Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Microsoft shares fell after the company reported strong fiscal year 2026 second-quarter results, a reaction that crystallized a broader investor anxiety: the stock now trades near its lowest price-to-earnings multiple in roughly a decade. The disconnect between accelerating revenue growth and a shrinking valuation raises the headline question directly: does Microsoft really deserve a rock-bottom,…
California and New York are both pushing aggressive new tax proposals aimed squarely at billionaires, setting up what could become the most significant state-level wealth tax fight in American history. California cleared a ballot initiative for circulation that would impose a one-time 5% levy on billionaire residents, while New York legislators have introduced companion bills…
Chicago’s downtown office market closed 2025 with a vacancy rate of 26.6%, a figure that reflects not just empty floors but a widening fiscal crisis for the city’s homeowners. As commercial property values crater across the Loop, Cook County has begun resetting assessments on hundreds of buildings, and the resulting tax burden is shifting squarely…
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, said in a Fox News interview on February 22, 2026, that “out-of-control” costs in housing, groceries, healthcare and other household categories are fueling an affordability crisis that neither political party has resolved. His remarks follow a series of public appearances in which Jeffries has tried…
Federal employment data suggests Texas may be closing the gap with New York in finance-sector jobs, a shift that challenges Wall Street’s long-held dominance over American financial services. The finding, drawn from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ near-census employment counts, arrives as Texas aggressively builds new market infrastructure and courts institutional capital. For workers, firms,…
Economist Peter Schiff, who built his reputation on warning about the 2008 housing collapse before it happened, is now arguing that the United States faces a fiscal crisis that could exceed the severity of that downturn. His case rests on a combination of ballooning federal debt, rising interest payments that now rival defense spending, and…
Gold prices crashed more than $1,000 per ounce from their record highs at the start of 2026, punishing investors who had piled into the metal as an inflation hedge. The sell-off, triggered by shifting Federal Reserve expectations and exchange-level margin hikes, has forced a reckoning over how retail investors hold gold and whether their chosen…
The Vanguard S&P 500 Value ETF, ticker VOOV, has been outpacing the broader S&P 500 this year as investors rotate into cheaper, dividend-paying stocks and away from the high-growth names that dominated recent rallies. The fund tracks the S&P 500 Value Index, a subset of the S&P 500 that filters for stocks with lower price-to-book…
Gold prices slid sharply this month, falling below $5,000 an ounce from late-January record highs, rattling traders who had grown accustomed to a relentless rally. Billionaire Thomas Kaplan, chairman of NovaGold Resources and one of the most vocal gold bulls in the investment world, is telling anyone who will listen that the pullback is a…
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has accused the Federal Reserve of running annual losses of more than $100 billion and of operating under a statutory framework that limits independent audits of key monetary policy decisions. The criticism surfaced in mid-2025 coverage and resurfaced in reporting on his Feb. 4, 2026, congressional testimony, as he clashed with…