Author: starbpo

As prices drop, the cost-of-living change for Social Security in 2025 might be less than the 3.2% increase seen this year. Mary Johnson, a Social Security and Medicare expert who works on her own and used to work for the Senior Citizens League, says that COLA could be 2.6% in 2025. This prediction is different from the one she made in July, which called for a 2.7% rise. Johnson said that the 2.6% rise would be the lowest COLA since 2021 but about the same as it has been over the last 20 years. Alex Moore, senior partner at Blacksmith…

More than 10% less expensive than last year, used cars are mostly due to more new cars on the market and deals on those cars to get them off of lots faster. In July, consumer prices went up a little, mostly because of higher living costs. However, prices for used cars and trucks went down, with 10.9% year-over-year drops. The drop in prices for used cars is closely linked to the market for new cars. There are more new cars on the market, and deals are being used to try to sell them faster. Edmunds.com said Wednesday that prices for…

The amounts: The number of first-time jobless claims dropped by 7,000 to 227,000 in the week ending August 10, the Labor Department said Thursday. The amount hasn’t been this low since early July. The Wall Street Journal asked economists and found that they thought the number of new claims would go up by 3,000 to 235,000. It was originally thought that claims would drop by 17,000 to 233,000 last week, but they actually fell by 16,000 to 234,000. Important facts: The average number of claims over the last four weeks dropped by 4,500 to 236,500. One million people were already…

The numbers: In July, sales at U.S. stores went up the most in fifteen months, but most of the increase was due to a rise in car sales after dealers recovered from a nationwide cyberattack on their computer systems. The government said Thursday that sales went up by 1% last month. A poll of experts by the Wall Street Journal said they thought they would go up 0.3%. Seasonally adjusted numbers showed that retail sales only went up 0.4% last month when cars were taken out of the equation. But sales for June were changed so that they showed a…

If inflation slows down, the head of the St. Louis Federal Reserve said, “the time may be nearing” for the U.S. central bank to cut interest rates. President Alberto Musalem said that new price reports “have bolstered my confidence” that inflation is slowly returning to the Federal Reserve’s goal of a 2% annual rise. Musalem has said in the past that he wanted to see a string of low inflation readings before he would back lowering interest rates. Consumer price reports for the last three months have been on the low side, which means that inflation is slowing down even…

he counts: The Federal Reserve said Thursday that industrial production dropped 0.6% in July. It had been four months since the last drop. A poll of experts by The Wall Street Journal found that the drop was bigger than the 0.1% drop that was expected. Utilization of capacity fell from 78.4 in June to 77.8 in July. The capacity-utilization rate shows how much the country’s companies, mines, and utilities can actually run. Important facts: In July, manufacturing fell 0.3% after staying the same the month before. After going up 0.3% in June, the production of cars and parts went down…

In an effort to stabilize the country’s stock markets amidst recent sharp declines, China’s securities regulator, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), announced on Sunday a complete suspension of restricted share lending starting from Monday. This move is part of policymakers’ ongoing initiatives to address the volatility in the stock markets. Additionally, the CSRC outlined plans to restrict the efficiency of certain securities lending in the securities refinancing market, with implementation scheduled from March 18, as detailed in a statement published on its official WeChat account. Moreover, both the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges declared the suspension of securities lending…

China may have trouble attracting investors again this year. ETF Action’s Mike Akins sees challenges tied to the country’s ability to generate stock market returns. “It’s kind of the old cliché. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” the firm’s founding partner told CNBC’s ETF Edge this week. “You’ve got this situation where China’s economy expanded. The stock market went nowhere. It’s been very volatile. There’s been periods where it’s gone way up but also come way down.” According to Atkins, emerging market ex-China products are among the largest inflows ETF Action is seeing. “You’ve…

Amidst the approval of 11 Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest, is once again in the spotlight for her bullish outlook on Bitcoin’s future. Wood maintains her prediction that Bitcoin could reach $1.5 million by 2030, citing the recent ETF approval as a significant factor in achieving this ambitious target. Wood argues that the institutional landscape is shifting towards Bitcoin, with the launch of multiple ETFs providing a more accessible entry point for deep-pocketed investors. The legitimization of institutional adoption, she believes, will be a pivotal catalyst for Bitcoin’s price appreciation, especially as major financial players…

The Biden administration is scoring significant antitrust victories, impacting corporate mergers in 2024. Recent federal court decisions, such as blocking JetBlue’s $3.8 billion acquisition of Spirit Airlines and Illumina’s $7.1 billion reacquisition of Grail, have executives reconsidering new deals. Ongoing antitrust reviews affect proposed mergers, from air carriers Alaska and Hawaiian to grocery chains Kroger and Albertsons. The FTC is also probing investments by Microsoft, Amazon, and Google in AI startups OpenAI and Anthropic. The “anti-merger” rhetoric from Washington is influencing corporate decisions, with regulatory scrutiny increasing and some deals facing challenges. Debbie Feinstein, head of Arnold & Palmer’s global…