The financial news that actually matters
Credit card borrowers who pay more than the minimum each month already have a legal ally they may not know about: federal law requires issuers to send every extra dollar to the balance carrying the highest annual percentage rate first. That rule, written into the Credit CARD Act of 2009 and codified in both statute…
Savers at federally insured credit unions hold the same $250,000 safety net that protects deposits at banks, a fact that still surprises many consumers comparing their options after a string of high-profile bank failures. The National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, administered by the NCUA, covers individual accounts up to $250,000 per member-owner, with parallel…
Homeowners in California and Virginia can now record a single document that transfers real property to named heirs at death, completely bypassing the probate court process that can stall title transfers for months or longer. The mechanism, known as a revocable transfer-on-death deed, sits within each state’s nonprobate transfer statutes and requires only that the…
Investors holding broad U.S. equity index funds face a valuation signal that has preceded sharp losses every time it has appeared in the modern record. The S&P 500’s cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio, known as the Shiller P/E or CAPE, sits near 40, a level recorded only twice before: at the peak of the dot-com bubble…
Taxpayers who have not yet filed their 2025 individual returns still have a narrow window to cut their federal tax bill by contributing to a traditional IRA before the April 15, 2026 filing deadline. The annual contribution cap sits at $7,000 for most filers, and every dollar that qualifies as deductible shrinks adjusted gross income…
Workers across the United States are losing jobs at a pace that puts artificial intelligence at the center of corporate cost-cutting in 2026. More than half of this year’s announced layoffs cite AI as a driving factor, with the total exceeding 156,000 positions eliminated. Companies ranging from enterprise software giants to mid-size service firms have…
Scammers posing as bank fraud departments are tricking people into handing over money and personal data at a growing rate, and federal agencies say the single best defense is the simplest: hang up and call the number printed on the back of your debit or credit card. Bank impersonation is the most-reported text message scam,…
Savers holding cash at the largest U.S. banks are earning a fraction of what they could get by moving that money to an online savings account. The FDIC pegs the national average savings rate at 0.38% for May 2026, a figure that has barely budged in recent months even as online banks continue to advertise…
Roughly 2,700 people, many of them ordinary retail investors, poured more than $770 million into what federal regulators now call a Ponzi scheme run by a Pennsylvania resident and his companies. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice filed parallel enforcement actions alleging the operation fabricated the size and revenue of an…
Homeowners paying private mortgage insurance on a conventional loan are entitled by federal law to have that charge removed automatically once their loan balance drops to 78% of the home’s original value, provided they are current on payments. The rule, codified under the Homeowners Protection Act, requires lenders and servicers to act without any borrower…