Author: Money Mechanics

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce recently announced their engagement after two years of dating, and while the pop icon and NFL star can certainly afford a lavish celebration, most couples planning a 2025 wedding are facing a very different financial reality.With May to October being the most popular season for weddings, everything from venues to floral arrangements comes at a premium and costs are climbing faster than ever.Whether your child just said “yes” or your grandchild is starting to look at venues, it’s worth understanding what a modern wedding really costs and where you might be asked to help out.…

Key Takeaways Google and a group of claimants have agreed to a $30 million settlement over a 6-year-old class action suit over YouTube advertising.Google and YouTube allegedly collected data to serve targeted ads to children aged 13 and under from 2013 to 2020, without parental consent.The settlement still needs to be approved by a judge, but if you were under 13 and watching YouTube content for kids during that time, you could be eligible for a piece of the settlement. Did you grow up watching YouTube videos? If so, you could be in line to collect some of a yet-to-be-approved…

Nvidia (NVDA) has a China issue. Resolving it, its CEO says, could have bigger implications for America’s AI competitiveness.  The chipmaker at the heart of the AI boom reported record quarterly sales yesterday, though its results reflected the Trump administration’s export curbs, which brought sales of its H20 AI chip in China to a halt. (Investopedia’s full Wednesday coverage of the results is here.) Nvidia (NVDA) didn’t include sales of the chip to China in its forecast for the current quarter either, despite recently striking a 15% revenue-sharing agreement with the Trump administration to resume sales, a deal the company…

Key Takeaways U.S. equities were mixed and basically unchanged at midday as the market weighed more corporate earnings reports and the latest report on U.S. economic growth. Hormel Foods warned increased commodity costs will hurt earnings.HP reported higher demand for its artificial intelligence-enabled personal computers. U.S. equities were mixed and little changed at midday as the market focused on more earnings news and better-than-expected growth in the U.S. economy. The Nasdaq climbed, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped, while the S&P 500 moved between gains and losses.  Hormel Foods (HRL) shares slumped as the maker of Spam, chili, and other…

KEY TAKEAWAYS The 2026-27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid is open for testing and will be available to the public on Oct. 1.Some changes were made to the application, making it easier to create an account and start filling it out.Other changes from the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” will change how some families report their income for federal student aid. Some changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid could change how some families apply for federal loans and grants. The 2026-27 FAFSA application was opened for testing at the beginning of August for a select group of…

Key Takeaways American job seekers are telling surveyors that the idea of job security is not as realistic anymore, but say they feel pretty secure about their own employment.Of those surveyed by Express Employment Professionals, 73% said job security isn’t guaranteed for any job, and 71% said that it’s becoming a “thing of the past.”However, around 70% of employed respondents said they are confident in their present ability to provide job security. American job seekers appear to be of two minds about the state of the job market. In a recent survey, 73% of respondents said they see the concept…

Cambricon Technologies, the Beijing-based chipmaker seen as a potential alternative to Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs), reported a record revenue surge in the first half amid a Chinese stock market frenzy driven by DeepSeek’s breakthrough AI models. Cambricon’s revenue surged 4,348 per cent year on year to 2.88 billion yuan (US$403.8 million) in the first six months of 2025, a record high for the company since it went public in 2020. Profit reached 1.04 billion yuan, reversing a net loss of 533 million yuan seen in the first half of 2024, according to its financial report filed to the Shanghai…

Small caps outperform as Fed rate cuts lower borrowing costs and boost demand. Affordable valuations and growth potential attract investors to small-cap stocks. Two small-cap stocks are offering promising prospects despite sector-specific risks. Looking for actionable trade ideas to navigate the current market volatility? Subscribe here to unlock access to InvestingPro’s AI-selected stock winners. The Russell tracks the performance of 2,000 small-cap U.S. companies across various sectors, such as financials, technology, healthcare, and consumer services. It was established in 1984 by the Frank Russell Company and is a subset of the Russell 3000, which represents 95% of all U.S. stocks.…

Note: this unedited article may be used within a new chapter in my inflation primer.The topic of tariffs became of extreme importance in 2025, courtesy of American President Trump’s trade war on the rest of the world. In the modern meaning, a tariff is a tax on imports or more rarely, exports. (In practice, “export taxes” seems to be used in the financial media.) The origin of the term is that it referred to tables, coming from the Arabic ta’rif (a notification or announcement, see reference by Paul Anthony Jones below). The tables were of fees paid by traders, and…

Key Takeaways A nationwide index of housing prices showed that home values grew at a rate slower than inflation in June, which might indicate a cooling market.Housing prices are diverging by location, with prices in the Northeast and Midwest climbing, while prices in the South and West fell. Housing inventory levels are up, which is keeping prices down in some locations. Fresh data about U.S. home values is the latest sign that the market is dimming for sellers. The problem: The growth rate of home prices isn’t keeping up with inflation, which might indicate a cooling market. In some areas prices…