The financial news that actually matters
An investment pitch is only as real as the strategy behind it, and prosecutors say the strategy behind Price Physics was fiction. The fund’s operator told investors a proprietary trading algorithm was producing steady double-digit monthly gains. A federal court has now ordered him to hand over millions of dollars, and the algorithm he sold…
Promises of high returns with low risk are the oldest hook in investment fraud, and a San Antonio investment firm built a $69 million business on them. The company’s founder and chief executive has now admitted the scheme was a fraud that drew in hundreds of ordinary investors. His guilty plea carries an agreement to…
Behind many overseas scams that target older Americans sits a quieter role: the person on U.S. soil who picks up the cash. A Los Angeles man has now admitted to being one of those couriers, pleading guilty to laundering money for a ring that impersonated government officials and drained the savings of elderly victims. He…
A paid-off home is often the single largest asset an older American owns, and that is precisely what makes it a target. A category of fraud known as deed theft or home title theft turns ownership itself into the prize: a criminal forges a signature, files a fraudulent deed with the local recorder, and on…
The phone call always carries the same panic. A grandchild has supposedly been arrested after a car crash, needs bail money immediately, and begs the grandparent to keep it quiet. It is a script, read from call centers thousands of miles away, and it has pulled millions of dollars from older Americans. Federal prosecutors and…
The Supreme Court has thrown out the emergency-powers tariffs that reshaped the price of imported goods for more than a year, and the ruling leaves the government owing an estimated $166 billion in duties that were collected without legal authority. Roughly 330,000 importers paid or deposited that money across more than 53 million import entries….
Medicare covers a yearly wellness visit at no charge, and the appointment is one of the more valuable benefits available to older Americans. The trouble starts when the visit drifts beyond its narrow definition. A question answered, a symptom examined, or a test ordered during the same appointment can quietly convert part of a free…
The option appears at checkout on almost every shopping site now: split the purchase into four payments, no interest, no credit check. Buy-now-pay-later has grown from a niche feature into a mainstream way to pay, and it reaches shoppers of every age. The easy approval is the selling point, but it hides a real risk…
A retiree who gives to charity every year and also has to take money out of an IRA is often paying more tax than necessary. The two acts can be combined into one. A qualified charitable distribution sends money straight from a retirement account to a nonprofit, keeps that amount off the tax return, and…
Most retirement tax advice is about paying less now. A Roth conversion flips that logic on purpose: it means volunteering to pay tax in the current year in exchange for a stream of withdrawals that are never taxed again. Timed for a year when income dips, the move can turn a temporary low bracket into…