Category: Markets & Economy

By the time Marco Reyes unlocked the pumps at his Chevron station in Bakersfield, California, on a Monday morning in late March 2026, the price board already read $5.89 a gallon for regular. A month earlier, before U.S. strikes on Iranian military targets began in late February, it had been closer to $3.87. One of…

The U.S. Treasury on May 1, 2026, set the new Series I bond composite rate at 4.26% for all bonds purchased between May 1 and October 31, 2026. That marks a notable jump from the previous cycle and pairs with a 0.90% fixed rate that locks in for the bond’s full 30-year life. A saver…

A driver in Los Angeles paying $5.89 a gallon for regular on Friday morning could be forgiven for wondering whether the oil market crash everyone was talking about was happening on a different planet. Brent crude futures fell roughly 7% this week, settling near $101 a barrel after President Trump floated a deal with Iran…

Kevin Warsh is on track to become the next chair of the Federal Reserve, and if the Senate vote goes the way both parties expect, he will get there without a single Democratic vote. That would make him the first Fed chair confirmed on purely partisan lines since at least 1979, when the modern confirmation…

The last time Series I savings bonds paid this well, inflation was running near 4% and savers were scrambling to lock in yields before they dropped. On May 1, 2026, the U.S. Treasury set the new I bond composite rate at 4.26%, the highest since the November 2023 cycle delivered 5.27%. That rate applies to…

The last time the United States had this few cattle, Dwight Eisenhower was finishing his presidency and the country had 180 million people. Today it has nearly 340 million, and the herd they all depend on for hamburgers, brisket, and Sunday roasts has dropped to roughly 86.7 million head, according to the USDA’s January 2026…

Brent crude whipsawed nearly $8 in a single trading session in late May 2026. The front-month contract opened above $116 a barrel, then cratered to $108 after a Pentagon spokesperson told reporters that both the United States and Iran were observing the terms of a ceasefire brokered in Oman and that U.S. naval assets in…

On Friday, May 8, at 8:30 a.m. ET, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish the April 2026 Employment Situation report, and the range of expectations heading into the release is unusually wide. Analyst forecasts for nonfarm payroll gains stretch from roughly 53,000 to 150,000 new jobs. A gap that large reflects more than normal…

Small-cap stocks stole the spotlight on Wall Street on Tuesday, June 10, 2026, as falling oil prices and solid labor-market data pushed investors toward the domestically focused companies that rarely lead the tape. The Russell 2000 surged 1.8% to about 2,845, a level that, based on available index data, appeared to mark a fresh all-time…