Market Performance: February 21, 2024.

US stocks rallied late in the day on Wednesday as investors counted down to high-stakes earnings from AI darling Nvidia (NVDA) and digested the release of Federal Reserve minutes which reiterated the central bank's focus on not cutting interest rates too soon.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose more than 0.1%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) popped about 0.1%, or almost 50 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) led the way lower, down 0.3% on the heels of Tuesday's declines.

Stocks are lagging, with the focus fixed on looming results from Nvidia, whose shares fell almost 3% on Tuesday for their worst day since Oct. 17 as investors positioned for the release.

How can I budget my money with online banking?

Knowledge is power, and online banking provides up-to-the-minute information about the status of our bank accounts. But does the ready access to knowledge about our financial situation make any difference to our spending habits? Does seeing monthly expenditures online help us to save for our long-term financial goals? Or is the information discarded just as quickly as a paper bank statement?

With just a little bit of effort, online banking can help with setting up a budget and sticking to one. There are many programs that allow you to export your account information (have no fear -- there are safety measures in place) for the purposes of creating a budget.

Let's talk briefly about how Mint, which is free, works: Once the site has access to your accounts, it evaluates how you spend your money and creates a budget based on this activity. You can modify the budget as you see fit, even accounting for highly personal situations, such as irregular income or sporadically spaced tuition payments.

Once you've established your budget, Mint tracks every financial transaction against it, so with just a quick glance, you'll know that you're 35 percent over your monthly clothing allowance or that you still have $50 left in your grocery budget for the month. Such accounting will keep you brutally honest with yourself, money-wise -- it will be hard to claim that you can't meet your financial goals when confronted with how much your Starbucks habit is costing you.

Do you keep intending to beef up your savings account, yet always manage to forget to make your budgeted deposit?

Are high-yield savings accounts worth it?

For those used to savings accounts that pay pennies in interest, the promises of high-yield savings accounts are tempting.

While traditional savings accounts average about 0.4% annual percentage yield (APY), some high-yield accounts offer interest rates ranging from 4% to 6% APY.

“Savers have been punished for a long time,” said Erik Krom, president of Clear Creek Advisors in Denver and a certified financial planner. “Anytime you wanted money safe, you really weren't making anything. Now it's finally a time where, who knows how long but for now, you can still do that.”

We asked Krom to break down the pros and cons of these accounts, which have gotten a lot of hype online in recent years as inflation drove the Federal Reserve Board to raise interest rates.

“We felt inflation come hard,” Krom said. “And we're dealing with the negative impacts of that, from an expense standpoint. One of the silver linings is that we can now make some money on our safe investments.”

Krom says high-yield accounts don’t differ much from traditional savings accounts. They offer the same level of liquidity – meaning your money is available to you at all times – unlike bonds and certificates of deposit, which can tie up cash for a short period in order to get the return.

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