China’s credit rating has been downgraded by Standard & Poor’s amid fears rising debts are adding to economic and financial risks. The agency lowered China’s sovereign rating by one notch to A+ from AA-, putting it in the same category as countries such as the US and Austria. This is the second downgrade from a major ratings agency for Beijing this year and comes at an awkward time before next month’s Communist party congress.

Norway's giant pension fund is now worth over $1 trillion. Yes, 1 followed by 12 zeros. The fund's managers announced Tuesday that currency shifts had helped push its value above $1 trillion for the first time. "The growth in the fund's market value has been stunning," fund chief Yngve Slyngstad said in a statement. "I don't think anyone expected the fund to ever reach $1 trillion when the first transfer of oil revenue was made in May 1996."

Young people in the art world are disproportionately likely to get financial help from their parents. Can only rich kids afford careers in the arts? By Anna Louie Sussman. (Feb. 14, 2017)

he world’s top financial watchdog has uncovered US$14 trillion of global dollar debt hidden in derivatives and swap contracts, a startling sum that doubles the underlying levels of offshore dollar credit in the international system. The scale of this lending greatly increases the risk of a future funding crisis if inflation ever forces the U.S. Federal Reserve to tighten in earnest and drain worldwide liquidity, potentially triggering a dollar surge.

The typical student debt load for millennials in the U.S. is $41,200, surpassing their median annual income of $38,800. One impact of that burden: first-time home purchases are being delayed by seven years. That’s according to survey results released Monday by the National Association of Realtors and the nonprofit group American Student Assistance.

Every year in April, Jiang Xingquan sets aside part of his farm in northern China to grow cannabis. The size of the plot varies with market demand but over the last few years it has been about 600 hectares.

Policymakers will take up an aid package likely to reach into the billions in a year when they have agreed on little else, let alone spending priorities.

The euro has hit $1.20 for the first time since January 2015 as the prospect of a US interest rate rise recedes. Hurricane Harvey's impact has led analysts to assume the US central bank will not want to risk curbing economic growth and fears over North Korea's activities have unnerved investors. A rise in interest rates tends to draw investors to a currency, taking advantage of the higher returns.

People who use “God” and “promise” are more likely to default. By Seth Stephens-Davidowitz.

The country's currency continues to be in free fall amid a wave of protests that have left dozens dead. Violent protests are growing, the economy is spiraling further out of control and Venezuelans are suffering through shortages of food and medicine. And the bolivar, already worth next to nothing, keeps losing value.

Last week, as the Senate was still trying to deny healthcare to 22 million fellow Americans, a friend asked me whether I would choose to live forever if I could. We were discussing Silicon Valley billionaires and their investments in new biotechnologies that they hope will enable them to do what no human has ever done: cheat death. The technology includes some dubious treatments, such as being pumped with the blood of much younger people.

An unknown cryptocurrency trader turned $55 million of paper wealth into $283 million in just over a month. The only clue about this person or persons, beyond a virtual wallet with the identification code 0x00A651D43 B6e209F5Ada45 A35F92EFC0De3A5184, surfaced on a June 11 Instagram posting, in Bahasa, in which he or she (or they) (or somebody posing as them) boasted about the 413 percent profit accumulated earlier this year from ether, the digital money of the Ethereum blockchain.

That would be a reversal after several years of estimates that have declined to $379 billion currently from a previous high of $398.5 billion in early 2014. The cost of the F-35 jet program, already the most expensive U.S. weapons program ever, is estimated to climb further as the plane’s production period gets extended, according to figures submitted to Congress on Monday.

Tens of thousands of people who took out private loans to pay for college in the US but have not been able to keep up payments may get their debts wiped away because critical paperwork is missing. The troubled loans, which total at least $5 billion, are at the centre of a protracted legal dispute between the student borrowers and a group of creditors who have aggressively pursued them in court after they fell behind on payments.

The dollar fell on Wednesday, touching its lowest level in more than a year against a basket of currencies after the release of the Federal Reserve's policy statement following its July meeting. The Federal Open Market Committee announced no changes to monetary policy, as expected. Policymakers said, however, that the U.S. central bank would begin implementing balance sheet normalization "relatively soon." That marked a change from the committee's previous statement that it would begin to reduce its $4.5 trillion bond holdings "this year."

