JBizNews2 hours agoThe U.S. Department of Justice has formally asked a federal court to dismiss criminal charges against Gautam Adani, an Indian billionaire accused of misleading U.S. and global investors while raising billions of dollars to finance a major solar energy project in India.
Adani, considered one of Asia’s richest individuals, allegedly promised to pay more than $250 million in bribes to Indian officials to secure lucrative contracts. He and his executives further raised money from investors by falsely claiming the company maintained strict anti-corruption policies — all while allegedly continuing the bribery scheme and later attempting to conceal the evidence, prosecutors alleged in 2024.
Despite the severity of the allegations, the Justice Department has requested the case be dismissed “with prejudice,” indicating that the charges would be permanently dropped and may not be brought again in the future, according to court records filed Monday. Adani Group has denied the allegations, calling them baseless.
“The Department of Justice has reviewed this case and has decided, in its prosecutorial discretion, not to devote further resources to these criminal charges against individual defendants,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
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The decision to drop the charges follows an announcement from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it moved for entry of final judgments by consent, subject to court approval, in a related lawsuit involving Adani. The proposed resolution would not require Gautam Adani or Sagar Adani to admit or deny the SEC’s allegations.
Beginning in 2020, Adani Green Energy Limited, led by Gautam Adani, secured a major contract to develop solar power projects in India.
However, some Indian state governments allegedly declined to purchase the electricity from the project due to high costs.
As a result, Gautam Adani and his nephew, Sagar Adani, allegedly resorted to bribery, including promises of more than $250 million in payments to Indian officials, in order to secure power purchase agreements for the expensive solar energy.
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During the same period, the company required significant capital to finance the projects and raised approximately $750 million through bond sales to U.S. and global investors.
Federal prosecutors alleged that Adani Green and related entities raised more than $3 billion through loans and bond offerings while making false and misleading statements about the company’s anti-bribery and anti-corruption practices.
Prosecutors added that, to attract investors, the company falsely portrayed itself as an industry leader in corporate governance with a strict “zero tolerance” policy on bribery.
When U.S. authorities, including the FBI and the SEC, began investigating the alleged corruption, several executives were accused by prosecutors of attempting to obstruct the inquiry by deleting emails and electronic messages, concealing information during internal investigations, and making false statements to federal agents.
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The case dismissal is contingent upon approval by Judge Nicholas Garaufis, according to the documents.
JBizNews2 hours agoUS President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday created a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of political “weaponization” to settle a lawsuit Trump had filed against his own government over the alleged mishandling of his tax records.
The agreement resolves an unprecedented lawsuit filed by Trump, in which he sought $10 billion from the Internal Revenue Service, arguing it should have done more to prevent a former contractor from leaking his tax returns to the media.
Trump will receive an apology but no financial payment.
Instead, the Justice Department will set up a pool of money controlled by his allies that can dole out payments to those who claim to have suffered “weaponization or lawfare” by the US government. Those terms have frequently been used by Trump and his allies to describe the criminal cases against them, including those arising from the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump’s lawsuit, and the resulting settlement, has been widely criticized as an attempt to direct taxpayer money to his own purposes.
“This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.
The Justice Department said there are no partisan requirements to file a claim with the “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” The total sum, $1.776 billion, is a nod to the signing of the US Declaration of Independence in 1776.
“It is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” said Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general who formerly served as Trump’s defense attorney in three criminal cases.
Federal prosecutors who worked on cases against Trump and his political allies repeatedly rejected claims that the cases were politically motivated or an abuse of the legal system.
Blanche will appoint four of the five members of the commission who will decide the merits of the claims.
The commission can authorize payments to those who demonstrate they were targeted for “improper and unlawful political, personal and/or ideological reasons,” according to the settlement agreement. As examples, it cites Biden-era moves that conservatives have condemned, including prosecutions of activists for obstructing access to abortion clinics.
Trump, at a White House event on Monday evening, said he was not involved in the creation of the fund, though the settlement was signed by his personal lawyers.
“These were people that were weaponized and really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt,” Trump said of those eligible for payments.
Legal experts described the arrangement as highly unusual, both because of the nature of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS and because funds of this scale typically are either created by an act of Congress or supervised by a court.
“This is completely unprecedented for a variety of reasons,” said Rupa Bhattacharyya, a former Justice Department lawyer who oversaw a fund for victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks. “For taxpayer money to be given to the executive branch to dole out in a way with such little restriction just lends itself to abuse and corruption.”
The fund could trigger a new legal fight over whether it usurps Congress’s power to decide how US taxpayer money is spent. The payouts are set to come from a separate fund Congress set aside to settle and pay legal claims against the US government.
As part of the settlement, Trump will also drop administrative claims against the government over the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago resort for classified documents in 2022 and the investigation into potential ties between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.
The IRS lawsuit arose from former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn’s leak of Trump’s tax returns to media outlets, including the New York Times and ProPublica, in 2019 and 2020. Littlejohn was later convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.
These returns showed that Trump paid little or no income taxes in many years, the Times reported in 2020.
The litigation against the IRS raised novel legal questions, including conflicts of interest, about whether a president can sue his own government.
US District Court Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami, who oversees Trump’s lawsuit, wrote last month that it was unclear whether the parties to the lawsuit were “truly antagonistic to each other.” Williams, late on Monday, granted Trump’s request to dismiss the case.
JBizNews3 hours agoNew York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday that the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) strike is set to end after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and union leaders reached an agreement.
In a post on X, Hochul said phased LIRR service is expected to resume Tuesday at noon, easing travel disruptions for hundreds of thousands of commuters across the New York region.
“Tonight, the [MTA] reached a fair deal with the five LIRR unions that delivers raises for workers while protecting riders and taxpayers,” Hochul wrote. “I’m pleased to announce that phased LIRR service will resume beginning tomorrow at noon.”
The breakthrough came after thousands of LIRR workers went on strike at midnight Saturday, effectively shutting down the nation’s busiest commuter railroad for the first time in more than three decades and threatening major economic disruption across the New York region ahead of Memorial Day.
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The strike halted service for roughly 300,000 daily riders after last-minute contract negotiations between the MTA and a coalition of five rail unions failed to produce a wage agreement.
The MTA confirmed Saturday that all LIRR service was suspended and warned there was “no substitute” for the railroad, urging commuters to work remotely if possible as officials braced for severe congestion and delays throughout the metropolitan region.
New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office estimated the strike could cost the regional economy up to $61 million per day in lost economic activity, as commuters scrambled for alternatives and businesses prepared for disruptions.
The labor action marked the first LIRR strike since 1994. Union leaders said workers involved in the coalition had gone more than three years without raises while negotiating a new labor agreement.
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“This strike would not have happened if the MTA and LIRR offered our members the reasonable terms the government recommended multiple times. But management refused,” Mark Wallace, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the Teamsters Rail Conference, said in a statement.
“We hope LIRR gets serious soon to avoid further unnecessary disruptions for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. They know where to find us when they’re ready: on the streets.”
MTA officials defended their bargaining position, arguing that excessive wage increases could ultimately drive up fares and strain the transit system’s finances.
MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said the agency “cannot responsibly make a deal that implodes MTA’s budget” and warned taxpayers and riders could ultimately bear the cost of larger wage increases.
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Hochul had previously criticized the strike as “reckless,” warning it could hurt commuters, businesses and the broader regional economy.
President Donald Trump also weighed in on the dispute, blaming Hochul for allowing the strike to occur.
“If you can’t solve it, let me know, and I’ll show you how to properly get things done,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
JBizNews3 hours ago
JBizNews3 hours agoA Texas Chick-fil-A franchise operator is facing a federal lawsuit over allegations that it refused to accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs before ultimately firing her.
According to a complaint filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and obtained by FOX Business, Hatch Trick, Inc. — which operates several Chick-fil-A restaurants in the Austin area — allegedly discriminated against employee Laurel Torode, whose faith prohibits her from working on Saturdays.
Torode, a member of the United Church of God, reportedly disclosed during her interview that she observes the Sabbath from sunset Friday to sunset Saturday.
The EEOC said the company initially accommodated her request while she worked as a manager overseeing delivery drivers at one Austin-area location.
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That arrangement allegedly changed several months later.
“In early February 2024, Defendant told Torode that going forward it would require her to work on Saturdays, to include the period in which she observes the Sabbath,” as noted in the complaint.
According to the lawsuit, Torode sought accommodations and met with company officials to discuss alternatives that would allow her to remain in her management role while continuing to observe her Sabbath.
Instead, the company allegedly told her she would need to accept a lower-level delivery driver position with reduced pay, fewer hours and diminished benefits if she wanted to avoid Saturday shifts.
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When Torode declined the position, Hatch Trick terminated her employment, according to the EEOC.
The EEOC alleges the company violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to reasonably accommodate employees’ religious beliefs unless doing so would create an undue hardship.
“The duty under federal law to provide reasonable accommodation of religion reflects an acknowledgment by our society of the importance of faith in workers’ everyday lives and an abiding respect for those who observe religious practices as an expression of that faith,” acting EEOC Dallas Regional Attorney Ronald L. Phillips said in a statement.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Austin after the EEOC said efforts to resolve the dispute failed.
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The case has sparked attention because Chick-fil-A is famously closed on Sundays, a policy the company says was established by founder S. Truett Cathy in 1946, so employees could “rest, enjoy time with their families and loved ones or worship if they choose.”
Chick-fil-A declined to comment on the lawsuit, but told FOX Business that “as a franchise business, all employment decisions are solely the responsibility of each individual restaurant owner.”
Hatch Trick Inc. and the EEOC could not immediately be reached by FOX Business for comment.
JBizNews4 hours agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 18, 2026
Tilman Fertitta’s $18 billion pursuit of Caesars Entertainment is shaping up to be the single biggest catalyst for a new U.S. casino consolidation cycle in years, with Wall Street analysts increasingly concluding that the deal would force a sweeping reshuffling of regional gaming assets across the country. In a Friday research note obtained through CDC Gaming, JPMorgan Securities analyst Daniel Politzer estimated the transaction could require the sale of as much as $2.3 billion in casino properties to satisfy antitrust regulators and state gaming commissions — a process that could redraw the competitive map from Las Vegas to Atlantic City.
The proposed transaction centers on Fertitta Entertainment, the holding company controlled by Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets, Golden Nugget casinos and the sprawling Landry’s restaurant empire. Caesars confirmed on April 20 that it extended Fertitta’s exclusive negotiating window after he topped a rival proposal from activist investor Carl Icahn. The current structure values Caesars at roughly $32 per share and implies an enterprise value above $18 billion once Caesars’ more than $11 billion debt load is included.
The central issue is overlap. Fertitta already controls Golden Nugget casinos in multiple markets where Caesars maintains a major presence, including Las Vegas, Laughlin and Lake Tahoe in Nevada, Atlantic City in New Jersey, Biloxi in Mississippi and Lake Charles in Louisiana. Politzer said regulators at the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, the Nevada Gaming Control Board, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, the Louisiana Gaming Control Board and the Mississippi Gaming Commission are all likely to require property divestitures before approving the merger.
That reality is already fueling speculation about who benefits from the forced asset sales. Politzer identified Boyd Gaming, Penn Entertainment, Bally’s Corp. and Churchill Downs as the most logical strategic buyers because each has both the balance-sheet flexibility and geographic incentive to expand selectively into newly available markets. Industry executives and analysts also expect private equity and gaming real-estate investment trusts to play a major role. Apollo Global Management and Blackstone both remain active in casino real estate and hospitality transactions, while VICI Properties and Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. hold underlying real estate tied to many Caesars operations and would almost certainly be involved in any restructuring.
The strategic logic for Fertitta extends well beyond casino floors. One of the biggest attractions is Caesars Rewards, the company’s loyalty platform with more than 60 million members. Fertitta plans to integrate his Landry’s portfolio — which includes Morton’s The Steakhouse, Mastro’s Restaurants, Rainforest Cafe, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and dozens of other dining brands — directly into the Caesars ecosystem. That would dramatically expand where customers can redeem loyalty points and deepen cross-selling opportunities between casinos, hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues.
The deal would also significantly expand Fertitta’s national profile in gaming. Though Golden Nugget remains a recognized brand, Caesars controls one of the broadest casino footprints in America, spanning Las Vegas Strip properties, regional casinos and online gaming operations. Fertitta has increasingly positioned himself as one of the industry’s most aggressive consolidators, particularly after selling Golden Nugget Online Gaming to DraftKings in 2022 for $1.56 billion.
A complicating factor remains Fertitta’s existing 12% ownership stake in Wynn Resorts, which makes him Wynn’s largest individual shareholder. According to FactSet filings, Fertitta has also accumulated millions of dollars in Wynn call options during 2026. Multiple gaming attorneys cited by CDC Gaming said regulators are unlikely to block the Caesars transaction because of the Wynn position, but they expect Nevada regulators to closely scrutinize the cross-ownership structure during the approval process.
The wildcard continues to be Icahn. The billionaire activist investor has maintained a competing interest in Caesars and reportedly proposed combining Caesars’ digital gaming operations with another online betting platform. Caesars Sportsbook has struggled to close the gap with market leaders FanDuel and DraftKings despite strong overall sports-betting growth nationwide. Analysts say Icahn’s continued presence could still pressure Fertitta to improve terms or alter the structure before a final agreement is reached.
Wall Street’s focus, however, has shifted toward what happens after the merger rather than whether a deal happens at all. Politzer wrote that the potential property divestitures could create the most active regional gaming acquisition market since Eldorado Resorts completed its $17.3 billion takeover of Caesars in 2020. Regional operators that missed the last major consolidation cycle may now get another opportunity to expand.
The transaction is not expected to close before 2027. But for an industry that has spent the last several years digesting pandemic disruptions, sports-betting expansion and online gaming competition, the Fertitta bid represents something larger: the return of high-stakes casino consolidation on a national scale.
— JBizNews Desk
© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.
JBizNews4 hours agoAs the 2026 FIFA World Cup creeps closer, fans across the world are expected to be watching one of the game’s most iconic players.
And Lowe’s is making sure Lionel Messi remains front and center during this year’s tournament.
Messi, the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner, is expected to be in contention for Argentina’s 2026 World Cup squad as the defending champions look to repeat.
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This is confirmed to be Messi’s final World Cup, as the 38-year-old, who also stars for Inter Miami CF in MLS, confirmed that to be the case leading up to the tournament.
But while fans anticipate watching Messi, Lowe’s collaborated with the soccer legend on a new campaign ahead of the World Cup. And it involves a 10-foot-tall lighted outdoor inflatable version of Messi.
Lowe’s is rewarding its MyLowe’s Rewards and My Lowe’s Pro Rewards members with “Epically More Messi,” a new campaign designed to bring the brand’s most loyal fans closer to the game and to the person many consider to be one of the greatest players of all time.
To do so, Lowe’s released a limited-edition, 10-foot inflatable Messi, who is decked out in a Lowe’s soccer kit and even features details like his tattoos. Talk about a larger-than-life way to show off passion for the game and one of its greats.
“Soccer fandom is rooted in passion, pride and showing up in an EPIC way,” said Jen Wilson, Lowe’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, in a press release. “With ‘Epically More Messi,’ we’re creating new ways to bring our most passionate and loyal Lowe’s fans more rewards – in this case, access to limited-edition merchandise, epic Messi drops over social and more.”
The inflatable, which goes for $99, can be purchased through a members-only access experience beginning on May 18 on Lowe’s site. It will also be available across the 11 U.S. host cities starting on May 20.
The Messi inflatable has already been seen across host sites in Atlanta (Piedmont Park), Dallas (Klyde Warren Park), Miami (Nu Stadium at Miami Freedom Park) and New York (Seaport District).
Lowe’s is also giving their members the chance to engage with exclusive content as well as Messi giveaways for the World Cup. There will also be a social-first fan experience that will appear, featuring Messi, soccer insider Fabrizio Romano and ESPN personality Katie Feeney.
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Finally, Lowe’s brought back the father-son broadcasting duo of Andres and Nico Cantor as official campaign partners.
“Soccer fandom in the U.S. is at an all-time high, and a legend like Lionel Messi can bring communities together in powerful ways,” said soccer broadcasting icon Andres Cantor. “With ‘Epically More Messi,’ Lowe’s is creating experiences that meet fans where they are – at home and at their neighborhood fields where many soccer dreams begin.”
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JBizNews5 hours agoWith the 2026 FIFA World Cup set to begin June 11, Guinness, the beer from Dublin, Ireland, is launching a soccer-themed campaign called “The World’s Cup” for fans watching around the world.
Guinness, which Guinness North America says is brewed in 49 countries worldwide and sold in over 150, is reimagining its “The World’s Cup” ad from the 1990s in a way the brand says is meant to appeal to both die-hard supporters and casual viewers gathering for matches this summer.
As part of the broader campaign, Guinness collaborated with Art of Football on a limited-edition jersey collection designed specifically for match days.
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While the signature Guinness logo, as well as the Guinness harp, are visible on the front of the jersey, the shirt features a black-and-green patterned base with white and red stripes.
Art OF has collaborated on numerous pieces with Guinness in the past, but this jersey will only be available in North America starting June 8.
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Art of Football, founded in 2013, is a fan-led creative studio that’s dedicated to preserving the culture of sport through the lens of art, making it a fitting collaborator for Guinness’ soccer-focused campaign ahead of one of the world’s biggest tournaments in sports.
The company has also collaborated with brands like Nike and Adidas, while securing licenses with the Premier League, Championship and European Leagues.
For Guinness, though, its “The World’s Cup” campaign isn’t just the limited-edition jersey collaboration. The brand also worked with Art of Football to outfit bartenders and pub staff who Guinness says “make game days lovely, serving pints and creating a sense of connection that keeps fans coming back.”
Bartenders and pub staff in Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco will be featured in Guinness content on social media during the campaign.
Guinness Draught Stout will also unveil its limited-edition soccer packs with a design created by Brooklyn-based illustrator and designer Sophia Yeshi, whose work is known for bold visual storytelling and themes of diversity.
The packs, sold in 4-packs and 8-packs, will be available nationwide for a limited time, according to Guinness.
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Finally, Guinness has more in store, but it will be keeping it a surprise as the World Cup gets closer.
“Soccer is at its best when everyone feels part of it, and Guinness has always stood for that same spirit of togetherness,” Karissa Downer, Director of Guinness, said in a press release**.** “Whether you’re an avid supporter or simply here for a good time, Guinness makes game day feel more welcoming, more connected and more memorable. With ‘The world’s cup,’ we are celebrating the pubs, pints and bartenders who turn every match into a moment worth sharing. The beautiful game deserves a beautiful pint and a room full of fans to enjoy it with.”
Guinness says consumers should drink responsibly.
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JBizNews5 hours agoWall Street is beginning to recognize what business leaders and local officials in Monmouth County have been watching unfold for years: Netflix’s massive redevelopment of Fort Monmouth is evolving into one of the most significant entertainment infrastructure projects on the East Coast. The streaming giant’s planned $1 billion investment at the former Army base in Eatontown and Oceanport is moving steadily forward as analysts increasingly view the project as part of Netflix’s broader long-term growth strategy. Fresh sell-side commentary released through Friday, including reiterated bullish notes following the company’s annual upfront presentation in New York last week, has begun folding the New Jersey build into the broader bull case for Netflix shares.
The renewed investor attention intensified after Eric Sheridan, managing director at Goldman Sachs, upgraded Netflix shares to Buy on April 6 and raised the firm’s 12-month price target from $100 to $120. The analyst described a more favorable risk-reward setup following an extended decline in Netflix stock, which had fallen roughly 18% over the prior six months amid concerns tied to the company’s abandoned $82.7 billion pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and studio assets. Netflix formally exited the acquisition effort on Feb. 26 after declining to match Paramount Skydance’s higher bid and later collected a $2.8 billion termination fee, shifting investor focus back toward the company’s standalone expansion strategy. Goldman’s bullish stance was reinforced last Friday when Guggenheim reiterated its Buy rating with a $120 price target, joining J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth at $118 and Jefferies at $134.
While Wall Street analysts debate valuation and advertising growth, construction activity at Fort Monmouth has already transformed large sections of the 292-acre property. Since groundbreaking last May, Netflix has demolished approximately 85 former military structures to prepare for the first phase of studio development. The company is constructing four initial soundstages in Oceanport’s McAfee Zone, with each facility measuring roughly 22,000 square feet. Structural work on the first building is already visible on-site.
The redevelopment effort extends beyond new soundstages. Historic portions of the former military installation are being preserved and repurposed as part of the broader campus design. Vail Hall, one of the site’s most recognizable historic buildings, is expected to become production office space, while several existing warehouse structures totaling more than 40,000 square feet will be renovated for storage and operational support. Netflix also plans upgrades to the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Authority offices and the 92,000-square-foot McAfee Center.
Local officials have emphasized that the project represents far more than a studio complex. The master redevelopment plan includes retail components, open public spaces, support infrastructure, and a potential hotel intended to accommodate cast and production crews during long-term filming schedules. Portions of the site, including Greely Field and Cowan Park, are expected to remain publicly accessible as part of the redevelopment agreement.
The economic implications for New Jersey are substantial. The New Jersey Economic Development Authority approved approximately $387 million in Aspire tax credits to support the project, while additional incentives through the state’s Film and Digital Media Tax Credit program could allow Netflix to qualify for production-related tax credits worth up to 40% of eligible New Jersey expenses if the company maintains long-term occupancy at the site.
State officials have increasingly positioned New Jersey as a growing East Coast production hub capable of competing with traditional entertainment markets in California, Georgia, and New York. Over the past year, Netflix has filmed nearly 20 projects within the state and currently maintains active productions employing more than 500 workers across New Jersey. Once fully completed, the Fort Monmouth studio campus is projected to support as many as 1,500 permanent jobs, in addition to hundreds of ongoing construction positions.
Financially, investors continue to focus on Netflix’s advertising business as a major future growth driver. Goldman Sachs forecasts the company’s advertising revenue could expand from roughly $1.5 billion in 2025 to nearly $9.5 billion annually by 2030 as Netflix scales its ad-supported subscription model globally. At the company’s upfront presentation in New York last week, TD Cowen analyst John Blackledge highlighted that Netflix’s ad-supported tier now reaches more than 250 million global monthly active viewers, up from roughly 190 million in November. Across 32 covering analysts, the consensus rating on Netflix is now Strong Buy with an average 12-month price target near $119. Analysts also expect continued operating margin expansion and the resumption of large-scale stock buybacks following the collapse of the Warner Bros. transaction.
Netflix’s broader financial performance remains strong despite recent market volatility. The company generated approximately $45.2 billion in revenue during 2025, representing roughly 16% year-over-year growth, while net income approached $11 billion. However, shares have remained under pressure following the company’s first-quarter earnings report released in April, with the stock closing Friday at $87.02, well below Goldman’s upgraded entry target and roughly 35% off the 52-week high of $134.12. Not every voice on the Street is bullish. Raymond James analyst Andrew Marok holds a Market Perform rating, arguing the debate over user engagement is far from resolved, while Erste Group earlier downgraded the stock to Hold.
For Monmouth County, however, the investment story is increasingly visible in physical terms rather than financial models. Roads, infrastructure systems, and former military facilities continue to be reshaped into a modern production campus that local leaders believe could permanently alter the region’s economic profile. The first phase of development, known as Phase 1A, is currently scheduled to open in 2027 and will include the initial Oceanport soundstages and support buildings. A second phase planned for Eatontown, including eight additional soundstages, is targeted for completion in 2028.
Industry observers say the Fort Monmouth redevelopment could eventually reshape the geography of U.S. film and television production by creating a large-scale East Coast alternative for streaming-era content creation. As Netflix deepens its operational footprint in New Jersey, the company’s long-term wager on Monmouth County increasingly appears to be both a real estate transformation project and a strategic production expansion designed to support the next phase of global streaming competition.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews6 hours agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
China is scaling up industrial and humanoid robots at a pace no other economy can match, but a recent court ruling, provincial reskilling mandates, and explicit central-government messaging are simultaneously pushing companies to avoid mass labor displacement. Factories pouring billions into automation are increasingly being told they cannot use new AI systems and robotics as blanket justification to cut the human workforce that powered China’s manufacturing rise.
The clearest signal emerged last month from the Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court. In a ruling dated April 28, the court found that a technology company in eastern China unlawfully terminated a quality-assurance employee — identified in legal filings only as Zhou — after he refused a 40% pay cut and demotion tied to his role being replaced by a large-language-model system. The court rejected the company’s argument that AI deployment qualified as a “business downsizing” event and ordered compensation for the employee. Legal analysts described the case as the first major judicial indication that Chinese firms cannot cite automation alone as legal grounds for layoffs.
The ruling arrives against the backdrop of an industrial-robotics expansion of historic scale. According to the International Federation of Robotics, China accounted for 54% of all new industrial robot installations worldwide in 2024, deploying approximately 295,000 new units — more than the rest of the world combined. China’s robot density has climbed to roughly 392 to 400 robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers, nearly triple the global average of 141 and ahead of Germany, while rapidly approaching the levels seen in South Korea and Japan.
Takayuki Ito, president of the IFR, said China’s latest five-year framework is accelerating the shift away from traditional factory automation toward AI-integrated, high-end robotics systems intended to anchor the country’s next phase of industrial modernization. Beijing’s strategy increasingly treats robotics, AI, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing as interconnected pillars of long-term economic and geopolitical competitiveness.
That policy infrastructure has expanded aggressively. China formally launched its 15th Five-Year Plan in 2026 with robotics positioned near the center of national industrial strategy, building on the earlier Made in China 2025 initiative and the newer AI+ development framework. According to Reuters, Beijing allocated more than $20 billion in subsidies, grants, tax incentives, and state-backed investment funding to the robotics sector during late 2024 and early 2025 alone. Analysts now estimate China’s industrial robotics market at roughly $47 billion, far larger than the comparable U.S. sector.
At the same time, authorities are constructing a parallel labor-protection system designed to soften the social impact of automation. Guangdong province — home to the massive manufacturing corridor surrounding Foshan and the Pearl River Delta — has launched a “Million Talents Plan” aimed at reskilling roughly 3 million industrial workers over three years, with AI operations, robotics maintenance, and advanced-manufacturing support roles prioritized heavily. Government spending on vocational and industrial AI training programs has surpassed $15 billion since 2020.
Technical institutions including Shunde Polytechnic University are now partnering directly with manufacturers such as Midea to align factory-floor certifications with real-time industrial demand. Beijing’s broader message is increasingly clear: automate aggressively, but avoid the kind of visible labor shock that could destabilize employment and domestic consumption.
The underlying tension, however, is becoming harder to disguise. According to Bloomberg, Chinese manufacturing employment has already fallen from roughly 115 million workers in 2013 to below 85 million in 2025, representing a decline of more than 30 million jobs even as Chinese exports reached record highs earlier this year.
Major manufacturers have already automated significant portions of their operations. Foxconn has removed tens of thousands of factory positions across its Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, and Kunshan facilities. Xiaomi’s Changping smartphone plant has been described as operating with virtually no human workers on portions of the production floor while producing roughly one device per second. EV and battery giants including BYD and CATL have rapidly expanded robotics integration throughout their manufacturing operations.
The humanoid robotics sector is accelerating even faster. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said more than 140 domestic humanoid robotics manufacturers were operating in 2025, with over 330 humanoid robot models already introduced. UBTECH has deployed its Walker S2 humanoid into production-line environments, while Unitree Robotics has drawn international attention with its G1 platform and its lower-cost $5,000 R1 system.
Automakers including BYD, Geely, and Xpeng have already begun integrating Unitree humanoids onto factory floors. Xpeng has reportedly explored humanoid robotics investments approaching 100 billion yuan — roughly $13.8 billion — a scale difficult to justify solely on the basis of worker augmentation rather than eventual labor replacement.
For global competitors, the numbers are increasingly difficult to ignore. U.S. robot density stands at roughly 295 robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers, still well below China’s level. None of the world’s 10 largest industrial robotics companies are headquartered in the United States, and most robots deployed in American factories continue to be imported from Japan or Germany. U.S. companies such as Boston Dynamics remain heavily focused on research, defense applications, and limited-scale commercial deployment rather than mass industrial manufacturing.
The broader challenge emerging from China is not simply technological scale, but policy coordination. Beijing is attempting to engineer a model built around maximum automation alongside minimum visible labor displacement — a balancing act with few clear historical parallels in modern industrial policy. Whether that model proves economically sustainable may help determine the competitive landscape for global manufacturing over the next decade.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews8 hours agoU.S. stocks closed mixed Monday as surging Treasury yields, renewed Middle East uncertainty, and mounting pressure across artificial-intelligence shares rattled investors heading into one of the most consequential earnings weeks of the year, with Nvidia Corp.’s results increasingly viewed on Wall Street as a referendum on whether the AI-driven market rally can continue carrying equities higher amid rising inflation fears and escalating geopolitical risk.
According to closing data from the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 159.95 points, or 0.32%, to 49,686.12, supported by gains in industrial and financial names, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.07% to 7,403.05 and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.51% to 26,090.73 as semiconductor and AI-linked stocks extended recent weakness. The Russell 2000 dropped 0.65% as higher borrowing costs continued pressuring smaller-cap companies, while the CBOE Volatility Index remained elevated above 18 as traders repositioned ahead of earnings from Nvidia, Walmart, and Target later this week.
Markets whipsawed throughout the session after President Donald Trump disclosed on social media that he was postponing a planned military strike against Iran following requests from the Emir of Qatar, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and the President of the United Arab Emirates. Trump said “serious negotiations” were underway and predicted a resolution “very acceptable” to both the United States and the broader region, temporarily easing fears that the conflict could escalate into a direct disruption of global oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil prices initially surged before retreating sharply following Trump’s comments. Brent crude briefly climbed above $112 per barrel before pulling back below $110, while West Texas Intermediate crude retreated from intraday highs above $104 to roughly $102.50 by settlement. Energy traders continue viewing the Strait of Hormuz as the market’s central geopolitical flashpoint, with roughly one-fifth of global petroleum flows tied directly to the region.
