nett.dailyMonday, October 26, 2026
For information only. Nothing in this issue is investment advice or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold anything.
Read our disclaimer.
Happy Monday! Here's what your money needs to know today.
✨ Quote of the Day
"The best thing to hold onto in life is each other."
📊 Market Snapshot
How the markets did. ▲ means up, ▼ means down. These move every day, so one day rarely matters much.
The bond rate affects loan and mortgage rates. The fear gauge rises when investors are nervous. Source: FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis); some figures lag a day or two.
🪙 Gold, Silver & Bitcoin
Prices per ounce for gold and silver, per coin for Bitcoin (metals as of Oct 25).
Gold & silver this week: Gold fell 4.07% this week to $3,996 an ounce, and silver fell 5.34% to $53.91. The usual clues pointed the other way: interest rates after inflation dipped and the US dollar slipped a little, which often helps gold and silver. Expected inflation barely moved, so the figures here don't explain the drop, and sometimes metals just move against the clues. What usually moves gold & silver (change over the past week)
Interest rates after inflation: 2.64% ▼ 0.14 pts (lower rates tend to help gold) US dollar strength: ▼ 0.16% (a weaker dollar tends to help gold) Expected inflation: 2.34% ▼ 0.01 pts (inflation worries tend to help gold) Gold is worth about 74× silver per ounce. Bitcoin: Bitcoin, a digital currency, slipped 2.39% this week to $80,058, and it is down 4.78% over the past month. That is a smaller drop than gold or silver had this week, though all three ended lower. Information only, not a forecast or advice. Sources: Alpha Vantage (metals), CoinGecko (Bitcoin), FRED (rates, dollar, inflation).
🤖 AI Watch
What's happening in artificial intelligence, and why it might matter to you.
🚀 Musk confirms $40 billion loan for AI chips
Elon Musk confirmed that SpaceX has a $40 billion debt deal (money borrowed that must be paid back) to buy chips for AI. He also warned that some "neocloud" companies may go through a shakeout. Neoclouds are newer firms that rent out AI computing power, and a shakeout means some may fail. 💡 It shows how much borrowed money is going into AI, which can shape the tools and apps you use. Read more →
🏭 Data center protests: lessons from other countries
Data centers are huge buildings full of computers that run websites and AI tools. Author Paris Marx has tracked how they have been built around the world, and he says the US can learn from places like Ireland and New Zealand. 💡 A data center may be built near your town, which can affect local land, power use and jobs. Read more →
💾 One chipmaker's sales soar while another's stall
SK Hynix brought in over $52 billion in sales in its latest three-month period, a big jump from before. Intel's sales over the same stretch stayed about the same. 💡 Chips are inside phones, laptops and AI tools, so the companies that make them can shape what you use. Read more →
📈 Top 50 this week
Our list of the S&P 500 companies with the strongest long-term business records, refreshed every quarter.
Our list has a fresh start under our long-term method: we now look at 5-year records and refresh the list once a quarter. 🔦 Spotlight: Vici Properties (#2)
Vici Properties is a landlord for casinos and resorts, collecting rent instead of running them. It kept about 64 cents of each $1 of sales as profit over five years, and about 68 cents lately. Sales grew about 27% a year on average, and in about 86% of recent years they also grew per share (sales divided by the number of shares). Information only: describes company financial results, not a recommendation to buy or sell.
🧓 personal-finance
Is Now a Tough Time to Retire?A new interview with retirement expert Christine Benz tackles a common fear: what if you stop working at a bad moment? Retirement planning has many moving parts, from how long your money must last to what the economy does along the way. Nobody gets to pick a perfect year. 💡 If you're close to retiring, this is a reminder that your plan matters more than the headlines, so it's worth checking how it holds up when things go wrong.
🇧🇷 markets
Brazil Fund Drops 15% After ElectionA Brazil ETF (a fund you can buy and sell like a single stock, holding many Brazilian companies) fell nearly 15% in Tokyo trading. That followed Lula's comeback win in a runoff, which is the second round of voting between the top two candidates. Markets reacted fast, as they tend to. 💡 If you own a global or emerging-markets fund, it may hold some Brazilian companies, so big political news abroad can show up in your account.
📅 fed
Big Week: Company Profits, Fed, PricesThree big things land this week. Many large companies report how much money they made. The Fed (the US central bank) meets about interest rates. New inflation data will show how fast prices are rising. It's the financial equivalent of a triple-header. 💡 The Fed's rate decisions influence what you pay on credit cards and loans and what savings accounts pay, so this week's news could shape those numbers.
🏡 housing
Online Mortgage Lender Gets a Close LookUSA Today reviewed AmeriSave, an online mortgage lender. A mortgage is a loan you repay over many years to buy a home. The review covers its rates, loan types, credit score requirements, customer reviews, and pros and cons. 💡 If you're shopping for a home loan, comparing offers from several lenders is one of the easiest ways to save money, since even a small rate difference adds up over decades.
🏠 taxes
Homeowners Are Getting Angry About Property TaxesPolitico Magazine reports that a property tax revolt is growing at a scale not seen in about 50 years. Property tax is a yearly bill homeowners pay to local government, usually based on what their home is worth. More owners are asking why they owe it at all. 💡 If you own a home, this bill is part of your monthly housing cost, so changes to property taxes where you live could affect your budget.
💰 Money Move of the Day
Find Your Monthly 'Must-Pay' NumberOpen your bank app and look at last month's spending. Add up only the must-pays (housing, food, utilities, insurance and debt payments), then write down the total. That number shows what you need each month, whether you're planning retirement, a home, or a rough patch. Easy🔢 One Number
Nearly 15%
How far a Brazil fund fell after the election
On $10,000, that's a loss of almost $1,500 in about a day, which shows how bumpy a fund tied to one country can be.
That's your five minutes. Go make your money work as hard as you do. 💪
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