Author: Money Mechanics

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its inflation reportfor June on July 14th. June Inflation Summary: The BLS reported Annual Inflation was down a seasonally adjusted -0.4% from May’s 4.2% to June’s 3.5%, this was the largest seasonally adjusted monthly decline since the COVID shutdown in April 2020. Prior to April 2020, the next comparable drop was December 2008, in the depths of the financial crisis, when collapsing oil prices dragged the seasonally-adjusted CPI-U down sharply. The BLS’s April 2020 release referred to that drop as “the largest monthly decline since December 2008”. Fortunately, the current decline is more of a normalization…

Traditionally, most homes for sale appear on all the major real estate portals the day they list. While this gives the home maximum visibility on day one, it also puts pressure on sellers to nail a one-shot listing—or risk making a bad first impression. But now many sellers also have a new option: a soft-launch, “coming soon” approach that allows them to start marketing their home before it’s listed everywhere. Options like Redfin Early Access can give sellers additional time to prepare their home, gauge buyer demand, or test pricing before a broad debut. Sellers who value added privacy for…

With inflation accelerating, affordability remains Americans’ top financial concern these days, according to a Gallup survey. Adding insult to injury is the recent proliferation of mysterious or hidden fees, complicated cancellation policies, spam calls, and service inconveniences that collectively make up the “annoyance economy.”That’s the term some experts now use for the “steady grind of small hassles that eat away at our time, patience, and wallets,” as a recent report from the research group Groundwork Collective describes it.The annoyances include hours spent waiting on hold with customer service, dealing with insurance paperwork, fielding robo calls or navigating AI chatbots, and…

Few financial decisions get less attention and carry more long-term consequences than choosing between a Roth and a Traditional retirement account. It looks like a simple checkbox on an HR portal or brokerage sign-up form. In reality, it is a bet on your own future tax rate, and getting it wrong can cost a household well into six figures over a lifetime. The good news is that the decision is not as mysterious as it seems. It comes down to one core question. Will you pay a lower tax rate today, or a lower tax rate later? Once you can…

A recent Ohio University graduate got a shock last week when he was one of the hundreds affected by an evacuation of the blocks surrounding the Pfizer Building in Midtown Manhattan, amid fears of a building collapse.Hunter Puterbaugh, 22, had just arrived from Ohio and was staying in the Hampton Inn Manhattan Grand Central while waiting for his Midtown apartment lease to begin, when the area was hastily locked down and evacuated on July 7. On his commute back from his new finance job in White Plains, NY, he received a text from his father, who was helping him move,…

Another encouraging inflation reading and a positive session for several mega-cap stocks lifted the broad market Wednesday. A solid round of earnings reports also boosted sentiment, though gains were capped by a down day for chip stocks.Ahead of the open, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said the Producer Price Index (PPI), which measures what businesses pay suppliers for goods, fell 0.3% from May to June. Year over year, wholesale prices were up 5.5%.”Nearly two-thirds of the June decline in the index for final demand goods can be traced to prices for gasoline, which dropped 12.0 percent,” the BLS said.…

The third-place match of the men’s World Cup is hardly a consolation prize. In fact, it’s usually among the most exciting matches of the tournament, as teams play with nothing to lose, leading to higher-scoring matches.This makes the match in Miami a must-attend experience for any soccer fan, not only because of the excitement of the World Cup, but also the diverse array of things to do and see in Miami.The match kicks off at 5 p.m. EST in Miami Stadium in Miami Gardens on Saturday, July 18. I’ll show you some of the best Hilton hotels to consider for…

It turns out that Palantir (PLTR) CEO Alex Karp’s thunderous warning about the AI industry wasn’t a one-off rant. Over the past couple of years, the word “AI” has become like a broken record, heard at least once almost every day, often followed by a wave of anxiety. What has happened amid all the FOMO and paranoia is that users have begun sharing virtually everything deemed “confidential” under the sun in search of answers. Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Satya Nadella has now raised a strikingly similar concern in a recent blog post on Sn Scratchpad. Businesses pay for intelligence, but for…

For sale signs are posted in front of condominiums for sale on July 9, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty ImagesMortgage rates rose last week to the highest level since August 2025, and that caused homebuyer demand for loans to pull back. Refinance demand, however, moved higher.Total mortgage application volume dropped 2.7% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances, $832,750 or less, increased to 6.65% from 6.58% last week, with points rising to 0.67 from…

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNETFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.Looking for a business headset you can actually wear outside the office? I’ve tested a handful of premium business headphones this year, but these two stand out as exceptional options. The Jabra Evolve3 75 has a sleek, comfortable boomless design, and the Lenovo ThinkPad wireless ANC Foldable Headset 8550 Aura Edition offers the best of both worlds with a retractable boom and great call quality.Also: Both have multi-point connectivity, Bluetooth and wireless dongle connections, great ANC, and excellent call quality. They also offer solid audio quality for listening to music and discreet designs, making them…