Author: Money Mechanics

Key Takeaways The Federal Reserve is likely to lower interest rates in mid-September, which would be its first cut of the year. When the Fed rate changes, bank yields on savings, money markets, and CDs move as well—sometimes even before the central bank’s official announcement. That’s why today’s best CDs are worth grabbing, guaranteeing mid-4% returns for months or even years—no matter what cuts the Fed makes. For cash you need to keep accessible, you can still earn up to 5% with the best high-yield savings accounts, money markets, and checking accounts. But that rate probably won’t last much longer. The…

Of the main U.S. equity indexes, only the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to post green numbers Wednesday, and that was briefly at the open, for a while around midday, then shortly before the close.Investors, traders and speculators continue to discount important earnings reports, but they’re also watching the White House, the Federal Reserve, and what’s happening with interest rates – now and for the long term.President Donald Trump’s effort to reshape the most important central bank in the world to his liking expanded today when he called on Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook to resign. Subscribe to Kiplinger’s Personal…

A growing number of companies are going public and delivering strong performances, creating attractive opportunities for growth-focused investors. Recently, new listings in the United States have rebounded sharply, signaling market recovery, according to Reuters.Additionally, from a regulatory standpoint, the Trump administration is viewed more favorably by the market, signaling renewed strength. Behind the Market MomentumAccording to IPOX vice president, Kat Liu, as quoted on Reuters, a successful slate of June IPOs and a robust pipeline of well-capitalized, late-stage firms poised to go public, could set the stage for a more active Q4. Strong listings could boost investor confidence and encourage…

Real gross domestic product decreased in 39 states in the first quarter of 2025, with the percent change ranging from 1.7 percent at an annual rate in South Carolina to –6.1 percent in Iowa and Nebraska, according to statistics released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (table 1). Current-dollar gross domestic product (GDP) increased in 47 states and the District of Columbia, with the percent change ranging from 8.7 percent at an annual rate in North Dakota to –2.7 percent in Iowa. Personal income, in current dollars, increased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in…

Key Takeaways Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte requested that the Department of Justice investigate mortgage applications filed in 2021 by Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, alleging she violated mortgage law.President Trump said Cook should resign immediately, which would allow him to appoint a replacement to the Fed policy committee that sets interest rate policy.Trump in recent months has berated Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates, and has also accused the central bank head of mismanaging a large renovation at Fed headquarters. President Donald Trump is expanding his attacks on the Federal Reserve, this time targeting…

As we look forward to the CPI report next week, the monthly-repeating theme is ‘when will the tariff effect show up?’ The answer, so far, is ‘not yet,’ but economists who had forecasted the end of life as we know it when the Trump tariffs went into effect have been befuddled. I’ve already admitted in this column that I was educated in the tradition of ‘tariffs bad,’ but that over the years Trump’s insistence otherwise has made me carefully re-think of which ways tariffs are truly bad, and which ways they’re not so bad. Naturally, if tariffs were uniformly bad…

Key Takeaways Members of the Federal Open Market Committee considered inflation driven by tariffs to be a bigger threat to the economy than joblessness, according to minutes of a July meeting released Wednesday.Tariff-related inflation concerns dominated the discussion before the FOMC’s decision to keep the central bank’s key interest rate steady.The thinking of FOMC members may have shifted after a shocking decline in job creation was reported days later. Behind closed doors, officials at the Federal Reserve said much the same as they’ve said in public: that concerns over tariffs stoking inflation led them to keep the central bank’s interest…

As the panic fades, investors’ nerves are still jangling. For the time being, stockmarkets have stopped convulsing and the prices of American Treasury bonds are no longer in freefall. Yet share indices across America, Asia and Europe have hardly recovered their poise (see chart 1); instead, day-to-day drops of one percent or more have become unremarkable. The VIX index—Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, which measures expected volatility using the market price of insurance against it—has fallen from its nerve-shredding peak reached a fortnight ago. It is nevertheless at a level last seen in 2022, amid a grinding bear market (see chart…

Shares of SoFi Technologies Inc SOFI are falling Wednesday afternoon, swept up in a broader market sell-off impacting technology and growth-oriented stocks. The move extends a volatile period for the fintech company, which is otherwise up some 135% since the stock’s April low, as investors weigh its impressive operational performance against recent strategic financial decisions.What To Know: Despite Wednesday’s pullback, SoFi earlier received positive price target revisions from analysts at both JP Morgan and Citigroup. JP Morgan maintained its Neutral rating on the stock while raising its target from $22 to $24, while Citigroup reiterated a Buy rating and increased…

Thank you for inviting me to speak today on payments innovation.1 It is an exciting time to work in payments. While I have always been interested in the topic, I would have never imagined decades ago that payments would generate this amount of enthusiasm, where now some of the coolest jobs in tech are working in this area. The payment system is experiencing what I have called a “technology-driven revolution,” where the latest advances in computing power, data processing, and distributed networks have fueled growth in innovative new payment services.2 This includes 24/7 instant payments, user-friendly digital wallets and mobile…