The World Cup is helping to boost consumer spending around the U.S. in June, with host cities seeing notable gains, according to new data from Bank of America.

The Bank of America Institute found that consumer spending using credit and debit cards rose 6.3% from a year ago in June – which was the strongest growth in over four years – based on internal card data from the bank. That growth was largely driven by discretionary spending amid the decline in gas prices, as total card spending was up 5.6% when excluding gasoline.

The firm’s analysis noted that the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026 on June 11 helped lift consumer spending for the month compared to the preceding period.

“The World Cup scored big for consumer spending in June,” Joe Wadford, an economist at the Bank of America Institute, told FOX Business. “Bank of America card spending showed healthy improvement toward the end of the month, due in part to a lift from the World Cup.”

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England fans celebrate a goal during the match with DR Congo at an Atlanta bar. (James Manning/PA Images via Getty Images)

In looking at card spending since the tournament began, the Bank of America Institute data shows higher consumer spending, particularly at restaurants and bars, which may be attributed to the World Cup. Some of the gains are likely due to online promotions near the end of June, but occurred in July last year, and thus boosted the year-over-year comparison, the firm noted.

The analysis compared brick-and-mortar spending in World Cup host cities based on zip codes with spending in other parts of the U.S., finding that some of the surge has been concentrated in communities where games are being played. Restaurants saw consumer spending rise by two percentage points in host cities, while it was flat in all other cities in that period.

“World Cup host cities saw a significant increase in brick and mortar spending, especially compared to the rest of the U.S.,” Wadford said.

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Fans at a New York bar react to a goal in the match between France and Morocco. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Retail data that excluded restaurants also showed a gain for stores in host cities after the World Cup began, whereas non-restaurant retailers everywhere else saw slower spending growth once the tournament began.

“From packed stadiums to busy restaurants, the World Cup created a tailwind for the economy. But two of the main beneficiaries of the World Cup were local retailers and restaurants,” Wadford said.

“To me, this is a particularly positive story, as it suggests that a major portion of World Cup-generated spending stayed in the community.”

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Scotland fans in the famed Tartan Army at a bar in Miami. (Ryan McDougall/PA Images via Getty Images)

The Bank of America Institute analysis also looked at the same internal card data by income level, finding that lower-income households in particular increased spending at local brick-and-mortar businesses in host cities, while higher-income households eased their spending slightly.

Additionally, all income groups boosted their spending at brick-and-mortar restaurants when comparing the pre-World Cup period to the timeframe after it began.

“Positively, lower-income households provided the biggest boost to World Cup spending. Some of this is due to the fact that younger households skew lower income, and they were likely the main ones going out to celebrate this generational event,” Wadford explained.

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“But some of the boost is due to this broader story of an improving economy for lower-income households. For example, we’re seeing a stronger labor market and higher wage growth, which in turn is helping to boost spending for lower-income families,” he added.

Romeo Maione
6ix

Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where in the world you’re signing in from today. I think almost all time zones are represented in our fairly large audience. So I appreciate everybody for joining me. I’m pretty excited. I’ve got a pretty elite panel with me today to discuss the never-ending drama of metals prices, how they impact mining securities.

So I’ve got J.T. Starzecki, Executive Chairman of Guardian Metal Resources; Vincent Metcalfe, President and CEO of Pecoy Copper. I’ve got Shawn Khunkhun, President of Contango Silver & Gold; and Christian Aramayo, COO of Kuya Silver.

We’ve got a lot of metals represented today, should be a very good conversation. So here’s how today is going to work. It’s kind of a loose structure for a conversation to get to the bottom of metals prices, but I’ll also give each company an opportunity to speak to their projects. Now that being said, I don’t think we’re going to have time today for questions about individual securities. So I’ll just note everybody in the chat, you can feel free to ask questions, and I will pass them through to the teams afterwards. But it’s likely we won’t actually cover them during today’s event, just for your reference. But if there is a commentary in the chat that does speak to the conversation we’re having, I’ll try and work it in where I can. And so we’ll be able to incorporate some of that commentary as much as possible.

