Author: News Room

The Republican party platform, orchestrated by former President Trump, is filled with promises for those it calls “our Great Seniors.” But there is little or no real policy behind most of those campaign pledges. And the document is filled with many irreconcilable contradictions. The platform will be the GOP’s election-year policy framework coming out of its upcoming July 15-18 nominating convention. And it recognizes some critical needs of seniors and sets goals that would improve their quality of life and that of their families. But it rarely describes how Trump and the GOP would achieve those goals. Social Security The…

West Virginia and Idaho asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to decide whether states can lawfully enforce bans on transgender students competing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity. The two appeals from GOP-led states mark the first time the high court has been asked to decide the question in a substantive way amid a yearslong legal battle waged by transgender students and their advocates against a slew of such bans enacted in more than two dozen states. The justices have already said they will decide a separate case concerning state efforts to ban gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, but West Virginia…

Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for freeThe stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White HouseA number of Democratic lawmakers on Thursday called on Joe Biden to end his re-election campaign and let another Democrat take on Donald Trump, hours before the president was set to hold a highly anticipated press conference at the end of this week’s Nato summit.The press conference will be a rare forum for Biden, who has held far fewer press conferences as president than any of his modern predecessors.But it is also widely seen as a make-or-break moment for…

Optimism among individual investors about the short-term outlook for stocks increased in the latest AAII Sentiment Survey. Meanwhile, both neutral sentiment and pessimism decreased. Bullish sentiment, expectations that stock prices will rise over the next six months, increased 7.4 percentage points to 49.2%. Bullish sentiment is unusually high and is above its historical average of 37.5% for the 35th time in 36 weeks. Neutral sentiment, expectations that stock prices will stay essentially unchanged over the next six months, decreased 3.1 percentage points to 29.1%. Neutral sentiment is below its historical average of 31.5% for the 10th time in 17 weeks.…

For weeks, the White House press corps has been boiling – and not from the Washington, DC, heat. They’re frustrated. Some feel the White House misled the press before President Joe Biden’s stumbling performance at last month’s CNN presidential debate. Others have been exasperated by the White House’s response since then to questions about the president’s health, often leading to follow-ups and clarifications from the administration on otherwise straightforward questions. And nearly all of the White House correspondents who spoke to CNN for this report felt the president should have held a press conference with reporters in the immediate aftermath of…

Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Market rotation: The S & P 500 was having a rough day — falling roughly 1%. The Nasdaq was even worse — sinking 2%. However, most stocks were up with about 6 to 1 advancers to decliners on the New York Stock Exchange. For weeks the criticism about the record rally has been its narrow leadership, with the mega – cap tech stocks and growth/momentum stocks carrying the major stock measures higher.…

We finally got the consumer price index we were looking for, with both the June headline and core readings coming in slightly lower than expectations. The CPI bolstered the case for the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates. It also gave investors the green light to rotate out of this year’s tech winners and into rate-sensitive stocks. Headline CPI dipped 0.1% from May, the first monthly decline since May 2020. On a year-over-year basis, it rose 3%, which was the lowest level in more than three years. The core rate, which excludes food and energy prices and tends to…

Prospective homebuyers didn’t get much relief on mortgage rates this week, as the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgages barely budged from 6.87 to 6.86%, Freddie Mac reported. Last year, interest rates weren’t wildly different and averaged 6.71% for 30-year mortgages and 6.06% for 15-year mortgages.”The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage continues to trend down, hitting the lowest level in almost three months,” Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist said. “By historical standards, the economy is in good shape, and we expect rates to continue to come down over the summer months, bringing additional homebuyers back into the market,” said Khater. Interest rates for…

Fertility rates are declining worldwide. Yes, there are nations where there are still far more children than the replacement rate of at least 2.1 children per woman. But industrialized economies are all well below replacement level. United States Census data indicates that the percentage of women between ages 30 and 44 who have never had children is at a record high since 1960 contributing to the nation’s fertility rate of 1.8 children per woman — notably below the population replacement rate of 2.1. The United States is a virtual day care center compared to many other nations. Statistics Canada reports…

Former President Donald Trump, nearing an announcement of his running mate, said Wednesday that “it’s an issue” that North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed a near-total abortion ban in his state. The comments from the presumptive GOP nominee mark the latest insight he’s shared about some of the top names thought to be under consideration for his vice presidential pick ahead of next week’s Republican National Convention. He also weighed in Wednesday on Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s residency, saying it “makes it more complicated” since they both live in the Sunshine State. Asked about Burgum as a potential pick, Trump…