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Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days event is expected to bring in $8.1 billion this year, according to an Adobe Analytics forecast.
How good are the deals? It depends on the category.
Several data points suggest these Prime Day sales events might be losing their luster with shoppers.

An Amazon driver delivers packages in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 27, 2023.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

Amazon’s Prime Day sales event is officially underway for the second time this year. The online retailer’s Prime Big Deal Days is expected to bring in $8.1 billion this year, according to an Adobe Analytics forecast.
The 48-hour sale offers exclusive deals for Amazon Prime members and marks the official start of the holiday shopping season for the e-commerce retailer — well before most forecasts include sales in the “holiday sales” time periods.

Forty-one percent of consumers say they have already started or plan to shop by the end of October, according to the Shopify-Gallup Holiday Shopper Pulse survey out Tuesday.
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The Amazon sale event comes as Americans face mounting economic pressures, including rising interest rates, persistent inflation and the restart of student loan payments. Those pressures are driving cost-conscious shoppers to stock up now on holiday gifts.
Those competing forces “create a battle for consumer spending,” Nick Handrinos, vice chairman and leader of Deloitte LLP’s retail and consumer products practice, recently told CNBC.
Electronics, toys and games, personal care and cosmetics are among the categories shoppers plan to buy during this Prime Big Deal Days event, according to the latest weekly consumer insights poll conducted by CoreSight Research. (For more on Prime Day deals, check out NBC Select’s roundup of savings.)

So how good are the deals compared to prices at other times of the year? It depends on the category.
“Many of us expected [Tuesday] especially to be more impressive than it has been,” said Julie Ramhold, a consumer analyst at DealNews.com.
“While there are some good offers on Amazon devices and services, outside of those, it’s been somewhat lackluster,” she added.

Best days to buy on Amazon

CNBC analyzed daily pricing data provided by Jungle Scout, a platform providing tools to Amazon sellers, for 19 products from the most popular categories sold on Amazon.com by Amazon directly or the brand itself between September 2022 and September 2023.
CNBC found the best prices for electronics and toys is typically during Amazon’s summer Prime Day sale, compared to other major shopping events. But those still are not necessarily the best prices of the year.
For health and beauty products, shoppers will likely find the best prices during the Black Friday sales event. However, the fall Prime event might have better prices for home goods.
For the best prices, DealNews.com’s Ramhold recommends waiting until late October or November, when the discounts will be greater.
An Amazon spokeswoman said the company was unable to comment on the accuracy of CNBC’s findings without seeing the research. CNBC declined to provide that data in advance of publication.
All deals must meet the site’s bar for “quality savings,” the spokeswoman said. It must be the lowest price offered to customers in the past 30 days, among other criteria.
“Every deal in our store must offer trustworthy savings for customers as compared to verifiable reference prices, whether it’s a regular shopping day or during one of Amazon’s major deals events, such as Prime Big Deal Days, Prime Day, Black Friday or Cyber Monday,” she said.

Electronics

While the July Prime event had the deepest discounts for electronics when compared with other similar retail shopping sales events, for three of the four electronics tracked, the Prime sales events were not the best prices of the year.
In fact, the best prices happened on days that were not key shopping event days.

Only the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max’s lowest price of the year coincided with one of the e-commerce shopping days outlined above. The media streaming device was listed for $54.99 throughout most of the year. During the July Prime sale, the product’s price dropped roughly 55% to $24.99.
iRobot’s Roomba 694, however, was the only product among the group that was cheaper on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, instead of the July Prime Days. In March, the robotic vacuum spiked to its highest price of $269. At its lowest, the Roomba was listed at $122.30.
During the period between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shoppers could snag a Roomba 694 for $179. But that price wasn’t exclusive to the popular shopping weekend. In fact, the Roomba was listed at that price at several points throughout the year.
Pricing data for the Sony XB13 Extra Bass portable wireless speaker was unavailable for Black Friday and Cyber Monday so we don’t know for sure if the price would have been lower on those days. Regardless, the July Prime event offered a deeper discount to shoppers when compared to last year’s October Prime sale and Super Saturday. 

Health and beauty products

Some popular health and beauty products are likely to be on sale Tuesday and Wednesday. But if last year’s holiday discounts are any indicator, expect to see even more products on sale on Black Friday. 

The Revlon One-Step Volumizer Plus 2.0 hair dryer and hot air brush, for example, was only on sale for $29.09 three days last year, all of which were during the week of Black Friday. At its highest, the popular hair-styling tool was listed at $59.99. The product did go on sale during last October’s Prime member event and this past July’s Prime sale, but the discounts were not as deep.
Crest 3-D White Professional Effects teeth-whitening kit, Hero Cosmetics Mighty Patch Original acne patches and Philips Sonicare 4100 electric toothbrush also dropped to their lowest prices of the year last Black Friday. These products saw the same discounts during several other key shopping days, as well.
One product that’s nearly certain to be discounted steadily throughout the season is the Crest kit, which was marked down from its highest level of $48.99 to $29.99 during every single major shopping day.
The Philips Norelco Multigroomer All-in-One Trimmer Series 3000 didn’t reach it’s lowest price during last season’s Black Friday, but it came very close, costing only 40 cents more than its lowest price of the year of $17.56 on every shopping holiday except the July Prime event.

Home goods

When it comes to home products, consumers may consider filling up carts over the next two days and finalizing those purchases. Three out of the four products tracked by CNBC reported their lowest price of the year during last October’s Prime Member sale, including the Hilife Steamer, Keurig K-Mini Single Serve coffee maker and Ninja AF101 air fryer.

