A sign is posted in front of a home for sale on June 09, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images Sales of previously owned homes were essentially flat in May compared with April, according to the National Association of Realtors. They rose 0.2% to a seasonally adjusted, annualized pace of 4.30
The Bank of England has stepped up its fight against persistent inflation with a surprise half-point rise in interest rates to 5 per cent, the highest level since 2008. Voting seven to two in favour of the larger-than-expected increase, the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said it was responding to “material news” in recent economic
Now that inflation is waning, there is hope that mortgage rates will fall to 5% in 2024. These lower rates would make borrowing to buy a home less expensive, but they could make the housing market much harsher for first-time homebuyers. That’s because a drop in mortgage rates would cause an increase in demand, and
Starknet, a zero knowledge layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum is one step closer to becoming fully Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible pending an August testnet launch of Kakarot, a new zkEVM. On June 3, the Kakarot team announced it had received new backing from Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, Ledger co-founder Nicholas Bacca and Starkware. We
Cook County expects to end the current fiscal year with a surplus providing some cushion as it looks to erase an $85.6 million gap looming in the next budget as rising salary and pension expenses, healthcare, and a state change on personal property replacement tax distributions weigh on the county’s fiscal landscape. The gap next
Diamond rings and bracelets on display in a show window in Antwerp, Belgium. (Photo by Yuriko Nakao/Getty Images) Yuriko Nakao | Getty Images News | Getty Images “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” as the old song goes. But they’re not an investor’s favorite currently, with the precious gems losing some significant value over the
The Puerto Rico Oversight Board said challenges to its Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority projections are “irrelevant.” The board filed its argument Tuesday evening in response to a PREPA bondholders filing a week earlier defending their right to have U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain consider their attacks on the assumptions of the fiscal
A team of researchers from the Bitcoin Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, have roundly rejected the conclusions reached in a 2022 paper claiming that Bitcoin has an intrinsic scaling problem that will lead to limited adoption in the future. According to the Bitcoin Policy Institute’s researchers, the original paper, dubbed “Bitcoin’s Limited Adoption Problem,”
Among the more memorable displays at Bitcoin 2023 is a real-life toilet with the logos of various non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies. It’s an ad for a booth selling “buttwipes” that are “moistened with the tears of no-coiners.” The marketing message is clear: Bitcoin is the real thing — everything else is a shitcoin that belongs in the
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said policymakers expect interest rates will need to move higher to reduce U.S. growth to below its long-term trend and contain price pressures, with the timing of additional increases based on incoming data. “My colleagues and I understand the hardship that high inflation is causing, and we remain strongly committed
In this article PTON MSTR RIOT SPOT TSLA FDX Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT A woman walks past FedEx Corp. Ground vehicle parked in the Midtown neighborhood of New York, U.S., on Friday, Dec. 4, 2015. John Taggart | Bloomberg | Getty Images Check out the companies making headlines in premarket trading. FedEx —
A real estate agent shows a prospective buyer a home as he shops for a house in Coral Gables, Florida. Joe Raedle | Getty Images The average rate on the most popular mortgage, the 30-year fixed, fell for the third straight week, but demand for mortgages didn’t move much. Total mortgage application volume increased 0.5%
UK inflation remained stuck at 8.7 per cent in May, higher than expectations of a drop to 8.4 per cent, marking the fourth month in a row that price rises have exceeded forecasts. With the cost of a broad range of goods and services rising sharply, the figures will reinforce expectations of multiple interest rate
In this article AMZN Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT When Amazon first announced plans for a second corporate headquarters in 2017, it set off an epic bidding war. Virginia beat 237 competitors to win the project, and when it finally opened last week in the Crystal City section of Arlington, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin
Municipals showed some strength Tuesday, U.S. Treasury yields fell and equities ended down. Triple-A scales bumped up to five basis points, depending on the scale, while UST yields fell three to five basis points. The two-year muni-to-Treasury ratio Tuesday was at 62%, the three-year at 65%, the five-year at 66%, the 10-year at 68% and
On June 20, cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced that it had commenced operating nodes on the Bitcoin Lightning Network as a crucial step towards integrating it for deposits and withdrawals. In the tweet, Binance acknowledged users who noticed their new Lightning nodes and confirmed their presence. However, Binance highlighted that additional technical work must be completed
What Bitcoin Did podcaster Peter McCormack admits that he has a “weird relationship with Twitter,” as he believes it “brings out the worst in people.” He’s worked hard to build up more than half a million followers to promote his show but still isn’t sure that Twitter is a “net positive” because it “elevates a
Owning a second home or vacation property can sound enticing. But it can also be very expensive, both in terms of time and money. There are also hidden costs associated with owning a second home. For some individuals and families, buying a vacation home makes a lot of sense. It’s comfortably affordable and the home
UK grocery price inflation eased for a third consecutive month in June, with new data suggesting it might have peaked, according to research company Kantar. The annual pace of supermarket price increases eased to 16.5 per cent for the four weeks to June 11, down from 17.2 per cent the previous month. The figure was
In an interview with Bloomberg, ARK Invest CEO and CIO Cathie Wood recently discussed why her flagship fund, Ark Innovation (ARKK), is adding to its position in shares of Coinbase (COIN) after the SEC sued Binance, one of Coinbase’s biggest competitors. ARKK purchased nearly 330,00 shares of COIN on June 6, 2023, worth about $17