The Market

The numbers: Americans are still unsure how rapidly the U.S. economy will recover from the pandemic and restore millions of jobs that have been lost even as the rate of vaccinations speeds up, a new survey showed. The final reading of consumer sentiment in February inched up to 76.8 points …

Most Americans believe themselves to be members of the middle class. But a new report has shed light on who really makes up this segment of society — and how their numbers are shrinking. A paper released this week from the RAND Corporation, a public policy research firm, explores the …

Hi there, MarketWatchers. Don’t miss these top stories: Personal Finance ‘I will continue happily shopping there forever’: Costco customers react to retailer’s new $ 16 minimum wage Some 180,000 U.S.-based Costco employees will begin earning $ 16 an hour starting next week, the warehouse retailer’s CEO announced Thursday. We put …

Inflation could quickly rise once more Americans are vaccinated and the U.S. central bank should monitor price signals closely, Kansas City Fed President Esther George said Thursday. “It is worth recognizing that overall inflation could firm up quickly post-vaccination as demand for hard-hit sectors recovers,” George said, in a speech …

Treasury Department Secretary Janet Yellen is not big on bitcoin, a point she reiterated recently when she called the digital currency speculative and “inefficient.” That doesn’t mean Yellen and the department she leads — which includes the Internal Revenue Service — don’t care about the cryptocurrency. Now that it’s income …

Nvidia Corp. reported Wednesday that quarterly sales topped $ 5 billion for the first time in the fourth quarter, as holiday gaming-chip demand and renewed interest in cryptocurrency mining vied with supply shortages. Gaming sales surged 67% to a company record $ 2.5 billion, on gaming-card demand that Chief Executive …

The numbers: Sales of newly built homes occurred at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 923,000 in January, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday. That was 4.3% above the upwardly-revised pace of 885,000 in December. Analysts polled by MarketWatch had projected new-home sales to occur at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 850,000. Compared …

It’s been a pretty impressive 12 months for the world’s leading miners. The FTSE 350 mining index 156995, -0.22% — which includes diversified mining giants Rio Tinto RIO, -0.13%, BHP Group BHP, +0.35%, Anglo American AAL, -0.23%, and Glencore GLEN, -0.33% — has returned 46% to shareholders over the last year, according to …

Rising Treasury yields have contributed to a selloff by the stock market’s pandemic high-fliers, but probably won’t be enough to spoil the appeal of stocks over bonds in 2021, according to one analyst. U.S. equity investors “have become focused on the recent increase in 10-year Treasury yields over the past …