While equities stabilized late in the day, the bond market painted a far more cautious picture about the inflation outlook. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield climbed above 4.13%, its highest level in roughly a year, while the 30-year Treasury yield hovered near 5.13%, levels last seen during the pre-financial-crisis period in 2007. Long-dated sovereign debt sold off globally, with U.K. 30-year gilt yields reaching highs not seen since the late 1990s and Japanese government bond yields touching fresh multi-decade peaks as investors increasingly abandoned expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts in 2026.
The rise in yields hit technology shares hardest, particularly across the semiconductor sector that has powered much of the market’s AI-driven gains over the past year. The S&P 500 technology sector fell more than 2% intraday before trimming losses into the close. Seagate Technology plunged nearly 7% after Chief Executive Dave Mosley warned during a JPMorgan investor conference that building enough manufacturing capacity to satisfy exploding AI-related memory demand would “take too long,” comments investors interpreted as evidence that supply-chain constraints inside the semiconductor ecosystem are worsening rather than improving. The warning dragged Micron Technology down nearly 6%, while Nvidia, Broadcom, and Intel also finished lower.
Additional pressure came from overseas after South Korean media reported that Samsung Electronics’ labor union would proceed with an 18-day strike beginning May 21 involving more than 45,000 workers, intensifying fears of further disruption across the global memory-chip supply chain tied to the artificial-intelligence infrastructure buildout.
Inside the Dow, 20 of the index’s 30 components finished higher. 3M gained 3.74% and Salesforce added 3.18%, helping offset weakness in technology-linked industrial names. Caterpillar fell 4.08% while Nvidia dropped 2.92% as some investors rotated away from high-valuation growth stocks toward defensive and cyclical sectors. Microsoft outperformed much of the broader technology complex after Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management disclosed last week that it had accumulated a position in the software giant.
Analyst activity intensified ahead of Nvidia’s earnings release Wednesday afternoon. DA Davidson reiterated a buy rating on Nvidia and raised its price target to $300, implying roughly 37% upside from current levels, while Cantor Fitzgerald increased its price target on Applied Materials to $550 from $500 while maintaining an overweight rating tied to continued strength in AI semiconductor spending. UBS downgraded Dell Technologies to neutral from buy despite lifting its target to $243 from $167, reflecting a more cautious near-term view on valuation even as AI server demand remains strong. RBC Capital Markets also raised its target on Ford Motor to $13 from $11 while maintaining a sector-perform rating.
Cryptocurrency markets weakened alongside broader risk assets as rising yields continued reducing investor appetite for speculative trades. Bitcoin fell roughly 2% to near $76,400, its lowest level since late April, while gold and silver traded mixed as investors balanced inflation hedging against a strengthening U.S. dollar and expectations for higher-for-longer interest rates.
The broader market now enters Tuesday facing an increasingly difficult macroeconomic backdrop. Gasoline prices remain elevated, mortgage rates continue climbing alongside Treasury yields, and the prospect of near-term Federal Reserve easing has largely disappeared from futures markets. At the same time, corporate America is preparing to report earnings under the shadow of rising energy costs, tighter financial conditions, and growing geopolitical instability tied to Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.
For Wall Street, the next 72 hours may determine whether the market’s AI-fueled momentum can continue overpowering mounting macroeconomic pressure — or whether rising rates, energy inflation, and geopolitical risk finally begin forcing a broader repricing across equities.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews8 hours agoAs President Donald Trump weighs a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan, communication between Taipei and Washington remains ongoing, according to Alexander Yui, Taiwan’s Representative to the U.S.
“This is a constant thing,” Yui said. “It’s an ongoing dialogue. It’s not just if it doesn’t happen, it ends. It’s just a continuum of things.”
Taiwan is also increasing its own defense spending. Lawmakers recently approved a supplemental defense package worth roughly $25 billion, though Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te had pushed for closer to $40 billion.
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“My government is doing what it can,” Yui said. “But again, I want to stress the determination of the Taiwanese people to defend ourselves through our own means and help from any other ally is more than welcome.”
Yui argued semiconductor production is one of the clearest reasons the U.S. should continue supporting Taiwan militarily. Taiwan produces roughly 90% of the world’s advanced semiconductor chips, forming what he described as a deeply interconnected global supply chain.
CHINA PROMISES ‘COUNTERMEASURES’ TO US ARMS SALE TO TAIWAN
“The United States is very good at designing the chips, and we’re very good at scaling and fabricating the chips using machines from the United States, from the Netherlands, from Japan,” Yui said. “This triangle of partnership works very well.”
TAIWAN RAMPS UP COAST GUARD AND MILITARY READINESS IN FACE OF BEIJING’S ‘GRAY ZONE’ WARFARE
Taiwan has also pledged to invest $250 billion in semiconductor and technology manufacturing in the U.S. as Trump pushes to expand domestic chip production.
“It’s not that easy. But we’re trying to bring manufacturing to the United States again, because it also suits our interest to expand our manufacturing,” said Yui.
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Yui also pushed back on any suggestion that Taiwan is moving toward independence, saying the island’s government is working on maintaining the status quo.
“There is no Taiwan independence movement in Taiwan because there is no need. We in Taiwan [are] called Republic of China, we’re already a sovereign, independent nation,” Yui said. “We’re just trying to preserve the status quo as it is.”
JBizNews9 hours agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 18, 2026
The short regional flights that for decades quietly stitched together America’s smaller cities and larger economic hubs are disappearing at the fastest pace of any category in the airline industry, as surging jet fuel costs, aircraft economics, pilot shortages and mounting operational strain push carriers toward longer and more profitable routes. According to scheduling data compiled by aviation analytics firm OAG and shared with NPR, flights under 250 nautical miles have fallen 11% between 2016 and 2026 even as longer-distance routes expanded by double digits during the same period.
The trend was already underway before the Iran war sent global energy markets into turmoil earlier this year. But analysts now say the doubling of domestic jet fuel prices since February is accelerating the shift dramatically and threatening to further isolate smaller American communities from the national air network.
The disappearing routes are often the least noticed but most economically important links in the aviation system — flights such as Albany to New York, Charleston to Charlotte, Akron to Chicago or small Midwestern cities feeding traffic into larger airline hubs. For business travelers, hospitals, universities and local economies, these short-haul connections often determine whether a city remains commercially competitive.
John Grant, senior analyst at OAG, told NPR that the economics of very short flights have become increasingly difficult to justify. “A lot of the fuel is used in the takeoff and landing processes,” Grant said, noting that those phases consume disproportionate fuel relative to cruise flight, while also adding expensive wear-and-tear on aircraft engines and landing systems. Every additional landing raises maintenance costs, labor expenses and operational complexity.
The industry increasingly prefers what Grant described as the “two-hour block-time sweet spot” — generally corresponding to routes above roughly 500 miles — where larger aircraft can spread fixed costs across more passengers while maximizing fuel efficiency.
That shift is visible in the data. Flights between 501 and 750 nautical miles rose 11% to nearly 1.7 million scheduled departures this year, while routes over 750 miles and 1,000 miles also posted double-digit gains. Meanwhile, flights under 250 nautical miles fell sharply and routes between 251 and 500 nautical miles declined about 4%.
Aircraft technology is also driving the migration. Airlines have steadily replaced older 50-seat and 70-seat regional jets with newer, larger narrow-body aircraft such as the Boeing 737 MAX 8 and Airbus A320neo and A321neo families. Those planes offer dramatically better economics on medium-haul routes but make little financial sense operating 100-mile or 150-mile hops.
Ahmed Abdelghani, professor of operations management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told NPR that newer aircraft fundamentally favor longer routes because larger planes spread fixed operating costs across more seats. “Those new-generation narrow-body aircraft will have much better economics than the smaller 50-seater, 70-seater aircraft,” Abdelghani said.
The carriers most exposed are regional operators such as SkyWest, Republic Airways, Mesa Air Group, GoJet Airlines and CommutAir, which operate flights under brands including Delta Connection, United Express and American Eagle. These companies historically depended heavily on short regional flying to feed passengers into major hubs operated by the larger network airlines.
SkyWest has aggressively transitioned away from aging CRJ200 regional jets toward Embraer E175 aircraft, which are larger and more efficient but less practical on ultra-short routes. Republic Airways, which now operates entirely Embraer E170 and E175 aircraft, has emerged as one of the stronger players during the industry consolidation. Mesa Air Group, meanwhile, continues restructuring operations amid ongoing financial pressure.
Fuel costs have sharply worsened the math. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Gulf Coast jet fuel prices have surged to roughly $5 per gallon from less than $2.50 before the Iran conflict intensified. Airlines including JetBlue Airways, Allegiant Travel and Spirit Airlines have all publicly trimmed routes or reduced flying schedules. Spirit ultimately ceased operations last week after prolonged financial pressure tied partly to fuel and financing costs.
The largest airlines are increasingly candid about the shift. United Airlines CFO Mike Leskinen said in late April the carrier was “actively reviewing the bottom 10% of our regional route map,” language analysts widely interpreted as preparation for additional short-haul cuts.
The communities most vulnerable are often smaller regional airports that rely heavily on federally subsidized service. The Department of Transportation’s Essential Air Service program currently supports commercial flights to roughly 175 rural communities, but federal officials are reviewing the program amid broader transportation budget pressure. Markets including Wolf Point, Montana; Watertown, South Dakota; and DuBois, Pennsylvania have already lost or face reductions in scheduled air service.
American Airlines has trimmed flights from smaller cities including Toledo, Dubuque and Salina, while niche operators such as Cape Air continue serving ultra-short routes with small nine-seat aircraft but on limited scale.
For investors, the winners increasingly appear to be airlines operating younger fleets and larger aircraft. Delta Air Lines, which Berkshire Hathaway newly disclosed a $2.65 billion stake in this quarter, remains well positioned because of its mainline-heavy network and extensive Airbus A321neo orders. United Airlines is similarly viewed as structurally advantaged.
The losers are regional pure-play carriers and the smaller cities that depend on them. OAG’s Grant also warned that short flights place disproportionate strain on already-overloaded air traffic systems because takeoffs and landings consume scarce runway slots and controller bandwidth — an increasingly important issue after the FAA’s controversial decision this week to lower its long-term air traffic controller staffing targets.
