What the numbers mean

The S&P 500 and the Dow

Both are baskets of large American companies. The S&P 500 tracks five hundred of them and is the better read on the market as a whole; the Dow tracks thirty and moves more on the fortunes of individual names. When you hear "the market was up", it usually means the S&P.

For a business owner the daily move matters less than the direction over months. It is a rough gauge of whether customers feel wealthy.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate

The single most useful number on the card if you touch property. It sets what a buyer can afford, and therefore what a deal is worth. A rate moving a point changes a monthly payment by hundreds of dollars, which changes what people will pay for a house.

It follows the 10-year Treasury yield rather than the Federal Reserve's headline rate, which is why it sometimes moves in a direction the news does not seem to explain.

Gold and silver

Quoted at spot, meaning the price for immediate delivery of one ounce. Gold tends to rise when people are nervous about currencies or inflation. Silver moves with the same mood but also with industrial demand, so it swings harder in both directions.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and XRP

The four cryptocurrencies most commonly held. We show the price and the move over 24 hours. Unlike the stock market, they trade continuously, which is why the number can be different before Shachris and after Maariv.

Reading a percentage

The figure beside each price is the change over the period — a day for shares and metals, 24 hours for crypto. Green is up, red is down. A one percent move on a major index is a notable day; a one percent move on crypto is an ordinary hour.