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Six moves you’re making that can ruin your credit score

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One of the most important lessons regarding your finances to understand is to preserve and protect your credit score, as it can affect many directions and decisions throughout your life.

“Your credit score is one of the most important numbers in your financial life; it goes a long way toward determining whether or not you’ll be approved for loans and lines of credit, along with the interest rates you’ll pay,” Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.com told FOX Business.

In addition to a credit score being considered to qualify you for mortgages and car loans, Rossman explained that your credit can be checked for other reasons, including apartment rentals and utility and cell phone providers when you open a new account.

“If you have a low credit score, you might be denied or a larger security deposit might be required,” he said.

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With all this on the line, protecting your score should be a top priority. Even those with favorable credit scores and those who practice sound money habits can sometimes make foolish choices regarding their credit scores. To put you in a better position to not make these foolish choices, read more about what you shouldn’t do. 

Here are six foolish flubs that could sink your credit score

Co-signing a loan

Rossman said co-signing a loan is “potentially a very big mistake” as people don’t realize this is a sizable legal commitment.

“You’re on the hook to pay that money back if the other borrower doesn’t,” he said. “Your funds and credit score are on the line.  You’re not just vouching for someone or giving them a reference. You’re legally responsible for that loan, and it should show up on your credit reports just like the primary borrower.”

A man works from home on his laptop.

A man works from home on his laptop. (iStock / iStock)

Applying for too much credit in too short a time span

If you’re opening a bunch of new credit cards, this could backfire.

“In general, it’s suggested to apply for credit no more than every six months or so and this is all types of credit combined,” said Rossman. “If you get rejected for a credit card and then try again quickly, you might have two rejections and two hard inquiries which negatively affect your credit score and no new card to show for it.”

Not staying on top of your statement due dates

Set up alerts to make sure you’re paying your credit card statements on time.

“Our time and energy are pulled in a million directions every day, which makes it easy to accidentally miss a credit card payment due date,” said Sara Rathner, credit cards expert at NerdWallet. “If you’re more than 30 days late, your credit score could drop by a substantial amount.”

Visa Credit Cards

Visa Inc. credit and debit cards are arranged for a photograph in Washington, D.C., on April 22, 2019. (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

To prevent this, Rathner suggested logging into your account and set up text or email alerts so you know when the next due date is approaching.

“You can also set up autopay so you can take that task off your plate entirely,” she suggested.

Not paying all your obligations in a timely fashion

Credit card and loan payments aren’t the only things that can affect your credit, said Rathner.

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“Utility bills, rent and other monthly payments can be reported to credit bureaus. Set up calendar reminders for those due dates so you don’t miss payments,” she added.

Failing to monitor your credit

Get into the habit of glancing at credit reports and bank statements so you can report fraudulent activity ASAP, she said.

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“Signs of identity theft can be as subtle as an unexpected small charge, or as glaring as an unfamiliar account opened in your name,” said Rathner.

A woman holds credit cards.

Get into the habit of glancing at credit reports and bank statements so you can report fraudulent activity ASAP. (iStock / iStock)

Spending to get rewards when you have debt

Chasing rewards can be a slippery slope, particularly if you have debt.

“The interest you’re paying on that debt can wipe out the value of any rewards you’d earn in just a few months,” said Rathner.

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She recommended that instead of running after points that are worth a penny each, look into lowering your interest rate with a balance transfer card or personal loan.

“Then, pay that debt down as aggressively as you can to save hundreds on interest,” she said.

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Treasury Secretary Bessent says market woes are more about tech stock sell-off than Trump’s tariffs

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters outside the West Wing after doing a television interview on the North Lawn of the White House on March 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. 

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the sell-off in the stock market is due more to a sharp pullback in the biggest technology stocks instead of the protectionist policies coming from the Trump administration.

“I’m trying to be Secretary of Treasury, not a market commentator. What I would point out is that especially the Nasdaq peaked on DeepSeek day so that’s a Mag 7 problem, not a MAGA problem,” Bessent said on Bloomberg TV Wednesday evening.

Bessent was referring to Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, whose new language models sparked a rout in U.S. technology stocks in late January. The emergence of DeepSeek’s highly competitive and potentially much cheaper models stoked doubts about the billions that the big U.S. tech companies are spending on AI.

The so-called Magnificent 7 stocks — Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Nvidia — started selling off drastically, pulling the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite into correction territory. The tech-heavy benchmark is down about 13% from its record high reached on December 16.

However, the secretary downplayed the impact from President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs, which caught many investors off guard and fueled fears of a re-acceleration in inflation, slower economic growth and even a recession. Many investors have blamed the tariff rollout for driving the S&P 500 briefly into correction territory from its record reached in late February. Wall Street defines a correction as a drop of 10% from a recent high.

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S&P 500, YTD

Trump signed an aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy at the White House Wednesday evening, slapping duties of at least 10% and even higher for some countries. The actions sparked a huge sell-off in the stock market overnight, with the S&P 500 futures declining nearly 4% and the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average shedding 1,100 points. The losses will likely but the S&P 500 back into correction territory in Thursday’s session.

“It’s going to be fine if we put the best economic conditions in place,” Bessent said in a separate interview on Fox Wednesday evening. “If you go back and look, the stock market actually peaked on the [DeepSeek] Chinese AI announcement. So a lot of what we have seen has been just an idiosyncratic tech sell-off.”

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Conservative cable channel Newsmax shares plunge more than 70% after a dizzying 2-day surge

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A Newsmax booth broadcasts as attendees try out the guns on display at the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual convention in Houston, Texas, U.S. May 29, 2022. 

Callaghan O’hare | Reuters

Shares of conservative news channel Newsmax plunged more than 70% on Wednesday as its meteoric rise as a new public company proved to be short-lived.

The stock tumbled a whopping 72% in afternoon trading, following a 2,230% surge in Newsmax’s first two days of trading after debuting on the New York Stock Exchange. At one point, the rally gave the company a market capitalization of nearly $30 billion — surpassing the market cap of legacy media companies like Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp.

Newsmax was listed on the NYSE via a so-called Regulation A offering, instead of a traditional IPO. Such an offering allows small companies to raise capital without undergoing the full SEC registration process. The primary focus is to sell to retail investors, in this case It was sold to approximately 30,000 retail investors. 

The public offering indeed garnered the attention from retail traders, some of whom touted the stock as the “New GME” in online chatrooms. GME refers to the meme stock GameStop, which made Wall Street history in 2021 by its speculative trading boom.

Newsmax has a small “float,” or shares available for trading. Less than 6% of Newsmax shares, or 7.5 million shares out of a total of 128 million fully diluted shares, are available for public trading.

The conservative TV news outlet has seen its ratings rise with the election of President Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans — although it still falls behind the dominant Fox News. Overall, Newsmax ranks in the top 20 among cable network average viewership in both prime time and daytime, Nielsen said.

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Stocks making the biggest moves midday: TSLA, DJT, AMZN, RIVN

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