In recent months, major financial institutions have warmed to Bitcoin, increasing coverage and providing increasingly positive information. In their latest report, Bank Of America revealed that the trading volume of Bitcoin has surpassed that of GLD, the biggest gold ETF in the market. Digital Currency Group founder and CEO Barry Silbert tweeted in May 2016 that the total amount of gold in circulation was over $7 trillion.

Are you taking full advantage of your debit card?

Amazon boss Jeff Bezos made headlines this week when he was declared the richest person in the world with a net worth of $90 billion. But a U.S. financier told senators Thursday that he believed the title belonged to someone else, and it is not Bill Gates. According to Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, Russian President Vladimir Putin is richer than both Bezos and Gates combined.

Apple’s retail stores are always said to be some of the most profitable ones there are, and new data from eMarketer and CoStar offers more insight on such data. The research companies say Apple is the top retailer in terms of sales per square foot, coming in at $5,546 per square foot… Other notable numbers include the top jeweler, Tiffany & Co, with sales of $2,951 per square foot and top gasoline retailer Murphy USA at $3,721 per square foot. Leading apparel retailer is Lululemon Athletica at $1,560 per square foot.

The low-key $10 billion fund that finances missions, cathedral costs and clergy pensions was instrumental in passing Exxon shareholder resolution.

A lot of people are overjoyed to cross the $100,000 threshold in annual income. And they should be — a six-figure salary is nothing to sneeze at. But as income inequality in the US continues to worsen, a $100,000 salary creeps ever-closer to being an upper-middle-class income, not a sure sign of wealth. In fact, according to a Business Insider analysis of US Census data, the $100,000 distinction isn't enough to put anyone, at any age for which there is reliable data, in the top 1% of personal incomes.

It’s a milestone Warren Buffett probably wishes he weren’t approaching. Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the conglomerate he’s run for more than five decades, reported Friday that it held just shy of $100 billion in cash at the end of the second quarter.

59 new alleged Ponzi schemes were revealed in 2016. This is down from 61 schemes uncovered in 2015 and 70 schemes in 2014. However, the $2.3 billion potential loss revealed in 2016 is far greater than the $800 million total from 2015. 67 individuals were sentenced in 2016 for Ponzi-related violations.

The damage inflicted on world stocks this week by the escalating war of words over North Korea topped $1 trillion on Friday, as investors again took cover in the yen, the Swiss franc, gold and government bonds.

Bill Gates has told Reuters his foundation plans to spend more than $300 million in Tanzania this year on public health and poverty reduction programs. In an interview, the billionaire said aid was now being spent "in a smarter way" in some parts of the world. "Some countries have made good progress in the reduction of childhood deaths and reduction in poverty, with Tanzania being a good example," said Gates, during a visit to the east African country.

Americans' debt level notched another record high in the second quarter, after having earlier in the year surpassed its pre-crisis peak, on the back of modest rises in mortgage, auto and credit card debt, where delinquencies jumped.

Trump finally declared mass opioid addiction a national emergency. But he won’t take on big pharma and the social roots of the crisis.

Why there are no new artists in the gallery.

Many 401k or retirement accounts can be borrowed against, but is it worth the risk? Learn about when and how to borrow here 401k funds with Genisys.

With unemployment in the U.S. at its lowest level in 16 years, experts are prone to talk about the economy as if it has fully recovered from the housing crash. But other measures of how Americans are doing reveal a darker picture. Almost 8 out of 10 American workers say they live paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet, according to a new survey from CareerBuilder. That can force people to take on debt or otherwise struggle when an unexpected bill arises.

Some of us get our water for free from the tap. The rest pay for it — at the cost of roughly $100 billion a year.

A comment about a Bloomberg story on the New York Times paywall started a debate about the positive and negative effects of paywalls that included some media industry luminaries such as the former CEO of Dow Jones and the former publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

The Guardian reported last October that a new edition of Clement C Moore's 1823 poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, which is widely attributed with popularizing the modern image of Santa Claus, has censored all references to the visitor's pi...

Minecraft creator Markus Persson, aka Notch, and entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban have donated $500,000 to the EFF for software patent reform.

Scotty Lyles given until the end of January to challenge his life without parole sentencie for writing a bad chack for $106.