Category: Markets & Economy

The world burned through more oil stockpiles in two months than most analysts thought possible. Global observed inventories fell by 246 million barrels across March and April 2026, the fastest two-month drawdown the International Energy Agency has ever recorded, according to its May Oil Market Report. That collapse unfolded even as governments were pumping emergency…

In just 11 weeks, the U.S. military campaign against Iran has burned through $29 billion in taxpayer money, and the Pentagon cannot fully explain where all of it went. That updated figure emerged during a House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on May 12, 2026, as reported by the Associated Press, representing a $4 billion jump…

Eight out of ten companies that rolled out AI or automation technologies followed up by cutting jobs. The financial payoff those cuts were supposed to deliver? It never showed up. A Gartner survey published on May 5, 2026 found that 80% of companies adopting AI or automation reduced their workforces afterward. But the same survey…

For the first time since the Federal Reserve’s bruising tightening campaign ended in mid-2023, the word “hike” is back on the board. As of late May 2026, federal funds futures tracked by the CME FedWatch tool imply a 27% probability that the Fed will raise its benchmark rate by the conclusion of the December 15-16…

Out of every dollar the average American household brought home after taxes in April 2024, just 3.6 cents went into savings. The rest vanished into rent, groceries, gas, and debt payments. That rate, reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, was the lowest the country had seen since the months leading up to the 2008…

The national average price of regular gasoline slipped to $4.51 per gallon in the most recent Energy Information Administration weekly survey, a small reprieve for drivers who have watched pump prices grind higher for much of the past year. But the relief may be short-lived. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index report, released…

More than one in eight dollars of credit card debt in the United States is now seriously past due, a threshold the banking system has not crossed since it was still absorbing losses from the Great Recession. The Federal Reserve’s latest charge-off and delinquency report, compiled from regulatory filings submitted by commercial banks, puts the…

A federal gas tax holiday introduced in Congress on April 29, 2026, would put roughly $35 back in the average family’s pocket over five months. That works out to about $7 a month, less than a fast-food combo meal, and it has trucking companies and road builders warning that the trade-off is not worth it:…

The math keeps getting worse for anyone trying to buy a home. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.46% in the week ending May 15, 2026, according to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. That is the highest level in nearly seven months, and it arrived after back-to-back inflation reports that caught Wall…

Last spring, a round-trip ticket from New York to Los Angeles ran about $280 on most booking platforms. This May, the same seat on the same route costs closer to $370. The jump is not unique to that corridor. Across hundreds of domestic city pairs, airfares have climbed sharply, and the single biggest driver is…