For much of America outside the largest metro areas, the result is becoming difficult to ignore. The disappearance of short regional flights is no longer cyclical or temporary. It is structural, accelerating, and increasingly reshaping how smaller American cities connect to the national economy.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews9 hours agoA senior World Bank delegation is preparing to travel to Caracas in the coming days for the first formal meetings with Venezuelan officials since the institution restored relations with the country last month, marking a major milestone in Venezuela’s gradual reintegration into the global financial system.
According to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg News, the mission will be led by Susana Cordeiro Guerra, the World Bank’s vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, and will focus on rebuilding economic coordination after years of institutional isolation.
The visit represents the most concrete step yet in Venezuela’s reentry into international financial markets following the Trump administration’s January-backed political transition that removed former President Nicolás Maduro and recognized acting President Delcy Rodríguez.
The World Bank formally announced on April 16 that it would resume dealings with Venezuela for the first time since 2019, when relations were suspended amid international disputes over whether Maduro or opposition leader Juan Guaidó should be recognized as the country’s legitimate leader.
The International Monetary Fund simultaneously resumed formal recognition of the Rodríguez administration after IMF member countries representing a majority of voting power backed the transition.
Venezuela has been a member of the World Bank since 1946, but the institution has not extended new financing to the country since 2005 and has maintained no active lending programs during the years-long political and economic crisis.
The Caracas mission is expected to focus heavily on rebuilding baseline macroeconomic data — a process made difficult by years of limited transparency and institutional breakdown inside Venezuela.
Officials from the World Bank and IMF are expected to meet with representatives from Venezuela’s Finance Ministry and Central Bank to begin assembling the economic data required before any future lending programs can move forward.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month that the United States is working to reintegrate Venezuela into the global financial system “in a way that looks more like a normal economy.”
Washington also eased sanctions on Venezuela’s Central Bank earlier this year as part of the broader normalization process.
At roughly the same time, Maduro’s former sister-in-law stepped down as Central Bank president, with Vice President Luis Perez assuming leadership of the institution.
The financial implications are enormous.
Rodríguez has formally requested access to approximately $5 billion in IMF Special Drawing Rights — reserve assets that analysts at JPMorgan estimate Venezuela currently holds but has been unable to fully access during the years of sanctions and political isolation.
The acting government said the funds would be directed toward rebuilding electricity systems, water infrastructure, and public services that deteriorated sharply during the Maduro years.
Global investors have already begun positioning aggressively for Venezuela’s potential return to financial markets.
Emerging-market bond traders have driven Venezuelan sovereign debt prices sharply higher over recent months as Washington and Caracas signaled greater willingness to negotiate.
Analysts estimate Venezuela’s total external debt at roughly $150 billion, including approximately $60 billion in defaulted sovereign bonds.
Major Wall Street firms including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley are reportedly operating active Venezuela-focused trading desks as investors anticipate a possible sovereign debt restructuring process.
Any large-scale restructuring would likely require formal IMF involvement and a comprehensive debt sustainability analysis.
Still, major political risks remain.
Rodríguez’s approval ratings have reportedly weakened in recent polling, while opposition leader María Corina Machado has vowed publicly to return to Venezuela and challenge the current political arrangement.
The energy sector has emerged as the fastest-moving part of Venezuela’s reopening.
Earlier this month, Chevron Corp. reached a major agreement with the Venezuelan government to increase crude production in the country — the most significant Western oil expansion inside Venezuela since sanctions were imposed during the Maduro era.
The agreement aligns with broader U.S. strategic goals of expanding Western energy supply sources amid elevated oil prices and ongoing disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz tied to the conflict involving Iran.
Venezuela possesses the world’s largest proven crude reserves but currently produces only a fraction of its historical output following years of underinvestment, sanctions, and infrastructure deterioration.
U.S. policymakers increasingly view expanded Venezuelan production as a potential partial offset to Middle East supply risks.
Additional normalization measures have accelerated in recent weeks.
Commercial flights between the United States and Venezuela have resumed, U.S. corporate delegations have begun traveling back to Caracas, and Washington has signaled openness to additional sanctions relief tied to continued political and economic reforms.
The World Bank mission is now viewed as a critical next step in determining whether Venezuela can rebuild enough institutional credibility to attract large-scale international capital again.
For global investors, oil markets, and emerging-market lenders, the stakes extend far beyond Caracas itself.
A successful reintegration into the World Bank and IMF framework could unlock billions of dollars in financing, trigger one of the world’s largest sovereign debt restructurings, and reopen one of the planet’s largest oil-producing regions to expanded Western investment.
The decisions made over the coming months — beginning with the World Bank’s visit — could shape Venezuela’s economic future for years.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews10 hours agoThe U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division notified the Yale School of Medicine on Thursday that a yearlong investigation concluded the school is illegally favoring Black and Hispanic applicants over White and Asian ones in violation of federal civil-rights law, citing admissions data from 2023 through 2025 that the department says shows substantial and unexplainable gaps in test scores and grade-point averages between admitted students of different racial groups, according to the Justice Department’s official press release and a copy of the letter posted by the agency. The Yale finding came one week after the Civil Rights Division announced parallel findings against the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in the agency’s release that “Yale has continued its race-based admissions program despite the Supreme Court and the public’s clear mandate for reform.”
The findings rest primarily on Medical College Admission Test scores and grade-point averages broken down by race. At Yale, the department said admitted Black students in the 2025 cycle had a median MCAT score of 518 and admitted Hispanic students 517, compared with a median of 524 for both White and Asian admitted students against a top possible score of 528. GPA disparities followed the same pattern: a median 3.88 for Black admits and 3.91 for Hispanic admits, against 3.97 for White and 3.98 for Asian admits. For the 2023 cycle, the department said White and Asian admits had a median MCAT of 523, compared with 517 for Black and 518 for Hispanic admits. The agency calculated that at Yale, a Black applicant had as much as 29 times higher odds of being invited to interview than an Asian applicant with equivalent academic credentials, calling the gap “substantial” and stating it “cannot be explained by a coincidence.”
At UCLA, the department applied the same statistical framework, citing 2023 data showing White and Asian admits with a median MCAT score of 514 versus 507 for Black and Hispanic admits. The Civil Rights Division said internal UCLA documents reviewed during the investigation revealed leadership “intentionally selected applicants based on their race” and adhered to what the agency described as “the dubious contention that patients receive the best care when treated by a doctor of the same race, rather than by the most qualified.” The UCLA matter originated in a lawsuit filed by the anti-DEI advocacy group Do No Harm, which the Justice Department joined in January.
Both findings are framed as enforcement of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck down the consideration of race in college admissions. DOJ argues that the schools have continued de facto race-conscious admissions despite the ruling, and that the consistency of demographic outcomes in admitted classes — even as the court banned the practice — points to the use of “racial proxies” to achieve the same result. The letter to Yale cites a slide from a 2024 admissions presentation as part of the documentary evidence, and references the 2023 Department of Education investigation into Yale’s collaboration with a doctoral-program diversity initiative, which resulted in a resolution agreement in February 2026.
Yale’s medical school has not yet publicly responded to the new finding. In 2020, when the first Trump administration’s DOJ brought a parallel allegation against Yale undergraduate admissions, the university “categorically” denied the conclusion and the matter was dropped by the Biden administration in early 2021. UCLA has not publicly responded to the DOJ’s May findings either, though the school is a named defendant in the ongoing Do No Harm litigation. The Justice Department said it is seeking a voluntary resolution agreement with both schools but may pursue formal enforcement, including litigation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, if no agreement is reached.
The financial stakes are substantial. Yale received roughly $899 million in federal research funding in fiscal 2024, with a large share flowing through the National Institutes of Health to the medical school and affiliated Yale New Haven Health system. UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine is among the largest NIH grant recipients in the country, with the broader UC system collecting more than $2 billion annually in federal research and training dollars. Title VI allows the federal government to suspend or terminate federal financial assistance to institutions found to be in noncompliance, an enforcement tool that the Trump administration has signaled it is prepared to use more aggressively than prior administrations.
The medical-school cases are part of a broader DOJ focus on elite university admissions after the SFFA ruling. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in late 2025 found that the share of admitted medical-school applicants from groups historically underrepresented in medicine fell to about 20% in the first cycle after the ruling, from 24% in prior years. Critics of the DOJ approach, including the Association of American Medical Colleges, argue that MCAT scores are an imperfect measure of physician potential — citing 2019 data showing that students scoring between 510 and 513 still complete their first year of medical school 98% of the time — and that holistic admissions remain legal under the SFFA framework so long as race is not the determining factor.
The DOJ said it will continue similar investigations at other medical schools, signaling that Yale and UCLA are likely the opening rather than the conclusion of the federal enforcement push.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews10 hours agoWalk into almost any defense industry conference this year and the mood feels conflicted.
On one side of the room, executives from America’s largest defense contractors are talking about record order backlogs, rising military budgets, and a global security environment that appears to guarantee years of elevated weapons spending. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have pushed governments to replenish missiles, drones, ammunition, air-defense systems, and advanced military technology at a pace not seen in decades.
But on the other side of the room, a different conversation is taking shape — one that quietly questions whether the traditional defense industry has become too expensive for the wars governments increasingly expect to fight.
The tension is beginning to reshape both military planning and investor expectations.
The headline numbers still look extraordinarily bullish for the sector.
The Trump administration’s proposed fiscal year 2027 defense budget would push total military-related spending to roughly $1.5 trillion, one of the largest defense expansions in modern American history. According to JPMorgan, the increase represents the biggest single-year jump in defense spending since the Korean War buildup in the early 1950s.
Weapons procurement alone would rise to approximately $413 billion, nearly doubling within two years. Research and development spending would climb toward $344 billion.
Global military spending overall is now projected to reach roughly $2.6 trillion in 2026, with industry forecasts approaching $2.9 trillion by the end of the decade.
The large contractors sitting at the center of that system continue reporting enormous demand.
Lockheed Martin entered 2026 with roughly $194 billion in backlog orders. RTX is carrying a record backlog near $268 billion. Northrop Grumman closed last year with nearly $96 billion in pending business.
To investors, those numbers would normally suggest years of reliable growth.
But modern battlefields are beginning to complicate the equation.