The Bissell Little Green Portable Cleaner 1400B was the only exception. The product was listed at $123.59 at its highest, and $70.31 at its lowest for the year. Throughout retail shopping events, the price fell to a low of $86 during the July Prime sale, and was not discounted at all during the October event. 

Toys

Somewhat surprisingly, all five products within the toys and games category analyzed by CNBC reported their lowest retail shopping event prices during July’s Prime sale, but the prices weren’t the lowest of the year. The CoComelon Deluxe Interactive JJ doll, Hot Wheels “Criss Cross Crash” track set and Squishmallows Kellytoy 8-inch Plush Mystery Pack all saw lower prices at other points throughout the year compared to their shopping holiday lows.

For shoppers buying toys during the holiday season, the pricing data might be disappointing. Only the SEREED Baby Balance Bike hit its lowest price of the year, dropping from its high of $49.99 to $39.99 on every retail shopping holiday except Super Saturday.
While the Squishmallows Mystery Pack was discounted from its high of $26.99 to $22.99 during every single retail shopping event from last October’s Prime sale through this past summer’s Prime Sale, the price ended up being lower in early July.

Are Prime shopping events losing their luster?

Several data points suggest these Prime Day sales events might be losing their luster with shoppers. Perhaps Amazon shoppers are starting to pick up on pricing patterns, or maybe big sale days just aren’t as exciting as they were a few years ago.
Amazon uses exclusive Prime Member shopping days to help drive new subscriptions for the membership service, but fewer people have access to Prime membership benefits in 2023. According to multiyear data from Coresight Research’s U.S. consumer surveys, those with access to Prime benefits have fallen below 75% for the first time since March 2018.
Like other subscription services and goods, prices for the Prime membership have steadily increased since the first Prime Day event was introduced, though features have been added. In 2015, a Prime membership was $99 a year, now it’s $139.
Downloads of Amazon’s shopping app have declined steadily during each subsequent Prime member shopping event since Amazon’s Prime Days in July 2021, according to data intelligence platform Apptopia, which tracks mobile app usage for brands like Amazon.
Declining downloads alone may not be a sign of interest waning among shoppers, but when combined with a drop-off in daily active users over the last two Prime shopping events, and a deceleration in the number of times users are interacting with the Amazon app during these events, it becomes more likely consumers are feeling Prime Day fatigue.

Further detail on pricing analysis methodology

The products that CNBC analyzed from Jungle Scout’s daily pricing data spanned four different key holiday shopping categories including electronics, health and beauty, home and toys and games. Many of the products appear regularly on Amazon’s top sellers list.
To narrow down the results, CNBC only included data for products sold by Amazon.com, Amazon Warehouse, which often includes items returned by prior buyers, and the brand manufacturers. Third-party marketplace sellers were not included.
In some instances, Jungle Scout was unable to retrieve pricing data on products for certain days, which could be a result of a variety of outcomes including the product being sold out or unavailable at the time the data was extracted.
— CNBC’s Jess Dickler contributed to this report.
Join CNBC’s Financial Advisor Summit on October 12th, where we’ll talk with top advisors, investors, market experts, technologists, and economists about what advisors can do now to position their clients for the best possible outcomes as we head into the last quarter of 2023, and face the unknown in 2024. Learn more and get your ticket today. More

To make college more accessible, Sonoma State University is offering “guaranteed admission” to high school students who have completed the requisite coursework and have a minimum 2.5 high school GPA.
Other schools have tried similar moves to get more students enrolled.
But not only are fewer students interested in pursuing a degree after high school, the population of college-age students is also shrinking.

Sonoma State University
Courtesy: Sonoma State University

To help make college a reality, Sonoma State University is trying a relatively new approach: High school students who have completed the requisite coursework and have a minimum 2.5 high school GPA are now “guaranteed admission” to the Rohnert Park, California-based school.
“We really wanted to provide a more visible pathway,” said Ed Mills, vice president for strategic enrollment at Sonoma State, a member of the California State University system.

Since the school began accepting applications on Oct. 1 for the fall 2024 term, there has been an uptick in interest. “Our applicant pool is already up about 5% from last year and I expect that increase to continue to rise,” Mills said.
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“Everybody wins in this scenario,” according to Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief and author of “The Best 389 Colleges.”
Guaranteed admission is catching on.
Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, recently announced a guaranteed admission program for first-year freshman applicants who have a GPA of 3.5 or higher and are in the top 10% of their high school graduating class. 

Other schools and school systems have launched similar initiatives to get more students enrolled. Last spring, the State University of New York sent automatic acceptance letters to 125,000 graduating high school students.

Even if acceptance is not guaranteed, “there are so many schools that have reasonable admission standards and many of them are among the best schools in the country,” Franek said.
In fact, of The Princeton Review’s list of 389 best colleges, 254 schools admit at least half of all applicants. More than a quarter admit at least 80% of those who apply. (On the flip side, only 8% of schools on the list of best colleges admit less than 10% of applicants.)
“If you attain a certain level of academic competitiveness, you will earn admission and that’s very valuable,” Franek said.

