Financial related news.
WASHINGTON — The average long-term mortgage rate inched down last week to its lowest level in six weeks, just as the spring buying season gets underway. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported that the average on the benchmark 30-year rate fell for the third straight week, to 6.32 percent, from 6.42 percent the previous week. The [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer new electric vehicles will qualify for a full $7,500 federal tax credit later this year, and many will get only half that, under rules proposed late last week by the U.S. Treasury Department. The rules, required under last year's Inflation Reduction Act, are likely to slow consumer acceptance of electric vehicles [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve's favored inflation gauge slowed sharply last month, an encouraging sign in the Fed's yearlong effort to cool price pressures through steadily higher interest rates. The report from the Commerce Department showed that consumer prices rose 0.3 percent from January to February, down from a 0.6 percent increase from December [...]
NEW YORK — A software developer twice invested his savings in cryptocurrencies, only to lose it all. Yet he still promotes it to the black community and would like to get back in himself. A recent college graduate and a single mom are dabbling hopefully in bitcoin after attending a crypto workshop sponsored by rapper [...]
Depositors have accelerated withdrawals amid recent bank failures and sharply rising interest rates, raising concerns about the industry's health and ability to withstand a crisis, experts say. Bank deposits fell by nearly $720 billion between the second and fourth quarters of 2022, leaving banks' cash assets at their lowest levels in more than two years [...]
WASHINGTON — Working against the clock to stop a developing banking crisis, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had until sunset on Sunday, March 12, to come up with a plan to calm the U.S. economy. She quickly turned to someone who had been through the fire before, and on a much larger scale: Hank Paulson. Paulson, [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is getting some unwanted help in its drive to slow the nation’s economy and defeat the worst bout of inflation in four decades: a cutback in bank lending. The upheaval in the financial system that's followed the collapse of two major banks is raising the likelihood that lending standards [...]
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Just a few years after labor activists persuaded a handful of states to raise their minimum wage to $15 per hour, workers initially thrilled with the pay bump are finding their hard-won gains erased by inflation. New York City resident Anthony Rivera, 20, who sorts packages at a United Parcel Service [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Only 10 percent of adults say they have high confidence in the nation’s banks and other financial institutions, a new poll finds. That’s down from the 22 percent who said they had high confidence in 2020. Following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank this month, the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center [...]
NEW YORK — As the Federal Reserve raises interest rates again, credit card debt is already at a record high, and more people are carrying debt month to month. The Fed's interest rate increases are meant to fight inflation, but they've also led to higher annual percentage rates for people with credit card debt, which [...]