Even as home price growth has slowed, the housing boom during the first half of the 2020s means many owners are sitting on substantial equity — and they appear willing to use it.

Homeowners tapped an estimated $47 billion in equity — the difference between their mortgage balance and the property’s market value — during the first three months of 2026, according to a new report from Intercontinental Exchange, a financial markets technology and data company. While down from $49 billion in the final quarter of 2025, the figure marks the highest first-quarter withdrawal figure since 2021.

Home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, and home equity loans accounted for 54% of withdrawals in the quarter, and the remainder came from cash-out mortgage refinancing, the report shows. Nearly two-thirds of those second-lien borrowers have mortgages that were originated between 2020 and 2022, when average rates were in the 3% to 4% range.

“The housing market continues to be defined by the lock-in effect,” said Andy Walden, head of mortgage and housing market research at ICE, in the report.

“Millions of homeowners are sitting on first mortgages with rates well below current market levels, making second liens and HELOCs an attractive way to access equity without giving up those loans,” Walden said.

Rates on a standard 30-year fixed-rate mortgage currently are trending above 6.5%, according to Mortgage News Daily. After the low rates offered from 2020 through most of 2022, rates brushed 8% in October 2023 before trending downward.

The median price of an existing home in the U.S. was $429,300 in May, up 1.3% from $423,700 a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors. However, that figure is about 50.8% above the May 2020 median price of $284,600.

The upshot is that there’s an estimated $11 trillion in home equity available to borrowers, according to ICE. And, experts say, accessing it for extra cash can be tempting.

However, “home equity is not free money,” said certified financial planner Joon Um, a tax advisor with Secure Tax & Accounting in Beverly Hills, California.

“With borrowing costs still relatively high, homeowners should make sure the purpose of the loan is strong enough to justify the cost,” Um said.

In other words, the reason for tapping the equity should make sense from a financial standpoint, experts said.

For example, if the funds are used for repairs or upgrades, “then the money is being spent on capital improvements for your home, which might make sense,” said CFP George Gagliardi, founder and financial advisor with Coromandel Wealth Strategies in Lexington, Massachusetts.

“If it is for vacations or other discretionary expenses, ask…

Shares of exchange stocks are tumbling after the regulatory approval of perpetual futures for bitcoin ignited concerns that a new wave of trading products could pose an existential threat for Wall Street.

CME Group, known for its derivatives and futures trading platforms, dropped more than 3% in Tuesday’s session. The stock is down around 9% over the last two days and is poised to record its biggest weekly drop since 2020.

Cboe Global Markets, an exchange and derivatives network, plunged 8% in Tuesday trading. That brought its losses for this week to above 16%, also pacing for its largest weekly decline going back to 2020.

New York Stock Exchange parent Intercontinental Exchange slid more than 3% on Tuesday and is down 5% for the week. Nasdaq shares tumbled more than 6% in the session, dragging the stock into the red week to date.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission last week approved perpetual futures — a type of future-style contract with no expiration date — for bitcoin trading on Kalshi. This tool, known in short as “perps,” are popular among retail traders abroad.

Investors are worried that the CFTC could give the green light to other asset classes to trade via perpetual futures next. That could increase competition for the traditional exchanges that have long dominated on Wall Street.

The “concern is that perps could come to equity products, and potentially displace CME/CBOE S&P products,” Barclays analyst Ben Budish told clients in a Tuesday note.

An exceptionally hot read on inflation early Wednesday, the government’s Producer Price Index, or PPI, sent bond yields higher, and mortgage rates followed. Rates had already been surging higher earlier this week on news of more trouble in negotiations over the Iran war.

The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage rose Wednesday to 6.57%, according to Mortgage News Daily. It is now 15 basis points higher than it was last Friday, and it is sitting at the highest level since March, when falling rates reversed course due to the start of the war.

Wednesday’s increase was much smaller than the jump following another inflation report: the Consumer Price Index released Tuesday.

“PPI, in general, is not as big a deal as CPI,” explained Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily. “Bonds are also assuming a corrective drop after the war is over.”

The move comes just as the spring market, which stalled in March, was finally beginning to see new life. The National Association of Realtors said data from Sentrilock, which provides the lockboxes real estate agents use on for-sale properties, recorded home showings in April were up 8% year over year. All four regions of the country saw increases.

Some of the new demand is being driven by a cooling in home prices. They’re still higher than they were a year ago nationally, but not by much. And then there is supply.

“Inventory has not rebounded yet, we’re still 11-12% below where we should be,” said Andy Walden, head of mortgage and housing market research at ICE, a mortgage technology company.

Walden also noted the recent increase in interest rates, roughly 40 basis points higher than February. Mortgage rates, however, were closer to 7% at this time last year.