Saturday’s Wordle puzzle sent players guessing through a word with several unrelated everyday meanings, tripping up some solvers who initially leaned toward livestock-related terms before landing on the correct answer. The solution to Wordle #1,855 for July 18, 2026, is BOOTH.

The word functions as a concrete noun describing a small, enclosed or semi-enclosed space designed for a specific purpose, and it carries several distinct meanings depending on context. A voting booth offers privacy for casting a ballot, a restaurant booth refers to a seating arrangement with high-backed benches, and a telephone booth, a glass-and-steel enclosure once common on city streets before the smartphone era, has largely become a relic of the past. The word also serves as a well-known surname, most notably belonging to John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865.

Structurally, BOOTH features two vowels and three consonants, with one repeated letter: the double “O” that sits in the second and third positions of the word. Puzzle trackers noted that the word begins with the letter B, a relatively uncommon starting letter within the broader pool of Wordle answers, a detail that helped narrow the field of viable guesses for players paying close attention to letter frequency.

Hint sites offered a graduated series of clues throughout the day for players seeking assistance without having the answer spoiled outright. Early hints described the word as referring to a small enclosed area or space designed for a specific purpose, something a person might encounter at restaurants, events, fairs or voting locations, often providing separation or privacy from the surrounding area. Later hints noted the word could describe either a temporary shelter for livestock or an enclosure for privacy, a detail some outlets flagged as intentionally broad to avoid giving away the answer too directly. A final round of clues pointed to the word’s connection to Lincoln’s assassin as the most specific hint offered before the full answer was revealed.

Several puzzle trackers flagged specific false trails that players should watch out for when solving a word like BOOTH, given its double-letter structure. Words such as BOOTS, BOONS and BOOZE were cited as plausible near-misses that share the same opening letters and vowel pattern, potentially leading solvers astray in the middle rounds of guessing before the correct word became clear. The doubled “O” in particular was noted as a common trap in Wordle, since players who confirm one instance of a letter sometimes rule out the possibility of that letter appearing again elsewhere in the word, a habit that can slow down solvers when a puzzle features repeated letters, as has also been the case with past Wordle answers like SHEEP and BLOOM.

According to the New York Times’ WordleBot, which tracks daily performance statistics, detailed completion data for Saturday’s puzzle was still being compiled as of publication, following a pattern in which the previous day’s puzzle, Wordle #1,854 and its answer LEGAL, saw players average roughly 4.0 guesses in easy mode and 3.9 in hard mode, according to WordleBot’s tracking. That reflected a moderately challenging solve for Friday’s law-related word, which also featured a repeated letter in its own double “L” structure.

Wordle, the daily five-letter word-guessing game, was originally developed by software engineer Josh Wardle before its public release in 2021. The game’s simple format, a single new puzzle released once each day worldwide alongside a built-in system for sharing color-coded results without spoiling the answer for others, helped fuel its rapid rise in popularity following its debut. The New York Times acquired the game in early 2022 and has continued publishing a new puzzle daily ever since, with Wordle now standing as one of the paper’s most widely played digital features alongside its Connections, Strands and traditional Crossword puzzles.

Puzzle strategists offered several general tips applicable beyond Saturday’s specific solution. Players are commonly advised to use an opening guess capable of testing several commonly used vowels and consonants at once, helping narrow down which letters belong in the final word before committing to more targeted guesses in later rounds. Solvers are also encouraged to remain open to the possibility of repeated letters rather than assuming every letter in the answer is unique, particularly once several rounds of guessing with distinct letters have failed to produce a solution. For players down to their final two guesses, hint sites recommended prioritizing words that fit all previously confirmed letter placements and exclusions over riskier guesses aimed purely at eliminating additional letters, a strategy generally better suited to earlier rounds of the game when more attempts remain available.

