Decisions made by the Treasury get much less attention than those made by the Federal Reserve, but they can be even more consequential for interest rates — and the entire US economy.

Just as bond traders grow more assured that inflation is finally under control, a camp of investors is quietly building up protection against the risk of a future spike in prices.

Texas Instruments Inc. is set to receive $1.6 billion in Chips Act grants and $3 billion in loans, the Biden administration announced Friday, marking the latest major award from a program designed to boost American semiconductor manufacturing.

Emerging-market stocks rallied on Friday, driven by tech companies in Asia, following US data which boosted investor optimism that the world’s biggest economy will avoid a recession.

Earlier this year, around the time Nvidia Corp.’s market cap eclipsed that of the entire S&P 500 energy sector, I wrote about whether oil and gas stocks might offer a decent hedge when AI-fever breaks. The past several weeks have offered a test.

New-home construction in the US fell in July to the lowest level since the aftermath of the pandemic as builders respond to weak demand that’s keeping inventory levels high.

At the end of next year, most of the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 are set to expire. If nothing is done, taxes will go up. Both presidential contenders say they won’t let this happen and have promised to extend many or most of the law’s changes.

BlackRock Inc. says the market for blended finance has now reached a “turning point,” as it targets growth in deals that combine private and public funding.

In a part of the US market for exchange-traded funds that has become known for increasingly risky products, a new offering has debuted that stands out in the crowd.

A popular yen-centered carry trade that blew up spectacularly two weeks ago is staging a comeback.

Quant traders at Man Group Plc are betting that unlocking the secrets of private markets will give them an edge in trading public stocks.

With US equities on the rebound, this summer’s selloff is looking more like a pause in the bull market than the beginning of its end.

When US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks at next week’s annual economic conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, people will be listening intently for any hint about what the central bank will do with interest rates at its September policy making meeting.

If rising layoffs and weakening consumption are going to snowball into a US recession at some point, my interpretation is that the mass of macroeconomic ice crystals is still only about the size of a marble.

Alphabet Inc. investors are facing a long period of uncertainty as they grapple with a scenario they previously saw as unlikely: a possible breakup of Google.

George Soros and Stanley Druckenmiller’s investment firms trimmed their holdings in “Magnificent Seven” stocks before this year’s ebullient run-up in technology companies gave way to a major downturn in mid-July.

Is private equity a problem? To what extent could this class of investment funds, which manages almost $9 trillion worldwide on behalf of everyone from wealthy individuals to California teachers, cause or propagate the next financial crisis?

The inflation numbers this week — both for producer and consumer prices — have served to reassure markets in two distinct ways: confirming continued progress in the battle against high price increases and supporting the ongoing shift in the Federal Reserve’s focus from its inflation mandate to its employment mandate.

Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner Charlie Munger brought quality to value investing. Now Buffett is bringing value to quality investing.

Criticism is a gift when it is used to push people to greatness and watch them develop into their potential.

It is overly optimistic to think people will simply change if they don’t see and understand the hurtful nature of what they are doing.

Here are some lessons from interviewing financial advisors and insights into the traits that lead to a recommendation.

Bond investors pared back their expectations for Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts slightly as data showed US inflation ebbed further in July, reinforcing the case for a quarter-point reduction next month.

Skeptics had long warned that artificial intelligence-related stocks were in a bubble. Now that some of the froth has come off, bulls see an opportunity.

A bid to break up Alphabet Inc.’s Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department after a landmark court ruling found that the company monopolized the online search market, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.

A year after UBS Group AG completed its emergency takeover of failing rival Credit Suisse, the project is faring better than the Swiss bank dared hope. It’s cut unwanted assets, people and costs faster than it promised — enabling it to deliver forecast-beating profits so far in 2024.

The headlines suggest catastrophe for the global food supply: Biblical heatwaves, floods, storms and wildfires. And yet, in the world’s breadbaskets, the weather has been fair this growing season — so good that we’re facing an oversupply of key agricultural commodities and thus much lower prices than in 2022 and 2023.

Regulators and investors have always had a keen interest in the trades that corporates executives and board members make in their companies’ own shares. The government has to look out for the integrity of financial markets, of course, while investors are eager to ride insiders’ coattails. Unfortunately, it’s never been easy to read the insider tea leaves.

