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Gen Z is taking on more credit card debt

May 9, 2024
The credit bureau TransUnion is out with a report showing that borrowers aged 22 to 24 are carrying an average of $2,834 in credit card debt — about a quarter more than millennials in the same age range a decade ago.
Adjusted for inflation, members of Gen Z ages 22 to 24 are carrying roughly a quarter more debt than millennials in the same age range a decade ago.
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Business owners are warily stocking their inventories

May 8, 2024
With interest rate cuts uncertain, businesses owners are keeping their shelves a little leaner. But that's not necessarily a bad sign.
Businesses don't know if the Fed will cut rates this year. As a result, “they’re making decisions, in some cases, to postpone purchases until they absolutely need it,” says Dale Rogers at ASU.
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Why does the world want dollars? Because of high interest rates, thriving economy in U.S.

Apr 23, 2024
The greenback is so strong that Japan and South Korea have complained.
“The U.S. has strong growth, strong earnings potential, and so we’re drawing in global equity investment,” said Win Thin at Brown Brothers Harriman.
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Why it's gotten more expensive to house people experiencing homelessness

Apr 22, 2024
Higher interest rates and insurance costs make building low-income and supportive housing more costly —  especially in California, home to 28% of the U.S. homeless population.
The costs of constructing housing for the unhoused are being hammered by higher interest rates.
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If the Federal Reserve waits to cut interest rates, will the European Central Bank follow suit?

Apr 11, 2024
Inflation’s up again in the U.S. while the EU is edging closer to its target. That brings the ECB to a bit of a fork in the road.
If the U.S. and EU economies are diverging, the central banks may pursue different policies, said finance professor Bill English.
Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images

Interest rates worldwide might start falling as central banks meet this week

Mar 18, 2024
Switzerland may be the first to start rolling back the recent round of rate hikes.
The European Central Bank is expected to be among the first central banks to start cutting rates, says Sharyn O’Halloran at Columbia Business School.
Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images

Can the rip-roaring good times for the stock market last?

Rock bottom interest rates and reduced corporate taxes have helped buoy stock market gains in the past decade.
"There are other parts of the world where stock markets have been doing well recently, but nothing quite as extraordinary as the kind of scale of what's been happening in the U.S.," said The Economist's Zanny Minton Beddoes.
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For public good, not for profit.

Commercial construction has hit a brick wall. Why?

Mar 13, 2024
Factors like high interest rates, tight credit and workers continuing to work from home are all hitting commercial construction demand.
Factors like high interest rates, tight credit and continued remote work are all hitting commercial construction demand.
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Even as hourly wages outpace inflation, rising prices take a bite

Mar 12, 2024
It’s been harder for lower- and middle-income households to afford higher food, rent and gas prices without getting into debt.
“We see higher wage growth since the recovery. But if people are working less, their total earnings are still less than inflation,” said ADP's Liv Wang.
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Banks are still grappling with fallout of SVB's failure one year on

Mar 11, 2024
Regulators are more watchful, and banks are trying to be more resourceful.
The banking system was caught off guard by the problems at Silicon Valley Bank,  Signature Bank and First Republic Bank.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images