Saturday’s puzzle continued a stretch of varied Wordle solutions throughout the week, following Friday’s LEGAL and Thursday’s BUTTE, a geological term describing an isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top that similarly tripped up players who initially guessed the more common landform term MESA. The run of specialized vocabulary across recent days, spanning law, geology and now a multi-purpose noun tied to voting, dining and a notable historical figure, reflected the broad range of subject matter the puzzle draws from in selecting its daily answers.

Alongside Wordle, the Times also published its daily Spelling Bee puzzle for the previous day, July 17, with a center letter of U and a pangram of ALBUMEN, along with the independently operated word-association game Contexto, whose July 17 answer was ICON, according to puzzle trackers monitoring related word games.

For players who came up short on Saturday’s puzzle, hint sites emphasized that a single missed day need not disrupt a broader Wordle habit, encouraging solvers to return the following day for puzzle #1,856. Wordle’s daily reset occurs at midnight in each player’s local time zone, meaning the puzzle refreshes independently around the world rather than at a single fixed global moment, continuing the game’s now-familiar rhythm of one shared puzzle experienced individually across time zones by millions of solvers each day.

Saturday’s edition of The New York Times’ Connections puzzle sent players dribbling through basketball terminology, personal convictions, video game mechanics and a tricky wordplay category built around the word “pop,” offering a moderately challenging board that the game’s own difficulty tracker, Connections Bot, rated 4 out of 5.

Connections challenges players to sort 16 words or phrases into four hidden groups of four, with each group tied to a shared theme. The categories are ranked by difficulty and color-coded accordingly, running from yellow for the most straightforward group to purple for the trickiest, which frequently leans on wordplay, hidden patterns or double meanings. Players are allowed four total mistakes before the puzzle ends, and the daily game, one of the Times’ most popular offerings alongside Wordle, continues to draw a large and devoted following since its 2023 launch.

Saturday’s yellow group, the day’s easiest category, centered on ways to commit a basketball violation: CARRY, DOUBLE DRIBBLE, GOALTEND and TRAVEL. Each term describes a distinct rule infraction in basketball, ranging from illegally palming the ball while dribbling to interfering with a shot on its way toward the basket. Puzzle commentators noted the category was likely to resonate quickly with sports fans, given how commonly these terms are used in broadcasts and casual conversation about the game.

The green group asked players to identify words meaning belief: ATTITUDE, MIND, OPINION and VIEW. Each word can function as a way of describing a person’s outlook or stance on a given topic, though several solvers reported initial confusion over this category, mistaking it for a grouping tied to components of formal debate rather than personal conviction more broadly. That ambiguity reflects a recurring challenge in Connections puzzles, where words carrying multiple plausible meanings can pull players toward incorrect early guesses before the intended theme becomes clear.

Moving into the blue category, the puzzle’s third-hardest group, Saturday’s theme centered on elements commonly tracked during video game play: HEALTH, LIVES, SCORE and TIME. Each of these represents a standard piece of on-screen information players monitor throughout a gaming session, whether tracking remaining health points, extra lives, an accumulating score total, or a countdown clock. Commentators described the category as likely to appeal strongly to gamers, given how universally these tracked elements appear across countless video game genres and eras.

The purple group, traditionally the most difficult and prone to misdirection, asked players to identify words that could each follow the word “pop”: CULTURE, FLY, QUIZ and TART. Adding “pop” in front of each word produces a commonly recognized term or phrase: pop culture, popfly, pop quiz and pop tart. One player detailed their own path through the category in published commentary, describing initial uncertainty over whether “fly” referred to a zip fly on clothing before ultimately recognizing it as a baseball term describing a high, arcing hit, more precisely known as a “pop fly.” That same player noted mistakenly selecting “score” for the purple category instead of “fly,” an error attributed to the word’s plausible fit within the video-game-tracking theme of the blue group, illustrating how the puzzle’s categories are often deliberately constructed to create this kind of overlap and confusion.