The war in Ukraine has exposed something military planners and investors can no longer easily ignore: relatively inexpensive drones and autonomous systems are increasingly capable of destroying extraordinarily expensive military hardware.
A small attack drone costing a few hundred or a few thousand dollars can now damage tanks, ships, armored vehicles, and air-defense systems worth millions. Ukrainian factories are now reportedly capable of producing millions of small drones annually at costs far below traditional Western weapons systems.
At the same time, some of America’s next-generation military programs carry staggering price tags.
The Pentagon’s planned F-47 fighter aircraft is projected to cost roughly $300 million per jet. The B-21 Raider stealth bomber may exceed $600 million per aircraft. The proposed “Golden Dome” missile-defense initiative could ultimately cost hundreds of billions of dollars if fully expanded.
That gap — between cheap mass-produced battlefield technology and increasingly expensive legacy weapons systems — is now becoming one of the defining debates inside the defense industry.
Even some military leaders openly acknowledge the shift.
Former CIA Director and retired General David Petraeus recently described the Ukraine battlefield model as “the future of warfare,” pointing to swarms of drones, AI-assisted targeting, autonomous systems, and low-cost mass production rather than smaller fleets of ultra-expensive platforms.
Inside the Pentagon, pressure is quietly building for contractors to deliver more capability at lower cost and faster speed.
That pressure intensified in January when President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Prioritizing the Warfighter in Defense Contracting.” The order specifically instructed major defense contractors to prioritize production capacity and accelerated procurement rather than large stock buybacks and dividend programs that have long helped support shareholder returns.
The message from Washington was unusually direct: national-security priorities may now outweigh traditional Wall Street expectations.
The market has noticed.
While traditional defense giants still benefit from massive contracts, investors are increasingly shifting attention toward newer defense-technology companies focused on drones, AI systems, autonomous vehicles, low-cost munitions, and battlefield software.
Venture-capital investment into defense-tech startups surged approximately 180% year-over-year during the first quarter of 2026, according to industry data, with money pouring into companies building autonomous systems, AI-powered surveillance tools, sensor networks, and mass-manufacturable drone platforms.
Companies such as AeroVironment, which expanded its battlefield presence through its acquisition of BlueHalo, have emerged as key beneficiaries. Private defense startup Anduril Industries has also become one of the sector’s largest magnets for capital as investors increasingly bet that future wars will rely more heavily on software, automation, and scalable drone systems than on traditional legacy platforms alone.
Even inside financial markets, the defense trade is becoming harder to interpret.
The long-term growth outlook remains strong because geopolitical tensions continue intensifying globally. The wars involving Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Israel, and broader NATO military expansion are all driving sustained procurement demand.
But investors are increasingly trying to determine where future defense dollars actually flow.
Do governments continue prioritizing ultra-expensive aircraft, missile shields, and advanced strategic systems? Or does more of the spending shift toward cheaper drones, autonomous warfare, rapid manufacturing, and AI-enabled battlefield systems that can be produced faster and in far greater numbers?
The political environment is also becoming more complicated.
The administration’s proposed budget pairs massive defense increases with tens of billions of dollars in domestic spending cuts across housing, education, agriculture, and healthcare programs, while also seeking additional emergency war funding tied to the conflict with Iran.
That tradeoff is beginning to generate political backlash as voters absorb rising deficits, inflation pressures, and economic strain at home.
For defense investors, the result is a market increasingly split between two visions of warfare.
One still revolves around the traditional giants of American military power: stealth bombers, fighter jets, aircraft carriers, missile systems, and nuclear deterrence.
The other is being shaped in real time on modern battlefields where cheaper drones, AI-assisted targeting, software systems, and mass production increasingly determine outcomes at a fraction of the cost.
Both sides of that market are growing.
The question now confronting investors is which side ultimately captures more of the money.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews11 hours agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
A subtle but increasingly important shift is emerging inside Wall Street’s derivatives markets as institutional investors seek more sophisticated ways to protect themselves against a potential reversal in the artificial-intelligence stock boom without abandoning the rally altogether.
According to senior derivatives traders at Bank of America and UBS Investment Bank, clients are moving beyond traditional put options and increasingly deploying exotic hedging structures designed specifically for a market dominated by a handful of high-flying AI and semiconductor companies. The activity, highlighted in Bloomberg reporting Sunday, reflects a growing consensus across trading desks that investors still want exposure to the AI trade — but no longer want to remain fully exposed without downside protection.
One of the instruments drawing the strongest institutional demand is the “lookback put,” an exotic option structure whose strike price adjusts upward as the market rallies. Unlike standard put options, which lock in a fixed strike at purchase, lookback puts effectively preserve the market’s peak level as the reference point for protection. The contracts are considerably more expensive than traditional hedges, but they are specifically designed for a scenario in which stocks continue climbing before suffering a sharp reversal.
“We have seen decent client demand for lookback puts as clients hedge the scenario where markets can potentially rally before the selloff,” Neeraj Chaudhary, Bank of America’s head of exotics and flow for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told Bloomberg. Chaudhary also co-heads the bank’s global hybrids trading desk.
A second structure gaining popularity among institutional investors is the thematic custom basket dispersion trade, which UBS says is increasingly tied to AI-heavy portfolios. Rather than betting directly on whether the broader market rises or falls, the strategy profits from widening performance gaps between winners and losers inside a selected group of stocks.
Richa Singh, managing director at UBS Investment Bank, said investors are increasingly seeking ways to hedge concentrated exposure to the dominant AI names while still preserving participation in the broader technology rally.
“In an environment where conviction is high but uncertainty remains elevated, we’re seeing growing interest in thematic custom basket dispersion,” Singh said. “The idea being that single-stock realized volatility on a basket of, for example, AI leaders can pay regardless of market direction.”
The surge in hedging activity comes as Wall Street grows increasingly divided over whether the AI rally represents a sustainable technological transformation or the early stages of another speculative bubble.
Bank of America strategists have already warned that parts of the U.S. technology sector — particularly semiconductors — are beginning to display bubble-like characteristics. The concentration statistics are striking. Roughly 30% of the S&P 500’s market capitalization and approximately 20% of the MSCI World Index are now concentrated in just five companies, the heaviest concentration in roughly 50 years.
The S&P 500 currently trades at approximately 23 times forward earnings, a valuation level not seen since the late stages of the dot-com era. AI-linked stocks accounted for an estimated 80% of total U.S. equity gains during 2025, while Nvidia briefly surpassed a market value of $5 trillion last October — larger than the annual economic output of every country in the world except the United States and China, according to World Bank data.
What has complicated bearish positioning, however, is that the underlying earnings growth has largely justified the rally so far.
Analysts expect the information technology sector to deliver roughly 44% earnings-per-share growth in the first quarter of 2026 and account for approximately 87% of all S&P 500 earnings growth this year. Goldman Sachs estimates that AI infrastructure spending alone could drive about 40% of overall S&P 500 earnings growth in 2026.
Hyperscaler capital expenditures are also continuing to accelerate. Goldman projects spending by major AI infrastructure companies will rise to roughly $527 billion this year, up from about $465 billion projected at the start of 2025.
That strength has left strategists sharply divided over where markets head next.
Morgan Stanley chief U.S. equity strategist Michael Wilson maintains one of Wall Street’s most bullish outlooks with an S&P 500 target of 7,800. By contrast, Savita Subramanian, Bank of America’s head of U.S. equity strategy, has warned of a potential “AI air pocket” if earnings fail to justify valuations and sees only modest upside from current market levels.
The divergence helps explain why many institutional investors are opting for derivatives-based protection rather than reducing exposure outright.
Few investors want to abandon the sector producing the overwhelming majority of corporate earnings growth, but many are increasingly uncomfortable with the scale of concentration risk building beneath the rally.
Global policymakers have also begun issuing more direct warnings. Officials at the Bank of England have cautioned that AI-related valuations could decline sharply if infrastructure costs prove unsustainably high. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has compared current conditions to the late stages of the dot-com era, warning that a severe correction in AI-related assets could ripple across the broader global economy.
Credit markets tied to the AI buildout are now attracting hedging activity as well.
The five dominant hyperscalers — Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Oracle — issued approximately $121 billion in bonds during 2025, and analysts expect another $100 billion to $300 billion in issuance this year as AI infrastructure spending intensifies.
In response, JPMorgan Chase launched a credit-default-swap basket in March tied to all five companies, allowing institutional investors to hedge or short AI-related corporate credit exposure through a single instrument. Goldman Sachs is separately marketing total-return swap structures that allow hedge funds to speculate on swings in corporate loan pricing without directly owning the underlying debt.
JPMorgan research also highlighted mounting refinancing pressure across the software sector, with roughly $51 billion in B-minus-rated or lower software debt maturing in 2028 and another $50 billion due in 2029.
Friday’s market selloff — driven largely by rising Treasury yields rather than AI-specific news — offered another reminder of how quickly sentiment can shift when macroeconomic conditions tighten.
For now, Wall Street’s message appears increasingly consistent: stay invested in the AI trade, but buy stronger insurance while the rally still lasts.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews11 hours agoA federal jury ruled against Elon Musk in his lawsuit accusing OpenAI of abandoning its nonprofit roots, finding that neither the tech company nor CEO Sam Altman could be held liable in the matter because Musk waited too long to bring the case.
Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI in 2015, but left the artificial intelligence (AI) startup in 2018 after he was unable to persuade its other leaders to have OpenAI merge with Tesla or create a for-profit entity led by him to attract the investment needed to meet the company’s technological needs.
In his lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI of violating its founding mission as a nonprofit to develop AI for the benefit of humanity when the startup created a for-profit entity in 2019.
ELON MUSK ATTORNEY CLAIMS OPENAI, SAM ALTMAN ‘STOLE A CHARITY’ AS HIGH-STAKES LEGAL FIGHT BEGINS
His lawsuit sought the removal of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman from their roles at the company. He also sought over $150 billion in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft, which Musk said he would provide to OpenAI’s nonprofit entity. Altman and Brockman were among OpenAI’s co-founders.
