Author: Money Mechanics

While hundreds of wildfires in Canada may seem like a distant threat, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin says the impacts are causing “great concern and harm across the United States” as smoke degrades air quality. While the fires themselves may not reach the U.S., the smoke and ash can dramatically affect air quality in faraway areas and potentially damage homes and cars. Home and car insurance policies are valuable tools for protecting homes, cars, and belongings from wildfire smoke exposure. Here’s what they cover and what they don’t.  Related: 7 best homeowners insurance companies of 2026 What homeowners insurance covers in…

A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.Newly enacted housing legislation that bans institutional investors from purchasing single-family rental homes has those same investors putting up more “for sale” signs.The number of homes owned by institutional investors listed for sale is, as of this month, more than double what it was at the start of February,…

Bloomberg / Contributor/ Bloomberg via Getty ImagesFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysErnst & Young suffered a data breach traced to a third-party IT support system.Cybercriminals stole tax-related information from clients.Here’s what to do right away if your data was affected.Ernst & Young has disclosed a data breach that resulted in the theft of clients’ personal information. From March 28 to April 12, attackers had access to a third-party support ticket system containing customer information related to their tax affairs. Also: Is that QR code a trap? How to spot quishing scams before it’s too lateA ticket support…

(World Oil) – Magnolia Oil & Gas Corp. has agreed to acquire WildFire Energy for approximately $4.06 billion, creating a significantly larger position across the Eagle Ford and Austin Chalk in South Texas and more than doubling Magnolia’s acreage in the Giddings field. The transaction will add approximately 810,000 net acres and 53,000 boed of production, roughly 70% weighted to oil. Following closing, Magnolia will control more than 1.25 million net acres in Giddings, with development opportunities across the Austin Chalk, Eagle Ford and Woodbine formations. “The acquisition of the WildFire oil and gas properties and acreage is a natural and strategic fit,” Magnolia Chairman,…

Article published at 10 a.m. CTJJ Kinahan is Senior Vice president, Head of Retail Expansion and Alternative Investment Products at Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe).Key Takeaways:Markets move to upside in early tradingCrude oil prices are jumping tooChips stocks again are moving NasdaqThe market moved higher in early trading as investors set their sights on earnings results and expectations despite the volatile conflicts in the Middle East. Crude oil prices are on the upswing after the U.S. struck Iran and Iran retaliated – a pattern that we’ve seen repeated for 10 straight days.The Nasdaq Composite is up 1% in the early…

Space exploration came to the world more than a decade after World War II ended. To begin with, two countries dominated the field: America under the auspices of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and the Soviet Union’s slew of space design bureaus. It got dubbed the Space Race.Fast forward to now, and there’s another space race, this time it’s happening via private and public enterprise. That means you could profit from companies involved in the space sector by purchasing relevant stocks. But which ones?Top of the headlines is Elon Musk’s SpaceX (the Space Exploration Technologies Corp, ticker symbol: SPCX),…

For many business owners, a liquidity event is the culmination of decades of work. But selling a business creates a challenge that is often underestimated: Replacing the role the business once played in the owner’s financial life.A privately held business is more than an appreciating asset. It often functions simultaneously as an income engine, inflation hedge, growth vehicle and source of control. After a sale, those functions must be replaced by an investment portfolio.That transition can be surprisingly difficult, even for financially sophisticated investors. From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance Become a smarter, better informed investor. Subscribe from…

Summer has a way of making spending feel effortless. A weekend getaway turns into an extra hotel night. Family outings become a regular occurrence. The kids are home from school, grocery bills creep higher, and those “limited-time” summer sales make it easy to justify purchases you hadn’t planned on.Then August arrives, and reality sets in. You open your banking app to find a credit card balance that’s higher than expected, your emergency fund isn’t what it used to be and your next paycheck already has a job before it even hits your account.If that sounds familiar, you may be dealing…

One of the ways credit card companies, airlines and other businesses build loyalty and keep us coming back is through rewards points that can be applied to future purchases.The terms and conditions for these loyalty points tend to be multiple pages, highly confusing and often disguise nasty surprises in language that even lawyers have difficulty making sense of. Several have been criticized as being unfair and little more than a bait-and-switch.But what one company did to the widow of a loyal customer highlights a lack of care, compassion and common sense that others can learn from. We’re not naming the…

As retirement nears, it’s important to reassess your investment strategy and make sure you’re setting yourself up with enough income to cover your needs and meet your personal goals. And if you largely built your retirement savings by investing in the S&P 500 index, you may be inclined to stick to that strategy in retirement.It’s a strategy investing giant Warren Buffett is a fan of. In a 2013 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter, Buffett said that in his will, his advice to the trustee could not be simpler: “Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a…