The financial news that actually matters
A homeowner in Austin who bought at the 2022 peak has likely watched their property lose value for the better part of two years. A seller in Tampa who expected to cash in on pandemic-era gains is discovering that buyers have leverage again. And across the country, the numbers confirm what these anecdotes suggest: the…
When a Denver-area homeowner who goes by Sarah on a local housing forum bought her three-bedroom ranch in early 2021, she locked in a 2.87% fixed rate that keeps her monthly payment at $1,480. She and her husband have spent the past year talking about moving closer to her aging parents in Phoenix. Every time…
The monthly payment on a $400,000 mortgage just crossed another threshold that most first-time buyers cannot comfortably afford. Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ending May 15, 2026, puts the average 30-year fixed rate at 6.37%, up for the second consecutive week and roughly a quarter-point higher than where it sat in…
When the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act this past February, Maria Delgado figured some relief was coming. The Houston mother of three had watched the price of her kids’ school supplies, shoes, and winter coats climb steadily over the past several years. “I kept thinking, these tariffs…
If you checked your mortgage statement this morning and hoped a new Federal Reserve chair might bring relief, the Senate just gave you an answer: not yet, and probably not this year. Senators confirmed Kevin Warsh to the Fed’s Board of Governors on Monday, May 12, 2026, then immediately cleared a procedural vote to advance…
The 10-year Treasury yield surged past 4.60% on Tuesday, May 13, 2026, its highest close in roughly a year, after a Consumer Price Index report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics came in far hotter than Wall Street expected. By the end of the week, the damage had reached the housing market: the average 30-year…
On June 30, 2026, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency published two interim final actions that allow nationally chartered banks to keep charging merchants credit card processing fees on tips and sales tax, overriding an Illinois law designed to eliminate exactly those charges. The state’s ban was set to take effect the very…
Seventy-seven days into the U.S. war with Iran, the Pentagon has burned through $29 billion in taxpayer money. Nearly half of that, roughly $12 billion, represents military equipment destroyed or damaged by Iranian missile and drone strikes across the region. The figures surfaced during an April 30, 2026, budget hearing before the House Appropriations Defense…
Wall Street’s autumn rally hit a wall on November 13, 2024. Minutes after the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a hotter-than-expected consumer-price report for October, the S&P 500 slid 0.4% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1%, snapping a six-week winning streak that had carried the benchmark index more than 8% off its August lows. By…
The price of a raw steak in the United States has never been higher. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national average for uncooked beef steaks hit $12.74 per pound in February 2026, then kept climbing to $13.02 in April, blowing past the previous record. The April 2026 Consumer Price Index, released this…