Puzzle trackers following Saturday’s board noted several intentional red herrings built into the grid, designed to nudge solvers toward incorrect groupings before the true categories became apparent. Words tied to personal conviction, competitive statistics and multi-meaning phrases have each proven to be recurring sources of confusion in past Connections puzzles, and Saturday’s board leaned into that pattern while adding its own twist through the “pop” wordplay in the purple category.

For players working through the puzzle without hints, general strategy guidance suggests beginning with the most straightforward, tightly defined categories, such as Saturday’s basketball-violation yellow group or its belief-based green group, before moving on to categories requiring lateral thinking or wordplay recognition. Players are also encouraged to watch for words that plausibly fit more than one category, a hallmark of Connections’ design that becomes especially relevant once the two easier groups have already been solved, narrowing the remaining pool of words but often increasing the risk of confusing a blue-category term for a purple one, or vice versa. The game’s “one away” feature, which alerts players when three of their four selected words belong to the same group, can also serve as a useful tool for refining guesses without immediately triggering a mistake.

Saturday’s puzzle continued a run of thematically varied boards throughout the week, following Friday’s grid, which grouped words meaning a grand finale, items commonly seen in an arcade, sets containing four related items, and words ending in hidden car parts. Connections has built a devoted daily following since its 2023 debut by combining accessible mechanics with puzzles that consistently reward pattern recognition and careful reading over quick guessing, a formula that has helped the game rival Wordle in daily engagement even as it demands a different style of reasoning from players.

The complete answers for Saturday, July 18, puzzle number 1,133, are as follows: the yellow group, tied to ways of committing a basketball violation, includes CARRY, DOUBLE DRIBBLE, GOALTEND and TRAVEL; the green group, centered on words meaning belief, includes ATTITUDE, MIND, OPINION and VIEW; the blue group, built around elements tracked in video games, includes HEALTH, LIVES, SCORE and TIME; and the purple group, built around words that follow “pop,” includes CULTURE, FLY, QUIZ and TART.

Connections is available daily alongside the Times’ broader puzzle lineup, including Wordle, Strands, the traditional Crossword, Letter Boxed and Sudoku, with a new Connections board set to go live at midnight local time for players looking to keep their streaks intact heading into Sunday.

Over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin gained 1.77%, while Ethereum rose 0.93% to trade at $1,843. Among major altcoins, BNB, XRP, Solana, Hyperliquid, Dogecoin, and Cardano advanced up to 4.81%.

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Piyush Walke, Derivatives Research Analyst, Delta Exchange, said a broad risk-off sentiment pushed Bitcoin below $63K as the AI-driven selloff spread from equities to cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin briefly dropped to $62.5K before recovering to around $64K. However, the rebound lacked strength, with the price failing to form higher highs and slipping back below the 50-day moving average, keeping the broader downtrend intact.

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Meanwhile, Bitcoin spot ETFs are on track for modest outflows this week after ending an eight-week streak of heavy outflows last week, Walke further said.
In the past week, Bitcoin was down 0.25% whereas Ethereum was up 2.47%. Among the major altcoins, BNB, XRP, Solana, Tron, Hyperliquid and Cardano fell upto 10.59%.Nischal Shetty, Founder, WazirX said crypto markets experienced a volatile but constructive week, with macroeconomic developments continuing to drive sentiment. Early weakness, triggered by rising geopolitical tensions and higher oil prices, pushed.

“Bitcoin briefly below $62,500 as investors adopted a risk-off approach. However, softer-than-expected U.S. inflation data later in the week eased concerns around further interest rate hikes, helping both Bitcoin and Ethereum recover.”

Despite renewed optimism, markets remain cautious as investors await further clarity on U.S. regulation and upcoming macroeconomic signals, Shetty further said.

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Market perspective

Harish Vatnani, Head of Trade, ZebPay

Bitcoin broke resistance of $64,200 and hit $65,600. Fresh geopolitical tensions and US market sell off triggered profit booking. Ethereum hit a fresh high of $1,946 levels and seen some profit booking in line with the US market sell off. The daily RSI maintained above the 50 marks, reflecting bullish momentum.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

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