On track with expectations, inflation cooled slightly in February.
The latest consumer price index (CPI) shows prices rising 0.4 percent month-over-month in February, down from 0.5 percent in January, while the annual inflation is up 6 percent, down from 6.4 percent.
Shelter accounted for 70 percent of the increase, rising 0.8 percent. The jump came despite efforts by the Federal Reserve to tamp down on home prices by rapidly raising interest rates.
Food prices, meanwhile, decelerated from 0.5 percent to 0.4 percent, and energy prices declined 0.6 percent after rising 2 percent in January. The drop in energy prices was mostly powered by a 7.9 percent drop in fuel oil prices.
Used car prices also fell a whopping 2.8 percent. Once one of the main drivers of inflation, the category is now helping bring down the index.
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Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.
