‘Am I being ripped off?’ I moved into my husband’s home. I pay for groceries. The rental income from my apartment goes into our joint savings.

I read one of your previous columns regarding the boyfriend who wants the letter writer to move in. My case is similar, but we have already made a decision on how to structure our finances as they rel...

The Fed’s Next Rate Hike Is Coming. Why Powell Won’t Say the End Is Near.

The Federal Reserve will fire its next salvo in the war against inflation on Wednesday afternoon. That is likely to include an interest-rate increase of 0.75 percentage points and a hawkish tone from ...

The Fed Makes Its Decision Wednesday. Expect a Big Move in Stocks.

The Federal Reserve’s big announcement on interest rates is Wednesday. The stock market will likely make a large move—in one direction or the other. The Fed is widely expected to lift its target for t...

20 dividend stocks that may be safest if the Federal Reserve causes a recession

Investors cheered when a report last week showed the economy expanded in the third quarter after back-to-back contractions. But it’s too early to get excited, because the Federal Reserve hasn’t given ...

Why did inflation surge to 40-year highs? Here are 4 causes of the Fed’s mistake

The first was being unaware that the foundation of the U.S. banking system had been eroded away by complex mortgage securities that carried high credit ratings but turned out to be toxic during a broa...

Here’s exactly where ‘whiplash-inducing’ mortgage rates are headed this year, according to 6 economists and real estate pros

Where are mortgage rates headed? Getty Images Rates are trending upwards, pros say. Indeed, many pros say estimate that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in November and December. And for ...

Mortgage Giant Rocket Plunges Back to Earth, Hit by Rising Rates

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple ...

Move over Florida — Pennsylvania dominates ‘Best Places to Retire’ rankings

Sure, Florida still has some allure for retirees, but Lancaster, Pa. nabbed the top spot for the best retirement destination amid concerns about housing affordability. According to U.S. News & Wor...

What Fed Chair Powell can say to keep the stock-market rally going — or kill it

Whatever Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says when he steps up to the podium on Wednesday will likely have ramifications for financial markets. But what do equity investors need to hear from th...

40% of households will pay no federal income tax this year. Why that’s good news.

Millions of workers are bouncing back — and making enough money to pay Uncle Sam. Some 72.5 million households or 40% of households will pay no federal income tax this year, down from the pre-pandemic...

Should You Retire Early to Get a Larger Lump Sum on Your Pension?

The math on when and how to retire is shifting for millions of workers with pension plans. Blame the steep rise in interest rates. When workers retire with a pension, many are given a choice between r...

Will Home Prices Crash? Don’t Count on It. Here’s Why.

The housing market is cooling, but the downturn may be overhyped. That is both a blessing and a curse. Data released this past week showed that U.S. home prices fell in August at the steepest month-ov...

Why China’s party congress left investors feeling gloomy

Financial-market investors were craving economic policy guidance from the China’s Communist Party Congress, but when the ruling party wrapped up its twice-a-decade political gathering on Saturday to t...

What the midterm elections mean for the housing market — and one ‘politically contentious’ issue that splits Democrats and Republicans

The midterm U.S. elections are coming. And elections have consequences for the housing market, according to a new report from investment bank Cowen. The report by Cowen’s Jaret Seiberg noted that the ...

Don’t Expect the Stock Market to Rally, Even if GOP Wins Control of Congress

The outcome of the midterm elections on Nov. 8 could disappoint investors, regardless of which party they support. According to Wall Street lore, stocks usually perform strongly following the midterms...

Rethinking China: Xi’s Power Play Could Bring Down Stocks Even More

Chinese stocks have lost roughly half their market value, or almost $1.5 trillion, over the past two years. But the damage may not be over as investors reassess their China allocations after President...

An American Helped Build a Business Inside China. Clients Want Him to Leave.

It took Jacob Rothman two decades to build a Chinese manufacturing business with his friends and family. Now the 49-year-old American executive says customers want him to make some of his grilling too...

