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Public Investing
Serious about investing, you need to know about public.com that's where you can invest in everything stocks, options, bonds, crypto. You can even earn some of the highest yields in the industry, like the 6% or higher yield you can lock in with a bond account. Public is a FINRA registered SIPC insured platform that takes your investments as seriously as you do. Fund your account in five minutes or less at public.commorningreport and get up to $10,000 when you transfer your old portfolio. That's public.commorningreport paid for by Public Investing. All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for U.S. listed registered securities, options and bonds in a self directed account are offered by Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures hey, it's Marketplace Morning Report host David Brancaccio. When things change quickly and dramatically, Marketplace is to help you stay grounded and informed. No sensationalism, just facts and context. It's our March fundraiser though, and you can be part of our mission to raise the country's economic intelligence when you donate to our nonprofit newsroom today. Every single donation makes a difference. We need you. Go to marketplace.org donate new details on what a US government crypto reserve might look like From Marketplace I'm Sabri Ben, ashore in for David Brancaccio. Hundreds of billions of dollars flowed into cryptocurrency markets in the past 24 hours or so. That's after a Sunday morning post from President Donald Trump named five digital tokens to be included in a national reserve. Mr. Trump had already promised to build a so called strategic government stockpile of cryptocurrencies in order, he said, to elevate the crypto industry. But yesterday was the first time we got details of what exactly is going to go into it. Marketplace's Nova Safo has more. The five cryptocurrencies President Trump named are Bitcoin, Ether, xrp, Solana and Cardano. It's unclear whether there might be others as well. It's significant. It's the first time that he's talked about including more than Bitcoin in the reserve. David Kraus is emeritus professor of finance at Marquette University and has written extensively about cryptocurrencies. He he says the less familiar tokens Trump mentioned are designed for specific transactional purposes and make sense to include in a reserve. As for having a crypto reserve at the government level gold, oil make more sense as strategic reserves. Their utility values is much greater. Therefore, a strategic reserve of the size we're talking about here is more symbolic. Trump has pledged to be a crypto friendly president and his family holdings include a stake in World Liberty Finance, a crypto platform. I'm Nova Safa for Marketplace. Mortgage rates have been very volatile the past couple years, and that's partly because they're influenced by so many things in the economy that don't always have much to do with buying a house, treasury bills, inflation, investor mood. Back in 2023, the average 30 year fixed rate mortgage shot up to almost 8%, highest in two decades, then came down to a little more than 6% last fall, then bounced back up above 7% this year. And then finally they have been on the decline slightly the past few weeks. Despite all the moving around, one thing has been constant Mortgage rates are high, and as marketplaces Mitchell Hartman reports, they are probably going to stay that way given how much uncertainty there is about inflation, tariffs and Fed policy right now. Mike Frattantoni at the Mortgage Bankers association says the watchword for mortgage rates is fluctuation. There may be times when we're closer to six, there are going to be times when we're closer to or above seven, he says. The market's gradually adapting to higher mortgage rates. More sellers are putting their homes on the market and more buyers are realizing a rate in the low sixes is about as good as you're likely to do. And what about the recent decline in mortgage rates to 6 and 3/4% in the latest report from Freddie Mac? Rose Quint at the national association of Home Builders says it does improve affordability marginally, but I think with high home prices, buyers are concerned. NAHB recently reported that the monthly mortgage on a median priced home now eats up 38% of a median family's income. Economists consider anything above 30% to be cost burdened. I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace. If you want to be savvy about the economy, the Marketplace newsletter is just what you need. Every Friday you'll get explainers and analysis that make sense of everything from the moving markets to grocery prices. No jargon, no hype, just smart takes delivered to your inbox. Sign up today@Marketplace.org subscribe Around 20% of the U.S. s electricity comes from renewables, another 20 from nuclear. But another 40% is from natural gas. Even as renewables have become a bigger part of the supply, so has natural gas. And along with that, so has the delivery of that gas to power plants via pipelines. That is according to the Energy Information Administration. And with electricity demand growing from AC in super hot summers and data centers and EVs, there may well be demand for more gas pipelines down the road. Marketplace's Elizabeth Troval has this one Our electric grid is getting cleaner. Yes, renewables are doing their part, but so is natural gas. People have called it a bridge fuel because it is lower CO2 content than coal. It's pretty flexible in terms of its operations. Ian Lang with the Colorado School of Mines says natural gas is a handy tool to mix with renewables. You need a power plant that can sort of either ramp up or ramp down as wind and solar alter what it's doing, like minute to minute. And so gas was seen as very easy to do that. Natural gas is also plentiful, says University of Houston's Ed Herz. Natural gas has become the leading resource for electricity generation following the advent of hydraulic fracturing and the tremendous supply of natural gas that we've been able to generate in the U.S. natural gas also comes out when you drill for crude oil, which we do a lot of in the US These days. Natural gas is so abundant it's even driven down electric bills. But hers says only when that natural gas can get to where it needs to be. There are a lot of communities around the US that are not getting the cheapest supplies of electricity because they don't have access to natural gas distribution systems. This is where transmission pipelines and pipeline companies are critical. Tom Tsang is with Texas Christian University. Let's just say you're out in Midland, Texas and there's all these wells, right? There's hundreds of wells. Well, you don't connect a large pipeline to each well. You connect them to a single point and that goes through a giant transmission pipeline. And those transmission pipelines run underground across the country, almost like spiderwebs, mostly going directly to natural gas fired power plants. These meet today's electricity demand, but as we know the demand for power is going to go up, we're going to need more natural gas supply, among other things. All right, so the question becomes, will we have to build out new transmission infrastructure to meet those needs? As we see weather become more extreme and data centers and EVs become more popular, we may see more pipelines down the pipeline. I'm Elizabeth Trovall for Marketplace, and in New York, I'm Sabri Benishore with the Marketplace Morning Report from APM American Public Media. Consumer confidence had its sharpest monthly decline since 2021, which means we're all in our feels about money, and while uncertainty is the only constant these days, it's also a great reason to get serious about understanding personal finance. I'm Janelie Espinal, host of Financially Inclined, a podcast from Marketplace that makes learning about money simple. Learn about practical skills like negotiating job offers, dealing with money and friendship and love, entrepreneurship and student loans. Get serious about your money and build a life you've always dreamed of. Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts.