Author: Money Mechanics

Key Takeaways Docusign shares jumped Friday after the maker of electronic signature software posted strong quarterly results and boosted its outlook.CEO Allan Thygesen called the performance “one of Docusign’s highest growth and profitability quarters in recent years,” thanks in part to its AI offerings.Total customers rose 9% from a year ago, and the number of customers who spent more than $300,000 rose 7%. Docusign (DOCU) shares jumped Friday, after the maker of electronic signature software posted strong quarterly results and boosted its outlook as it added more customers and expanded its artificial intelligence offerings. The company reported second-quarter adjusted earnings…

Key Takeaways Amazon is ending a program called Prime Invitee that allowed Prime members to share their free shipping benefit with someone outside their home.The program will be replaced with Amazon Family, with Prime shipping only able to be shared between a few accounts with the same primary residence.Amazon joins Netflix and Costco, among others, that have made efforts in recent years to encourage people to sign up for their own subscriptions instead of sharing benefits. Amazon is joining the wave of companies pushing consumers to get their own subscriptions and not share benefits, as the online retail giant recently…

Key Takeaways The Federal Reserve is now nearly certain to cut its benchmark interest rate in September by at least 25 basis points and possibly 50.A report on the jobs market released Friday showed hiring is slower than expected, giving the Fed reason to boost the job market with lower interest rates.Fed officials have been torn between keeping rates high to fight inflation and lowering them to prevent unemployment from rising.For now, the Fed may focus more on the threat to the job market rather than the possibility that tariffs will stoke inflation. In the wake of Friday’s dismal job…

If you’re worried about your health care coverage, you aren’t alone. Health insurers are not only raising premiums, but some are leaving the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace altogether. These departures will drive up costs for Obamacare plans and could leave many Americans without health insurance heading into the 2026 open enrollment season. Here’s what to do if your insurer quits on you, such as the 96,000 Coloradans who just found out they lost coverage. Key Takeaways Major insurers like Aetna CVS Health, Rocky Mountain HMO, and Anthem plan to scale back ACA marketplace offerings in 2026. You could see…

From Arkansas to New York, Honest Waves is riding the cell-phone crackdown in schools. As more states enact bans on student phone use, principals are scrambling for solutions that go beyond confiscation and fabric pouches. Enter Emily Smith, an entrepreneur whose high-tech lockers, already adopted by Arkansas’ Springdale Public Schools, let students voluntarily store their phones safely — and pick them up fully charged. The result? Fewer distractions, happier teachers, and, perhaps most surprisingly, Honest Waves’s feedback indicates that students are actually on board. Benzinga spoke with Smith, 35, about helping schools navigate the new cell-phone norm and what the…

August is now history, and stocks shocked many pundits by rising. However, that shouldn’t be the biggest financial news story in August. You wouldn’t know it from the headlines or leading statistical services – but silver rose 10% in August (and 38% for the year), breaching $40 an ounce. rose 5.5% and most importantly breached $3,500 – 100 times its fixed price back in 1970. rose 6.16% last month and is up a phenomenal 53% for the year, yet everybody is crowing about the much smaller gains in stocks last month (and year-to-date), perhaps just because August is often a…

I continued my record of being an equity market contrary indicator by finishing my last piece with a deeply gloomy discussion of equities that was published hours before a top ten positive U.S. equity daily return close. The alleged logic that was pushed by some commentators was that the trade war was “paused.” (I lean towards the explanation that bear markets are violent — the top ten up days mainly occurred in major bear markets.) Since then, with tariffs between China and the U.S. on both sides over 100%, I think it is safe to say that the trade war…

Purchasing power has increased $7,500 in the last week alone, with rates falling to 6.3% on a weak August jobs report. The daily average mortgage rate dropped to 6.29% on September 5, the lowest level in 11 months. That means a homebuyer on a $3,000 monthly budget has gained $7,500 since one week ago, when the average rate was roughly 6.5%.  A buyer on that budget can afford a $468,000 home with today’s mortgage rate, compared to the $460,500 home they could have bought with a 6.5% rate. But even last week’s 6.5% rate was a 10-month low; comparing to…

On Friday, a startup called Fable announced an ambitious, if head-scratching, plan to recreate the lost 43 minutes of Orson Welles’ classic film “The Magnificent Ambersons.”  Why is a startup that bills itself as the “Netflix of AI,” and that recently raised money from Amazon’s Alexa Fund, talking about remaking a movie that was first released in 1942?  Well, the company has built a platform that allows users to create their own cartoons with AI prompts — Fable is starting out with its own intellectual property, but it has ambitions to offer similar capabilities with Hollywood IP. In fact, it’s…

Key Takeaways U.S. equities turned lower at midday as the latest jobs report showed hiring slowed more than expected in August.Broadcom beat profit and sales estimates and said it had a new $10 billion customer, reportedly artificial intelligence giant OpenAI.Lululemon Athletica slashed its guidance on the costs of tariffs and the removal of the de minimus exemption for lower-priced imported goods. U.S. equities turned lower at midday following the government’s weaker-than-expected August employment report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, and Nasdaq were down. Lululemon Athletica (LULU) was the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500 after the fashion athletic…