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Cranberry Journal

Thursday, October 15, 2026

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Markets
  • S&P 5007,744.06+0.33%
  • Nasdaq26,713.03+0.08%
  • Dow52,177.69+1.08%
  • 10-yr yield5.09%−1.95%
  • Crude$96.12+2.36%
At the close · Oct 15

Money

Tagged stories

A largely empty shopping mall corridor lined with storefronts, in black and white.
Money

Retail Sales Rose 0.8 Per Cent in September and Are Up 6.3 Per Cent in a Year. Leave Out Cars and Gasoline and the Gain Was 0.2 Per Cent.

The Census Bureau said on Thursday 15 October that U.S. retail and food services sales were $745.0 billion in September, up 0.8 per cent from August and 6.3 per cent from a year earlier. Once autos and gasoline stations are removed, the gain was 0.2 per cent, a figure the bureau flags as statistically indistinguishable from zero. August was revised up to 1.3 per cent.

By Daniel Okafor  

Silhouette of an oil refinery and cooling towers across an estuary at sunset, with tidal flats in the foreground.
Money

Wholesale Prices Rose 1.3 Per Cent in One Month, the Most Since 2022, and Are Up 6.3 Per Cent in a Year. Retail Gasoline Margins Fell 30.3 Per Cent.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Thursday 15 October that the Producer Price Index for final demand rose 1.3 per cent in September and 6.3 per cent from a year earlier. Energy rose 10.8 per cent and accounted for more than 80 per cent of the increase in goods prices. The measure that excludes food, energy and trade rose 0.5 per cent in the month and 5.0 per cent over the year.

By Daniel Okafor  

Petrol pumps under the canopy of a Shell station on a sunny day, with the station's price sign on a pole to the left.
Money

Consumer Prices Rose 3.7 Per Cent in September, Up From 3.4. Core Rose 2.6 Per Cent, and Gasoline Alone Was Up 34.2.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Wednesday 14 October that consumer prices rose 0.6 per cent in September on a seasonally adjusted basis and 3.7 per cent from a year earlier, up from 3.4 per cent in August. Core prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.3 per cent in the month and 2.6 per cent over the year. Gasoline accounted for more than half of the monthly increase.

By Daniel Okafor  

A red wooden barn with white-trimmed windows stands in deep snow beside a split-rail fence and bare trees under a grey winter sky in New England.
Money

Filling a Heating-Oil Tank in Massachusetts Costs About $700 More Than Last Year. The State Has Declared an Energy Emergency.

Home heating oil averaged $6.08 a gallon in Massachusetts on 28 September, up 73 per cent from $3.52 a year earlier, and Governor Maura Healey declared a state of energy emergency on Monday. Energy-assistance directors expect households that heat with oil in the Northeast to pay about half as much again as last winter. The wholesale price has more than doubled, so the increase is already in the tank.

By Daniel Okafor  

An older couple sit on a sofa going through bills and papers on a coffee table, the man holding a phone and the woman a pen.
Money

Florida Says Atlantic Coast Life Is $170 Million Short. South Carolina Says $900 Million of Annuities Unlock This Year.

Florida's insurance regulator suspended Atlantic Coast Life's licence on 30 September, finding that once its investments are valued under state limits the insurer has been short of required surplus since at least September 2025, by $170 million at the end of June. South Carolina, where the company is based, has asked a court to take it over. Its petition says about $900 million of the insurer's annuities reach the end of their surrender-charge periods this year.

By Daniel Okafor  

Two men walk past the stone facade of the Treasury Department building in Washington, with 'The Department of the Treasury' carved above three doors and seals mounted between them.
The Numbers

Washington Paid $709 Billion of Interest This Year, Almost as Much as It Sent the States for Medicaid

The Treasury paid $709.3 billion of interest on its securities in the fiscal year that ended on Wednesday, according to its daily cash statement, up 16 per cent from a year earlier and more than twice the level of 2022. Medicaid grants to the states came to $721.4 billion. Four years ago interest was about half of Medicaid. The average rate on the debt is still below 3.5 per cent, while new ten-year debt costs 5.3.

By Daniel Okafor  

A residential street in the Boston area in autumn, with a white clapboard colonial house and a brick-and-grey-shingle house behind a hedge, red and orange trees, and overhead power lines under a grey sky.
The Numbers

Mortgage Rates Are Back Where They Were in 2023. This Time the Cushion Is Already Spent.

The average 30-year mortgage rate rose to 7.28 per cent this week, Freddie Mac said, the highest since November 2023 and the biggest weekly jump since October 2022. The rate is the same as three years ago. What produces it is not. In 2023 lenders charged almost three points over the ten-year Treasury. Now they charge about two, and the ten-year is doing the rest.

By Daniel Okafor  

A planner page with the 31st marked by an orange highlighter, the surrounding squares labelled Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve.
Explainer

The Catch-Up Contribution Changes Hands in 2027, Not 2026

From taxable years beginning after 31 December 2026, a saver whose Social Security wages from the plan's own sponsor topped $145,000 the year before can no longer make a pre-tax catch-up contribution. It has to be Roth. The threshold is measured per employer, on last year's wages, which catches people who do not think of themselves as high earners.

By Daniel Okafor  

A scattered layer of US one-dollar bills photographed from above.
Explainer

A Month Ago a Fed Hike Was a Coin Toss. The Market Now Treats It as Settled.

The Federal Reserve decides on Wednesday whether to raise its benchmark rate from 3.50 to 3.75 percent. After Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole speech, betting on a hike was roughly even. After August's core inflation came in above forecast and oil rose toward $108, futures priced it at about 85 percent on Monday. For households, the effects arrive at very different speeds.

By Daniel Okafor  

A rollover collision at the roadside after a traffic accident
Money

Insurance Is the New Inflation

Headline inflation cooled, but households keep feeling squeezed, and the culprit hiding in the budget is insurance: home, auto and health premiums repricing years of accumulated risk.

By Margaret Holloway  

Two family members cooking together in a home kitchen
Money

The Great Inheritance Arrives, Unevenly

The largest generational wealth transfer on record is underway. Most of it is moving to households that were already comfortable, and much of it is being consumed by end-of-life costs before it moves at all.

By Daniel Okafor