College enrollment is dropping

Sonoma State University
Courtesy: Sonoma State University

Still, fewer students are going to college.
Nationwide, enrollment has noticeably lagged since the start of the pandemic, when a significant number of students decided against a four-year degree in favor of joining the workforce or completing a certificate program without the hefty price tag or Zoom screen.
However, a downturn in enrollment was in the works long before 2020.
“The enrollment crisis didn’t start with the pandemic, it accelerated with the pandemic,” Hafeez Lakhani, founder and president of Lakhani Coaching in New York, recently told CNBC. “This is the fuel on the fire.”
In fact, undergraduate enrollment in the U.S. topped out at roughly 18 million students over a decade ago, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Today, there are more than 2.5 million fewer students enrolled in college, Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, estimated.

Costs keep rising

Not only are fewer students interested in pursuing any sort of degree after high school, but the population of college-age students is also shrinking, a trend referred to as the “enrollment cliff.”
“There’s a broad-based drop in belief or trust in higher education as an institution,” said Cole Clark, a managing director within Deloitte’s higher education practice and co-author of a recent trends report. “It’s as much of a threat as the demographic cliff.”

These days, only about 62% of high school seniors in the U.S. immediately go on to college, down from 68% in 2010. Low-income students who feel priced out of a postsecondary education are often those who opt out.
Steadily, college is becoming a path for only those with the means to pay for it, other reports also show.
Would-be college students are looking more closely at the return on investment as tuition costs remain high and a shortage of workers increases opportunities in the labor force — with or without a diploma.

Arrows pointing outwards

More high schoolers want career training

Most Americans still agree a college education is worthwhile when it comes to career goals and advancement. However, only half think the economic benefits outweigh the costs, according to a report by Public Agenda, USA Today and Hidden Common Ground — and young adults are particularly skeptical.
The rising cost of college and ballooning student loan balances have played a large role in changing views about the higher education system, which many think is rigged to benefit the wealthy, the report found. 
Only 45% of students from low-income, first-generation or minority backgrounds believe education after high school is necessary, according to a study by ECMC Group.
High schoolers are putting more emphasis on career training and post-college employment, the nonprofit found after polling more than 5,000 high school students six times since February 2020.

More than 75% of high schoolers now say a two-year degree or technical certification is enough, and only 41% believe they must have a four-year degree to get a good job, a separate report by Junior Achievement and Citizens also found. 
“A lot of students are weighing their options,” said Connie Livingston, head of college counselors at college counseling firm Empowerly and a former admissions officer at Brown University.
“Does it make more sense to go to community college, trade school or directly into the workforce?” she said. “In this economic climate, that’s attractive.”

Earning a college degree is almost always worthwhile

And yet, earning a bachelor’s degree is almost always worthwhile, research shows.
Bachelor’s degree holders generally earn 75% more than those with a high school diploma, according to “The College Payoff,” a report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce — and the higher the level of educational attainment, the larger the payoff.
But even while degrees deliver a strong premium in the job market, confidence in the higher education system is declining, according to Deloitte’s Clark.
“There is a lot of rhetoric about the individual with a college degree and a ton of debt and underemployed,” he said.
“You are going to continue to see this paradox,” Lakhani added. “There’s a subconscious consensus that it’s only worth going to college if you can go to a life-changing college.” 
Join CNBC’s Financial Advisor Summit on October 12th, where we’ll talk with top advisors, investors, market experts, technologists, and economists about what advisors can do now to position their clients for the best possible outcomes as we head into the last quarter of 2023, and face the unknown in 2024. Learn more and get your ticket today. More

The U.S. Department of the Treasury proposed a rule on Friday that would make it easier for consumers to get a $7,500 tax credit for new electric vehicles and a $4,000 credit for used EVs.
The proposal would allow all eligible buyers, regardless of federal tax liability, to get a full tax break.
It would be a point-of-sale purchase discount from car dealers starting in 2024.
Currently, those whose tax liability is too low may get a reduced credit or none at all.

Maskot | Maskot | Getty Images

A new proposal by the U.S. Department of the Treasury would make it easier for consumers to get a tax credit when buying a new or used electric vehicle, according to tax and energy experts.
Its proposed rules, issued Friday, would let car dealers offer the EV tax break to consumers at the point of sale — regardless of their federal tax liability — starting Jan. 1, 2024.

What that means: All eligible EV buyers — and not just a subset of eligible, typically wealthier consumers — would get an upfront discount of up to $7,500 for new cars and $4,000 for used cars, experts said.
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“I think it is a real game-changer for all consumers to be able to get that rebate at the point of sale,” said Jamie Wickett, a partner at law firm Hogan Lovells which specializes in federal tax policy and energy. “Immediately, a $50,000 vehicle becomes $42,500.”

Big news for low- and middle-income drivers

Dealers were always supposed to offer point-of-sale discounts in 2024, as per text of the Inflation Reduction Act. However, the tax-liability issue was an open question.
As things stand, buyers only qualify for the full tax break if their federal tax liability is large enough. Otherwise, they may get a reduced credit or nothing at all. (That’s because the credit is “nonrefundable.”)

If the Treasury proposal is codified, it would expand the pool of consumers — especially lower earners, who generally have smaller tax liabilities — eligible for the full value of the EV tax credit.
“It’s great news, especially from an equity standpoint and for people who may not have as much disposable income,” said Ingrid Malmgren, policy director at nonprofit Plug In America. “It really will make [an EV purchase] more affordable for them.”

