The big news from the Federal Reserve’s meeting Wednesday wasn’t that it’ll stop buying bonds to stimulate the economy or that it’s now signaling three increases in its benchmark lending rate in 2022. Those short-term policy decisions had been well-telegraphed by Fed officials over the past month. No, the big surprise is that the gargantuan,
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Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) stock is dropping after results for its mRNA flu vaccine is underwhelming investors. However, in my opinion, the real problem is that the flu underwhelms investors. Source: Ascannio / Shutterstock.com Since the Moderna vaccine was given an emergency use authorization in November 2020, there have been numerous critics. I’ve heard arguments that the mRNA
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers was right that inflation would prove longer lasting than Federal Reserve and White House officials believed at the beginning of the year. Now Summers says the Fed, which is likely on Wednesday to forecast multiple interest rate hikes next year, will have a hard time putting the inflation genie back
Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST) has been one of this year’s top performers. Shares of UPST stock are up over 260% year-to-date (YTD), from around $40 at the start of 2021 to $151 as of the close of Dec. 13. Source: Postmodern Studio / Shutterstock.com You probably wouldn’t realize that if you’ve just tuned into the Upstart story, however.
Hello and welcome back to MarketWatch’s Extra Credit column, a weekly look at the news through the lens of debt. For nearly two years, borrowers with federal student loans have had a reprieve from monthly bills thanks to a pandemic-related pause on student loan payments, interest and collections that’s been in place since March 2020.
Biofrontera (NASDAQ:BFRI) is working to clear up skin lesions that can appear after a lifetime of Sun and fun. Since BFRI stock went public in late October at $5 a piece, shares are up more than 36%. Source: Pavel Kapysh / Shutterstock With revenue up 45%, anticipation surrounding third-quarter earnings helped fuel the rise. So
It was quite the Manic Monday, with not just the S&P 500 suffering its worst single-day performance in nearly two weeks, but retail favorites such as meme stocks GameStop and AMC Entertainment getting battered. Thomas Lee of Fundstrat made three points. No investor wants to go risk-on into the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, equities
As much as I’d like to pitch three bullish ideas, Monday’s market meltdown doesn’t allow it. My watch list is a sea of red, and the usual suspects are tumbling. Reopening plays, small caps, once-loved-now-loathed growth stocks — down, all down. I’ve scanned the top losers on the session and found plenty of fodder for
Tornadoes in December are unusual, but not unheard of. Yet the distance of the destructive path for a single twister during this weekend’s deadly weather broke a century-old record. Are tornados linked to climate change, similar to how devastating heat, wildfires, droughts and floods have intensified with a warming Earth? Should we get used to
Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE) stock went “to the moon” twice earlier this year. Source: Christopher Penler / Shutterstock.com It was an already popular play before the meme stock craze, but you can chalk up this investing phenomenon as the main reason for 2021 price spikes. The high concept nature of its business (space exploration) coupled with high
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has finally jettisoned the use of the word “transitory” to describe the rise in inflation. But to the Fed’s critics, it’s still not enough. Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser for Allianz, went on the CBS program “Face the Nation” on Sunday and stuck the proverbial dagger in. “The characterization of
After running hot for a few weeks, excitement has cooled for Progenity (NASDAQ:PROG). Less than a month ago, it was trading for as much as $6.20 per share. But since then, PROG stock has fallen by around more than 50%, and trades for around $2.50 per share today. Source: motorolka / Shutterstock.com Is this a
From Powell and Dole and Rumsfeld to Aaron and Lasorda and Spinks — a roll call of the most noteworthy deaths of 2021 Other notable departures of the year ranged from Walter Mondale to Rush Limbaugh, Eli Broad to Bernie Madoff, along with such entertainment giants as Cicely Tyson, Olympia Dukakis, Cloris Leachman, Charles Grodin,
As of Dec. 1, Block (NYSE:SQ) is the new name of the company formerly known as Square. This portends its future focus on blockchain technology including Bitcoin (CCC:BTC-USD) and the company’s focus on digital payment assets and solutions. I would expect that, just like Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:FB) (parent of Facebook) changed its name to focus on digital
Is it safe to party like it’s 2019? The new omicron variant of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new virus SARS-CoV-2, has complicated the prospect of heralding in the New Year with friends — even vaccinated ones. It’s just one night, after all. A bottle of champagne and some dancing. It couldn’t hurt. Or could
Investors in Palantir Technologies (NYSE:PLTR) are having a tough go of it lately. Shares of the big data firm are down around 30% in just over a month. And since hitting an all-time high of $45 in late January, PLTR stock is down 58%. Source: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com However, the earliest investors in Palantir
Amid the holiday cards coming in the mail and inboxes this season is a potentially not-so-nice greeting for some mutual-fund investors: capital-gains distributions. It’s not all bad news. A number of funds are paying out gains because stocks gained this year, with the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.95% up 22% through November (and has continued
The volatility in Lucid Motors (NASDAQ:LCID) has been increasing. That’s not too surprising given the run we’ve seen in LCID stock lately. At today’s price of $37.71, shares are up more than 130% from the Sept. 1 low. Source: ggTravelDiary / Shutterstock.com The simple fact is that Lucid has been on fire. Even as other
Is three going to be the new two? With employer vaccination requirements already widespread, workplace experts say it’s possible some companies will convert their full vaccination requirement, now two shots, into a three-shot requirement as the omicron variant emerges. Pfizer PFE, +1.34% and BioNTech BNTX, -9.33% said three of its vaccine doses can “neutralize” the
Jack Dorsey announced on Nov. 29 that he was stepping down as CEO of Twitter (NYSE:TWTR). TWTR stock gained 11% on the news; Dorsey also runs Square (NYSE:SQ), and CEOs running two companies generally doesn’t sit well with investors. Dorsey has a checkered past with Twitter. In 2008, the board sent him packing because his