Author: Money Mechanics

Pintarnya, an Indonesian employment platform that goes beyond job matching by offering financial services along with full-time and side-gig opportunities, said it has raised a $16.7 million Series A round. The funding was led by Square Peg with participation from existing investors Vertex Venture Southeast Asia & India and East Ventures. Ghirish Pokardas, Nelly Nurmalasari, and Henry Hendrawan founded Pintarnya in 2022 to tackle two of the biggest challenges Indonesians face daily: earning enough and borrowing responsibly. “Traditionally, mass workers in Indonesia find jobs offline through job fairs or word of mouth, with employers buried in paper applications and candidates…

Explore your options for health insurance before you retiregetty If you’re contemplating early retirement before Medicare eligibility at age 65, you’re going to need a good health insurance plan. Such a plan can help prevent catastrophic medical costs for anyone, including people who are currently vital and healthy. Before you turn in your retirement notice, it’s critical that you explore your options—and their costs. If you’ve been covered by a health plan at work, you may find that your situation can change significantly when you retire. For one thing, it’s very likely that your monthly premiums will increase significantly for…

Adam Inzirillo ▬ July 16, 2025 It’s been a busy few months at Cboe® as a whole and within the Cboe Data Vantage℠ business. Most notably, Cboe welcomed Craig Donohue as our new CEO. Within Cboe Data Vantage, we have been connecting with customers worldwide, continuously seeking opportunities to deliver more holistic solutions to our customers.Over the last few months, 24×5 equities trading — and the data associated with it — has remained a major focus in the industry and at Cboe. As I shared at the AsiaFIC conference in May, Cboe is prepared to enable 24×5 equities trading as…

Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2023, according to statistics released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. The percent change ranged from 8.1 percent in Florida to 4.7 percent in Iowa. Nationally, current-dollar PCE increased 6.4 percent in 2023 after increasing 9.8 percent in 2022 (table 1). PCE by state highlights Consumer spending on health care, housing and utilities, and food services and accommodations were the largest contributors to the increase nationally (table 3). Health care increased 8.6 percent nationally and was the largest contributor to growth in 33…

Even amid rising competition, Nvidia stock should continue moving higher. SoundHound’s revenue grew by more than 200% in its most recent quarter. Netflix’s increasing margins and long growth runway justify a lofty valuation. 10 stocks we like better than Nvidia › Investors have been very fortunate over the past couple of years. A tremendous run for technology stocks on artificial intelligence enthusiasm, investments, and rising long-term expectations has carried the broader stock market to impressive heights. But it seems the market has begun to cool off over the past week or so, with some of the top-performing technology stocks dipping…

Columbia reached a landmark deal with the Trump administration to restore federal funding for research, easing a crisis that has rattled the school’s faculty and undermined its leadership. The college will pay $200 million in penalties over three years to resolve multiple civil rights investigations, clearing the way for over $400 million in federal funding that was previously cancelled. This is excellent news for this college and hopefully sets a precedent for others to follow. We have been reporting on higher education papers for the last several months. We would encourage buyers to proceed with caution unless a strong underlying…

IMPORTANT NOTE: I wrote this article on Wednesday to be published Sunday while I am visiting family out of town. It appears that Vanguard has backed off on raising the bond minimum to $10,000, based on Boglehead discussions posted Saturday and today. The note announcing the change has been removed from the trading platform. If anyone gets further updates please post them in the comments. A rather ominous AI image for “Bond investors locked out of market.” Source: Google Gemini By David Enna, Tipswatch.com A few years ago, I was writing about bid-ask spreads for TIPS on the secondary market…

Economist Peter Schiff made a playful reference to the “Bitcoin obituary list” on Sunday where he ranked first for predicting Bitcoin’s BTC/USD demise 18 times.The Hall Of FameIn a X post, Schiff said, “At least I made the top of the Bitcoin obituary list,” a cheeky nod to his long-standing skepticism of the leading cryptocurrency.The list, satirically titled “Hall of Fame,” ranked critics based on the number of times they declared Bitcoin “dead.” Schiff was at the first position, with as many as 18 obituaries.The last obituary came in April when the gold bug predicted that the financial crisis of…

Thank you, Robin. And thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today on the important topic of housing and how housing fits in with the broader economy.1 First, I want to step back and say that housing—our homes—has a central role in our lives beyond what statistical reports capture. Housing matters greatly for our welfare because shelter is a basic human necessity. Our homes—be it city apartments, farmhouses passed through generations, or suburban dwellings—are among the most significant places in our lives. In terms of household finances, housing is an important source of wealth for many American families.…

Tourists take photos as they visit the Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, on August 2, 2025. (Photo by Manaure QUINTERO / AFP) (Photo by MANAURE QUINTERO/AFP via Getty Images) Manaure Quintero | Afp | Getty ImagesSpain’s booming economy is outpacing its European neighbors as tourism, foreign investment and immigration helps fuel growth.The southern European country is still leading growth in the euro zone with annual gross domestic product forecasted to rise 2.5% this year, while the economies of France, Germany and Italy are respectively forecast to expand 0.6%, 0% and 0.7%.Spain’s GDP surpassed expectations in the second quarter, growing 0.7%, above a Reuters…