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The company behind ChatGPT countered Musk’s claims by noting that the Tesla CEO pursued a merger with OpenAI and was involved with discussions about creating a for-profit entity for the company before his departure from its board of directors. They also viewed the lawsuit as a tactic to boost his own AI startup, xAI, as a competitor to OpenAI.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
JBizNews11 hours agoFormer Google CEO Eric Schmidt was met with boos during a University of Arizona commencement speech after discussing artificial intelligence and fears the technology could reshape – or replace – parts of the workforce.
Schmidt, who led Google from 2001 to 2011, addressed graduates on Friday while reflecting on how technology transformed society during his career. The atmosphere shifted, however, when he pivoted to artificial intelligence – a topic that has increasingly fueled concerns about job displacement among younger workers entering the labor market.
“The same tools that connect us also isolate us. The same platforms that gave everyone a voice… degraded the public square,” Schmidt told graduates.
Boos from the crowd intensified after Schmidt compared artificial intelligence to previous technological revolutions.
“I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you,” Schmidt said, appearing to address the boos. “There is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating, that the climate is breaking, that politics are fractured, and that you are inheriting a mess that you did not create.”
Schmidt acknowledged those fears as “rational” but argued graduates should help shape the future of AI rather than reject it.
CISCO TO CUT THOUSANDS OF JOBS AS AI PUSH ACCELERATES AFTER EARNINGS BEAT
“The question is not whether AI will shape the world. It will,” Schmidt said. “The question is whether you will have shaped artificial intelligence.”
The exchange underscored growing anxiety surrounding artificial intelligence as major corporations rapidly deploy AI tools across industries. Companies including IBM and Klarna have publicly discussed using AI to streamline operations and reduce certain staffing needs, particularly in administrative and entry-level roles.
A recent Pew Research Center survey found many Americans remain more concerned than excited about AI’s expanding role in daily life and the economy.
Schmidt’s appearance also drew criticism from some student activist groups over sexual assault allegations raised in a lawsuit filed last year by former partner Michelle Ritter. Schmidt has denied the allegations, which an attorney previously described as fabricated. Earlier this year, a judge ordered the dispute into arbitration.
WAYMO RECALLS MASSIVE AUTONOMOUS FLEET AFTER INCIDENT FLAGS MAJOR SAFETY ISSUE
The University of Arizona defended its decision to invite Schmidt as commencement speaker, citing his contributions to technology and scientific research.
“He helped lead Google’s rise into one of the world’s most influential technology companies and continues to advance research and discovery through major philanthropic and scientific initiatives,” university spokesperson Mitch Zak said in a statement.
A similar incident occurred earlier this month when real estate executive Gloria Caulfield was met with boos after linking AI to “the next Industrial Revolution” during a commencement address at the University of Central Florida.
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Despite the backlash, Schmidt urged graduates to embrace open debate and innovation, arguing technological change remains inevitable.
“The future is not yet finished,” Schmidt said in his closing remarks. “It is now your turn to shape it.”
JBizNews11 hours agoA factory worker retiring this year in Hamburg has, on average, about €66,000 in risk-bearing financial assets to her name. A retiree the same age in Toronto has roughly €209,000. A teacher in Stockholm has nearly the same. A nurse in Lyon falls somewhere in between, with about €91,000.
Same working lives. Same decades of labor. Very different retirements.
Across Europe, policymakers are beginning to confront a problem that sat quietly beneath the continent’s economy for years: Europeans save enormous amounts of money, but too little of it actually grows.
Instead, trillions of euros remain parked in low-yield bank accounts while populations age, pension systems strain, and governments scramble to finance everything from defense spending to artificial intelligence infrastructure.
What was once viewed as a slow-moving retirement issue is now becoming one of the most important financial debates inside Europe — and increasingly one with consequences for American households as well.
On May 5, finance ministers from across the European Union gathered in Brussels at the Economic and Financial Affairs Council to debate what officials call the Savings and Investments Union, a sweeping effort aimed at pushing more European savings into long-term investments, pensions, equities, and growth capital.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has described Europe’s financial system as “excessively fragmented.” German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil warned fellow ministers against retreating behind national interests as Brussels tries to modernize how Europeans save for retirement.
Underneath the bureaucratic language sits a far more personal reality: millions of Europeans heading into retirement with savings that, adjusted for inflation, have barely grown for years.
According to research led by Patrick Augustin, associate finance professor at McGill University, alongside the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry, countries that built stronger pension-investment systems decades ago — including Sweden, Canada, Denmark, Australia, and the Netherlands — now leave workers entering retirement with dramatically larger pools of long-term financial assets.
Countries that relied more heavily on traditional pay-as-you-go pension systems and low-yield savings accounts did not.
The scale of Europe’s underused savings pool is staggering.
According to analysis from the World Economic Forum and consulting firm Oliver Wyman, European households held roughly €37 trillion in savings entering 2026. Yet approximately 32% remains parked in cash and bank deposits, more than double the comparable share among American households.
Roughly €10 trillion sits in low-yield accounts that European policymakers increasingly view as economically idle.
Meanwhile, the United States spent decades building one of the deepest pools of retirement and investment capital in the world through pension funds, retirement accounts, equity markets, and broad stock ownership participation. American pension systems and retirement vehicles now hold close to $40 trillion in long-term capital.
That difference helped shape the modern global economy.
American retirement savings flowed into technology companies, infrastructure, venture capital, biotech firms, defense contractors, corporate credit markets, and stock markets that compounded wealth over decades. Europe, by contrast, left far more of its household wealth sitting conservatively inside traditional banking systems generating minimal returns.
Now the cost of that approach is becoming harder to ignore.
Europe faces an estimated annual investment gap of roughly €750 billion to €800 billion, according to reports prepared for EU leaders by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta. The continent simultaneously needs to finance defense expansion, semiconductor manufacturing, renewable energy infrastructure, biotech investment, digital modernization, and AI development — all while supporting rapidly aging populations.
The demographic pressures alone are severe.
According to Eurostat, people aged 65 and older now make up roughly 22% of the EU population, while the working-age population continues shrinking. Europe’s traditional pension structure — where current workers fund current retirees — was built for a younger continent with far more workers supporting each retiree.
That math no longer works as comfortably as it once did.
For ordinary Europeans, the consequences are deeply personal.
Industry research cited in the 2025 Will You Afford to Retire? report found median real returns on many European pension products hovered near just 0.3% over the past decade after inflation. Roughly 41% of Europeans contribute nothing to supplementary retirement plans beyond government systems.
The imbalance hits women especially hard. The EU’s gender pension gap averages roughly 24.5%, with significantly fewer women participating in supplementary retirement savings programs despite longer average lifespans.
Countries that moved earlier toward funded pension systems are now reaping the benefits.
Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands spent decades gradually shifting toward retirement systems tied more heavily to investment markets and long-term capital accumulation. Sweden’s AP7 pension fund and Britain’s NEST auto-enrollment model are now frequently cited across Europe as templates for reform.
Ireland launched a new national auto-enrollment retirement program this year. The Netherlands is continuing a major pension-system overhaul expected to transition dozens of pension funds into modernized collective investment structures through 2027.
For Americans, the story is not as distant as it may appear.
Much of Europe’s savings currently flows into U.S. assets — including Treasury bonds, American stocks, technology companies, and corporate debt. European pension funds and insurers remain major foreign buyers of U.S. financial assets.
If Europe succeeds in redirecting more of that capital internally, the effects could eventually ripple back into the American economy.
Reduced foreign demand for U.S. Treasuries could place upward pressure on borrowing costs, affecting mortgage rates, auto loans, and federal debt financing. At the same time, Europe is openly trying to build larger pools of investment capital capable of financing its own AI firms, semiconductor companies, defense contractors, and technology champions rather than relying as heavily on American markets.
Ironically, Europe is now trying to replicate many of the investment structures the United States spent decades building — broader stock ownership, retirement investing, and automatic enrollment systems — just as parts of the American system are showing growing strain themselves.
Roughly half of American private-sector workers still lack access to workplace retirement plans. Retirement wealth inside the U.S. also remains heavily concentrated among higher-income households. Social Security faces long-term demographic pressure similar to Europe’s.
The difference is timing.
Europe is confronting the problem now, aggressively and publicly, with continent-wide reforms already underway. The United States, despite facing many of the same demographic realities, has not yet reached a comparable political reckoning.
The decisions European leaders make over the next several months will not immediately change retirement checks for today’s pensioners.
But they may determine whether Europe can transform trillions in stagnant household savings into the kind of long-term investment capital capable of financing its future — and whether America continues benefiting from Europe’s money flowing across the Atlantic or begins competing against it instead.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews12 hours agoNew York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday announced another location for one of the city’s five planned government-run grocery stores.
The store will be located in the Bronx at what Mamdani called The Peninsula, a planned mixed-use campus that will also offer affordable housing and a health and wellness center in the Hunts Point neighborhood. It is scheduled to open some time in 2027.
“This store will be the first of the five city-run grocery stores to open,” Mamdani told reporters during a press conference. “Bronx residents will be able to begin shopping here next year.”
“It is going to be a 20,000 square-foot location, and its ambition is perfectly placed at The Peninsula, which will house 740 units of 100% affordable housing by the time that it’s fully built,” the mayor continued.
SOCIALIST MAMDANI TOUTS GOVERNMENT-RUN GROCERY PLAN AS ‘GRAND EXPERIMENT’’ AT GROCERY NEW SITE
The Peninsula will be located on the site of the former Spofford Juvenile Detention Facility.
Mamdani previously announced an East Harlem location for the city’s flagship 9,000 square-foot Manhattan location, but that store will be built from the ground up and is slated to open in 2029.
The East Harlem site is estimated to cost $30 million, according to the New York Times. It was unclear how much the location at The Peninsula would cost.
MICHAEL RAPAPORT DOUBLES DOWN ON 2029 NYC MAYORAL RUN, VOWS ‘STREET FIGHT’ AGAINST ZOHRAN MAMDANI
The total budget allocated for the development of the five city-run grocery stores is $70 million.
Mamdani has touted the city-run grocery store plan as a “grand experiment” that would reduce the cost of everyday items like bread and eggs.
He has previously promised to open one such store in each borough, saying the city will subsidize basic grocery items while a private operator runs the stores under city rules requiring lower prices.
