Author: Money Mechanics

(Image credit: Getty Images)Several disappointing updates on the labor market and lingering worries over the return on investment for big artificial intelligence (AI) spenders weighed on stocks Thursday. An extended sell-off in bitcoin only underscored the risk-off session, with the digital currency falling to its lowest point in over a year.The economic calendar was jam-packed with jobs data today. First up was a report from executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas that showed job cuts more than doubled year over year in January and tripled from December 2025.The 108,435 job cuts last month marked the highest for January since…

Key Takeaways The price of a single bitcoin recently traded below $64,000 and at its lowest price since late 2024.”The ‘Bitcoin Boomer Adoption’ Trade is Dead,” one market expert said. Bitcoin has slipped below another five-digit milestone, raising the specter of “crypto winter.” The leading cryptocurrency by market capitalization—at about $1.26 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap—recently changed hands at prices not seen since late 2024, dropping to below $64,000 apiece. (Read Investopedia’s full coverage of today’s trading here.) The price has been nearly cut in half from last fall’s record highs around $126,000. The coin market at large has taken a…

Key Takeaways Vanguard is encouraging some clients to consider allocating more than 50% of their portfolios to bonds, according to the mutual fund giant’s chief investment officer.Elevated stock valuations and risks around AI investment could depress stock market performance for the next decade, putting stock returns on a par with safer bonds. The 60/40 portfolio is back. Or is it the 40/60 portfolio?  “It might be time to skew your portfolio more to the bond side versus U.S. equities,” said Gregory Davis, President and chief investment officer at Vanguard, in an appearance on CNBC Thursday.  “You have a 10-year [yield]…

For global insurance and reinsurance group Everest, the Mt. Logan Re third-party capital vehicle is starting off the year strong, with its assets under management surpassing $2.5 billion as of January 1, 2026, and according to Everest’s President and CEO, Jim Williamson, the vehicle is expected to take on a more prominent role in the firm’s capital mix over time. Williamson, who spoke earlier today during the firm’s fourth-quarter earnings call, highlighted in his opening remarks how Everest’s third-party capital vehicle continues to perform well and gain traction across the market. “Our Mt. Logan third-party capital business is also performing…

An aerial view of homes in San Francisco, Aug. 27, 2025.Justin Sullivan | Getty ImagesThe share of U.S. homeowners with high rates on their mortgages has jumped sharply in just the last few years. That’s having a marked impact on the refinance market and a somewhat more muted impact on home sales. Rates have been front and center in the debate over how to improve home affordability — and for good reason. In 2022, after mortgage interest rates hit more than a dozen record lows, sparking a refinance bonanza, barely 10% of homeowners had 30-year fixed mortgages with rates above…

On Monday, OpenAI launched Codex, an agentic coding tool marketed to software developers. Today, OpenAI also launched a new model designed to turbo-charge Codex: GPT-5.3 Codex. The company says that the model transforms Codex from an agent that can merely “write and review code” to one that can do “nearly anything developers and professionals do on a computer, expanding who can build software and how work gets done.” Having tested its new model against a number of performance benchmarks, OpenAI claims that it can create “highly functional complex games and apps from scratch over the course of days.” OpenAI says that…

(Investing) – A federal judge declared unconstitutional a 2021 Texas law restricting state investments in companies seeking to rely less on fossil fuels or boycott that industry. In a decision made public on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Alan Albright said the law violated First Amendment free speech protections because it punished businesses for speaking about fossil fuels and associating with organizations that oppose fossil fuels. The Austin, Texas-based judge also called the law known as Senate Bill 13 “facially overbroad” and “unconstitutionally vague,” saying it invites and has already led to discriminatory enforcement. “SB 13’s definition of ’boycott energy companies’ permits the…

Key Takeaways Pandora on Wednesday said it will introduce platinum-plated jewelry this year in response to a blistering run-up in silver prices in recent months.The prices of silver and gold skyrocketed late last year and throughout January as investors chasing momentum piled into the precious metals. Not all that glitters is gold, they say. Soon, even less of it will be silver.  Jewelry maker Pandora on Wednesday announced it’s introducing platinum-plated jewelry this year to diversify its precious metals exposure and reduce its reliance on silver, the price of which has soared over the past year.  “With this innovation, we…

January 2026 HighlightsMember Usage & Peer Ranking Reports Now AvailableMember Usage and Peer Ranking Reports are now available to help members understand how their trading activity and performance compare to other members in their peer groups on each of the Cboe trading venues.Metrics available include: traded volume across different order types on a shares and notional basis, post trade markouts by liquidity, price group and spread buckets, and volumes and average trade size for NBBO setting and joining add volume. For each of these metrics, members are given an overall ranking and a ranking within their peer group, along with…

Losses and sliding revenue dragged on shares of Peloton today, with the stock dropping some 20% in recent trading. Wall Street analysts think the stock can more than double. That would mean a return to prices it hasn’t seen in about a year. Peloton’s downhill ride continues. Shares of the connected fitness company dropped—they were recently off more than 20% to just a bit above $4.50 apiece—after it reported weaker-than-estimated results for its holiday quarter. Its current-quarter and full-year projections weren’t so hot, either. Peloton Interactive (PTON) posted less revenue and a wider loss than analysts were expecting to close…