My wife and I have a $1 million mortgage and $200,000 in cash — do we reduce our repayments or invest it?

Dear Moneyist, My wife and I are in our mid 30s and have been blessed enough to be relatively debt-free and purchase our first home together. Should we use that $200,000 to recast our mortgage — reduce the outstanding sum without altering the original terms — or invest the money? Our interest rate is low at 3.5%. We were able to make a 20% down payment, but our remaining balance is still over $1 million. I decided to sell the town house I purchased years ago, and was able to come up with an additional $400,000. We decided to pay off all of our remaining debt — $25,000 for a car and $15,000 for a student loan — make some home improvements to our bathroom and install solar electricity. We also

My husband took 5 years off his age and denies he fathered a child — now I want separate bank accounts

Dear Moneyist, My husband is 16 years older than me and, two years after our marriage, I discovered that he was five years older than his official age. At the same time, we found out I was pregnant with our first child. He explained that there was some controversy about his date of birth as he was born at home in the Philippines. There was a fire and he lost his parents at a very young age. I found it hard to believe at that time, but we have a good relationship and — other than that — things were okay. Moreover, we were expecting our first child, so I let it go. I have very little financial education and have always trusted him to handle our finances while I worked hard. We have three kids together,

GOLDMAN SACHS: The government shutdown will take a toll on the US economy, but the pain won't last long

Goldman Sachs says the government shutdown will result in a 0.2% reduction in first-quarter GDP for every week it persists. Expect the government shutdown to slowly drain the US economy, says Goldman Sachs. Now that the federal government has failed to successfully negotiate a funding bill, first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) will slip by 0.2 percentage points for each week the shutdown persists, according to Goldman.

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  The Government Shutdown Will Further Weaken Our Military

  The Daily Signal
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  There's a strong case to make that Trump is a big reason for the government shutdown

  Chicago Tribune

Delta is cracking down on people who use fake emotional-support animals to let their pets fly for free (DAL)

Delta Air Lines is adopting stricter regulations for people who travel with service animals or emotional-support animals. The airline says the new rules are in response to a rise in safety incidents involving untrained or improperly trained animals. The stricter standards are designed to prevent people from using the airline's allowance of emotional-support animals to let their pets fly for free.

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  Delta's New Emotional Support Animal Policy Will Make It Harder to Travel With Your Pet

  Fortune
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  Delta: Support and service animals are wreaking havoc in the sky

  Yahoo Finance Video

Venezuela's woes poised to hit U.S. oilfield service firms' earnings

Insufficient investment, payment delays to suppliers, and the sanctions imposed by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump have hammered Venezuela's oil industry and saw crude oil production fall 13 percent in 2017. On Friday, Schlumberger disclosed a $938 million write-down on its Venezuelan assets and receivables, citing political and economic woes affecting the country. Schlumberger and other suppliers accepted promissory notes or reclassified Venezuelan receivables in recent years as a way to manage debts from PDVSA [PDVSA.UL].

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  Schlumberger sees oil recovery broadening to international markets

  Houston Chronicle
• Schlumberger Rediscovers the American Dream

  Bloomberg

Video: Jim Cramer on IBM, American Express, Square, Visa and Mastercard

TheStreet's founder and Action Alerts PLUS Portfolio Manager Jim Cramer weighs in on Friday's trending topics including the potential government shutdown and IBM's (IBM) and American Express' (AXP) latest earnings. Cramer also comments on the stocks of Square (SQ) , Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) . Watch all of Jim Cramer's full NYSE live shows right here:

Ron Insana: What the U.S. dollar could suggest for the ec...

CNBC Contributor Ron Insana discusses whether a weak U.S. dollar could slow the market rally down.

Apple didn’t say it was hiring 20,000 new workers, nor bringing back all of its overseas cash

Apple Inc. announced a series of plans Wednesday that were celebrated as promises to hire thousands of workers and bring home all of its overseas cash. Well, not necessarily. Apple AAPL, -0.45%  said in its release that the company planned to “create over 20,000 new jobs through hiring at existing campuses and opening a new one.” The key word there is “create,” which Apple really likes to use when discussing jobs: The company even has a portion of its website dedicated to “job creation” that claims it is “responsible for 2 million jobs” in the United States, most of which are jobs “attributable to the App Store ecosystem.” Apple currently employs 84,000 people in the U.S., it said Wednesday,

Singapore Exchange to allow dual-class shares to boost listings

Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX) is to allow companies to list with dual-class shares, a move which aims to attract blockbuster tech listings and follows a similar action by its Hong Kong rival. SGX's move is designed to make it the go-to-place for potential initial public offerings of Southeast Asian start-ups, such as ride-hailing services Grab and GO-JEK, and online retailers Tokopedia and India's Flipkart, analysts said. It also fits with the Southeast Asian city-state's moves to provide funding and light-touch regulation, as it seeks to reinvent itself as a fintech and new technology hub.

