U.S. households’ stock allocations have steadily inched up this year and recently accounted for around 42% of their total financial assets. That is the most on record in data going back to 1952.

Job growth slowed sharply in July, with the national unemployment rate rising to its highest level since 2021. At the same time, the share of people holding more than one job ticked up to 5.3% in July from 5.2% in June. That is a significant increase from a pandemic low of 4% in April 2020 and average 4.94% average from 2010 through 2019.

“We do not seek or welcome further cooling in labor market conditions,” Powell said in a speech at the central bank’s annual gathering in the Grand Teton National Park on Friday. “The time has come for policy to adjust.”

As of July, consumer prices for food at home were 26% higher than they were at the end of 2019.

The gold spot price settled at $2,500.05 a troy ounce at an auction on Monday morning. It was the first time in the market’s over 100-year history that this price exceeded $2,500.

Investors this year added an average of $556 million a week into U.S.-based derivative-income exchange-traded funds, which sell options contracts on stocks held in the fund to juice returns. Net flows into those products plunged to about $117 million last week.

The average rate on the standard 30-year fixed mortgage fell around a quarter percentage point to 6.47%, a low not seen since May 2023 and the sharpest weekly decline in around nine months.

People who leave cash uninvested in retirement accounts lose out on more than $172 billion a year in retirement wealth as a result.

A stock-market selloff intensified around the world, sending U.S. indexes sliding and volatility spiking to its highest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Americans in the past two years spent more of their income on food than they have in three decades.