Markets & Investing
Coverage of financial markets, investment strategies, and the economic forces that move money. Connects macro trends to real decisions for investors and professionals.
Latest in Markets & Investing
Iran declares Strait of Hormuz open — oil plunges 10%, but don’t expect cheap gas anytime soon
On a single day in late April 2026, Iran’s foreign minister told the world the Strait of Hormuz was “completely open” for commercial shipping. Within...
Charles Schwab launches spot Bitcoin and Ethereum trading at 75 bps, undercutting Fidelity
Charles Schwab, the largest discount brokerage in the U.S., is expanding into cryptocurrencies, starting with the two biggest. The company plans to offer its retail...
Gold hits $4,819 per ounce — here’s what’s driving the safe-haven rally in 2026
On the afternoon of March 18, 2026, minutes after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell finished his post-meeting press conference, gold futures on COMEX blew past...
Bank of America posts highest EPS in nearly two decades — $1.11 per share, net income up 17%
Bank of America reported first-quarter 2026 earnings of $1.11 per diluted share, what the bank called its strongest quarterly result in nearly two decades, driven...
S&P 500 breaks 7,000 for the first time — Nasdaq on a 12-day win streak, longest since 2009
The S&P 500 closed above 7,000 for the first time on Wednesday, April 15, 2026, finishing the session at 7,022.95 and punching through a level...
Schwab posts record Q1 — $1.37 EPS, 9.9 million daily trades — but stock drops 10%
Charles Schwab just delivered the strongest quarter in its 54-year history. The market’s response: a roughly 10% haircut to the stock price. The brokerage reported...
Gold hits $4,819 per ounce — investors hedge against inflation and geopolitical uncertainty
Gold surged past every previous record in late April 2026, with the COMEX front-month contract touching an intraday high of $4,819 per ounce after a...
Pakistan reverses 8-year crypto banking ban — banks can now service licensed digital asset firms
For eight years, Pakistan’s banks treated cryptocurrency like contraband. A 2018 State Bank of Pakistan directive, widely referenced as SBP Circular No. 3 of April...
Bitcoin holds above $74,300, Ethereum surges 6% on ceasefire optimism
Bitcoin crossed $74,300 on Friday morning, April 17, 2026, capping a 48-hour rally that drew fuel from two catalysts landing almost back to back: a...
Weekly jobless claims drop 11,000 to 207,000 — labor market holds steady amid layoff headlines
New unemployment filings fell to 207,000 for the week ending April 11, 2026, the Department of Labor reported Thursday, a drop of 11,000 from the...
JPMorgan’s traders just had their biggest quarter EVER — $11.6B in three months, but the bank quietly cut its 2026 outlook
JPMorgan Chase reported on April 11, 2026, that its trading desks generated $11.6 billion in markets revenue during the first quarter of 2026, which is...
Bitcoin rips to $76,000 as Iran peace rumors trigger $1.1B in ETF inflows
Bitcoin blew past $76,000 on a single afternoon in late April 2026 after rumors of a U.S.-Iran diplomatic opening ripped through global markets, pulling what...
S&P 500 closes at 6,967 — within 1% of an all-time high as Iran peace optimism pulls oil 7% lower
Wall Street came within striking distance of a record on Tuesday, May 13, 2026, after a burst of optimism about U.S.-Iran diplomacy sent oil prices...
Citadel’s Ken Griffin: “The world’s going to end up in a recession” if Hormuz stays shut 6–12 months
Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder of hedge fund giant Citadel, warned in mid-April 2026 that a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz would drag...
Wells Fargo stock tanks 6.6% as “earnings beat” turned out to be smoke and mirrors
Wells Fargo looked like it had cleared the bar. When the bank released first-quarter 2026 results in mid-April, the headline figure showed adjusted earnings per...
Goldman Sachs shifts from annual big-bang layoffs to rolling performance-based cuts — phased through summer, begins this month
Goldman Sachs has begun rolling out a new approach to workforce reductions this month, replacing the annual mass layoff that Wall Street employees have braced...
HSBC cutting 20,000 positions (10% of global workforce) — the largest banking layoff of 2026
Roughly 20,000 people who work for HSBC may soon learn their jobs are being replaced by artificial intelligence. That is the scale of workforce reductions...
March PPI comes in at +0.5% — less than half the forecast; energy shock didn’t fully leak into wholesale prices
The energy shock was supposed to rip through the entire wholesale price chain. It didn’t. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on April 14 that...
CME FedWatch now shows a 40% probability of a rate HIKE before any cut
The number that stopped Wall Street’s rate-cut party: 40%. That is the probability, as of late April 2026, that the CME FedWatch Tool assigns to...
Citigroup posts highest quarterly revenue in a decade: $24.6B on $3.06 EPS
Citigroup reported Q1 2026 revenue of $24.6 billion and diluted earnings per share of $3.06, its strongest top-line quarter in roughly a decade. The results,...