Author: Money Mechanics

This WeekThis week saw mixed data that mostly supported a rate cut from the Federal Reserve next Wednesday.Labor market data were weak for November. ADP showed 32,000 private sector job losses, while the employment subindexes in the Manufacturing and Services PMIs stayed in contraction for 10 and 6 months straight, respectively.Core PCE inflation slowed for the first time since April, easing to 2.8% YoY in September from 2.9%, as softer core services inflation more than offset an increase in core goods inflation to a 2¼-year high.Activity data were soft, too, with real consumer spending and manufacturing output both flat in…

Key Takeaways Microsoft researchers argue that jobs involving writing, research, and communication, such as translators, journalists, and historians, may be replaceable by AI tools.Occupations requiring physical labor or human interaction, like nursing assistants and massage therapists, are least affected by AI. If you’re a translator, historian, writer, data scientist, or customer service representative, your job could be ripe for being replaced by artificial intelligence (AI). That’s according to a new, not-yet-reviewed research from Microsoft Corporation (MSFT), which identified 40 occupations with tasks most likely to be replaced by AI. Their findings suggest that knowledge work and communication-heavy jobs are the…

Key Takeaways Fewer people expect to tip their childcare providers, mail carriers, teachers and trash collectors this holiday season, according to a new report. Surveys and other sources have indicated a growing frustration with tipping culture in the U.S., with many Americans feeling like they’re being asked to tip more, and more frequently, than they’d like. Do you plan to tip anyone this holiday season? Many Americans may skip the ritual this year. Fewer people expect to tip their childcare providers, mail carriers, teachers and trash collectors, according to a new report, though for those who do, the median holiday…

Key Takeaways Seventy-seven percent of Americans age 50 and over say the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) does not keep up with rising prices. The COLA for 2026 is 2.8%. To offset the Social Security COLA’s inability to keep up with inflation, you’ll need strategies to stretch your income farther. If Social Security’s annual increases won’t be enough for your budget, experts recommend delaying benefits until age 70 for maximum payouts and diversifying retirement income sources beyond Social Security. Social Security recipients will see their monthly checks increase by 2.8% in 2026, the Social Security Administration has announced. For the…

The recent bitcoin sell-off is shining a fresh light on crypto ETFs, and financial advisors are scrambling to stay out of the dark. While the general financial planning community, along with much of traditional Wall Street, initially held a cautious view of digital currencies, crypto has been gaining momentum ever since the first spot bitcoin ETFs launched in the US nearly two years ago. Today, there are more than 150 crypto-related ETFs across a host of strategies, representing the fastest growing segment of exchange-traded funds. The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), by far the largest crypto ETF at nearly $88…

just hit a new all-time high. Neither did gold, nor mining stocks. They all reversed on an intraday basis, but silver’s move to new highs makes it still bullish overall, while the almost complete reversals in gold and miners make the latter technically bearish. Interesting, right? How can these parts of the same sector behave so similarly, yet so differently? The reason is that while they are all likely to respond to many of the same factors (soaring will be bearish for all of them and the same goes for plunging stock market valuations), there are some silver-specific reasons that…

There’s been a rise of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) wrangling on my Bluesky timeline, largely the result of intra-left mudslinging. I just want to stick my nose into the discussion, although I do not really spend much time thinking about U.K. policy options (I tend to either shake my head or snort in derision whenever U.K. economic debates surface). (The last piece of my EU5 series has been delayed.)Grace Blakely recent wrote “On MMT” in which she discusses an argument with Richard Murphy. Meanwhile, a few of the anti-MMT conventional Labour economists started up their usual attacks on MMT. The…

Indiana homes sold 17.6% faster year-over-year in the week ending Nov. 29, with absorbed listings jumping to 1,780 from 1,514. Nearly half of active listings (47.7%) featured price reductions across the state’s tracked metros, creating favorable conditions for buyers entering the traditionally slower holiday season. The surge in buyer activity came as median list prices reached $293,900, down 0.3% from $294,900 a year earlier. Homes spent a median 49 days on market, unchanged from last year but well below the national median of 70 days. The state maintained slight seller-favorable conditions with 1.8 months of supply. Inventory and pace Active…

Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist known as Beeple, has placed himself at the center of the pack — literally — with his latest viral installation at Art Basel Miami Beach, and there’s still time to see it through Sunday. His “Regular Animals” project features $100,000 robotic dogs outfitted with hyper-realistic heads resembling Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, alongside art legends Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. The robot dogs roam a plexiglass pen, capturing images through chest-mounted cameras that are processed by AI and then essentially pooped out, according to the WSJ. Of the prints produced, 256 include QR…

(World Oil) – Equinor and Aker BP have announced a new gas and condensate discovery in the North Sea after drilling two exploration wells at the Lofn and Langemann prospects, marking a promising start for Production Licence 1140. Taken with sony a7 2 The wildcat wells—15/5-8 S and 15/5-8 A—were drilled about 7 km north of the Eirin field and roughly 240 km west of Stavanger using Odfjell Drilling’s Deepsea Atlantic rig. The license, awarded in 2022, is now seeing its first exploration results. Early estimates indicate that the Lofn prospect contains 22–63 million barrels of oil equivalent, while Langemann could hold 6–50 million barrels. Together,…