The financial news that actually matters
Two Illinois Democrats want to nearly triple the federal minimum wage, jumping from $7.25 to $25 an hour in what would be the largest single increase in the 88-year history of the national pay floor. Reps. Delia Ramirez and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia introduced the Living Wage for All Act in May 2026 alongside workers and…
In Swannanoa, North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene’s floodwaters gutted homes and buckled roads in late 2024, residents waiting on federal rebuilding dollars are now watching a new threat form: FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund has dropped below $3 billion, and the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season is already underway. The DRF, the single pot of money Congress…
Nearly a year ago, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon stood before an audience at the Reagan National Economic Forum and made a prediction that still reverberates through financial markets: “A crack in the bond market is going to happen.” Dimon, speaking in late May 2025, said he could not pinpoint when. His window was deliberately…
The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline climbed to $4.20 for the week ending April 28, 2026, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s weekly retail price tracker. That is the highest pump price American drivers have faced since the week ending June 13, 2022, when post-pandemic demand and the fallout…
Hilton Worldwide CEO Chris Nassetta has a new letter for the hospitality industry’s alphabet: C. The “K-shaped” recovery that split post-pandemic America into two lanes, with affluent travelers spending freely and lower-income households pulling back, is fading, he argues. In its place, Nassetta sees a “C-shaped” economy where spending power is converging across income levels…
When a hyperscale AI data center powers up, it can pull 300 megawatts or more from the grid, roughly the electrical load of a city of 200,000 people. Somebody has to pay for the substations, transmission upgrades, and engineering work needed to deliver that power. In most of the country, those costs have quietly landed…
Shopkeepers in Tehran spent the last week of April 2026 re-tagging prices before their doors opened each morning. The reason: Iran’s currency had just crossed a threshold that would have seemed unthinkable a decade ago. On the unofficial exchange market where most Iranians actually buy dollars, the rial fell past 1,000,000 to the dollar, its…
Michael Burry is holding millions of dollars in put options against the two most widely held index funds in American retirement accounts. That alone would be worth noting. But the timing of his bet coincides with a set of structural shifts in how stocks enter major indexes, shifts that could force 401(k) plans to buy…
Volvo dealerships across the United States are conspicuously quiet this spring, and not because the cars are hard to find. While competitors plaster windshields with cash-back offers and subsidized lease rates, Volvo Cars has refused to blink on pricing. Every model in its U.S. lineup carries a 25% import tariff embedded somewhere in the transaction,…
Micron Technology (MU) dropped about 3% in premarket trading on Tuesday, falling roughly $16 to around $532, even as D.A. Davidson handed the chipmaker the most aggressive price target on Wall Street: $1,000, implying nearly 88% upside from where shares opened the session. The divergence between a blockbuster initiation and a red ticker captures a…