The financial news that actually matters
Homeowners weighing a refinance face a single arithmetic test: whether the monthly savings from a lower interest rate will recover every dollar of closing costs before they sell or move. The Federal Reserve frames this decision as a break-even calculation, and data collected jointly by the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection…
A large share of American adults lack enough savings to cover even three months of expenses, a gap that turns a job loss into a fast track toward credit-card debt. The Federal Reserve’s most recent household survey, published in May 2025, tracks how many adults report holding emergency savings at that threshold. The Consumer Financial…
Savers with six-figure bank balances face a quiet but costly trap: concentrating too much cash at a single institution can leave dollars uninsured and, at the same time, locked into below-market interest rates. The federal deposit insurance ceiling sits at $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category. That figure is written into federal…
Taxpayers who pick up the phone to hear someone claiming to be from the IRS face a simple test: did a letter arrive first? The Internal Revenue Service has stated repeatedly that it normally contacts people for the first time by mail sent through the U.S. Postal Service. Any phone call, text, or email that…
Forgotten streaming services, lapsed gym memberships, and auto-renewing software licenses quietly drain household budgets month after month. In the United Kingdom alone, consumers spent 688 million pounds on unused subscriptions in a single year, according to Citizens Advice research. Regulators in the United States are now pushing back with new rules that force companies to…
Wealth manager Craig Kirsner has staked his professional reputation on a bold call: he says he is “100% certain” that a stock-market downturn will begin in July and stretch into the fall. The prediction draws on a well-documented pattern in academic finance that links presidential election cycles to equity performance. With the current administration in…
Homebuyers and credit-card holders absorbed another week of elevated borrowing costs after the Federal Reserve’s June 16-17, 2026, policy meeting signaled that rate cuts are further off than many had expected. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate stood at 6.49% heading into late June, barely moving from the range it has held for six weeks….
People who have already lost money to fraud are being targeted again, this time by operators who promise to recover those losses in exchange for an upfront fee. Three federal agencies – the FTC, the CFTC, and the SEC – classify this tactic as advance-fee fraud, a second scam layered on top of the first….
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York say a California man named Max McDermott engineered a $10 million loan fraud scheme with a specific goal: repay investors quickly enough to derail an active Securities and Exchange Commission investigation before enforcement staff could file charges. McDermott was arrested and charged with wire fraud and…
Francesca’s is shutting down its entire store fleet through a second Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with court-approved liquidation sales already underway at roughly 400 locations. The women’s boutique chain, which was rescued through an asset purchase just five years ago, has shifted from seeking a new buyer to winding down operations entirely. Three liquidation firms are…