Author: Money Mechanics

(Image credit: Getty Images)As retirement gets closer, most planning conversations stay comfortably focused on income and investments.What often gets delayed — or avoided entirely — are the more important elements of retirement planning: Estate planning, philanthropy and protecting assets against long-term care and health events.The reason is simple. These topics force more difficult conversations. They touch on health, dependency and mortality — subjects most people would rather postpone talking about. But framing this planning as “end-of-life” thinking misses the point entirely. From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance Become a smarter, better informed investor. Subscribe from just $107.88 $24.99,…

Your Social Security Number (SSN) was never designed to be the “master key” for your entire financial life, yet in 2026, that is exactly what it has become. In an era where data breaches are practically a weekly occurrence and AI-powered scammers can generate convincing fake identities in seconds, simply “guarding” your nine-digit number is no longer enough.To truly protect your future, you need to transition from a passive defense to an active one. Locking your SSN is a strategic move that shuts down the two most common avenues for fraud: illegal employment and unauthorized access to your government records.…

Key Takeaways The average credit card balance per consumer in the U.S. was $6,523 in the third quarter of 2025.Total U.S. credit card debt hit a record $1.23 trillion in the third quarter of 2025.Keeping debt in check starts with limiting spending, making extra payments when you can, focusing on the highest-interest debt first, and committing to reducing balances over time. If your credit card bill keeps rising month after month, you’re not alone. Many Americans have seen their balances grow amid inflation and rising living costs. Plus, it can be difficult to keep track of your actual spending and…

February 12, 2026 07:07 AM EST Novocure Stock Surges on FDA Approval for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment FROM 5 minutes ago Novocure (NVCR) shares soared 25% before the bell Thursday, a day after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved its Optune Pax treatment for locally advanced pancreatic cancer. The Switzerland-based firm said that Optune Pax “is the first treatment to be FDA approved in nearly 30 years for locally advanced pancreatic cancer.” Novocure added that it “is a wearable medical device that delivers Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields), alternating electric fields that disrupt cancer cell replication to cause cell death,” which…

Key Takeaways In 2026, 19 states will raise their minimum wage on January 1, and three others will make an increase later in the year.Eight states already have a higher minimum wage and won’t raise pay in 2026, after reaching earlier targets or tying increases to inflation.Twenty states—half of them in the South—are still at the federal $7.25 minimum wage, which has not increased since 2009. States Raising the Minimum Wage in 2026 For workers in many states, 2026 will bring a higher minimum wage, though the timing isn’t the same everywhere. Most of the states making changes will boost…

continue to be well supported amid ongoing supply uncertainty Energy – OPEC+ Output Falls in January Oil prices remain well supported, with $70/bbl back in sight for ICE . Lingering uncertainty over Iran continues to buoy the market. Meanwhile, refinery margins also saw some strength following reports of a Ukrainian drone attack on Lukoil’s 300k b/d Volgograd refinery in Russia – the first large attack on Russian refining infrastructure this year. While the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released bearish numbers yesterday, the market largely ignored them. US crude oil inventories increased by 8.53m barrels over the last reporting week, the…

A stronger-than-expected jobs report is likely to push mortgage rates up a bit, but the impact will be small. The strong labor market may also bring some house hunters off the sidelines.  Takeaway: An upbeat January jobs report will increase mortgage rates slightly, reversing yesterday’s small decline, which was driven by disappointing retail sales data. Today’s data is unmistakably positive, pointing to a stronger labor market than other metrics have indicated. 130,000 jobs were created in January, with 172,000 in the private sector (the government lost jobs). This is the largest monthly increase since December 2024. Forecasters had expected a…

On Wednesday, xAI took the rare step of publishing a full 45-minute all-hands meeting video on X, making it publicly accessible. Details of the Tuesday night meeting were previously reported by The New York Times, which may have influenced xAI’s decision to post the video online. The full video reveals significant new details about Musk’s plans for the AI lab, including its product roadmap and its ongoing ties to the X platform. The most immediate revelation concerned a string of departing employees, which Musk described as layoffs resulting from a changing organizational structure at the company. While reorganizations are common,…

(Investing) – HOUSTON – Venezuela is hosting U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright starting on Wednesday, marking the highest-level U.S. visit focused on energy policy to the OPEC nation in nearly three decades, as Washington conducts its first on-the-ground assessment of the oil industry it is proposing to rebuild. Wright landed in Caracas on Wednesday morning, a day after the U.S. issued a new general license to facilitate the exploration and production of oil and gas in Venezuela. His agenda is expected to include meetings with interim President and Oil Minister Delcy Rodriguez, government officials and executives from companies including  and Spain’s ,…

By Steven Scheer and Suzanne McGee TEL AVIV/PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Israel fund manager FINQ said on Tuesday it was entering the U.S. Exchange-Traded ​Funds market with two funds that will be solely managed by artificial ‌intelligence, a nascent sub-sector where so far AI has only been used as a supporting tool. Portfolio decisions will ‌be fully selected and managed by FINQ’s AI model, with human involvement focused only on oversight and governance, it said. It added that its AIUP and AINT U.S. large-cap equity ETFs were the first such funds to be approved by the Securities…