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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Gold's Roller Coaster Week Ends With Fed, Trade Jitters
Happy Friday, traders. Welcome to our weekly market wrap, where we take a look back at these last five trading days with a focus on the market news, economic data and headlines that had the most impact on gold prices and other key correlated assets— and may continue to in the future. Here's what you need to know: Gold briefly soared above $3400/oz Tuesday before retreating, highlighting market volatility in the absence of hard economic data. Markets initially responded to tariff pullback rumors with optimism, pushing gold higher, but risk-on sentiment took over midweek. Despite Fed rate cut speculation, gold closed down 0.3% WoW, showing trader preference for equity risk amid trade thaw talk. Next week's GDP, jobs data, and the FOMC decision could bring the volatility back, setting gold's next direction. So, What Kind of a Week Has it Been? Not only has this been a week with very little in the way of macroeconomic data critical to pricing trends for gold or for correlated classes like the US Dollar (even the 'most important' data set of the week—initial jobless claims—landed within touching distance of expectations and with a yawn—our snoozer of a week has fallen in the dead of summer, where there's rarely any tangible, traditional market action to trade off of. As a result, we've been able to track how gold trades in a vacuum, save for the ongoing narratives of the Trump Tariff strategy for trade and the ongoing effort to predict when the FOMC will cut interest rates. This week, that track looks like a roller coaster. Tuesday's Surge Above $3400 With no concrete events or data reports to map to the yellow metal's movement, it's been a week of waves that include one surprisingly high crest, and a few troughs that briefly threatened gold's recent lines of support. Where gold rose to its peak of the week (spending roughly 24 hours, including all of Tuesday's New York trading session, well above $3400/oz), headlines and other vectors for the market's narrative and mood painted a picture of expectations for the Trump Administration, whether they got what they 'wanted' or not, pumping the brakes on recent threats to enact tariffs and duties of as much as 50% on some of the US' most important trade partners. At the time, and even into Wednesday morning's trading which eventually saw a quick sell-off, one thing we inferred from this was that the market saw improving economic stability in the US as such a promising sign that the Fed could begin cutting interest rates again sooner, that investors and managers chose to trade that projection rather than simply trading based on a reduced chance of economic calamity and recession (which we would have expected to push gold prices lower in favor of risk assets). Midweek Sell-Off Undermines Rally The fact, of course, that on Friday gold looks poised to close the week with a loss of roughly $10/oz and -0.3% WoW makes a considerable argument that this was not the case. Or, at least, that it wasn't the final act. The sell-off that began early on Wednesday has continued, for the most part, through the run-up to the week's close. True, the US President had more opportunities for public comment on ongoing 'trade negotiations' later in the week and peppered among them graver threats of punishingly high tariff rates beginning in August, but the marketplace now seems much less willing to be convinced this could happen, and so the general risk-on mood has persisted. At the same time, though certainly not from any definitive sources (given the FOMC's pre-meeting blackout period), the murmurs that the Fed may be ready to begin lowering interest rates again (possible as soon as next week?) have become louder. Backgrounded by these two competing narratives—greater economic optimism and risk-appetite, which remains a sell-signal for gold, vs. the implication of lower interest rates landing sooner than later, which has lent a tailwind to the yellow metal's prices for much of 2024 and 2025—gold prices have moved markedly lower. Although traders continue to seem eager to support the precious metal above $3325/oz. What's Coming Next Week Next week, as we close out July 2025, we will try to apply what we've observed; mainly that the market is much more keen to celebrate the idea of a more stable economic and trade environment than it is to bite (again) on expectations of lower rates. But we will be putting that knowledge to use in a much more hectic trading and macro backdrop, with the key reports ahead of us including the July Jobs Report, a first estimate of Q2 GDP growth, and a Fed decision on Wednesday. In the meantime, traders, I hope you can get out and safely enjoy your weekend for the next couple of days. After that, I'll see you back here next week for another market recap.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
401(k): What the Average Person in Their 30s Has Saved
With financial literacy growing at an exponential rate, people aren't waiting to start thinking about their retirement. Without the security of a company-sponsored pension, most Americans contribute to things like a 401(k) to ensure they have enough funds to live off once they quit their 9-to-5. Read More: Learn More: According to a survey conducted by Northwestern Mutual, Americans believe they will need approximately $1.26 million to retire comfortably. Unfortunately, their savings may not be enough to cover this bold number. Here is how much the average person in their 30s has saved and what you can do to help boost your retirement funds if you are falling short of your goal. Average 401(k) for People in Their 30s Recent data from Fidelity shows that the average 401(k) savings for people ages 30 to 34 was $44,800 at the end of the first quarter of 2025, CNBC reported. The average 401(k) balance for individuals aged 35 to 39 was $71,400 during the same period. The data was based on Fidelity's quarterly analysis of over 50 million retirement accounts. Check Out: How This Year's 401(k) Balances Compare With 2024's Overall, market volatility at the beginning of the year left some balances short of their 2024 levels. According to data provided by Fidelity, 401(k) balances for individuals in their 30s decreased by approximately 2% in the first quarter. The good news, as highlighted by the investment company, is that savings rates remained consistent. How Much Should Someone in Their 30s Have Saved? Fidelity suggests that a person should have one year's salary saved by the time they are 30. By age 40, the global financial services company advises that a person should have three times their annual salary saved. Current 401(k) account balances indicate that individuals in their 30s may be significantly short of these recommendations. However, many savvy investors have other retirement accounts, such as IRAs or Roth IRAs, that may better align their savings with expert suggestions. What To Do To Boost Retirement Savings Millennials were skeptical whether they had saved enough, according to Northwestern Mutual's 2025 Planning & Progress Study, with 57% saying they were somewhat likely or very likely to outlive their savings. Fortunately, there are several options available to 30-year-olds hoping to boost retirement savings. The financial experts at Charles Schwab recommend that individuals in their 30s and 40s strive to cut back where possible, particularly in the face of competing interests. While many millennials are well into their careers, they are also paying back student loans and raising families. Retirement savings may be on the back burner, but they should not be out of the picture. Putting more money into investment accounts, even small amounts, can help boost retirement savings exponentially, especially during this critical decade. As income increases, the experts at Charles Schwab encourage individuals in their 30s and 40s to refrain from excessive spending and instead focus on investing. They recommend funding savings first and contributing to a tax-advantaged IRA if they have maxed out their 401(k) contributions. Finally, the financial services company also said individuals should avoid borrowing from their 401(k). Even if the amount is paid back with interest, it would not compensate for the growth that could have occurred. More From GOBankingRates 10 Cars That Outlast the Average Vehicle This article originally appeared on 401(k): What the Average Person in Their 30s Has Saved Sign in to access your portfolio
