Finance News

The Fed's close call, and the Big Tech week riding on it →

For once no one is sure what the Fed will do Wednesday - a hold at 3.75% is the bet, but a growing minority sees a surprise hike, just as Amazon, Microsoft and Apple report and the whole market waits on the cost of money.

Nvidia moves to backstop $250bn of OpenAI's buildout - as Wall Street cools on AI bills →

A chipmaker offers to stand behind its biggest customer's borrowing, oil skids on an Iran pause, and the Fed meets under pressure to hike.

The bills that won't come down - inflation eases, but groceries and gas don't →

Official inflation is cooling, yet the prices people actually pay keep rising, and a fresh wave of tariffs is adding to the load.

The AI buildout meets the bond market — and $1.2 trillion it keeps off the books →

Moody's warns the tech giants' AI spending is straining their credit, bond investors are charging more to lend, and much of the debt is kept off the balance sheet — as yields climb, oil holds near $100, and a Fed decision looms.

The consumer-finance watchdog is set to be run by a man from a bank it polices →

Trump's pick to lead the CFPB is a Capital One credit-card compliance executive, testifying with an "open mind" about firing most of the agency's remaining staff.

Google's blowout quarter, and the market flinched at the bill →

A record cloud result came stapled to a $205bn spending plan — and the stock fell. Oil broke $95 on Red Sea tanker attacks, the yen sank to a 40-year low, and the EU cleared the Paramount–Warner merger.

Wall Street's biggest bank says don't buy long bonds — as rich-world debt hits a record $75.8 trillion →

Jamie Dimon won't touch long-term government bonds, and a ratings agency says developed-country debt will reach a record this year. Meanwhile chips lift the market, brokers bank a trading boom, and the yen falls to a four-decade low.

Americans are borrowing more than they have in five years — and a third still can't find $2,000 →

A New York Fed survey shows credit applications at their highest since 2021, even as a third of households say they'd struggle with a $2,000 surprise. The market, up 10% this year, looks calm — the balance sheets underneath do not.

Oil passes $90 even as the Gulf ships more of it — and the rate debate turns →

Brent broke $90 on a ninth night of US strikes on Iran, capping a 15.9% week. The odd part: Gulf exports just hit their highest level since the war began. Traders are pricing the strait, not the barrels.

Two governments go shopping: Italy's state moves to own the phone network, Britain seizes its last steelworks →

In one weekend, Italy's state-owned post office won board backing for a $14.9bn takeover of Telecom Italia, Britain finished nationalising British Steel, and China warned of retaliation. Strategic industry is being pulled back in-house — for reasons that have little to do with profit.

Short sellers pocket $5 billion as SpaceX slides — a rare week when betting down paid →

SpaceX shares fell below their IPO price and short sellers profited about $5 billion, while money edged toward bonds and the Gulf kept a floor under oil.

As chip stocks slide again, regulators move against the leveraged funds amplifying the market's swings →

Memory-chip stocks fell for a second week and the AI rally wobbled — and underneath the swings sits a fast-growing kind of fund built to double or triple each day's move. South Korea just moved to rein it in, while Fed officials floated raising rates and Netflix, Uber and Visa each made headlines.

A rally only half the market joined — cool inflation lifts Big Tech, but the split is the story →

Wholesale prices unexpectedly fell in June, easing fears of another rate rise and sending Big Tech higher. But the gains were lopsided: money piled into the AI winners while IBM had its worst day ever, and Wall Street's banks cashed in on the deal wave.

The new Fed chair stops telling markets what comes next — and asks them to sit with the uncertainty →

Kevin Warsh used his first testimony to Congress to end the Fed's 15-year habit of signalling its next move, even as fresh data showed inflation falling for the first time since 2020. Banks posted record profits; IBM cratered; China's growth cooled.

Twelve states sue to block the $110bn Paramount–Warner Bros deal — weeks after Washington cleared it →

A dozen state attorneys general moved to stop the year's biggest media merger on antitrust grounds, splitting from a federal government that had already waved it through — while oil, a possible Fed rate hike, and a chip-stock reversal kept markets on edge.

The week the banks go first — earnings season opens as the inflation numbers land →

Big US banks kick off earnings this week alongside fresh inflation data and the new Fed chair's first testimony — the first hard read on how households are really doing. Oil jumped over 3% on US–Iran strikes, but stocks barely flinched.

The biggest US housing bill in decades becomes law — a bet on building, not just cheaper loans →

A rare bipartisan law aims to fix housing by making it easier to build, not just easier to borrow. Plus the everyday price squeeze it answers, and a softer job market.

Apollo wins the bidding war for easyJet — a £5.7bn takeover built mostly on borrowed money →

A US private-equity firm gazumped a rival to buy the low-cost airline, earnings season opened with Delta holding fares high, and a UN report showed 113 poor countries now spend more repaying debt than teaching their children.