They would also be getting that tax break as an upfront discount. Right now, buyers must wait until they file their annual tax return to get the credit’s financial benefit — potentially a year or more after the purchase.
Consumers will get that point-of-sale discount by transferring their tax credit — the new clean vehicle credit ($7,500) or the used clean vehicle credit ($4,000) — to a car dealer. The car dealer can then pay the credit’s value back to the consumer. The IRS expects to issue payments back to the dealers within 72 hours, Treasury said.
Dealers must provide consumers with the full credit amount available for the vehicle, and provide written confirmation of the amount and vehicle eligibility, Treasury said. The payment doesn’t count toward a taxpayer’s gross income.
The agency’s proposal comes as it has gotten harder for many EV models to qualify for the full $7,500 credit (temporarily, at least) due to manufacturing requirements included in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Consumers must self-attest eligibility

There are a few caveats.
For one, the Treasury proposal is subject to a 60-day public comment period and may change in its final version, though experts don’t expect any substantial revisions.
In addition, not all dealers will necessarily participate. They must register via IRS Energy Credits Online, a new website. Wickett expects most dealers to do so, or otherwise risk being at a “real competitive disadvantage.”
Buyers also must file an income tax return for the year in which the vehicle transfer election is made.
It’s also important to note that car dealers won’t analyze consumers’ income to determine if they qualify for an EV credit, according to the Treasury proposal. Buyers must self-attest their eligibility — and making a mistake could mean paying back the credit’s full value to the IRS at tax time.

I think it is a real game changer for all consumers to be able to get that rebate at the point of sale.

Jamie Wickett
partner at law firm Hogan Lovells

They can self-attest their eligibility if they expect to be below the respective income thresholds in the year the vehicle is “placed in service,” Treasury said. They can also do so based on the prior year’s income.
“It’s probably best to know you qualified [based on income] last year or be very much assured that you qualify in the year you purchase your car,” Malmgren said.
These are the annual income limits for the $7,500 new vehicle credit: $300,000 for married couples filing a joint tax return; $225,000 for heads of household; and $150,000 for single tax filers.
These limits apply to the $4,000 used vehicle credit:  $150,000 for married couples filing a joint tax return; $112,500 for heads of household; and $75,000 for single tax filers.
These figures are based on “modified adjusted gross income.” More

Year-end Planning

With no Powerball winner Saturday night, the jackpot has climbed to an estimated $1.55 billion.
The lump sum payout amount dropped by $29.7 million between Wednesday and Friday last week. Experts say there are a few reasons for dramatic swings in the estimated jackpot value between drawings.
The next Powerball drawing is Monday at 10:59 p.m. ET.

Justin Sullivan | Getty

The Powerball jackpot has climbed to an estimated $1.55 billion after no one matched the winning numbers Saturday night — and there were some dramatic swings in the cash prize leading up to that drawing.
The winner has two payout options: a lump sum worth $679.8 million or an annuity valued at $1.55 billion. Of course, both options are pretax estimates, and other factors can shift their value.

Last week, the lump sum actually dropped by $29.7 million between Wednesday and Friday even as the headline prize held steady at an estimated $1.4 billion, according to Powerball.
There are a few reasons for that drop, according to J. Bret Toyne, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs Powerball. “It’s a little bit science and a little bit art,” he said.

More from Year-End Planning

Here’s a look at more coverage on what to do finance-wise as the end of the year approaches:

Powerball’s estimated lump sum considers projected ticket sales and an “annuity factor,” or the cost to fund the grand prize, Toyne said.
On Fridays, the organization receives nonbinding quotes for bonds to fund prizes and they use interest rates from these quotes to determine the new annuity factor.
Typically, the higher interest rates climb, the bigger jackpot players can expect because “rising interest rates are a tailwind for a lottery annuity,” he said.

But last week, the estimated lump sum dropped from Wednesday to Friday because the weekly annuity factor changed and the amount necessary to fund the jackpot went down, Toyne said.
“As interest rates fluctuate, it changes the value of the annuity and therefore changes the value of the alternative option, which is the lump sum,” said Akshay Khanna, CEO of Jackpot.com, which sells state lottery tickets.

“We’re in such a volatile interest rate environment right now and have been over the past 12 months,” he added.
The next Powerball drawing is Monday at 10:59 p.m. ET, and the sales cutoff is typically one to two hours before the drawing. The odds of winning the jackpot are roughly 1 in 292.2 million.
Monday’s Powerball drawing comes less than three months since a single ticket sold in California won the game’s $1.08 billion jackpot. It’s the 35th Powerball drawing in the current jackpot cycle and the first time the game has seen a back-to-back billion-dollar grand prize.
Meanwhile, the Mega Millions jackpot is back down to $20 million after a winning ticket sold in Texas scored the grand prize of $360 million on Friday. The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are roughly 1 in 302 million. More

Uncertainties, including new conflict overseas, may lead to more volatility for investors.
Here’s why staying the course tends to pay off over time.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

The new war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas has brought more uncertainty to the markets.
While stocks shook off the conflict in Monday afternoon trading, financial experts say investors should stay the course amid elevated volatility risks.

“Stay calm, think long term and look for some bargains,” said David Rea, president of Salem Investment Counselors in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which is No. 27 on the 2023 CNBC FA 100 list.
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Ongoing pressures from two wars, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict; rising interest rates; high inflation; a potential federal shutdown; and ongoing worker strikes may prompt yet more ups and downs.
If markets do drop, investors focused on retirement and other goals would be wise to hold on, research shows.
A $10,000 investment in the S&P 500 would have grown to $64,844 between Jan. 1, 2003, and Dec. 30, 2022 — a 9.8% return, according to research from JPMorgan Asset Management.

If investors had exited that investment to try to avoid losses, they would have sacrificed a meaningful amount of gains, according to the firm.
If an investor moved in and out of the markets and missed the 60 best days, their investment would be worth just $4,205 at the end of that time period, with a -4.2% return.