CNET
an hour ago
- CNET
For CNET's Daily Tariff Price Impact Tracker, I'm Watching 11 Key Products for Inflation
Price hikes resulting from Trump's tariffs are seemingly starting to arrive all across the US economy. James Martin/CNET The question of how new tariffs will affect prices is more relevant than ever, with President Donald Trump punting another major deadline down the road and a new Consumer Price Index summary showing that the inflation rate was 2.7% in June, the biggest jump since February. It's enough to get anyone concerned about affordability in the US, as if we all weren't worrying about it already. To help manage those worries, I've been tracking prices every day for 11 key products likely to be hit by price increases from tariffs, and the answer I've come to so far is this: Not so much, at least not yet. The winding road of tariff inflation still stretches before us into an uncertain future, so the threat of price hikes continues to cloud the horizon. To date, I've seen two noteworthy price increases, one for the Xbox Series X and the other for a popular budget-friendly 4K TV. Some other products have gone on sale for brief periods. Notably, other outlets have caught a number of major retailers hiking prices across the board, with CNBC finding some substantial inflation at Walmart specifically. CNET Tariff Tracker Index Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you'll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked. Based on the numbers so far, the average has gone up noticeably since the start of the year, but this has been driven mostly be a big shifts for a few products, as most price are still stable. We'll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It's all in the name of helping you make sense of things, so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET's guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession. Watch this: Should You Buy Now or Wait? Our Experts Weigh In on Tariffs 09:42 Methodology We're checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled "Now" and showing the current price. For the past months, we've gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month. In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple's official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we'll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause. The 11 products we're tracking Mostly what we're tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs -- along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn't produced in the US to any significant degree. The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists. Below, we'll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting. iPhone 16 The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500. Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you'll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you'll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830. Apple's been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A new Reuters report found that a staggering 97% of iPhones imported from the latter country, March through May, were bound for the US. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn't move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now. Duracell AA batteries A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you'll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we're tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon. Samsung DU7200 TV Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they're an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET's pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company, so it might have some measure of tariff resistance. After spending most of 2025 hovering around $400, this item has now seen some notable upticks on Amazon, most recently sitting around $450. This could potentially be in reaction to Trump's announcement of 25% tariffs against South Korea this week. Xbox Series X Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft's Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes -- the company cited "market conditions" along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that "certain" games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80. Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US. AirPods Pro 2 The latest iteration of Apple's wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. HP 962 CMY printer ink This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 -- where it stayed for most of 2025 -- to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick. This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we're still tracking that item. Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank Anker's accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET's lists of the best portable chargers. Bose TV speaker Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose. Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won't let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET's overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025. This product hasn't seen its price budge one way or another most of the year, but while Prime Day might have come and gone, there's still a $10 coupon listed on Amazon right now, letting you save a little bit of money for the time being. Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump's tariffs. For now, its price has been largely unchanged in the last few months. You can, however, grab it on Amazon right now at a $20 discount, but we'll have to see how long that actually lasts. Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag) Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity -- I'm certainly drinking too much of it these days -- and because it's uniquely susceptible to Trump's tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth's equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the "Coffee Belt." Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season -- little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years. All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs. While this particular bag of beans from Starbucks hasn't seen its price budge for most of the year, in recent days it ticked up by less than a dollar on Amazon, which could be a sign of further increases to come. Other products As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we're still keeping an eye on: Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places -- including Amazon release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X. release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X. Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven't been featured with a graph yet: Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer's largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump's tariff plans were ramping up in April. Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus's Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company's upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.
