Category: United States

The numbers: The New York Fed’s Empire State business conditions index, a gauge of manufacturing activity in the state, fell 7.6 points to negative 9.1 in October, the regional Fed bank said Monday. This is the third straight negative reading. Economists had expected a reading of negative 5.0, according to a survey by The Wall […]

U.S. stock futures advanced on Monday, helped by receding turbulence in the U.K. bond market as earnings season continues. What’s happening Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average YM00, +1.16% rose 190 points, or 0.6%, to 29898. Futures on the S&P 500 ES00, +1.35% gained 28.25 points, or 0.8%, to 3626. Futures on the Nasdaq […]

Kakao Corp. shares 035720, -5.93% slumped early Monday after a fire at one of its data centers over the weekend disrupted its popular messaging app and other fintech services. Shares in the South Korean mobile internet giant fell as much as 9.5% to 46,500 won ($ 32.25) in morning trade and were last 5.5% lower […]

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plans to fold its biggest businesses into three divisions, undertaking one of biggest reshuffles in the Wall Street firm’s history. Goldman GS, -2.31% will combine its flagship investment-banking and trading businesses into one unit, while merging asset and wealth management into another, people familiar with the matter said. Marcus, Goldman’s consumer-banking arm, will […]

Stephanie Lane no longer makes big family dinners.  Lane, 44, lives with her husband, an art director, and four children in Harrisburg, Pa. A few years back, Lane quit her job as a nurse to take care of her kids, including one child who has a disability. The family now lives on her husband’s income. […]

The Federal Reserve’s policy of steep interest-rate hikes is not helping the struggling economy and is instead hurting working Americans, Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday. “I think it is wrong to be saying that the way we’re going to deal with inflation is by lowering wages and increasing unemployment,” the Vermont independent said in an […]

The real-estate market is taking a beating, with mortgage rates surpassing 7%. “Rates are still rising, and will continue to rise here on out,” Christine Cooper, chief U.S. economist and managing director at CoStar Group, told MarketWatch in an interview. But with home prices continuing to be elevated, that has really hurt affordability, she added, […]

Two stocks that have defined Wall Street’s boom in the past decade — streaming giant Netflix Inc. and electric-vehicle maker Tesla Inc. — will hope to turn around some poor recent trajectories as earnings season kicks into a new gear this week. After swelling prices and results from JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, +1.66% and […]

Americans face a tough winter, with one government agency warning that most households will see a sharp increase in heating costs this year, as natural-gas prices look to post their largest yearly percentage gain in 17 years. U.S. households that primarily use natural gas to heat their homes will likely spend an average of $ […]

The 66 million Americans on Social Security are getting a big cost-of-living increase: 8.7%. It goes into effect in December, with the first payment made in January 2023. It’s the biggest hike since the 11.2% cost of living adjustment (COLA) announced back in 1981. Thursday’s announcement by the Social Security Administration would lift the average monthly benefit by more […]

The cost of medical care is surging again after lull during the pandemic — and adding tinder to the high inflation already burning up the U.S. economy. Medical expenses have been one of the biggest contributors to U.S. inflation for decades. Yet prices almost flatlined during the pandemic as people avoided hospitals and doctors and […]

In the 25 years MarketWatch has been reporting on business and finance, Jeffrey Katzenberg has helped reshape Hollywood. He cofounded DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, produced the smash animation hit Shrek, and ran DreamWorks Animation, which made blockbusters like Madagascar.  Not everything Katzenberg tried panned out. His big bet on short-form streaming platform […]

Almost half of baby boomers and more than one-third of Generation X expect to work past age 70 or do not plan to retire at all, highlighting the need for backup plans in case life’s unexpected events get in the way of such goals. According to a study by nonprofit Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies in collaboration […]

Rent growth is beginning to cool. But it’s descending from a heck of a peak. Rental prices climbed 7.2% between September 2021 to September of this year, the largest annual increase since 1982, according to consumer price data released Thursday. Overall, shelter costs were also among the most significant drivers in rising consumer prices, along […]

The Federal Reserve is finally on the right path when it comes to fighting inflation, but it’s likely to result in a painful economic contraction, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said on Thursday. “I think most likely we will not have a soft landing, I agree with the chairman of the Fed on that,” Rubin […]

The Internal Revenue Service is mailing letters to households that could potentially get money from boosted child tax credit payments and the third stimulus check — if only they filed a tax return. The tax agency said it is sending out more than 9 million letters to get the word out.The letters are going to […]

“If you think about where we are right now, the Federal Reserve Board is fighting something that it hasn’t seen really in almost four decades, which is inflation. Inflation is a bit like toothpaste: once you get it out of the tube, it’s hard to get it back in, right?” — Paul Tudor Jones Billionaire […]

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers was one of the first prominent economists to warn that federal policymakers were underestimating the threat of persistent inflation, and today he is worried about a global economic crisis that could result from central banks’ efforts to fight rising prices. “We’ve got the most complex, disparate and cross-cutting set of […]

JPMorgan Chase & Co. shares rose Friday after the megabank beat analyst targets for third-quarter profit and revenue and said it would top forecasts for its net interest income in the coming quarter. In a busy day for bank earnings, Wells Fargo & Co. WFC, +1.86% fell short of earnings target but its stock rose […]

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators contacted at least two aides to former President Donald Trump months before the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago resort and have sought to talk to them again in recent weeks, people familiar with the matter said, as the Justice Department examines possible obstruction of its efforts to retrieve hundreds of government and classified documents. The aides, […]