Trying to time the market doesn’t work

The reason why timing the market doesn’t work, according to JPMorgan, is that the market’s worst days tend to be followed by its best days. If investors leave to avoid the losses, they often don’t make it back in time to reap the benefit of the gains.
In the two-decade period, seven of the 10 best days happened within two weeks of the worst 10 days, JPMorgan found. Moreover, the second worst day of 2020, March 12, was immediately followed by the second best day of the year.
“It’s so hard to know when it’s going to turn and go back up,” Rea said.

In the immediate aftermath of the current Mideast conflict, some sectors are already up.
“The winners are clearly energy stocks and likely defense stocks,” said Barry Glassman, a certified financial planner and founder and president of Glassman Wealth Services in Vienna, Virginia. Glassman is a member of the CNBC FA Council.
However, the real question for the U.S. economy now is where interest rates will go from here, Glassman said.

When this kind of conflict has emerged in the past, Treasurys have jumped in value while interest rates have dropped, he noted.
“A global conflict that would cause a rush to safety might put interest rates down,” Glassman said. “On the first day of trading, we’re just not seeing that at this stage.”
Notably, due to the Columbus Day federal holiday, bond markets were closed Monday. More

Oil prices jumped more than 3% after Palestinian militants launched a surprise attack on Israel last weekend. 
However, both Gaza and Israel produce small amounts of oil, so the overall effect on prices is likely to remain limited.
American drivers have yet to see effects from the conflict reflected at the gas station level.

Drivers fill up at a Shell gas station in Alhambra, California, on Oct. 2, 2023.
Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty Images

Oil prices jumped more than 3% after members of the militant group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip last weekend. 
However, neither Gaza nor Israel produce much petroleum, so the overall effect on oil and gas prices is likely to remain limited — as long as no third parties from in or outside the region become involved, according to industry experts.

“The impact on the oil price will be limited unless we see the ‘war’ between the two sides expand quickly to a regional war where the U.S. and Iran and other supporters of the parties get directly involved,” Middle East managing director of energy consultancy Facts Global Energy, Iman Nasseri, previously told CNBC.
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As long as the violence does not spread, oil and gas prices in the U.S. are likely to be unaffected.

Gas prices have been trending lower

Indeed, American drivers have yet to see effects from the conflict reflected at the gas station level. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. on Monday was $3.70, down 11 cents from a week ago, according to AAA. 
Downward pressures such as the jobs report and the possibility of further interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve are likely to continue softening oil prices, said Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

A fireball erupts during Israeli bombardment of Gaza City on Oct. 9, 2023.
Mohammed Abed | AFP | Getty Images

Additionally, the current hostilities are not “remotely close” — geographically or practically speaking — to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which started last year, said DeHaan.
Unlike Gaza and Israel, Russia is a primary oil and natural gas exporter. Iran, however, is “the wildcard to watch out for,” he added. Iran congratulated Hamas on its offensive against Israel but denied involvement in the initiative.

‘Diesel is going into its peak season’

Heating oil prices are expected to climb, mostly due to seasonality changes. Demand will rise as temperatures begin to drop, according to DeHaan.
“Diesel is going into its peak season because of the prominent use of heating oil in areas of the Northeast,” he said.
For now, drivers in the U.S. planning to take major road trips in the months ahead should not be too concerned, but best to keep an eye on the situation if they’re price sensitive, especially if turmoil escalates.  More

Altogether, roughly 453,000 workers have gone on strike so far in 2023 as employees across industries fight for better wages and working conditions in the wake of the pandemic.
In the last few months alone, striking or threatening to strike has led to a string of labor deals where workers have pushed for and won higher pay.
With each successful outcome, others are more likely to follow.

Employees picket and rally at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center on Oct. 4, 2023.
Irfan Khan | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Just as Hollywood’s writers and studios reached a tentative deal to return to work after nearly 150 days, a new strike was brewing.
More than 75,000 health-care workers walked off the job Wednesday at Kaiser Permanente, the nation’s largest non-profit health-care organization, driven in part by demands for higher pay in the midst of staffing shortages, which left employees burned out.

At the same time, the United Auto Workers strike is ongoing, marking three weeks since the first-ever simultaneous walk out against the Detroit Three.
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Altogether, there have been 312 strikes involving roughly 453,000 workers so far in 2023, compared with 180 strikes involving 43,700 workers over the same period two years ago, according to data by Johnnie Kallas, a PhD candidate at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and the project director of the ILR Labor Action Tracker.
“This is a pretty considerable uptick relative to the rest of the 21st century,” Kallas said.
In the last few months alone, striking or threatening to strike has led to a string of labor deals where UPS drivers, airline pilots and aerospace manufacturing employees have pushed for and won higher pay. With each successful outcome, other labor actions are more likely to follow, Kallas said. “Strikes can often be contagious.”

‘Workers want higher pay’ amid inflation

“The strikes are an indication that workers want higher pay,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an economics professor at George Washington University and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. “That’s because of the pressures of inflation.”
In the wake of the pandemic, higher prices have weighed on worker paychecks. Real average hourly earnings fell 2% over the last two years, according to the Labor Department.
As a result, purchasing power has declined and consumers have less left over at the end of the month for savings — “they both take a hit when you have less income,” said Tomas Philipson, a professor of public policy studies at the University of Chicago and former acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “It’s concerning for people’s standard of living.”

