The financial news that actually matters
Millions of American households carrying revolving credit card debt are now falling behind on payments at a pace not seen since the aftermath of the last major recession. Total U.S. household debt reached a record $18.8 trillion in the first quarter, while credit card balances 90 or more days past due climbed to 13.1 percent,…
Twenty-eight percent of traders on the CME FedWatch tool are now positioning for something that hasn’t been on the table since 2023: a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase. As of early June 2026, that share of fed-funds futures positioning implies a quarter-point hike at the Fed’s December meeting, while the earliest rate cut carrying majority odds…
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national index rose just 1.5% year over year in April – the smallest annual climb since 2012 – with Tampa, Phoenix, and Dallas posting sub-zero YoY readings. U.S. home prices are growing at their slowest pace in more than a decade. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index rose just…
Americans paid 3.8 percent more for goods and services in April than they did a year earlier, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported in late June 2026. That marks the eighth straight month the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure has overshot its 2 percent target, a streak stretching back to September 2025 that is visible…
In the spring of 2024, more than one in four U.S. banks told the Federal Reserve they had raised the bar for commercial real estate borrowers. The net share of lenders that tightened CRE standards hit 26 percent, according to the Fed’s April 2024 Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey (SLOOS). It was the sharpest pullback…
On May 19, 2026, the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond closed at a yield of 5.19%, according to the Treasury Department’s daily par yield curve. That is the highest closing level since 2007, before the financial crisis rewired the global economy and ushered in more than a decade of historically low interest rates. And a majority…
Jerome Powell is not leaving the Federal Reserve. He is stepping down as chair, but he intends to keep his seat on the Board of Governors until his term expires on January 31, 2028, according to his official Fed biography. That makes him the first outgoing chair to remain on the board since Marriner S….
On the last trading day of May 2026, Brent crude settled near $92 a barrel, capping a decline of roughly 19% from the $113-plus levels where the global benchmark closed April. That figure, drawn from daily spot prices in the Federal Reserve’s FRED database, makes May the worst single month for Brent since April 2020,…
A 3.3% raise sounds solid until you learn that prices rose faster. In April 2026, the typical private-sector worker earned $37.41 an hour, a year-over-year gain that would have meant real progress in almost any recent month. But it didn’t, because the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis climbed…
As recently as February, traders betting on fed funds futures still expected at least one quarter-point rate cut before December. That bet is off the board. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup have each removed their final projected Federal Reserve rate reduction for 2026, according to updated research notes published in late May and first…