Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Home Depot’s latest forecast is not just a corporate update, it is a warning flare for the broader U.S. economy. The retailer is signaling that homeowners are pulling back, big-ticket projects are being delayed, and the housing market is losing momentum, all at a time when Wall Street has been betting on a smooth landing….
Across the United States, households are bracing for electricity bills that climb faster than paychecks, driven by new demand from data centers, electrified vehicles, and extreme weather. Yet buried inside that challenge is a largely untapped resource: millions of homes and businesses that could quietly act like a flexible power plant. If policymakers and utilities…
America’s most productive oil patch is now grappling with a hidden threat building beneath its rigs and pump jacks. As drillers chase record output, the Permian Basin is accumulating toxic, high pressure wastewater in aging rock layers that were never designed to hold it. The result is a vast industrial system that increasingly resembles a…
New car shoppers are ending the year confronting a price tag that now hovers just under $50,000, even before taxes, fees, and financing costs. The average transaction price has climbed into the high $40,000s at the same time a 25% tariff on imported vehicles and parts is reshaping the market. I see those two forces…
The world’s richest technologist is not just talking about rockets and electric cars anymore. Elon Musk is sketching out a radically different U.S. economy, one where artificial intelligence, humanoid robots and aggressive government streamlining collide with a historic debt crunch. His latest hints point to a future of double digit growth, “universal high income” and…
The recession that so many analysts warned about has not arrived. Instead, the United States has delivered one of its strongest bursts of growth in years, with output, markets and household spending all defying the gloomier forecasts. The surprise is not that the economy is growing, but that it is doing so at a pace…
Kevin Hassett is turning up the pressure on the Federal Reserve, arguing that policymakers are moving too slowly to unwind the high interest rates that defined the last inflation fight. His warning that the Fed is “behind the curve” on cuts lands at a moment when growth is strong, markets are jittery and the White…
Long before Donald Trump entered the White House, Warren Buffett had already zeroed in on what he saw as Trump’s most dangerous business habit: an addiction to leverage that turned every downturn into a potential wipeout. Buffett framed it not as a partisan jab but as a case study in how even a talented dealmaker…
President Donald Trump has turned a sanctions enforcement operation off the coast of Venezuela into a blunt declaration of ownership, saying the United States will keep or sell crude seized from tankers linked to Nicolás Maduro’s government. His comments move the dispute beyond maritime policing and into a direct contest over who controls Venezuelan oil…
Wall Street’s favorite barometer of anxiety is flashing something close to serenity as 2025 winds down, even after a powerful multi‑year rally in U.S. equities. The CBOE Volatility Index, better known as the VIX, is sitting near levels that historically signal comfort rather than concern, even as the economic and policy backdrop grows more complicated…