, homeowners, and patients across the country. On January 1, 2026, a mix of wage hikes, housing-related protections, and healthcare reforms is taking effect at the state level, with California, Minnesota, and Oregon driving some of the biggest shifts. What makes this…
When the Bureau of Economic Analysis first published its June 2024 estimate, the personal saving rate landed at 3.4% of disposable personal income. That was a strikingly weak number. Coming after months of concern about stubborn living costs and thinning household buffers, it fed a simple story: Americans were still spending, but they were not…
The U.S. economy grew faster in the third quarter of 2025 than first reported, with the Bureau of Economic Analysis revising real gross domestic product growth up to 4.4% from 4.3% at an annualized rate. The change was small, but it mattered because economists had broadly expected no revision and because the number arrived after…
The U.S. national debt has crossed $38 trillion, another milestone that arrived faster than the last one. Just as striking, the government’s annual interest burden has moved above $1 trillion, turning what was once a long-range warning into an immediate budget reality. Those two numbers matter together. A debt total on its own is easy…
The Federal Reserve entered its December meeting facing a problem that has defined much of the year. Inflation was still running above the central bank’s 2% target, but the job market no longer looked strong enough to justify leaving policy as restrictive as it had been. Officials decided to cut rates anyway, lowering the federal…