TheStreet’s Conway Gittens brings you the biggest news of the day, including what investors are watching and why fraud among those 60 and over is so prevalent.
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00:00I'm Conway Gittins reporting from the New York Stock Exchange.
00:02Here's what we're watching on the street today.
00:05Wall Street is on edge over the escalation
00:08of military tensions between Ukraine and Russia.
00:11Those worries are overshadowing good news at home.
00:14Walmart, the world's largest retailer,
00:16topped quarterly forecasts and boosted its annual guidance
00:19as shopping remained healthy.
00:22It was a similar story at do-it-yourself retailer Lowe's.
00:25Turning to other business headlines,
00:27online scammers are preying on wealthier, older Americans
00:31at an alarming rate.
00:32The number of Americans aged 60 and above
00:35who have been scammed out of $100,000 or more in one year
00:40tripled from 2020 to 2023.
00:43According to complaints compiled
00:45by the Federal Trade Commission,
00:46that age group had more than $1.9 billion
00:50stolen by fraud in 2023.
00:52That figure, however, likely surges
00:55to an estimated $62 billion once the FTC considers
01:00how many cases go unreported.
01:02Most of the scams are familiar,
01:05but vulnerable elderly members of the population
01:07still fall for them, including romantic propositions,
01:11emails for help from criminals posing
01:13as family members or friends,
01:15sweepstakes and lottery scams,
01:17and fraudsters are even posing as legitimate agents
01:21of the Social Security Administration.
01:23The 60 plus crowd is also particularly falling prey
01:26to investment scams involving cryptocurrencies.
01:29This is the fastest growing area for scammers.
01:33Older Americans were defrauded of $538 million in 2023,
01:38which was a 34% increase from the previous year.
01:42But it's not just the old.
01:44According to the FTC, US consumers lost $10 billion
01:48to all scams last year.
01:51That's a record high.
01:53That'll do it for your daily briefing
01:55from the New York Stock Exchange.
01:56I'm Conway Gittens with The Street.