Author: Money Mechanics

Virginia is looking to ease restrictions on manufactured housing, part of a bid by Gov. Abigail Spanberger to bring down housing costs.Spanberger signed half a dozen bills Tuesday promising to bring additional housing development in the state. That includes a package that aims to ease development of manufactured housing communities and protect residents in these homes from fees.Speaking at a manufacturing plant for Cavco in Rocky Mount, Spanberger defended the success of the housing affordability agenda that has led to a spate of new laws and a set of executive orders this year.”Virginia is taking concrete steps to tackle the housing crisis—expanding…

(Image credit: Getty Images)Stocks were down on Wednesday after five days of record closes for the main equity indexes, as investors, traders and speculators stepped back to assess the broader market landscape amid still-simmering tensions in the Middle East. A continuing flow of solid earnings and economic data were also top of mind.The front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures contract was up 2.5% to $96.08 per barrel, as the U.S. and Iran launched attacks on each other overnight amid an uneasy ceasefire. The Strait of Hormuz remains closed.”Both sides are well aware of the clock ticking towards true shortages…

(Image credit: Joe Murphy / Contributor)The 2026 NBA Finals are set, with the New York Knicks facing the San Antonio Spurs in a matchup featuring two of the NBA’s biggest storylines. The Spurs are led by 7-foot-3 superstar Victor Wembanyama, who is looking to bring another championship to San Antonio, while the Knicks and guard Jalen Brunson are chasing New York City’s first NBA title in 53 years.The best-of-seven championship series begins Wednesday, June 3, and every game will air exclusively on ABC. Cord-cutters have several ways to watch. Most major live TV streaming services carry ABC, making it easy…

Certain furniture and mattress retailers are facing financial distress in 2026, after the industry had success in 2025. The furniture industry showed positive sales results in 2025, as the Top 100 retailers posted a 0.9% combined sales increase to $51.2 billion, based on furniture, bedding, and accessories, after a two-year decline, according to Furniture Today. The U.S. bed and mattress stores sector also performed well last year, navigating a period of steady growth, with revenue rising by 1.3% to $28.4 billion year over year in 2025, according to IbisWorld analysis. Despite favorable sales and revenue results in 2025, Ortho Mattress…

(Investing) – ATHENS – Even if the U.S. and Iran agreed to halt the war and open the Strait of Hormuz, ships trapped in the Gulf will be unable to leave without safety assurances, the CEO of , a leading global ship manager, told Reuters.Renewed hostilities in the three-month-old conflict are testing a shaky ceasefire while hundreds of ships and about 20,000 seafarers remain stuck in the region with Hormuz largely closed.V.Group, which manages around 800 vessels, has 13 ships stuck in the Gulf, half of them tankers, said Rene Kofod-Olsen, group CEO with one of the world’s top technical ship…

In May 2026, Cboe FX Spot Average Daily Volume (ADV) reached $54.9 billion, a 14.4% increase from $48.0 billion in May 2025.Cboe SEF ADV1 topped $4.8 billion, representing a 54.5% increase from May 2025’s ADV of $3.1 billion. Cboe SEF also observed a new single-day record of $7.2 billion on May 5.At $20.1 billion, Cboe FX ECN Firm ADV2 accounted for 51.4% of the Spot ECN total, a 14.5% increase from $17.5 billion in May 2025.At $2.9 billion, Cboe FX ECN Metals ADV increased 26.5% from May 2025’s ADV of $2.4 billion and accounted for 7.7% of the Spot ECN…

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s plans to build an exclusive resort on a 1,400-hectare private island in Albania has hit two significant roadblocks after thousands of locals launched public protests against the project—just as reports emerged that local prosecutors are investigating the development. It was first revealed in 2024 that President Donald Trump’s daughter and her spouse were set to invest $1.4 billion into turning an abandoned Soviet weapons base, known as Sazan, into a luxury island resort. Ivanka, 44, and Kushner, 45, who both served as senior advisors in Trump’s first administration but opted not to rejoin his cabinet after…

(Image credit: Getty Images)If you use Microsoft Outlook, Teams or Microsoft 365 regularly, there’s a new scam making the rounds that’s worth paying attention to, especially because it doesn’t look like the typical phishing attack people are used to spotting.The FBI recently warned that cybercriminals are using a more sophisticated approach to trick people into handing over access to their Microsoft accounts. And unlike older scams filled with fake websites, spelling mistakes or suspicious links, this one can appear surprisingly legitimate at first glance.Security experts say the scam is spreading because it’s easier for cybercriminals to launch and harder for…

(Image credit: Getty Images)The May jobs report will be released Friday morning, giving the Federal Reserve the latest update on the labor market ahead of its upcoming policy meeting slated for June 16-17.The labor market, while slowing, is showing signs of resilience, with the U.S. adding 304,000 new jobs so far in 2026, or 76,000 per month on average.”The robust March and April job reports should dispel concerns at the Federal Reserve that the economy might be weakening,” writes David Payne, staff economist and reporter for The Kiplinger Letter, in the Kiplinger jobs outlook. “That means that interest rate cuts…

Broad commodity exposure still matters because it helps investors capture the direction of the post-2020 real-asset regime. But if the strongest returns are now concentrating in specific bottlenecks, as IGWT’s 2026 commodity framework suggests, then the basket is only part of the answer. The next step is to understand where those bottlenecks are forming and what kind of scarcity is driving them. That starts with moving beyond the market’s default assumption that a scarcity premium simply means a deliverable supply shortage. Sometimes that is exactly what it means. But scarcity can also emerge in less obvious ways. New supply may…