Pandemic spurred other contract concerns

But there are other issues beyond compensation causing workers to walk out on the job, despite the potential consequences.
“Pay is a big issue but it’s not the only issue,” Kallas said. Other top concerns include staffing, retirement benefits, health care and health and safety, research shows.
“For many of these workers, especially in unionized settings, it’s the first contract they’ve negotiated since the beginning of the pandemic,” Kallas said.
In most cases, collective bargaining agreements are locked in for several years. Coming out of Covid, workers are feeling increasingly strained while watching their wages lag inflation and this is an opportunity to improve the terms, he said.
“A lot has changed.”
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Marjorie Bloom, a retired civil servant, was the victim of a “tech support” scam in 2021. Criminals used cryptocurrency to carry out the fraud.
Bloom, now 77, lost her life savings: $661,000.
Her experience highlights the growing threat of fraud that targets older adults.

Marjorie Bloom was the victim of a “tech support” scam. She lost $661,000 in the fraud.
Marjorie Bloom

In the spring of 2021, Marjorie Bloom waited for a phone call that would never come.
Over the course of the previous month, the retiree had wired hundreds of thousands of dollars into cryptocurrency per the suggestion of someone she believed to be a trusted confidant. The man claimed to be a “fraud investigator” at PNC Bank, where she’d been a longtime customer.

At his behest, Bloom, a widow who is now 77, liquidated her nest egg — savings, stocks, an annuity — for a total of $661,000.
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The action was supposedly preventative: The “investigator” persuaded Bloom that criminals, using stolen personal data, were in the process of pilfering her life savings. To protect her money, he said, she had to move it quickly — and covertly. Divulging the problem to anyone, even her three children, could compromise their efforts, he said.
Had she alerted her children, she might have avoided the scam: Bloom’s daughter, Ester, is the deputy managing editor for CNBC Make It. (Ester Bloom put CNBC in touch with her mother but was not involved in the reporting or editing of this story.)
The “investigator,” though very convincing, turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Bloom, a retired civil servant, was ensnared in a “tech support” scam.

This type of fraud is increasingly common and largely targets older adults, who lost $588 million to tech support scams in 2022, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Criminals persuade victims they have a serious computer issue such as a virus, then masquerade as computer technicians from well-known companies as a cover for theft. Often, they persuade victims to wire funds to fraudulent accounts.

So on that Friday morning in May 2021, Bloom eagerly awaited a call with instructions on how to access the life savings she had diligently taken steps to secure.
The hours ticked by. Growing nervous, she eventually called the “investigator.” His number had been disconnected. She called PNC, but the bank didn’t have a record of the employee.
“All of a sudden, this grayness lifted,” said Bloom, who lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland. “I realized I had been defrauded of everything.”

‘The money is there. The scammers know that’

Bloom’s experience reveals an unsettling reality at a time when technological advancement, little-understood investment options and a patchwork of protections in the U.S. financial system expose more older Americans to financial fraud.
Americans 60 and older lost $3.1 billion to cyber fraud in 2022, an 84% increase from 2021, according to the FBI. Losses have jumped ninefold in just five years, from $342 million in 2017, FBI data shows. Because fraud statistics are based only on reported incidents, its true scope may be far greater.
Older adults, many of whom have saved their entire careers for retirement, can have the most to lose. In addition to retirement savings, they might have other pots of income and wealth: home equity, Social Security payments, pension checks and, if widowed, maybe a life insurance payout.

“The money is there,” said Rebecca Keithley, a supervisory special agent in the FBI’s Economic Crimes unit and the bureau’s national program coordinator of the Department of Justice’s Elder Justice Initiative. “The scammers know that.”
Keithley — also the FBI’s national program coordinator for frauds and swindles — is not involved in the investigation of Bloom’s case.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is undergoing a massive demographic shift as an average of 10,000 baby boomers hit retirement age every day. This generation has shouldered more responsibility for their retirement preparations as employers began shifting away from pensions to 401(k)-type retirement plans decades ago.
Consumers ages 65 and older had an average of $232,710 in 401(k) plan savings in 2022, according to Vanguard Group, one of the nation’s largest retirement-plan administrators. Further, 65- to 74-year-olds had a net worth of more than $1.2 million, on average, in 2019, according to the Federal Reserve’s most recent Survey of Consumer Finances.

Fraud may deprive victims of funds for basic living expenses such as food and shelter, or for the travel and leisure they’d worked so hard to attain in their post-work life.
Beyond the immediate financial hit, fraud has several knock-on effects: Victims who raid their tax-preferred retirement funds may owe the IRS a hefty bill. Taking out a second mortgage or maxing out credit cards carry regular debt payments.
Older adults don’t have the same ability as younger victims to earn in the workforce, and it’s often challenging to recoup money from criminals or financial institutions.
“Most victims will say, ‘I’m devastated financially, I’m ruined,'” said Kathy Stokes, director of fraud prevention programs at AARP, an advocacy group for older adults. “But emotionally it’s as bad, if not worse.”

How criminals ‘hijack’ the aging brain

Tech support scams like the one Bloom suffered are an acute threat for older adults.
They are a type of “call center” fraud, which “overwhelmingly target” older adults, the FBI said. About half of people victimized by illegal call centers are 60 or older, and they experience 69% of the total financial losses relative to other age groups.
Nearly 18,000 Americans ages 60 and over reported being a victim of tech support scams in 2022, the FBI said. That’s more than any other type of elder fraud and almost doubled from 2020.
Victims 60 and older lost more to these scams than all other age groups combined, the FBI reported. The average person lost $33,000, though losses extended to over $1 million in some cases, the FBI said.

