By Sandra Block From Kiplinger’s Personal Finance When is a sale not a sale? Most of the time, according to Consumers’ Checkbook, a nonprofit consumer organization. After tracking prices at 25 major retailers over 33 weeks, Consumers’ Checkbook concluded that the same “sale price” was offered more than half the time. Worse, some retailers’ sale…

Walmart Inc. nudged up its annual profit forecast on Tuesday, partly reversing a hefty cut less than a month ago, as discounts to clear excess merchandise and lower fuel prices helped it beat expectations for quarterly sales. The stock, which has fallen over 8 percent this year, rose 3.7 percent in premarket trading. Shares of…

In the travel industry — and the marketplace, generally — some discounts depend on who or what you are rather than what or where you buy. Over the years, age-based status discounts have perhaps been the most common, but you find others as well. In researching an old rail timetable, for example, I once noticed…

Directors at three regional Federal Reserve banks voted in January to increase the interest rate charged to commercial banks for emergency loans by a quarter of a percentage point, minutes of their discount rate meetings showed on Tuesday. The rate-hike recommendations—from directors of the Cleveland, St. Louis, and Kansas City Feds—were overruled two weeks later…

Walt Disney Co. said on Monday it was offering a month of Disney+ for $1.99 for a limited period, as the entertainment giant seeks to stem a slowdown in paid user growth at its streaming service. The promotion will begin on Nov. 8 and will be valid for a week through Nov. 14 for new…