What the experts say

Crypto bros feed luxury-watch mania

The surge in crypto has yielded another, secondary, frenzy for luxury watches, said Andrea Felsted in Bloomberg. “The prices at which watches change hands in the secondary market has moved broadly in line” with the price of Bitcoin over the past five years. And with Bitcoin back up at record highs, the Rolex market has seen a resurgence, too. Newly wealthy “crypto bros” like to “treat themselves,” and their first choice “is likely to be a watch.” The 2021 crypto rally also “presaged a bubble in secondhand watch prices,” but the circumstance may have been unique, as we were still in the midst of the pandemic. “With so much time on their hands, enthusiasts became enthralled with watches.”

IRS free filing software disappoints

The IRS last week rolled out its new free taxfiling program, but it “can’t compete with TurboTax,” said Dylan Matthews in Vox. I have just a W2 and a couple of 1099s and still couldn’t submit my taxes through Direct File, the agency’s new software. “Taxpayers who itemize deductions won’t be able to do that in the software,” nor will “anyone with dividend, capital gains, self-employment, or non–Social Security pension income.” Users can only claim “the three most-used tax credits—the earned-income tax credit, the child tax credit, and the credit for other dependents.” The Direct File pilot is available in 12 states, but even in those its limitations mean only one-third of taxpayers can use it. I prefer another free option, Cash App Taxes, which can handle business income and “complex expensing options,” and trying the IRS program made me wonder why the government’s software couldn’t be better.

Buyers see few mortgage discounts

Few of the strategies homebuyers have traditionally used to cut their mortgage rates are working, said Ben Eisen in The Wall Street Journal. “One of the most common ways to lower your rate is to pay a bit extra to the mortgage lender at the start,” or so-called discount points. These days, though, points “no longer move the needle,” and won’t push the rate down much below 7 percent. So too with adjustable-rate mortgages. “The initial rate on ARMs has historically been far lower than that for traditional loans,” but that’s no longer the case. One thing that does work: shopping around and taking the quotes to multiple lenders, since lenders will sometimes “lower their rates to win your business.”