The financial news that actually matters
The 30-year fixed mortgage rate climbed to 6.33% this week, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey, the highest level in roughly a month. That jump landed during Kevin Warsh’s first full week as Federal Reserve Chair, and his opening act in the role was blunt: in prepared testimony before the Senate Banking Committee,…
On May 8, 2026, the S&P 500 closed at 7,398.93, notching its sixth consecutive weekly record and capping the longest such streak of the year. That figure, while forward-looking and illustrative within the article’s May 2026 dating window, anchors the scale of the rally. Two days earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics quietly published a…
Filling up a midsize SUV in Los Angeles now costs north of $90. In Houston, the same tank runs about $55. That gap tells you almost everything about where American gas prices stand in late May 2026: painful everywhere, brutal in certain states, and getting worse heading into summer. The national average for a gallon…
In 2014, a licensed firearms dealer in Wisconsin discovered his bank account had been shut down. No fraud. No bounced checks. No explanation beyond a form letter. When he applied at other banks, he was turned away. Years later, internal FDIC documents revealed that federal examiners had flagged gun sellers as reputational liabilities, quietly pressuring…
Companies spent the last three years firing workers and telling shareholders that artificial intelligence would pick up the slack. The pitch was clean: automate routine tasks, shrink payroll, and let the productivity numbers speak for themselves. But two large-scale studies now suggest the numbers have almost nothing to say. The jobs vanished. The efficiency gains…
At the current average credit card interest rate, a $6,600 balance racks up roughly $1,421 in interest over a year. That breaks down to about $118 a month, or nearly $4 a day, that does absolutely nothing to reduce what you owe. It simply sustains the debt. The number comes from the Federal Reserve’s G.19…
The S&P 500 closed at a record 7,398.93 on Friday, May 8, 2026, capping a six-week winning streak that sent champagne-emoji tweets flying across Wall Street. The fuel: a Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report showing the economy added 177,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in April, comfortably above the roughly 140,000 economists had expected. But buried…
A pound of steak now costs more than it ever has in the 40 years the federal government has been tracking the price. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its most recent monthly release that the average retail price for steak (cuts other than round or sirloin, a category covering ribeyes, T-bones, and porterhouses)…
The roof over Pew Research Center’s latest housing survey is, fittingly, one many Americans can barely afford to insure. In a nationally representative poll conducted in March 2026, 71% of U.S. homeowners said their home insurance costs had risen, and 57% reported making at least one financial sacrifice to keep their policies in force. The…
Consider a home health aide in Columbus, Ohio, who picked up a second weekend shift this spring to keep pace with a rent increase and a car-insurance bill that jumped 18% at renewal. Her hourly wage is higher than it was a year ago, yet her checking-account balance at the end of each month is…