College graduation season is underway, and nearly 3.2 million students are slated to pick up their associate or bachelor’s degree diplomas this spring, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. When the cap tosses and festivities wrap up, it’ll be time for job applications, apartment leases — and student loan payments. It can be challenging to navigate major bills and student debt repayment. This year, new payment plans may complicate matters further. Investing time now to research repayment options can pay off, says Emma Crawford, a certified financial planner and student loans expert at Perk Planning, a registered financial…
Author: insighter
Chinese leader Xi Jinping welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on May 16, 2024 as both countries seek to bolster their strategic relationship. Seen here is a file photo of the two men when they met in Beijing on Oct. 18, 2023. Sergei Guneyev | Afp | Getty Images Chinese leader Xi Jinping welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Thursday as both countries seek to bolster their strategic relationship. Putin’s two-day state visit to China comes at the invitation of Xi and will be the Russian leader’s first foreign trip since he began his fifth term in office last…
If pressed to define their relationship with sugar, many people would say, “it’s complicated.” A 2018 study found that 70% of U.S. adults are concerned about how much sugar they consume, suggesting that plenty of us struggle with a toxic inner monologue when presented with cake, cookies, and other desserts. Why do so many of us have a confusing connection with sugar—and how do we heal our relationship with it? Why so many of us have a complicated relationship with sugar If dieting had its own Disney princess movie, sugar would most certainly be the villain. “It’s hard to have…
A home equity line of credit, or HELOC, is a type of mortgage in which you borrow against the equity in your home. Your equity is the current value of your home, minus what you owe on your mortgage. A HELOC is a revolving credit line, like a credit card. During a specified number of years, called the “draw period,” you may borrow up to your limit, repay some or all of the balance, then borrow again up to your limit. During this time, you are typically required to pay only interest. When this draw period ends, the repayment period…
As stocks from a variety of sectors saw gains on Wednesday, CNBC’s Jim Cramer examined what he believes is a multi-faceted bull market. “This market feels almost blasphemous to me because we’re being led by an outrageously bullish combination of stocks, the kind of stocks that absolutely should not be going higher at the same time,” he said. “Nobody wants to say it, but I don’t know if I can recall a moment where we have such disparate stocks climbing together to new highs.” The Nasdaq Composite, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 topped record highs on…
Warren Buffett speaks during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on May 4, 2024. CNBC Warren Buffett finally revealed his secret stock pick in a new regulatory filing, and it’s insurer Chubb. His conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway has bought nearly 26 million shares of Zurich-based Chubb for a stake worth $6.7 billion. The property and casualty insurer became Berkshire’s ninth biggest holding at the end of March. Shares of Chubb jumped nearly 7% in extended trading following the news of Berkshire’s stake. The stock has gained about 12% year to date. Insurer Ace Limited acquired the original…
Checklists are a key step in travel preparation for many people. Passport — check. Phone charger — check. But have you checked to make sure you’re fully utilizing the travel perks offered by your credit card? Whether you’re a seasoned jetsetter or a novice traveler seeing the world for the first time, benefits from the right credit card can make a trip more convenient and more comfortable. That’s good news for the 50% of Americans who plan to travel more in 2024 than 2023, according to a survey by IPX1031, a Fidelity National Financial Company. Here’s a credit card checklist…
I grew up in Kenya’s Kibera slum, the largest urban slum in Africa, and experienced extreme poverty firsthand. I was a street child, constantly scraping by for food and water, and lacking basic services like education or health care. To me, charity was a dirty word. I didn’t trust charity workers, who approach aid through single issues—like health promotion or clean water supply—when the reality is the challenges poor people face are complex and intersecting. Their projects never involved the community and left a vacuum in their wake. Acts of charity often had unintended consequences. I will never forget when…
Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, is speaking at the Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona, Spain, on February 27, 2024. Joan Cros | Nurphoto | Getty Images Dell shares rose more than 11% on Wednesday to an all-time high after Morgan Stanley raised its price target and predicted that the company would rake in sales from the insatiable demand for artificial intelligence servers. Dell is seeing accelerating momentum, especially in winning business to build AI servers, unlocking a new bull case for the stock, Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring wrote in a note on Wednesday. He upgraded…
As a former college athlete, John Bovard has always prioritized exercise. Building a home gym helped him balance health, career and family. “To be able to walk right downstairs, get our workout in, be back upstairs without any travel time or any commute was something that was our best option,” says Bovard, a certified financial planner and owner of Incline Wealth Advisors in Cincinnati. The cost to build a home gym ranges from $300 to $15,000, according to home improvement website HomeAdvisor, and depends on your equipment and renovation needs. It may seem daunting and expensive, but there are ways…
This commentary is from McKinsey & Company, a Fortune Global Forum Knowledge Partner. Rodney Zemmel is a senior partner in McKinsey & Company’s New York office and global leader of McKinsey Digital. He is a coauthor of Rewired: The McKinsey Guide to Outcompeting in the Age of Digital and AI. The natural-language capabilities of generative AI are so user-friendly that even CEOs, who typically are not early adopters, experiment with it. Less than a year after gen-AI-based tools burst onto the scene in late 2022, one quarter of C-suite executives were already using it. The widespread interest in gen AI…
Chinese electric car company Nio launched its lower-cost brand Onvo on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Shanghai, China. CNBC | Evelyn Cheng SHANGHAI — Chinese electric car company Nio revealed Wednesday that the first car for its new, lower-priced brand, Onvo, will be about $4,000 cheaper than Tesla’s comparable Model Y. Deliveries for Onvo’s first car, the L60 SUV, are set to begin in September, the company said. Pre-sales began after Wednesday’s launch event. Nio CEO William Li said he expects Onvo to begin selling its cars overseas at some point but didn’t specify when, according to an interview with…