The financial news that actually matters
Homeowners who locked in 15-year fixed mortgages above 6 percent during 2023 and 2024 now face a narrower gap to clear before a refinance pays off. The average 15-year fixed rate fell to 5.81 percent this week, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey, after Treasury yields pulled back on news of an Iran-related…
Roughly 93,000 retail workers lost their jobs last year as a wave of store closures and bankruptcy filings swept through the sector. Chains large and small shed locations, cut headcount, and turned to court-supervised restructuring to stay afloat. With forecasts pointing to even steeper closure numbers in 2025, the pressure on retail employment shows no…
Key Takeaways Contact the credit card issuer first and ask the fraud department to close the unauthorized credit card account. Report identity theft at IdentityTheft.gov to create an Identity Theft Report for disputes and recovery. Pull credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion and check for unauthorized accounts, inquiries, personal loans, auto loans, insurance applications,…
A federal grand jury in the Western District of Tennessee has indicted Misam M. Abidi, a 47-year-old resident of Nolensville, on 11 counts tied to an alleged crypto Ponzi scheme that operated through Star Credit Holdings from 2020 to 2024. The charges include three counts of wire fraud and two counts of unlicensed money transmitting,…
Households and small businesses earning less than $400,000 a year are shielded from any uptick in IRS audit activity under a directive issued by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The order, sent to the IRS Commissioner, explicitly bars the agency from using new enforcement funding to raise the share of examinations on filers below that income…
Millions of Americans carrying credit-card balances or drawing on home-equity lines of credit are paying steep interest charges that have barely budged since the Federal Reserve cut rates six months ago. The U.S. bank prime loan rate stands at 6.75%, exactly three percentage points above the federal funds target range of 3.50% to 3.75% set…
Consumers and small businesses sending money through Zelle or the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service can now complete transfers in seconds without paying a fee, while major banks continue to charge roughly $35 for a domestic wire transfer that often takes hours to settle. The Federal Reserve set its 2024 fee schedule for FedNow in November…
At Home, the home-decor superstore chain, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and expanded its store closure plan to 32 locations after initially targeting 26. Liquidation partner Hilco Consumer Retail announced closing sales at the additional six stores, bringing the total number of shuttered sites well beyond the original round. For shoppers and employees at those…
Workers age 50 and older just gained a small but real bump in how much they can stash in an Individual Retirement Account. The IRS set the 2026 IRA catch-up contribution limit at $1,100, a $100 increase over the $1,000 cap that applied in 2025. The adjustment stems from SECURE 2.0, which introduced annual inflation…
Savers who stash money in a Roth IRA hold a withdrawal advantage that most retirement accounts do not offer: every dollar they personally contributed can come back out at any time, free of federal income tax and free of early-withdrawal penalties. That flexibility, grounded in federal statute and IRS distribution rules, separates the Roth from…