The financial news that actually matters
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…
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has warned that financial markets are showing “too much exuberance,” drawing a direct line to the conditions he observed before the dot-com crash of 2000 and the credit crisis of 2007. Dimon singled out rival banks for taking on excessive risk, saying they are doing “dumb things” that echo the…
American households carrying credit-card debt face a sharp warning sign: 13 percent of credit-card balances are now at least 90 days past due, the highest share recorded since 2011. The milestone arrives as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation publishes its latest system-wide data on bank asset quality, and it raises direct questions about whether lenders…
Freelancers, gig workers, and anyone with income that escapes regular paycheck withholding face a clear federal threshold: if the gap between what they owe and what has already been withheld reaches $1,000, the IRS expects them to send quarterly estimated payments throughout the year. Missing that obligation triggers an automatic penalty calculated on each late…
Workers who get married, welcome a baby, or pick up a second job during the year often discover the consequences months later, when a tax return reveals hundreds or even thousands of dollars owed to the IRS. The agency itself warns that these common life changes can throw paycheck withholding out of alignment with actual…
Two U.S. banks have shut their doors in 2026, and the second closure came just weeks ago. On May 1, Georgia regulators seized Community Bank and Trust, a small lender based in LaGrange, Georgia, after determining the institution was insolvent. That followed the January 30 failure of Metropolitan Capital Bank and Trust in Chicago, which…
American consumers saw prices climb at the fastest pace in three years, with the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index rising 4.1% from May 2025 to May 2026. That annual increase, the largest since April 2023, landed just days after Federal Reserve officials wrapped their June 16–17 policy meeting without signaling any near-term rate cuts. For…
Homeowners who bought in fast-appreciating markets a decade ago now face a tax question that can swing their after-sale proceeds by tens of thousands of dollars. Under federal law, married couples filing jointly can exclude up to $500,000 of gain from the sale of a primary residence, while single filers can exclude up to $250,000….