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Mortgage giant Rocket Companies (RKT) announced Monday it agreed to purchase digital real estate brokerage Redfin (RDFN) in an all-stock deal valued at $1.75 billion. Redfin stock rose as much as 76% on the news. Rocket stock fell as much as 10%. In 2024, Rocket’s revenues were $5.1 billion; Redfin reported revenue of $1.04 billion in 2024. “For far too long, the homeownership process has been outdated and disconnected. Home search, brokerage, mortgage, title, closing, and servicing all exist in separate ecosystems, forcing consumers to piece together a complex and frustrating journey,” Rocket Companies CEO Varun Krishna told analysts and…
Labor market data released Tuesday was largely in line with Wall Street’s expectations, reflecting a gradually cooling labor market. Investors have been watching closely for any further signs of cracks forming in the US economy. New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Tuesday showed 7.74 million jobs open at the end of January, an increase from the 7.51 million seen in December. Still, job openings in January remained near a level last seen in early 2021 and don’t include the latest shifts in the labor market, such as the start of significant employee layoffs. The December figure was…
February’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) will serve as the latest test of whether an inflation resurgence is a risk to the US economy as investors debate if and when the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates in 2025. The report, set for release at 8:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, is expected to show price increases moderated during the second month of the year. Headline annual inflation is forecast to come in at 2.9% in February, just below January’s 3% annual gain. On a month-over-month basis, prices are estimated to rise 0.3%, below the 0.5% increase seen in January. On a…
Investor disillusionment with President Trump’s economic agenda continues to mount. The surprising message from Trump and his top advisers: Bring it. Two months into Trump’s presidency, stocks are down, and Trump and the investing community are unfriending each other. Wall Street expected the businessman-president to push market-friendly policies and put a floor under asset prices. Instead, Trump has imposed import tariffs more aggressively than anybody expected and dismissed the inevitable adverse reaction in markets. Stock reversals highlight the whiplash. The S&P 500 (^GSPC) index hit a new high on Feb. 19, marking the moment of peak optimism in Trump 2.0.…
Nvidia (NVDA) kicks off its annual GTC conference on March 18 with a keynote by CEO Jensen Huang from the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif. The event, which runs through March 21, will feature workshops and training for developers and engineers, panels and discussions related to AI and robotics, and exhibits from companies showing off how they’re using Nvidia’s products in the real world. Huang is expected to debut the company’s latest flagship AI chip: the Blackwell Ultra. A souped-up version of Nvidia’s existing Blackwell chip, Blackwell Ultra should get a performance boost over last year’s chip to further…
President Trump said Monday that Federal Reserve governor Michelle Bowman would be the central bank’s new vice chair for supervision, tapping a former Kansas banking commissioner as the Fed’s top banking cop. Bowman could take oversight of giant US banks in a new direction as the Trump administration makes it clear it wants to lift constraints on lenders and overhaul a regulatory framework put in place following the 2008 financial crisis. “Our Economy has been mismanaged for the past four years, and it is time for a change,” Trump said in a social media post Monday. “Miki has the ‘know-how’…
Investors are hearing a lot these days from Trump economic officials about trade and DOGE and the benefits of falling stock prices — but not as much about things that could stop the selling, such as the push for tax cuts. That’s in part because tariff talk is perhaps drowning out everything else for markets but also because the slow pace of Capitol Hill tax talks has offered Trump’s team very little in the way of news to share. A recent example of the dynamic came over the weekend when Trump’s top tax evangelist, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, appeared on…
The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady when it meets this week, but investors will be watching for something else — any sign that President Trump’s policies are changing the central bank’s future expectations for the economy. The Fed’s latest round of projections released Wednesday will include the much-studied “dot plot,” a chart updated quarterly that shows each Fed official’s prediction about the direction of the central bank’s benchmark interest rate. The last dot plot, released in December, revealed a consensus among Fed officials for two cuts this year, revised down from four, as some were…
Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang announced the company’s next-generation Blackwell Ultra AI chip during its annual GTC event in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday. In addition to the Blackwell Ultra chip, Nvidia also announced its GB300 superchip, which combines two Blackwell Ultras with the company’s Grace central processing unit (CPU). The chips are designed to power AI systems for customers ranging from hyperscalers like Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), and Meta (META) to research labs around the world. NasdaqGS – Delayed Quote • USD At close: March 18 at 4:00:00 PM EDT According to Nvidia, the Blackwell Ultra…
Egg sticker shock could soon be declining, but it may be a good time to get in on the shares of their producers. For the last three weeks, wholesale prices have been falling from above $8 for a dozen white, large eggs to roughly $4, per the latest USDA report on March 14. Over the past week, prices fell 39% from $6.85 to $4.15, though it’ll take time for retail prices to catch up. The drop reflects the “highly volatile” nature of eggs and that consumers are “responding to high prices by buying fewer eggs,” Texas A&M University professor David…