Author: Money Mechanics

Is your wealth manager invested in your goals or the next commission? It’s an essential question every investor should ask.Finding the right fit amid the crowded landscape of options can feel overwhelming, especially when choosing the right partner to grow your wealth. Thankfully, some of our readers have already done the heavy lifting for you.For the Kiplinger Readers’ Choice Awards, over 4,000 readers ranked the best wealth managers based on overall satisfaction, quality of advice, retirement planning services and more categories in an online survey conducted this past winter on Kiplinger.com. From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance Become…

The conventional personal finance playbook for retirees with 401(k)s is to trim exposure to stocks and dial down risk as they age. But many savers over age 70 are defying that rule, packing their 401(k)s with more stocks than experts recommend, according to Fidelity Investments.Half of Fidelity 401(k) plan participants aged 70 or older have a “higher equity allocation than suggested,” more than any other age group and well above the 34% average for all ages, according to Fidelity’s 1Q 2026 retirement analysis report. Similarly, nearly four of 10 401(k) savers aged 65 to 69 also have a larger helping…

If you’ve been considering a Sam’s Club membership, this may be the best deal you’ll see all year.Through July 5, new members can sign up for a standard Sam’s Club membership for just $15 for the first year, a $45 discount from the regular $60 annual fee. Shoppers who want additional perks can join Sam’s Plus for $50 for the first year, saving $50 off the regular price.The promotion comes just weeks after Sam’s Club raised membership prices, making the discount even more attractive for shoppers considering a warehouse club membership. Whether you’re stocking up on groceries, filling up at…

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is included among Billionaire Mario Gabelli’s Top 12 Dividend Stocks. BofA Says Apple’s (AAPL) New Siri Strategy Could Strengthen its AI Position On June 22, BofA maintained its Buy rating on Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). It also reiterated a $380 price target on the shares. The firm believes Apple’s WWDC announcement marks “a material positive reset of its AI strategy,” a development it says is being “underappreciated.”According to the analyst, the repositioning of Siri as a context-aware, multimodal, cross-app assistant integrated throughout the Apple ecosystem is “strategically important.” The firm noted that Siri AI can take advantage of Apple’s…

Accessible Keys for Video [Space Bar] toggles play/pause; [Right/Left Arrows] seeks the video forwards and back (5 sec ); [Up/Down Arrows] increase/decrease volume; [M] toggles mute on/off; [F] toggles fullscreen on/off (Except IE 11); The [Tab] key may be used in combination with the [Enter/Return] key to navigate and activate control buttons, such as caption on/off. Welcome to the State of Small Business Symposium. Thank you to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland for hosting this event.1 And thanks to each of you for your interest in small businesses and the vital role they play in creating jobs, expanding economic…

A new study, co-authored by Dr. Benjamin Hohermuth of Schroders Capital, alongside researchers from ETH Zurich, MeteoSwiss, and Stanford University, suggests that standard vendor models used by the majority of insurance-linked securities (ILS) managers contain inherent limitations by overlooking changes in hurricane frequency.The study argues that rising catastrophe losses are heavily driven by how often storms form and make landfall, a shifting climate factor that Schroders believes is vital for making fundamentally better investment decisions for clients. “For decades, catastrophe models have largely relied on historical observations to estimate future hurricane losses. While these models remain essential tools for risk…

Passed unanimously out of the Senate Banking Committee, the ROAD to Housing Act embraces solutions to the housing affordability crisis like zoning reform and streamlining rules to encourage more homebuilding. For the first time since the foreclosure crisis, U.S. Congress has taken meaningful action to make housing more affordable and homeownership more achievable for Americans with the ROAD to Housing Act. For over a decade, housing affordability has been a distant priority for congress. The prevailing view was that housing was a local issue, best left to city councils and mayors. But housing is now a national crisis. From California…

simoncarter/E+/Getty ImagesFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysDesigning healthy relationships between humans and AI will require formalizing business practices.The future of work is humans and AIs as colleagues, co-creating value. Agentic AI governance must clarify shared responsibility and accountability.First, Dr. Vint Cerf, one of the Internet’s co-creators, observes that with AI, “It feels like we’ve encountered a new life form and we’re trying to figure out how it thinks.” It’s worth noting that our work and business relationships with AI might differ from human relationships. Second, Dr. David Bray, a tech leader with success in challenging environments including the…

(By Oil & Gas 360) – The oil market is entering a new phase of uncertainty. After months dominated by headlines surrounding the Iran conflict, the Strait of Hormuz, and fears of supply disruption, attention is shifting back toward fundamentals. Those fundamentals are delivering mixed signals, creating a market caught between tightening inventories today and growing concerns about oversupply tomorrow. On the surface, recent data appear supportive of prices. U.S. crude inventories fell by 6.1 million barrels last week, a sizeable draw that would normally suggest healthy demand and tightening market conditions. Inventory declines of that magnitude often reinforce expectations…

U.S. options activity has been growing consistently as new traders enter the market, existing traders explore new strategies and products evolve to meet the needs of both groups. Overall options activity hit new highs in the first quarter of 2026, with market-wide Average Daily Volume (ADV) reaching 68.6 million contracts.At Cboe Global Markets — the largest U.S. options exchange operator — index options volume increased 22% in the first quarter, averaging 6.1 million contracts daily. S&P 500 Index options (SPX) reached a record ADV of 4.9 million. Mini-SPX Index options (XSP) volume also reached a new record, rising 47% quarter-over-quarter…