“If you look at what that means for buying power out there in the market, it’s down about 4% from where it was in February,” he said. “We’re more affordable than last year, but not as affordable as we were early this year.”

U.S. derivatives regulators are examining a handful of unusual oil futures trades that took place minutes before a surprise announcement by President Donald Trump signaling a pause in attacks on Iran, according to Bloomberg News.

The investigation is being spearheaded by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is scrutinizing activity on trading venues run by CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Both exchanges have been asked to turn over pertinent records.

Regulators are zeroing in on at least two instances over a roughly two-week period when trading volumes jumped sharply just ahead of key announcements. The information sought includes so-called Tag 50 identifiers, which can be used to determine who was behind the trades, the people said.

The CFTC and ICE declined to comment.

CME didn’t specifically comment on the unusual trades tied to Trump’s announcement, but the exchange said that any investigation should also include new platforms such as participants like prediction markets.

“Nothing is more important than market integrity,” a spokesperson at CME told CNBC. “We vigorously surveil our markets and work closely with the CFTC to oversee trading activity. Importantly, any review of market behavior must include all venues, including prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi that list related products with little to no visibility.”

CNBC previously reported on the suspicious activity on March 23 when S&P 500 e-mini futures and West Texas Intermediate May crude futures saw a sudden and isolated surge in volume in otherwise muted premarket trading.

About 15 minutes later, Trump said on Truth Social that the U.S. and Iran had held talks and that he was halting planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure. The announcement triggered an immediate reaction across markets, with S&P 500 futures jumping more than 2.5% ahead of the open, and WTI crude oil futures tumbling nearly 6%.

The sudden, simultaneous spikes in volume in stock index and crude futures raised eyebrows among traders, particularly as they came without any clear news or trigger at the time.

Last week, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., called on the CFTC to open investigations into such unusual trades, raising the question of whether there has been recurring misappropriation of material nonpublic government information.

— Click here to read the original Bloomberg News story.

U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., on Wednesday called for a federal probe into suspicious trading activity in oil and equity futures markets just before President Donald Trump‘s announcement of a five-day delay in attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure in March.

In a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig first obtained by CNBC, Torres cites reports on a series of irregular and well-timed trades in the minutes ahead of Trump calling a pause on hostilities.

“What kind of trader would make a massive trade at 6:49 a.m., 15 minutes before a market-moving presidential announcement with billions of dollars at stake and without a hedge?” Torres said in an interview Wednesday. “The only plausible answer to that question is an insider trader. Any other alternative is a statistical impossibility.”

More than $500 million in crude oil futures trades were made in the roughly 15 minutes before Trump announced the halt in strikes via Truth Social, Reuters reported last month. The New Yorker reported that in the immediate lead-up to Trump’s announcement, there was an abnormal surge in futures trading volume predicting a decline in oil prices and a rebound in equity markets.

Torres in his letter said the “occurrence may constitute one of the largest instances of insider trading in history” and called on the SEC to open a formal investigation and, in consultation with the CFTC, obtain comprehensive trading records.

A spokesperson for the SEC on Wednesday declined to comment. The CFTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The SEC tapped David Woodcock, a Gibson Dunn lawyer and former agency official, to be its next enforcement director, Reuters reported Wednesday.

“I have a lack of confidence in our market regulators,” Torres said in the interview. “But we have no choice but to agitate for accountability. We cannot allow the SEC and the CFTC to turn a blind eye to what may be the largest case of insider trading in history.”

This is the second time in several months that Torres — a member of the House Financial Services Committee — has raised the issue of potential insider trading around Trump administration actions.

Torres introduced legislation in January after an account on the prediction market platform Polymarket placed a well-timed bet in the hours leading up to the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, earning a $400,000 payout.

The legislation would bar federal elected officials, congressional staff, political appointees and executive branch officials from buying or selling event contracts based on government policy, action or political outcomes if they have material nonpublic information. It has 42 Democratic cosponsors but is unlikely to pass in the Republican-controlled…

A group of House Democrats pressed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in a letter sent late Monday on why the agency has not cracked down on bets placed on war and other government actions via offshore prediction markets.

The letter to CFTC Chair Michael Selig, obtained first by CNBC, questions the agency’s role in regulating prediction markets, which have surged in popularity of late and drawn the ire of a growing number of lawmakers.

“Recent high-profile instances of alleged insider trading on prediction market platforms relating to U.S. government actions — including the military’s intervention in Venezuela and our recent attack on Iran —have fueled concern that the CFTC does not have adequate control over these fast-growing markets,” wrote the group, led by Reps. Seth Moulton and Jim McGovern, both Massachusetts Democrats.

Well-timed bets on the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran have raised concerns about the possibility of insider trading. On popular prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, users can buy event contracts on things like who will win the NCAA men’s basketball national championship or how long the Department of Homeland Security shutdown will last.