The Dow soars, Big Tech tumbles: What’s next for stocks as investors await Fed guidance

The past week offered a tale of two markets, with gains for the Dow Jones Industrial Average putting the blue-chip gauge on track for its best October on record while Big Tech heavyweights suffered a ...

Rising Markets Seem to See the Fed Easing. It’s Too Early for That.

What everybody knows isn’t worth knowing, according to market wisdom. The Federal Reserve will raise its key federal-funds target rate by 75 basis points this coming week, as we all know, from the cur...

Another jumbo Fed rate hike is expected next week — and then life gets difficult for Powell

First the easy part. Economists widely expect Federal Reserve monetary-policy makers to approve a fourth straight jumbo interest-rate rise at its meeting next week. A hike of three-quarters of a perce...

250 years of history is telling investors to bet on Treasury bonds in 2023, Bank of America says

Benchmark U.S. Treasury bonds are facing their worst annual returns since 1788, but a big bounce is likely in the new year, along with a stock rout. That’s according to a team of strategists at Bank o...

Millions of working Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck — and running out of cash as another recession looms

Inflation is taking its toll on people’s emergency funds. The share of workers who say they are living paycheck-to-paycheck has surged among middle- to high-income earners — 63% and 49%, respectively ...

Markets Could Go on a Tear After the Midterms, History Suggests

The autumn of 1991 was a stressful time for investors. The country had just been in a war in Iraq, interest rates were rising, and the U.S. economy was barreling toward recession. In other words, it w...

This Isn’t the Bottom and Recession Isn’t Priced In, Goldman Says

Markets haven’t priced in a recession, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs Equities and credit markets are pricing in a lower risk of recession than rates and currency traders, though no asset clas...

China outnumbers the U.S. for the first time in this ranking of the world’s ‘best’ universities and U.S. economy will likely fall into recession, former Fed official says

Hi, MarketWatchers. Don’t miss these top stories. China outnumbers the U.S. for the first time in this ranking of the world’s ‘best’ universities Artificial intelligence is among the few fields that b...

Texas Instruments Reports Earnings Today. What to Expect.

Texas Instruments will be the first major semiconductor company to report this third-quarter earnings season after the close on Tuesday. While investors are worried about the chip industry as it faces...

Why investors are fleeing Chinese assets as Xi tightens grip on power

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, secured a groundbreaking third leadership term on Sunday and introduced a new Politburo Standing Committee stacked with loyalists in a clean sweep not seen since the er...

Opinion: Stock market bulls have a new story to sell you. Don’t believe them — they’re just in the ‘bargaining’ stage of grief

Might the bear market’s losses at its recent low have gotten so bad that it was actually good news? Some eager stock bulls I monitor are advancing this convoluted rationale. The outline of their argum...

Yellen warns of ‘dangerous and volatile environment’ as she pledges to bolster Treasury market

““We’ve experienced energy shocks, food shocks, supply shocks, persistent inflation in many countries around the world, rising interests rates in many parts of the world and we have seen some financia...

‘From Bambi to Godzilla.’ Strategist David Rosenberg skewers the Federal Reserve as he sees a 30% hit to home prices and the S&P 500 returning to an early 2020 low

The last time David Rosenberg shared his outlook for the U.S. stock market and the economy with MarketWatch, in late May, it was depressing enough. Rosenberg is the widely followed president and chief...

This hedge fund manager who made winning bets in 2020, says investors should brace for a decades-long bear market

On the heels of last week’s bullish turn for stocks, the setup is looking slightly less positive for Monday. Hong Kong stocks may be affecting the mood with a giant slump after China’s leader cemented...

Mortgage bankers expect rates to drop to 5.4% in 2023. What will home prices do?

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — High mortgage rates and recession fears are hurting home prices, so expect growth to be flat this year, one expert says. “Our forecast is for home-price growth moderation to continu...