Text size Nutrien’s potash mine in Saskatoon, Canada. Potash fertilizer prices have soared by three-quarters this year. James MacDonald/Bloomberg Haven’t earned enough on your oil stocks since R...
Tag: Economic News
Why Today’s Inflation Might Resemble the 1940s More Than the 1970s
Text size While the surge in energy prices has some likening the inflationary environment to the 1970s-80s, some observers think the postwar period is a better comparison. Here, pricey per-gallon cost...
Bitcoin Is Bouncing but Ether Is Soaring. This Is Why.
Text size Cryptocurrencies are gaining as investors return to high-growth “risk assets.” Dreamstime Bitcoin has perked up, gaining 8% to roughly $42,600 in the past week. But Ether, the se...
When will savings account rates rise, and where are the best savings accounts?
The average savings account pays a paltry 0.06%, according to Bankrate. But some online savings accounts are already paying relatively high rates. Getty Images/iStockphoto Though the Federal Reserve’s...
China’s Big Tech Firms Are Axing Thousands of Workers
BEIJING—China’s biggest tech companies are conducting large-scale layoffs this year as they deal with an economic slowdown and Beijing’s regulatory pressure. Tencent Holdings Ltd. TCEHY -7.14% , opera...
Dow ends 200 points lower after Fed’s Powell leaves door open to larger rate hikes
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell Samuel Corum/Getty Images Stocks fell Monday after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell left the door open to the prospect of bigger rate hikes to bring down i...
‘Reduced competition.’ 5 predictions for the housing market in 2022, from economists and real estate pros
We’ve already seen rates rise in the early months of 2022, and some pros say that will continue. Getty Images Aspiring home buyers may have watched as mortgage rates in recent months rose (though to b...
Older Americans, Flush With Housing and Stock Portfolio Wealth, Poised to Revive Spending This Year
Covid-19 kept many older Americans on the sidelines of the recovery in consumer spending as they held back from in-person services like dining and travel. But their spending is picking up as the Omicr...
Will the Fed rate increase mean higher interest on your savings and not using your travel card rewards may not be such a bad thing
Hi, MarketWatchers. Don’t miss these top stories. Weekend reads: There’s a recession warning as the Federal Reserve fights inflation Also, value stocks, the wild market for crude oil and a U.S. compan...
China Made Pro-Market Promises. Here’s What Analysts Are Saying.
Text size Workers at a construction site in Hong Kong on March 18, 2022. Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images Headwinds had battered Chinese markets for months—Covid-19 outbreaks, U.S. delisting concer...
How Will the Fed’s New Interest Rate Policy Affect Real Estate Prices?
Text size Rising mortgage rates will further restrict housing affordability. Brandon Bell/Getty Images About the author: Clare Losey is an assistant research economist at Texas A&M University’s Te...
Weekend reads: There’s a recession warning as the Federal Reserve fights inflation
The Federal Reserve this week increased the federal funds rate for the first time since 2018. Long-term market interest rates had risen significantly as investors anticipated that the central bank wou...
More than 70% of savers are worried that inflation will affect their ability to retire
Inflation just hit its highest level in 40 years. Future inflation expectations have risen by a third in 12 months. And the federal government’s own “inflation protected” bonds, which were designed to...
Fed Not Doing Enough to Fight Inflation, Fed President Says. He May Be Right.
President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis James Bullard wants the Fed to move faster. Alastair Pike / AFP via Getty Images Text size St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank President James Bullard has...
Fed’s Powell sees the light — and turns far more hawkish than expected
After remaining stubbornly dovish last year, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday jumped the central bank squarely into the hawkish camp at his press conference on Wednesday. “The March...
The Market Rose on the Fed’s Rate Hikes. What It Might Be Missing.
Text size Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters Wednesday the central bank had the tools to bring inflation down. Photographer: Julia Nikhinson/Bloomberg It may not rank with the “whatever it takes” ...
Unless OPEC increases output, oil market will fall into deficit after Russian invasion, IEA says
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and sanctions on its oil exports threaten a supply shock that will weigh on the global economy and push the oil market into a deficit unless major producers increase outpu...
Investors have been scared out of this group of stocks, says fund manager, who offers five ideas for the rebound to come.
China has been talking up its markets, and that’s lifting all boats this morning, with Wall Street off to a strong start ahead of what’s expected to be the first Fed rate hike in more than three years...
Gold at $10,000? Death of the 40-year bull market in bonds? What’s next for the global financial system after Russia’s central bank gets cancelled
The shockwaves are still being felt by the incredible Western sanctions that have rendered the $630 billion in reserves the Russian central bank accumulated virtually unusable. Can the current dollar-...
China Gives Alibaba, Other Stocks a Lifeline. Can It Last?
Text size China said it would roll out market-friendly policies to help boost the stock market. Peter Parks/AFP via Getty Images With a handful of vague comments about rolling out market-friendly poli...
The Fed got inflation badly wrong — and now it admits there’s no quick fix
Higher prices of gas, groceries, new cars and mortgage rates got you down? Americans may have to get used to it. The rate of inflation might not return to pre-pandemic levels of less than 2% for at le...
Remember the stock market before the war in Ukraine? JP Morgan says negativity is overblown, offers 4 hedges
“Markets appear to have been trafficking in an odd mix of hope, fear and uncertainty.” That was Mizuho Bank, summing up the state of play for markets since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly three we...
Opinion: Ukraine war is a wake-up call to ditch oil and gas forever
That invasion, and the subsequent U.S. ban on oil imports from Russia, are partly responsible, but they aren’t the only reason. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the impact of t...