Kalshi is based in the U.S. and says it bans controversial bets on topics like war and is regulated by the CFTC. Polymarket is an offshore company — though it is available in the U.S. on a limited basis — and has been the venue for some headline-grabbing event contracts. Both companies recently announced self-imposed guardrails to curb insider trading on their platforms.

But the House Democrats say more could be done to regulate even those offshore trades. The CFTC’s internal rules, as well as the Commodity Exchange Act allow the agency to regulate when “swap activities outside the United States have a direct and significant connection with activities in, or effect on, commerce of the United States,” the lawmakers wrote.

“These provisions make it clear that the CFTC has the authority to police insider trading in swaps markets and should apply its existing rule prohibiting bets relating to terrorism, assassinations, and war,” the group wrote.

The CFTC and Polymarket did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Democratic Reps. Gabe Amo of Rhode Island, Greg Casar of Texas, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Dina Titus of Nevada and Yassamin Ansari of Arizona also signed. They questioned why the agency had not so far taken any public action against such bets, and whether it feels it has the authority to regulate insider trading on prediction markets. And they asked if the CFTC had been made aware of “any conflicts of interest between major market participants and family members of Executive Branch officials, including the…

Polymarket removed a forum related to the rescue mission of U.S. military servicemembers amid political pressure, the latest sign of mounting scrutiny around prediction markets.

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., decried the Polymarket page that allowed users to bet on which day the U.S. would confirm the rescue of the two airmen after an American F-15E fighter jet was shot down over Iran. The lawmaker called the page “DISGUSTING” in an X post.

“They could be your neighbor, a friend, a family member,” Moulton wrote on Friday. “And people are betting on whether or not they’ll be saved.”

In a response on X, Polymarket said: “We took this market down immediately as it does not meet our integrity standards.”

“It should not have been posted, and we are investigating how this slipped through our internal safeguards,” Polymarket wrote.

In a separate X post, Polymarket said it doesn’t “make money or charge any fees on any geopolitical markets.”

U.S. and Iranian military forces are searching for a missing American airman after its F-15E fighter jet was shot down over Iran on Friday. One crew member has been rescued, but another is not accounted for.

Moulton last month banned his staff from using prediction market platforms like Polymarket or Kalshi, a policy that his office believes is the first of its kind in Congress.

“Constituents that we serve should trust us to make decisions based on the right thing for do for our nation, not based on how bets might turn out,” Moulton said Monday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Moulton also said on X that Donald Trump Jr., the son of President Donald Trump, “is an investor in this dystopian death market and may have access to intelligence that isn’t public yet.”

Requests for comment from Moulton and Trump Jr. weren’t immediately returned to CNBC.

The Massachusetts lawmaker is part of a growing chorus of voices in Washington calling for stronger oversight of these betting platforms as interest swells.

A group of congressional Democrats introduced legislation late last month that would bar prediction markets from allowing wagers on elections, war and government actions, in addition to sports.

In February, six Democratic senators urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to clarify that it will prohibit any contracts related to an individual’s death. These contracts “present dangerous national security risks,” the lawmakers wrote.

The CFTC on Thursday announced lawsuits against three states over what it saw as efforts to circumvent the organization’s sole regulatory authority over prediction markets.

The NFL has also asked prediction market operators to keep specific event contracts that the league deems “objectionable bets” off their platforms. The league outlined examples of event contracts that could be easily manipulated, inherently objectionable, related to officiating, and knowable in advance — and asked that operators refrain from offering such trades.

— CNBC’s Dan Mangan, Azhar Sukri and…

Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., demanded answers on potential insider trading in government in a letter sent Thursday to the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Defense inspector general.

The senators cited public reporting of “large positions in equities and equity-linked derivatives” being built up before major policy announcements, such as decisions related to the Iran war and President Donald Trump‘s tariffs agenda. And they suggested those instances indicate “federal officials are disclosing material nonpublic information for financial gain.”

“Recent reports of equity trading that occurred shortly before significant government policy announcements suggest that federal officials are disclosing material nonpublic information for financial gain,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins and Pentagon IG Platte Moring. “These actions undermine public interest and market integrity, and demand oversight by each of your respective authorities, as well as by Congress.”

The letter comes after a slew of reporting that positions have been built up ahead of major policy announcements, which could yield a large benefit afterward. Prediction markets have caught similar heat recently, and the Financial Times reported that a broker associated with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth looked to make a multimillion-dollar buy into a defense-related fund before the White House began the war against Iran.

Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Schiff said the “possibility that someone connected to the Secretary of Defense may have been attempting to trade on material non-public information is highly concerning, and presents serious implications for U.S. national security.”

They said the “appearance that material nonpublic information may be unevenly distributed in advance of government announcements risks undermining investor confidence and the integrity of U.S. capital markets.”

