The financial news that actually matters
Private employers added 41,000 jobs in December, a weak showing that reinforced the view that the U.S. labor market is cooling at the end of the year without fully rolling over. The figure, released Wednesday in the latest ADP National Employment Report, landed below already modest expectations and followed a revised decline in November. That…
U.S. job openings fell in November, another sign that the labor market entered the end of 2025 with less momentum than it had earlier in the recovery. Employers posted 7.1 million openings at the end of the month, down from a revised 7.4 million in October, according to the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor…
U.S. manufacturing ended the year on a weaker note, with the sector slipping deeper into contraction as demand remained soft and factory managers grew more cautious about the near-term outlook. The Institute for Supply Management’s Manufacturing PMI fell to 47.9, down from 48.2 a month earlier, marking the lowest reading of the year and extending…
Oil prices surged to a five-month high in late January as traders weighed two forces that can move the market in a hurry: harsh winter weather in the United States and rising concern that tensions with Iran could disrupt global supply. The move was sharp enough to reset the mood across the energy complex, with…
January has long held a special place in market lore, and not just because it opens a new calendar year. Historically, U.S. stocks have often started the year with an upward bias, helping fuel the belief that January can deliver stronger returns than a typical month. That broad-market idea still has some factual support. Dow…
The U.S. economy grew faster in the third quarter of 2025 than first reported, with the Bureau of Economic Analysis revising real gross domestic product growth up to 4.4% from 4.3% at an annualized rate. The change was small, but it mattered because economists had broadly expected no revision and because the number arrived after…
The U.S. national debt has crossed $38 trillion, another milestone that arrived faster than the last one. Just as striking, the government’s annual interest burden has moved above $1 trillion, turning what was once a long-range warning into an immediate budget reality. Those two numbers matter together. A debt total on its own is easy…
The Federal Reserve entered its December meeting facing a problem that has defined much of the year. Inflation was still running above the central bank’s 2% target, but the job market no longer looked strong enough to justify leaving policy as restrictive as it had been. Officials decided to cut rates anyway, lowering the federal…
America’s retailers are heading into one of the busiest and least profitable stretches of the shopping calendar: the rush of post-Christmas returns. After a holiday season that the National Retail Federation forecast would break the $1 trillion mark for the first time, the industry is now bracing for a flood of merchandise moving in the…
The Nasdaq Composite closed 2025 at 23,241.99, finishing the year with a 20.4% gain and extending a rally that was driven far more by artificial intelligence spending than by a broad rise across the entire technology sector. Even with some weakness in the final trading session, the index still turned in one of its stronger…