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Gold prices swung between gains and losses on Wednesday, as concerns around inflation and higher interest rates rose after fresh U.S. strikes on Iran lifted oil and the dollar ahead of the release of the Federal Reserve’s June meeting minutes.Brendon Thorne | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesGold prices swung between gains and losses on Wednesday, as concerns around inflation and higher interest rates rose after fresh U.S. strikes on Iran lifted oil and the dollar ahead of the release of the Federal Reserve’s June meeting minutes.Spot gold rose 0.5% to $4,125.59 per ounce by 0305 GMT, after dropping to its lowest since July 2 earlier in the day.…

Jay Clayton’s US intelligence director nomination hearing set for July 15

Despite soaring housing costs, younger buyers are finding a way in.

July 2026 Capturing Heterogeneity: Machine Learning Approaches to Implied Volatility Forecasting Hyung Joo Kim and Dong Hwan Oh Abstract: Despite documented heterogeneity in volatility dynamics across the option surface, standard implied volatility forecasting models apply homogeneous parameters throughout. We introduce a machine-learning framework that uses regression trees to partition the surface along both moneyness and maturity dimensions, identifying data-driven regions where distinct forecasting models perform best. Extending the Surface Heterogeneous Autoregressive (SHAR) framework of Dufays, Jacobs, and Rombouts (2025), we develop tree-based SHAR specifications that preserve interpretable structure while allowing model parameters to vary across the surface. Empirical…

Hennion & Walsh Asset Management President and CIO Kevin Mahn analyzes Walmart’s earnings and the state of the U.S. economy on ‘Mornings with Maria.’ Retail giants Walmart and Sam’s Club on Monday announced sweeping summer discounts on thousands of everyday essentials and seasonal items, a move that quickly drew political attention after President Donald Trump said the retailer acted at his administration’s request. In a news release Monday, Walmart and Sam’s Club said they are introducing nationwide price cuts to help families stretch their dollars during backyard barbecues, vacations and weekly grocery trips.The savings span several categories, including groceries, household…

The winners of the artificial intelligence race will mostly be U.S. stocks, with only select names from China making the cut, according to BlackRock Investment Institute. The firm maintained its neutral view on Chinese stocks in a report Monday, while staying overweight on the U.S. “China has advantages across parts of that value chain, including manufacturing and batteries. Yet manufacturing strength alone does not guarantee attractive equity returns, reinforcing our preference for active investing rather than broad regional calls,” BlackRock said. While the Nasdaq Composite has gained a little over 12% this year, the tech-heavy ChiNext index of mainland China-traded…

US President Donald Trump says he got involved in crypto “for politics” and became pro-crypto after seeing how much money the industry was making.At a press conference in the Oval Office on Monday to announce “Trump Accounts,” an investment account for children under 18, Trump was asked whether the accounts would allow for Bitcoin (BTC).“I’ve become a big crypto guy only for one reason: If we don’t have it, China’s going to have it,” Trump answered. “I’m a fan, I wasn’t initially, I didn’t know much about it, but, for some of my first term, I wasn’t much involved, and…

Gen-Z consumers frequently hear the well-meaning, but perhaps oversimplified advice to quit paying $8 dollars for their morning coffee. But human nature has a way of adapting. It is such that these consumers now have a comeback. They’re not just drinking coffee. They’re having a functional drink to promote wellness. The functional drink market includes protein coffee, CBD-infused sodas, and, of course, prebiotic drinks. But this market is doing more than creating more beverage choices for consumers. According to Mordor Intelligence, the functional beverage market is already a $160 billion market. But between 2026 and 2031, that market is expected…

A survey of more than 6,700 people across ten major markets has quantified the economic damage inflicted by fragmented cross-border payment infrastructure, with one in three remittance recipients reporting they have struggled to pay for food, rent or utilities because funds were trapped in disconnected systems. The research, published jointly by Singapore-headquartered payments network Thunes and analyst firm Juniper Research, frames the problem as a structural “fragmentation deadlock”: domestic payment systems in most major economies now clear in real time, but the rails connecting those domestic networks across borders have not kept pace. The human cost of the friction tax…

traded near $1,020 into Monday, sitting close to record highs and carrying a market cap around $315 billion. The stock has ridden the biggest dealmaking boom in Wall Street history to these levels, but it arrives at a crossroads: the record fundamentals are colliding with a valuation that the analyst community increasingly views as stretched. That’s the puzzle at the center of this forecast — a franchise firing on every cylinder whose stock may have run past its fundamentals. The operating story is spectacular. Goldman crossed more than $1 trillion in announced M&A advisory volume in the first half of…