Warner and Schiff asked Atkins and Moring to answer a series of questions, including whether their agencies intend to review the trading activity; what tools their agencies use to detect suspicious trading; whether there are gaps in their agencies’ monitoring; and the safeguards and enforcement measures both agencies have to prevent the unauthorized dissemination of nonpublic information and to prevent federal officials from using nonpublic information for personal gain.

“At a time of heightened market sensitivity to policy developments, it is critical that all market participants operate on a level playing field,” they wrote.

The SEC declined to comment on the letter, and the Defense Department IG office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Managed future strategies are gaining renewed attention as investors look for new sources of returns from the market at a time when both stocks and bonds are under pressure as a result of the U.S.-Iran war and the risk of 1970s-style stagflation.

These strategies, which are typically run by commodity trading advisors, use systematic models to trade future contracts across different asset classes. Rather than focus on short-term market moves in traditional asset classes, they aim to capture broader trends that unfold over months. The ability to adapt to changing market conditions, and their performance back in 2022, has made managed futures funds increasingly relevant in 2026.

In 2022, when the S&P 500 Index fell around 18% and the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index was down about 13%, managed future strategies were up 20%.

“That’s meaningful outperformance in an environment when stocks and bonds are under pressure,” Nate Geraci, NovaDius president, said on CNBC’s “ETF Edge” earlier this week.

Andrew Beer, managing member at DBi, which manages the largest managed futures ETF, the iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF (DBMF), said on “ETF Edge” that the uncertainty around inflation and interest rates, and the volatile geopolitical backdrop, are a good match for the managed futures approach, which can take long or short positions and have the flexibility to respond to different trends across the markets.

Managed futures ETFs remain a relatively small category, collectively holding around $6.5 billion in assets, according to ETFAction.com. Within that space, the iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy ETF has attracted about $1 billion in flows this year.

The use of the managed futures approach with ETFs allows more investors to access a strategy that been associated with the world of hedge funds historically, but in a more liquid and transparent structure.

“We’re leveraging the work of largest hedge funds, and trying to be more efficient, pick up what they are doing,” Beer said. “We thrive with changes over 3, 6, 9, 12 months, not Monday to Thursday,” he said.

“Certainly, the [ETF] industry is going to be launching additional managed futures products along with other hedge funds strategies,” Geraci said during the podcast portion of “ETF Edge.”

Geraci said one clear signal that this approach is likely to see more interest from retail investors is three of the biggest asset managers getting into the space with their own branded managed futures ETFs: BlackRock, Invesco and Fidelity Investments.

“They all entered the market in the past year and that is a sign of real investor demand going forward,” Geraci said. “The interest is there, especially given the backdrop of this market environment,” he added.

Still, managed future ETFs remain more complex than regular stock and bond investments, and investors need to understand that while their performance…

A group of congressional Democrats on Thursday introduced legislation that would ban prediction market bets on elections, government actions, war and sports, as scrutiny on the popular platforms intensifies.

Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., are leading the measure, which comes after a series of well-timed bets placed on world events — including the ousting of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the war in Iran — raised questions about prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.

“When anyone can use prediction markets to make a well-timed bet on Congress passing a bill, government decisions, or a military strike, it’s ripe for corruption and erodes public trust,” Merkley said in a statement. “The STOP Corrupt Bets Act restores the original intent of prediction markets and prevents these markets from further eroding our democratic institutions and turning them into a casino.”

The bill, which would impose broader limitations on the markets than most other legislative measures, is the latest in a flurry of proposals to rein-in prediction markets, which have exploded in popularity of late and allow users to place bets on a variety of events.

Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and John Curtis, R-Utah, have teamed up on a measure to ban sports prediction market contracts, which they argue is tantamount to gambling and goes virtually unregulated.

Kalshi criticized Schiff and Curtis’ proposal in a statement to CNBC on Wednesday, saying, “It’s clear this bill is motivated by casino interests that are threatened by competition. They’re more worried about protecting their monopolies than protecting consumers.”

A bipartisan House group on Wednesday introduced legislation barring members of Congress, the president and other executive branch officials from trading in certain prediction markets. Merkley earlier this month, along with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced his own proposal that would similarly block elected officials from getting rich off prediction markets.

As lawmakers turn up the heat, Kalshi and Polymarket both announced new insider trading protections on their platforms this week. Kalshi says it does not allow markets related to war or death.

Spokespeople for both prediction markets did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday morning.

In addition to an outright prohibition on specific prediction market activity, Merkley, Warren and Raskin’s latest proposal would clarify that these markets are against the intent of federal law that regulates contract trading and would return the power of regulating gambling to the states, according to Merkley.

At least 20 lawsuits have been filed by states and gaming regulators arguing that prediction…