By Matt Egan, CNN Business Inflation is cooling. Consumers are still spending. And hiring is slowing — but not collapsing. That’s why Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi is increasingly confident that the American economy will — narrowly — escape a recession. “It’s going to be a struggle. It’s going to feel uncomfortable. But I
Continue Reading By Alicia Wallace, CNN Business Sheets of dollar bills rolling off the presses at the Fort Worth Bureau of Engraving and Printing will soon bear the signature of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. But as it turns out, there was a lot riding on that little John Hancock, Yellen said Wednesday night as a guest
Continue Reading By Kara Scannell and Matt Egan, CNN Two senior executives associated with collapsed crypto exchange FTX have pleaded guilty to multiple criminal charges and are cooperating with federal prosecutors, according to unsealed court records. Additionally, the pair face civil fraud charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission that were announced Wednesday night. Gary Wang, the
Continue Reading By Anna Bahney, CNN Business Mortgage rates dipped again this week, marking the third straight week of falling rates. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.49% in the week ending December 1, down from 6.58% the week before, according to Freddie Mac. A year ago, the 30-year fixed rate was 3.11%. Mortgage rates have risen throughout
Continue Reading By Allison Morrow, CNN Business Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of now-bankrupt FTX, has fallen from the peak of crypto celebrity, but he’s not going quietly. In back-to-back interviews, he’s portrayed himself as a clumsy and repentant businessman. “I think I got a little cocky — I mean, more than a little bit,” he told ABC’s
Continue Reading By Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN Business McDonald’s is hoping a drive-thru lane with a food conveyor belt, a pickup room for delivery workers and a shelf where people can grab their orders will make life easier for customers on the go. The features are being tested in a restaurant near Fort Worth, Texas, the burger chain
Continue Reading By Chris Isidore, CNN Business A key measure of consumer prices slowed somewhat in October, another hopeful sign that inflation pressures could be moderating. The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, or PCE, rose 6% in October compared to a year earlier, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. That’s down from the upwardly revised 6.3% annual increase
Continue Reading By Danielle Wiener-Bronner, CNN Business ‘Tis the season to mix milk into your soda. According to Pepsi, anyway. Pepsi launched a campaign Thursday encouraging customers to try the combination and use the hashtag #PilkandCookies (as in Pepsi plus milk) to showcase their Santa-friendly concoctions. Those who participate in the online challenge running through Christmas Day
Continue Reading By Allison Morrow, CNN Business Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of now-bankrupt FTX, has fallen from the peak of crypto celebrity, but he’s not going quietly. In back-to-back interviews, he’s portrayed himself as a clumsy and repentant businessman. “I think I got a little cocky — I mean, more than a little bit,” he told ABC’s
Continue Reading By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN Business Family Dollar has lost ground in the dollar store race for years. Now, the discount chain hopes lowering prices will help win back customers on tight budgets. Its main competition is the much larger Dollar General, which has grown rapidly over the past decade. The companies battle for many of
Continue Reading By Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN Business Family Dollar has lost ground in the dollar store race for years. Now, the discount chain hopes lowering prices will help win back customers on tight budgets. Its main competition is the much larger Dollar General, which has grown rapidly over the past decade. The companies battle for many of
Continue Reading By Jeanne Sahadi, CNN Business No matter how smart or well educated you are, and no matter how successful professionally, when it comes to investing you still might not make the best decisions. That’s because you’re human, which means you’re hardwired to respond in certain ways that serve you well in many parts of your
Continue Reading By Tami Luhby, CNN As freight railroad workers look to Congress to provide them with paid sick days, millions of other American employees have no safety net if they fall ill. The US does not have a national standard on paid sick leave, a rarity among industrialized nations. Roughly 1 in 5 civilian workers lack
Continue Reading By Paul R. La Monica, CNN Business The meltdown of FTX has sent the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies tumbling more than 60% this year…and the carnage has spread to publicly traded companies with exposure to digital assets. Shares of Coinbase, Square-owner Block, top bitcoin miners Hive and Riot, crypto bank Silvergate and software
Continue Reading By Matt Egan, CNN Prices at the pump continue to plunge, dropping the US average for gasoline below where it was when Russia invaded Ukraine. A gallon of regular gas now fetches $3.47 nationally, according to AAA. That is below the $3.54 average on February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine. That is down about
Continue Reading By Nicole Goodkind, CNN Business Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell made investors very happy on Wednesday. US stocks popped after the central banker gave a speech strongly indicating that the Fed would ease the historically-high pace of interest rate rises at its next policy meeting in December. But investors who are expecting a full pivot
Continue Reading By Alicia Wallace, CNN Business Ahead of Friday’s closely watched jobs report, economists polled by Refinitiv say they are expecting job growth to have slowed in November, with just 200,000 positions added. But while the recent wave of layoffs hitting the tech sector has dominated news cycles and triggered concerns that a larger reckoning may
Continue Reading By Diksha Madhok, CNN Business Binance is expanding into new markets even as the crypto industry grapples with turmoil unleashed by the spectacular collapse of crypto exchange FTX. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange has acquired Sakura Exchange BitCoin (SEBC), a crypto exchange registered in Japan, Binance said on its website Wednesday. The deal would allow
Continue Reading By Diksha Madhok, CNN Business The extensive Indian diaspora will help the South Asian country reach a special milestone this year. Asia’s third largest economy is on track to receive more than $100 billion in yearly remittances in 2022, according to a World Bank report published Wednesday. This will be the first time a country
Continue Reading By Jackie Wattles, CNN Elon Musk — the SpaceX founder, Tesla CEO, and, most recently, Twitter owner — hosted a flashy event on Wednesday night for yet another one of his companies: Neuralink, the startup proposing implants that connect your brain to a computer. The event showcased a video that Musk said showed a monkey
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