US home prices hit a record high — while fewer people can actually buy one →

June home sales fell instead of rising, yet prices set an all-time record. A frozen market, a 6.49% mortgage, and a Fed now more likely to raise rates than cut them mean relief isn't coming soon.

Trump calls the Iran ceasefire 'over' — and the price of borrowing money at home jumps with the price of oil →

A few words at a NATO summit sent oil up, stocks down, and quietly rewrote what markets expect from the Fed — from rate cuts to a possible hike. Here's the chain, from a Gulf strait to your mortgage.

Inflation is cooling, so why isn't money getting cheaper? The AI boom is eating the world's savings →

Falling inflation used to mean cheaper loans. Not anymore. A wave of borrowing — Amazon's $25 billion for AI, governments' deficits — is keeping rates high even as price pressures fade, and mortgages are feeling it.

A flood of new stock is heading for the market — and this week is the first test →

SK Hynix's $28bn Nasdaq debut, SpaceX lockups worth $800bn, and a wave of IPO shares coming unlocked all point at the same thing — more shares chasing the same money. Plus Fed minutes, a Broadcom-led rally, and a fresh bitcoin sale.

Samsung's profit is set to jump 18-fold and SK Hynix wants $28bn from Wall Street — the AI memory boom is now carrying whole economies →

The two companies that make most of the world's advanced memory chips are riding a wave of AI demand so large it is reshaping their profits, their listing plans, and South Korea's public finances.

'Trump accounts' go live: every eligible newborn gets $1,000 — and Wall Street gets a customer for life →

The US launched federally-seeded investment accounts for children, defaulting deposits into an S&P 500 fund. Plus: Trump allies renew their push to remake the Fed, Uber freezes a European expansion to chase a takeover, and the diamond market keeps sliding.

Oil is drowning in its own supply — and the producers keep pumping →

A real glut is finally swamping the oil market as Hormuz reopens and OPEC+ readies another output hike. Citi sees Brent near $60 by Christmas. Meanwhile a weak US jobs number all but seals a Fed pause, and dealmakers post their best half-year in ages.

The US unemployment rate fell to 4.2% — because 720,000 people stopped looking for work →

June's jobs report looked like good news on one line and bad news on every other. Hiring nearly halved, past months were revised down, and the falling jobless rate hides a shrinking workforce.

A record $2.8 trillion wave of takeovers, as cheap money and a race to not be left behind take hold →

The first half of 2026 set a record for company takeovers — Kroger, FedEx's logistics arm, and Australia's South32 all changed hands this week. A new Fed chair made his global debut, the yen hit a four-decade low, and US hiring slowed.

Gold just had its worst quarter in more than a decade — because the thing it protects against finally showed up →

The metal everyone piled into as a safe haven fell hard, on track for its steepest quarterly drop since 2013, undone by the same high inflation and rising rates that were supposed to make it shine.

The yen hits a 40-year low, and Japan is trapped between two things it can't have at once →

The Japanese yen sank to its weakest against the dollar since 1986, a slide that exposes the bind every central bank quietly fears — you can keep money cheap or keep your currency strong, but not both.

4,000 small-town US banks are fighting a crypto law over the money in your checking account →

Community lenders say a new bill would let stablecoins pay rewards for moving deposits out of local banks — draining the savings that fund farm and small-business loans. Plus the dollar hits a one-year high and the world's central-bank umbrella group warns on debt and the AI boom.

The "fixed" mortgage isn't fixed — and the squeeze on American homes is the day's real money story →

A 30-year fixed-rate loan was meant to be the one bill that never moved. Rising property taxes and insurance have quietly broken that promise, just as a key inflation gauge hits a three-year high and shoppers stretch every dollar.

SpaceX joins the Nasdaq-100, and index funds must buy it whether they want to or not →

Two weeks after its record IPO, SpaceX gets added to two of the biggest stock indexes — forcing passive funds to buy billions of dollars of a company that lost $4.9 billion last year.

A chipmaker most people have never heard of is now worth more than Meta →

Micron's customers prepaid $22 billion to lock in memory chips, sending the stock up 18% and past Meta and Tesla in value — while Apple raised laptop prices 20% and inflation ran hotter.

Markets bet the Fed will raise rates, not cut them — and almost everything moves at once →

A week ago, almost nobody expected a US rate hike. Now markets put the odds at better than even by September. The dollar is at a 13-month high, gold has cracked $4,000, and bitcoin sits at its lowest since 2024 — all moving on the same single belief.

Wall Street's private-credit funds slam the exit door as withdrawal requests pile up →

Two of the biggest names in private lending capped how much investors can pull out this week, a sign that the $1.8 trillion market built on hard-to-sell loans is straining when too many people want their money at once. Gold and tech also tumbled on rate-hike fears; FedEx slipped despite a profit beat.

Markets turn on the AI spending — and start asking who it's really for →

Tech's biggest names slid as investors questioned the vast sums being poured into AI, with SpaceX falling a third straight day even as it sat on $100 billion in cash.