In Bloom’s case, her computer froze suddenly on April 22, 2021. A popup window alerted her to call a customer support phone number listed on the screen, supposedly for Microsoft.
Bloom then made a key mistake: She called the number, an action that real tech companies won’t ever ask of customers in a security pop-up warning.
During the call, a “Microsoft engineer” told her that foreign hackers had hijacked her computer and stolen sensitive personal data. Her financial accounts, he suggested, were also likely under threat.
When Bloom told him she banked with PNC, the engineer — who was really a con artist — transferred her to an accomplice posing as a PNC fraud investigator. The man convinced Bloom that there were pending transactions worth $29,000 tied to her bank account. Her money had to be moved without delay to a new account, the scammer urged.
None of it was true.

“I fell for it,” said Bloom, who retired in December 2017 after serving 42 years as a federal attorney, including stints at the Department of Energy and, most recently, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
“I didn’t tell anybody,” Bloom added.
The appearance of an immediate threat is an “age-old psychological technique” common in frauds that tends to be “more successful with the aging brain,” said Keithley of the FBI.
In this technique, known as an “amygdala hijack” in reference to the brain’s fear and threat response center, criminals trigger strong emotional reactions that overwhelm the rational part of our brains. We act rather than think, a classic fight-or-flight response — in this case induced by nefarious social engineers, often part of sophisticated organized crime networks.

Older adults tend to be home more often, use landline phones and be generally unsophisticated about technology and safe online behavior — all of which make them vulnerable and therefore frequent targets, Keithley said.
The Covid pandemic was a disproportionate threat to older adults, keeping Americans indoors and quickly pushing them online. The health emergency “ushered in a new wave of exploitative practices targeted at older Americans,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a 2022 report to Congress.

‘Somebody should have asked’

Marjorie Bloom on a trip to Vietnam in 2019, before she was defrauded. Bloom expects she’ll have to make sacrifices, such as traveling less, after she lost her life savings in the scam.
Marjorie Bloom

Bloom, an avid traveler, is undeniably tough. In 2013, at 67 years old, she trekked to the base camp of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain; the base camp alone sits at an altitude of about 18,000 feet.
But the scam tested her resolve.
A year after the fraud, Bloom set out on a road trip to North Dakota. Five days in, she had a panic attack that seized the right side of her body in pain. She canceled everything and went home.
“In retrospect, I think the entire ordeal was a fearful reaction to spending money,” Bloom said.
Before she realized she’d been scammed, Bloom had made five wire transfers within 28 days, amounting to $661,000, according to receipts of the transactions, which were reviewed by CNBC.
Much of those funds came from liquidating a stock portfolio — an inheritance from her parents — worth more than $400,000. She also liquidated the bulk of an annuity worth more than $200,000; if she’d kept it intact, it would have begun paying her a guaranteed income stream of about $2,700 a month for the next three decades, starting in 2023.
“This was my life savings,” Bloom said. “It’s what I was going to live on as a retiree.”

Hikers walk to Everest Base Camp in Nepal.
Kriangkrai Thitimakorn | Moment | Getty Images

When she discovered the loss, Bloom’s immediate thought was of her three kids: a “profound disappointment” at squandering the reserves she’d intended to bequeath them. Bloom had wanted to offer the same financial assistance to her children as her parents had provided for her. Now, much of that money is gone, she said.
Her second concern was for her own financial security. Bloom still receives regular checks from a federal pension and Social Security, now her main sources of retirement income. It’s enough to cover her mortgage, condo fee, car payment and other necessities — but the financial loss exposes Bloom to sacrifices nonetheless.
For one, she laments an inability to travel as frequently as she’d hoped in retirement. She is a member of the North Bethesda Camera Club and uses trips as an outlet for photography, a hobby that developed during her Everest expedition.
“I’m not starving,” Bloom said. “But I could do a lot more [if I hadn’t lost money].”
“I’ve lost a significant amount that I’ve worked for,” she said.

All of a sudden, this grayness lifted. I realized I had been defrauded of everything.

Marjorie Bloom
Maryland resident

Bloom sued PNC Bank — where she’d been a customer for over a decade — in May 2022 for full financial restitution and other damages, such as interest and attorney’s fees.
In her lawsuit, Bloom argued that the fraud was ultimately successful because PNC ignored “obvious red flags” and “textbook evidence” of financial exploitation raised by her wire transfer requests, which were inconsistent with her typical pattern of banking.
According to the lawsuit, the bank didn’t take steps to investigate or determine whether her money was at risk. The lawsuit claimed the bank acted negligently and breached its contractual duty of care.
“I’m retired … [and] I look my age,” Bloom said. “There’s just no doubt about it.”
“Somebody should have asked,” she added.
In February, a federal judge in the District of Columbia dismissed the negligence claim but allowed the claim for breach of contract to move forward in court. 
Bloom and the bank settled the lawsuit in September. Bloom declined to disclose terms of the agreement to CNBC. (Bloom’s comments to CNBC for this story occurred in the spring, before the parties entered into settlement negotiations.)
A spokesperson for PNC Bank declined comment on the settlement.
Asked about the lawsuit in the spring, the bank said it acted within the scope of its legal duty.

