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Here's what you need to know today...

1. Home prices are falling.

2. Consumers are surprisingly confident about the state of the economy.

3. Financial regulators are cracking down on the crypto industry.

S&P 500: 3,971.271Mo: +1% | 1Yr: -14% | 5Yr: +52%

The market drifted sideways today without many major economic moves.

Despite the panic in the financial world, consumers a surprisingly confident about the economy. The Conference Board reported an unexpected uptick in its consumer confidence index in March. People feel like job opportunities are plentiful and expect to increase spending on more significant items like refrigerators and washing machines.

Home prices are falling. The rapid rise of mortgage rates over the past year has reduced the number of willing home buyers. S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller reported a 0.2% decline in national average home prices in January from December. Some cities like Miami are still soaring, but many areas are seeing prices fall.

Regulators are cracking down on crypto firms. In addition to recent warnings from the Securities and Exchange Commission to Coinbase, the largest US crypto platform, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a case against the world's largest crypto platform, Binance. Even regular banks and financial institutions are getting worried about their association with the assets.

Click to dig in & vote your reaction, see how others feel

• Dollar General named as a severe worker safety violator

• Chipotle pays for shutting a unionizing restaurant [🤓]

• Disney cuts its metaverse division and 7,000 workers

• Lyft's cofounders removed from control

• Carnival Cruise doesn't see a travel slowdown

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Labor union

A labor union is an organization of workers that band together to collectively bargain for improvements to their working conditions, wages, and benefits. Any industry can have a union. It starts by hosting some form of election in the workplace to acknowledge that the workers of that unit would like to unionize. Then, it expands to a more formalized agreement and negotiation process.

Employers can dissuade workers from unionizing, but it's illegal to impede, threaten, or coerce. That grey line in between is for the lawyers.