You can deal with a yes or no (the truth), but what you can’t afford is to waste your precious and valuable time chasing “ghosts.”

Baby Boomers likely won’t have time to recover from the next crash. Their loss is also their heirs’ loss. There’s $70 trillion in play. Baby boomers shouldn’t be greater fools.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said he’s skeptical that inflation will return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, citing risks including deficit spending and “remilitarization of the world.”

MSCI Inc. continues to cull China stocks from its indexes, setting the stage for a further drop in the nation’s share of a key emerging-market benchmark.

US producer prices rose in July by less than forecast, reflecting the first decline in services costs this year amid an ongoing moderation in inflationary pressures.

When two popular trades, such as buying US big tech stocks and selling the Japanese yen, are unraveling at the same time, investors naturally think they are somehow related.

The tricky last yards of closing in on — and then maintaining — the hallowed 2% inflation target that all the major central banks adhere to requires a change of tactics. Over the past two years, a mantra of economic data-dependency has been drummed into us, keeping interest rates higher for longer.

Exaggerated concerns about the viability of Social Security continue to circulate like a persistent urban legend that refuses to die. They have only intensified during the political silly season leading up to the November elections.

Haidt’s The Anxious Generation documents the post-iPhone 4 explosion of anxiety and depression disorders among adolescents. Haidt calls the substitution of screen time for play “The Great Rewiring” of young brains that is directly responsible for the dramatic increase in adolescent mental health disorders.

The statistical and investment views of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the blockbuster book The Black Swan, are easy to summarize. First, most probability distributions are fat-tailed, not thin-tailed like the normal distribution. That renders useless or wrong the application of almost all conventional statistical techniques.

One of the most critical factors explaining the performance differences between small-cap value and large-cap growth stocks is the sector in which the companies operate, and the earnings growth associated with each industry.

The benchmark indexes for emerging-market equities and currencies, respectively, moved in opposite directions Monday, deepening a trend that emerged last week, when their short-term correlation was interrupted for the first time in 21 years.

One of the most widely followed gauges of the stock market, for decades a reliable indicator of future returns, has led investors astray in recent years. Its misdirection comes down to the freakish earnings growth of big technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. But there’s a way to revamp this market barometer as worries about elevated expectations and prices grow.

The recent decline in mortgage rates on stronger evidence that the Federal Reserve is poised to ease policy has fueled hopes of better times ahead for companies tied to the housing market. That’s likely true, but the evidence of the past few weeks suggests it’s already too late for a revival this year.

First the private credit firms came for the banking industry’s lucrative corporate loan business. Now they’re grabbing a chunk of their consumer-lending work. The pressing question for this thriving multi-trillion dollar industry is whether it has timed its latest incursion badly.

A dizzying start to August, which saw US stocks whiplashed by economic jitters, lackluster earnings and the unwinding of the global yen carry trade, has left Wall Street searching for corners of the market that may have been unfairly punished.

Emerging-market currencies are set to clock their biggest weekly gains of 2024, led by a rise in Brazil’s real on expectations its central bank could raise interest rates later this year.

The Biden administration is nearly finished divvying up $39 billion in grants under the Chips and Science Act, the landmark bipartisan legislation aimed at revitalizing the domestic semiconductor industry. The bigger test still lies ahead.

Warren Buffett’s sudden sale of a huge pile of Apple Inc. shares has come with a surprise silver lining for investors in the iPhone maker: Its influence in major stock indexes is set to be fully unleashed.

When markets gyrated at the turn of the month, US and Japanese stocks had the cushion of an earlier surge to fall back on. In Europe, the rout hit share prices that had been weakening since May. An earnings season dominated by pessimism from many of the region’s bosses has vindicated investors’ caution.

A large majority of economists surveyed see only a quarter-point decrease in interest rates coming in September — a finding that’s at odds with calls from some large Wall Street banks for a jumbo cut at the next meeting.

Back in June, a mystery investor made a record wager on long-dated Treasuries, creating waves in the ETF market where trading pros seek clues about sentiment on Wall Street. Now the firm behind that bet has revealed itself, and says its recession call is finally coming to fruition.