Category: Finance

Mortgage fees are changing for homebuyers next month. Here’s what you should know.

If you’re looking to buy a home, be aware that mortgages will change next month.

Starting May 1, upfront fees for loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be adjusted because of changes in the Loan Level Price Adjustments (LLPAs), the fees that vary from borrower to borrower based on their credit scores, downpayments, types of home , and more. The changes relate to credit scores and downpayment sizes.

In some cases, people with higher credit scores may end up paying more while those with lower credit scores will pay less.

scoring higher: Applying for a mortgage? How

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Is car finance the next PPI? Claims management firms cause concern | Motoring

uK consumers were this week urged to avoid the “plague” of claims from management firms targeting people who may have missold a car finance deal. It has prompted suggestions that these firms may regard car finance as “the next PPI”.

Complaints about car finance lenders have almost doubled in the last financial year, driven by an increase in third-party firms submitting claims on behalf of individuals.

That has led to warnings that affected consumers could be missing out on the full amount of compensation owed.

According to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which handles consumer complaints related to financial products,

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Feds Are Reportedly Antsy Over Delays in Hunter Biden Probe

Photo: TOLGA AKMEN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

With President Joe Biden set to announce his 2024 campaign, his charismatic son and perpetual family liability Hunter is back in the news in a big way. And while it’s unlikely to reach fall-2020 (or even fall-2019) levels of Hunter-ness, the updates surrounding the president’s son and the investigation into his alleged tax problems could still weigh on Biden’s reflection bid. Here are some quick updates on all things Hunter Biden, including the House inquires and the federal investigation into his taxes.

The FBI’s initial inquiry into Hunter Biden was focused on Russian disinformation, determining if sordid

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ChatGPT may be able to predict stock movements: finance professor

ChatGPT could be the next stock forecaster, according to this finance professor

Alejandro Lopez-Lira, a finance professor at the University of Florida, says that large language models may be useful when forecasting stock prices.

He used ChatGPT to parse news headlines for whether they’re good or bad for a stock, and found that ChatGPT’s ability to predict the direction of the next day’s returns were much better than random, he said in a recent unreviewed paper.

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The experiment strikes at the heart of the promise around state-of-the-art artificial intelligence: With bigger computers and better datasets — like those powering ChatGPT — these AI models may display “emergent abilities,” or

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Colorado school finance bill boosts K-12 spending to $9 billion

Colorado’s school finance act would boost K-12 funding next year to more than $9 billion — $150 million more than described in the recently finalized 2023-24 budget and a 7.5% increase from this year.

“The change to school finance is historic,” said Joint Budget Committee Chair Rachel Zenzinger. Average per-pupil spending is proposed to reach $10,579, a 10% increase from this year.

The bill, SB23-287, could set Colorado on the path to fully funding its schools according to constitutional requirements by the 2024-25 school year. Zenzinger said an amendment would lay out a two-year process to eliminate the practice of

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Startup founder’s alleged $175 million fraud highlights inequality in finance, experts say

JPMorgan Chase trumpeted its $175 million acquisition of a college financial planning company called Frank in 2021, boasting that the firm served more than five million students.

Little more than a year later, however, the nation’s largest bank sued Frank founder Charlie Javice, saying she and another executive from the company deceived the bank and that the company actually had fewer than 300,000 customers.

In a counterclaim for wrongful termination, Javice denied the accusations, describing what she said was the bank’s failure to adequately vet the company as “implausible.”

The megabank’s apparent inability to properly assess the startup, which promised

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Barron’s 100 Most Influential Women in US Finance: Barbara Roper

Barbara Roper

Courtesy of the SEC

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Barbara Roper is finding that her post at the Securities and Exchange Commission offers a good opportunity to improve conditions for the typical investor.

A leading spokesperson on investor-protection issues, Roper, 67, worried about taking the role of senior adviser to the chair at the SEC. But she did so in 2021, and last year relocated to Washington, DC, from Colorado to work from the regulatory agency’s headquarters.

The “eclectic role” offers opportunities to share her expertise “on a variety of issues” relating to retail investor protection, says Roper, who previously served

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The True Cost of Switching To Electric Vehicles

Constantinis / iStock.com

Constantinis / iStock.com

Although gas prices have taken a dip from their record highs of more than $5, experts warn that a combination of seasonal demand and rising oil prices could see gas prices make another surge in the near future, reported USA Today. With a little hope for relief at the pump, you may be considering making the switch to an electric vehicle.

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Currently, less than 1% of the 250 million cars, trucks and SUVs on

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