Delta: Support and service animals are wreaking havoc in the sky

Service animals are meant to comfort their owners. In light of increased incidents on its aircrafts, Delta Air Lines announced new procedures and updated requirements for customers traveling with service and support animals. The company believes that some travelers have been trying (and succeeding in) to board flights pets under the guise of support animals.

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  Delta Air to tighten onboard emotional support animal requirements

  Yahoo Finance Video
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  Flying Delta With Support Animal? Have A Behavior Voucher Handy

  CBS Minnesota

Delaware sues opioid manufacturers, distributors over epidemic

The lawsuit, filed by Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn in a state court, targeted drugmakers Purdue Pharma LP and Endo International Plc along with several wholesale drug distributors and the retailers CVS Health Corp and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc . The lawsuit accused Purdue and Endo of engaging in a massive marketing campaign aimed at concealing the risks of using opioids to treat chronic pain in order to overcome a medical consensus that using the drugs for that purpose was unsafe.

Gilead Collaborates with Pfizer for Yescarta Combo Study

Gilead Sciences’ GILD subsidiary Kite announced that it has entered into a collaboration with Pfizer, Inc. PFE to evaluate a combination of its newly approved CAR-T therapy Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) and Pfizer's utomilumab, a 4-1BB agonist, for

Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson says stocks will handily bea...

The “Fast Money Halftime Report” traders discuss the volatile week for stocks with Tom Lee, Fundstrat, and Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley.

Comcast (CMCSA) Offers Wireless Internet Backup for SMBs

Comcast Corp. CMCSA plans to strengthen the services it offers to small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) leveraging on its wireless network. The largest cable MSO (multi service operator) is rolling out a new product -- Connection Pro -- which will enable SMBs to keep their businesses running in case of a power failure or loss of web connectivity. Connection Pro will enable Comcast’s business customers to automatically receive a 4G LTE cellular connection if there's a network or Internet disruption.

Top Analyst Reports for UnitedHealth, Amgen & United Technologies

Today's Research Daily features new research reports on 16 major stocks, including UnitedHealth (UNH), Amgen (AMGN) and United Technologies (UTX). Buy-rated UnitedHealth’s shares have outperformed the Zacks Medical Insurance industry in the last year (up +53.2% vs. +52.9%). The company’s fourth-quarter earnings beat expectations and grew year over year, led by higher revenues in both its segments and membership growth.

• Credit Suisse Group Analysts Give Clovis Oncology (CLVS) a $86.00 Price Target

  The Cerbat Gem
• BMO Capital Markets Boosts Monster Beverage (MNST) Price Target to $71.00

  The Cerbat Gem

IBM disappoints, Square gets some love, Overstock may have a suitor

Let’s check out the Yahoo Finance charts of the day: IBM (IBM): Shares are dropping in midday trading, by about 4%. IBM did report an earnings beat and its first revenue jump in 23 quarters, but it’s full-year profit guidance missed the mark. Square (

Gold up, dollar shaken by U.S. government shutdown fears

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Gold prices rose slightly on Friday as the U.S. dollar hovered near a three-year low on heightened fears of a U.S. government shutdown, but the precious metal was still on track for its first weekly drop in six weeks. The U.S. dollar fell versus a basket of currencies as the U.S. Senate raced to avert a government shutdown on Friday ahead of a midnight deadline with no agreement on funding in sight. Spot gold was up 0.5 percent at $1,334.58 per ounce at 2:06 p.m. EST (1906 GMT), on track for a weekly drop of 0.3 percent, after falling from Monday's four-month highs.

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  US stocks close higher as market sets latest record high

  Associated Press
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  Wall Street ends higher despite government shutdown threat

  Reuters

Twitter's Noto Is Said to Be Among Finalists as SoFi CEO

Anthony Noto, Twitter Inc.’s chief operating officer, is in talks with Social Finance Inc. to become the online lending company’s new chief executive officer.  San Francisco-based SoFi has been searching for a leader since September, when co-founder and CEO Mike Cagney departed amid turmoil at the firm. Noto has yet to accept an offer, and talks could still fall apart, according to people familiar with the matter. He is one of fewer than a handful of finalists for the role, with as many as two women and two men in the running, said the people, who asked not to be identified since the matter is private. SoFi declined to comment. Twitter spokeswoman Kristin Binns said, “As a policy, we don’t comment

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  SoFi in talks with top Twitter exec about CEO position: WSJ

  Reuters
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  Sources: Twitter COO Anthony Noto, who has led Twitter's push into live video, is in talks to become SoFi's new CEO, following Mike Cagney's departure

  Techmeme

What is Ripple?

Originally released in 2012 as a subsequent iteration of Ripplepay, Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS), currency exchange and remittance network. Using a common ledger that is managed by a network of independently validating servers that constantly compare transaction records, Ripple doesn't rely on the energy and computing intensive proof-of-work used by Bitcoin. The Ripple protocol (token represented as XRP) is meant to enable the near instant and direct transfer of money between two parties.

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  'Ethereum is here to stay' Cryptocurrency will mirror bitcoin warns expert

  Express.co.uk
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  How Cibus blockchain will influence the future of retail

  Medium