Category: United States

So here’s some bad news and some, well, slightly less bad news. First, the bad-bad: Streaming prices are increasing almost across the board (Hulu and Apple TV+ rose in October, Disney+ will rise in December, while Netflix and Prime Video rose earlier this year), putting even more of a crunch on budget-conscious consumers. But now […]

It’s been 10 years since Hurricane Sandy, the massive tropical cyclone that ranked among the biggest in U.S. history, slammed into the U.S. East Coast. Landfall came on a Monday evening, Oct. 29, 2012. And Superstorm Sandy, churning late in the Atlantic hurricane season, put some 50 million people at risk of flooding, power outages […]

There have been several incidents at concerts and other events in recent years where people died because of unsafe crowd conditions and stampedes. The latest such scenario unfolded in Seoul, South Korea, where a Halloween gathering in a club district turned deadly, with at least 154 fatalities being reported. This may leave some people thinking […]

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 shellacking that had market veterans recalling the dot-com bust in the early 2000s. “You have a tug of war,” said […]

As the midterm elections near, many Americans do not have financial peace of mind. It’s two weeks until the Nov. 8 midterm elections. The chances of the Republican Party taking back the House of Representatives and the Senate appear to be strengthening. Recession worries continue to cloud the horizon as the Federal Reserve raises interest […]

In the run up to the midterm elections where costs are top of mind for many people, voters in Massachusetts and California are being asked to decide if millionaires in their states should taxed more to help pay for large-scale public goals like improved infrastructure and widespread electric vehicle purchases. A ‘yes’ vote in Massachusetts’ […]

Don’t miss these top money and investing features: Sign up here to get MarketWatch’s best mutual funds and ETF stories emailed to you weekly! INVESTING NEWS & TRENDS Matt Damon’s ‘Fortune Favors the Brave’ commercial turns one. Here’s how much you would’ve lost if you bought crypto then. The total market cap for all crypto nearly […]

This article is reprinted by permission from The Escape Home, a newsletter for second homeowners and those who want to be. Subscribe here. © 2022. All rights reserved.  With Halloween just around the corner, The Escape Home reached out to longtime medium Bonnie Vent to chat about psychic abilities, ghosts and what to do if […]

I once got some excellent investing advice around Halloween from a fortuneteller in Salem, Massachusetts. “Are you prepared in your life to take on more risk?” he asked over a table of magic crystals, after I’d flipped over some tarot cards. “Do you have the information you need? Do you understand what you control, and […]

This article is reprinted by permission from NextAvenue.org. At 104 years old, Sally has more stories than you can imagine. As a young woman during World War II, she was the embodiment of Rosie the Riveter, working in New York City’s defense factories. She went on to break barriers as one of the first women recognized […]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been criticized by some market watchers for being a poor barometer of equity-market performance given its relatively small sample size of just 30 stocks. But this quality, along with the paucity of megacap technology names, has helped shepherd the index toward what’s expected to be its biggest October gain […]

This has been a brutal year for Big Tech, as you can see in the chart below, with Meta Platforms META, +1.29% leading the way. Shares of the Facebook holding company plunged 26% on Oct. 27, bringing the 2022 decline to 71%. Many of the largest technology companies have fared worse than the S&P 500 […]

Dear Quentin, My boyfriend owns a house with a 30-year mortgage balance of $ 150,000 on a 4% interest rate. He has $ 275,000 in cash and retirement accounts. He is retired. My house is paid off. I have $ 50,000 in cash and retirement accounts. I would like to retire within one to two […]

It’s hard to imagine that there could be a better deal for parking up to $ 10,000 in savings than Series I bonds, at this very moment. The 9.62% yield is top-notch, and you can count the hours before it goes away. That’s why there’s a mad rush crashing the TreasuryDirect.gov website, the only venue […]

Only three people have ever been both secretary of defense and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Leon Panetta, who for good measure was also an eight-term congressman and White House chief of staff, is one of them. I spent half an hour with him recently to get his views on Russian President Vladimir Putin […]

Dear Quentin, My husband and I make about the same salary, and live modestly. Six months after we married, I found out my husband’s net worth is virtually zero. He owes more money than he has assets (approximately $ 40,000). My net worth is over $ 500,000.  I only found out about his situation because […]

There’s a difference between the amount of taxes that people and businesses owe the Internal Revenue Service and the amount they actually pay. From 2014 to 2016, that multibillion-dollar gap widened, and the divide will likely get even wider later in the decade, the IRS said Friday. For each of those years, taxpayers failed to […]

First the easy part. Economists widely expect the Federal Reserve to approve the fourth straight jumbo interest rate rise at its meeting next week. The three quarters of one percentage point hike would bring the central bank’s benchmark rate up to a level of 3.75%- 4%. “The November decision is a lock. Well I would […]

A number of young children are being hospitalized because of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, and it’s happening at an unusual time of year and among older children than in years past. COVID-19 is likely to blame.   RSV infections and related emergency-room visits and hospitalizations are nearing seasonal peaks in some U.S. regions, according to […]

The numbers: Consumer spending rose 0.6% in September as Americans spent more on travel and new cars, signaling the economy was still expanding even as inflation and rising interest rates dim future growth prospects. Household outlays also rose 0.6% in August. Spending rose a smaller but still solid 0.3% last month after adjusting for inflation, […]