Sergio Flores/Bloomberg via Getty Images

“PNC maintains a comprehensive set of security controls to help protect our customers from increasingly sophisticated fraud threats and, when possible, we do our best to recover funds on behalf of impacted customers,” a spokesperson told CNBC, when asked about Bloom’s case and statements about the bank.
“While PNC regrets any losses incurred by a customer, we disagree with the allegations in this case and believe we acted appropriately with respect to these transactions,” the spokesperson added.

‘You’re basically at the mercy of your bank’

Lawsuits such as Bloom’s are rarely successful, legal experts said. Outcomes hinge on a complex web of federal and state rules that govern banking and elder financial fraud.
For instance, there’s a distinction between “unauthorized” and “authorized” banking transactions.
Unauthorized transactions occur when criminals get hold of a customer’s personal information — a debit card number, let’s say — and buy something without approval. Customers are often reimbursed in such instances.
However, in Bloom’s case, she made the wire transfers. Transactions initiated by a customer — even a victim duped by scammers — are generally considered “authorized,” said Carla Sanchez-Adams, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. And such transactions carry weak customer protections, she said.
“You’re basically at the mercy of your bank,” Sanchez-Adams said.
Wire transfers also have weaker protections than other types of electronic fund transfers — such as debit card, ATM or peer-to-peer transactions, for example — because they’re exempt from the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, a federal consumer protection law passed in 1978, she said.

I’m retired … [and] I look my age. There’s just no doubt about it. Somebody should have asked.

Marjorie Bloom
fraud victim

Another federal law — the Bank Secrecy Act — sets standards for banks to ensure they have controls to prevent and detect crime such as money laundering and terrorist financing. While the law requires banks to file reports to regulators in certain cases to flag suspicious activity, it doesn’t give individual consumers a legal remedy to recoup money lost due to criminal enterprise, Sanchez-Adams said.
“Banks should have some skin in the game,” Sanchez-Adams said. “If you don’t make them hurt, they won’t change their practices.”
Some states have elder-protection laws that establish separate duties to protect older adults from financial fraud, but they vary broadly in scope, she said.
For example, under Maryland law, banks are required to report suspected elder fraud to local law enforcement and other parties. As Bloom argued in her lawsuit, that means employees have likely received training to identify such activity. Such “heightened procedures” to protect older adults are part of the bank’s duty of care relative to older customers, the lawsuit said.
To sidestep internal protocols — which most banks have established, according to industry data — scammers will often coach victims on what to say to bank tellers or other representatives, experts said. Perhaps the money is for a loan, or for a home-improvement project, for example. Bloom didn’t require coaching, she said; according to her lawsuit, PNC bank employees didn’t perform more than a “perfunctory inquiry” necessary to complete the transfers.
And there’s an additional tension: Banks and other financial institutions have to weigh issues such as consumer privacy when choosing to intervene, said Marve Ann Alaimo, a partner and elder law expert at Porter Wright Morris & Arthur.
If the bank reasonably does its best to protect a client and there’s still financial damage, it isn’t necessarily the bank’s fault, she said.
“We live in a free-market economy. And when you own something, you have the ultimate right to dispose of it as you wish,” Alaimo said, referring to money held in a financial account.
“There’s only so much protection a third party can provide for you,” she added. They “aren’t the ultimate arbiter of free will.”

Cryptocurrency gives thieves ‘new advantages’

Meanwhile, Bloom’s money apparently went on a global tour.
Scammers had her wire funds from her PNC bank account to an account at the now-defunct Signature Bank in New York. According to the lawsuit, from there, her money was transferred to an account on the cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, which scammers created using Bloom’s picture and personal data. The assets were then converted into cryptocurrency — a type of virtual asset — and, an investigation later showed, moved to offshore accounts on the Binance crypto trading platform in the Cayman Islands.
Thieves have successfully used crypto to steal increasing amounts of money across all types of internet scams, according to the FBI.
In this context, cryptocurrency — examples of which include bitcoin and ethereum — is like cash; it’s just another way to move money from Point A to Point B. But crypto “offers up new advantages” for thieves who transfer and launder illicit proceeds, said Patrick Wyman, chief of the FBI’s Virtual Asset Unit. Wyman is not involved in the investigation of Bloom’s case.
For one, using crypto is an easy way to move large sums of money across borders very quickly without having to engage with the financial system, Wyman said.

A Bitcoin automated teller machine (ATM) at a gas station in Washington, DC, on Jan. 19, 2023.
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Another benefit for scammers: Crypto offers them a level of anonymity. Criminals use the digital assets to obfuscate their real identity — which, by the nature of crypto transactions, is difficult if not impossible to ascertain.
However, unlike with traditional financial transactions, which are private, all crypto transactions are recorded on a public ledger, or blockchain. So, while law enforcement officials may not be able to learn the identity of a perpetrator, they can generally trace the flow of money, Wyman said.
And that offers a silver lining for victims: “In some cases, we absolutely are able to recover those funds,” Wyman said.
In April, the U.S. Department of Justice seized more than $112 million worth of virtual currency linked to crypto investment scams. The assets were seized from six accounts, one of which held $66.4 million, likely tied to wire fraud schemes, the DOJ said.
Wyman encourages victims to report fraud to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center as soon as possible. It generally gets harder to recoup money the longer victims wait, he said.
Bloom reported the theft to the FBI; her case remains open. She’s not optimistic about her chances of recovering money via law enforcement efforts. Even if the authorities are successful, she expects it will take years.
“I oscillate,” she said of her reflections on the theft.
“I go from being thoroughly upset and [asking] ‘What in the world was I thinking?’ to saying ‘You just have to move forward. What’s done is done.'” More