Mamdani has said the city-run stores would be part of a broader “ecosystem” and would not replace existing grocers, including bodegas and neighborhood supermarkets, amid questions about their impact on small businesses.
Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.
JBizNews12 hours agoNew York’s largest commuter rail system entered its third day of complete shutdown Monday morning as roughly 250,000 daily Long Island Rail Road riders woke up to traffic gridlock, overcrowded subway platforms, and renewed reminders of how dependent the region remains on mass transit nearly six years after the pandemic transformed office culture.
The strike — the first full Long Island Rail Road shutdown since 1994 and the largest commuter-rail stoppage in the United States in more than three decades — is now rapidly evolving beyond a transportation crisis into a broader economic stress test for New York’s fragile return-to-office recovery.
According to a joint statement issued Sunday evening by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and confirmed by union representatives, five LIRR unions representing engineers, signalmen, and train crews officially walked off the job at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, May 16, after months of stalled negotiations over wages and healthcare costs.
Talks resumed Monday morning at MTA headquarters after a marathon overnight bargaining session ended without a breakthrough.
Meanwhile, Governor Kathy Hochul made an unusually direct public appeal to both employers and commuters.
“Effective Monday, I’m asking that regular commuters who can work from home, should. Please do so,” Hochul said Sunday, acknowledging that “it’s impossible to fully replace LIRR service.”
The message landed immediately across corporate New York.
Major employers including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, KPMG, Deloitte, EY, PwC, Northwell Health, and NewYork-Presbyterian advised many employees to work remotely wherever possible, triggering what has effectively become the city’s largest forced remote-work experiment since the COVID-era shutdowns of 2020.
Penn Station, normally one of the busiest transportation hubs in North America, appeared almost unrecognizable over the weekend, with departure boards flashing “No Passengers” while empty trains sat idle.
The LIRR carried roughly 82 million riders in 2025, according to MTA data, making it the busiest commuter railroad in North America and one of the core arteries feeding Manhattan’s office economy.
Now that artery is frozen.
And the financial burden is landing hardest on workers who cannot simply open a laptop from home.
Commuters attempting to drive into Manhattan Monday morning faced severe congestion along the Long Island Expressway, Northern State Parkway, and Belt Parkway, while ride-share prices surged sharply. Trips from western Long Island into Midtown Manhattan that normally cost between $80 and $120 were quoted as high as $250 to $400 during peak commuting hours.
Parking costs, tolls, gas prices, and additional subway transfers are rapidly compounding the burden.
A standard monthly LIRR pass from stations such as Hicksville or Ronkonkoma into Manhattan typically costs between $300 and $500. Replacing rail travel with private vehicles or ride-share services could push commuting expenses to between $80 and $200 per day, meaning a weeklong strike could cost some households nearly $1,000 in unexpected transportation expenses alone.
Hochul acknowledged Sunday that the burden falls disproportionately on workers who cannot operate remotely.
Nurses, retail employees, restaurant workers, construction crews, hospitality staff, and healthcare technicians remain among the most exposed.
“I do ultrasounds for pregnant women and gynecology, and I have to be there. I can’t do that remotely,” commuter Dana Camera told local reporters while waiting for limited shuttle service over the weekend.
The MTA has deployed temporary shuttle buses from six Long Island locations during peak hours and added capacity to portions of the subway system in Queens, but transit officials privately admit there is no realistic replacement for full LIRR service.
The political blame game is already escalating.
Governor Hochul blamed the Trump administration for failing to extend federal mediation efforts earlier this year after a previous strike threat was temporarily delayed in September 2025 through federal intervention.
President Donald Trump rejected that framing Sunday night on Truth Social.
“No, Kathy, it’s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen,” Trump wrote.
The National Mediation Board, which oversees rail labor disputes under the Railway Labor Act, continues facilitating negotiations but has not yet triggered the emergency-board process that could suspend the strike for an additional 60 days.
Union representative Mike Carlucci said he appreciated Hochul’s public support for commuters but argued the governor needs to become more directly engaged in the negotiations themselves.
Beyond the immediate disruption, however, the strike is reopening a much larger question hanging over New York’s economy: whether the city’s push back toward five-day office attendance remains sustainable in a region still deeply vulnerable to transportation breakdowns.
For many companies, the strike is becoming an involuntary real-time test of whether remote productivity remains viable at scale.
Commercial real-estate executives are watching closely.
Manhattan office landlords including SL Green Realty, Vornado Realty Trust, and Empire State Realty Trust have spent the last two years pushing aggressively for office normalization after pandemic-era vacancies devastated Midtown occupancy levels.
Now, many firms that had recently tightened in-office attendance policies are once again allowing broad remote flexibility almost overnight.
The ripple effects are spreading beyond offices.
Midtown restaurants, bars, and retailers reported sharp declines in weekend foot traffic. Madison Square Garden lost attendance tied to playoff games involving the New York Knicks and other events as suburban ticket holders struggled to reach Manhattan. Broadway theaters, hotel operators, and retail corridors are bracing for additional fallout if the strike continues deeper into the week.
For now, the outcome depends on whether negotiators can produce a deal before Tuesday morning’s commute.
If not, pressure will intensify on both Albany and Washington to intervene more aggressively.
In the meantime, one reality has already become unavoidable:
New York’s largest transit strike in decades has suddenly given remote work its strongest institutional endorsement since the pandemic itself.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews13 hours agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 18, 2026
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Friday that it is sharply reducing its target staffing level for certified air traffic controllers to 12,563, down 14% from the prior target of 14,633, even as AAA projects a record 45 million Americans will travel over the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, according to the agency’s statement released through Reuters. The FAA said the cut reflects a new operational framework built around what it called “modern staffing models and scheduling tools,” intended to reduce reliance on what has become a $200-million-a-year overtime regime that aviation safety researchers have increasingly described as unsustainable.
The timing immediately drew attention across the aviation industry because the staffing revision arrives just as the U.S. airline system heads into what carriers expect will be the busiest summer travel season in history. AAA forecasts 3.66 million Americans will fly over Memorial Day weekend alone, while airlines are simultaneously managing elevated fuel costs tied to the Iran war and the continuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has kept crude oil above $100 a barrel and pushed jet-fuel costs sharply higher.
The numbers behind the FAA’s staffing decision are striking. The agency’s air traffic control workforce logged roughly 2.2 million hours of overtime during 2024, costing more than $200 million. Annual overtime per certified controller has surged 308% since 2013, climbing to roughly 167 hours annually from just 41 hours a decade earlier. A report published last year by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found the FAA hired only about two-thirds of the controllers called for under its own staffing models between 2013 and 2023, while the active certified controller workforce fell approximately 13% during that same period.
The same study identified what researchers described as “misallocated workforce and inefficient scheduling,” noting that controller time-on-position — the portion of a shift spent actively directing aircraft — actually declined despite a 4% increase in overall air traffic volume. FAA officials said Friday the revised staffing model is intended to improve operational efficiency by increasing average time-on-position from roughly four hours per shift to more than five hours.
The FAA currently employs about 11,000 certified controllers across more than 300 facilities nationwide, alongside roughly 4,000 additional personnel still in the training pipeline. That includes approximately 1,000 already-certified controllers retraining for assignments at new locations. Under the revised benchmark, the agency now sits at roughly 87% of its target staffing level — a materially easier threshold to achieve than the prior 14,633-controller target the FAA has struggled unsuccessfully to meet for more than a decade.
Still, the optics are difficult for regulators. The announcement comes only months after the deadly January midair collision near Reagan National Airport that killed 67 people, as well as a separate near-miss incident earlier this spring involving a Delta Air Lines aircraft and a Republic Airways regional jet near New York airspace. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy openly criticized the staffing reduction Friday, telling Reuters that “staffing decisions should be driven by safety data, not budget optimization.”
The airline industry responded cautiously. Airlines for America, the trade association representing Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines, said the FAA “must ensure that any restructuring of staffing targets does not compromise the operational integrity of the National Airspace System during the busiest summer travel period in U.S. history.” The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, which represents roughly 20,000 aviation workers, warned that overtime levels are “already at unsustainable burnout thresholds.”
Pilots and regional carriers are particularly sensitive to staffing shortages because smaller airports and shorter routes are often the first areas impacted by air traffic delays and scheduling restrictions. Regional operators including SkyWest, Republic Airways and Mesa Air Group — already under pressure from rising jet-fuel costs and shrinking short-haul profitability — all traded modestly lower Friday after the announcement.
The market reaction among major aerospace suppliers was muted. Shares of Boeing, GE Aerospace, Spirit AeroSystems and RTX Corp. were little changed despite each company’s exposure to long-term FAA modernization spending. L3Harris Technologies, one of the principal contractors helping build the FAA’s NextGen communications infrastructure, finished slightly lower.
The broader issue remains structural rather than temporary. The FAA’s NextGen modernization program, launched in 2003 with an expected multidecade rollout and estimated budget of roughly $20 billion, remains incomplete after years of delays, contractor disputes and evolving technology requirements. Verizon Communications and L3Harris remain central contractors on the system’s communications and surveillance upgrades, though multiple portions of the rollout continue running behind schedule.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who took office in January, has made modernization of the national airspace system a central policy priority and has pushed the FAA toward what the administration describes as “outcome-based staffing.” Supporters argue the revised targets better reflect operational realities and technological improvements rather than outdated hiring assumptions. Critics counter that lowering staffing goals risks institutionalizing shortages rather than solving them.
For travelers, the immediate concern is whether the system can handle what could become one of the busiest and most operationally strained summer travel periods in decades. Airlines are already cutting less-profitable regional flights as jet-fuel costs climb, while controller fatigue and scheduling bottlenecks continue contributing to delays throughout major hubs.
Whether the FAA’s revised staffing framework improves efficiency or simply lowers expectations will likely become clear quickly — beginning with Memorial Day weekend itself.
— JBizNews Desk
© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.
JBizNews13 hours agoMayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposal to open five city-owned supermarkets across New York City is rapidly escalating into one of the most closely watched economic and political fights in the city — drawing growing scrutiny from business leaders, national media, and immigrant-owned neighborhood retailers who say the plan could fundamentally reshape Main Street commerce across the five boroughs.
The effort gained immediate attention across New York’s political and media landscape because of the coalition’s unusually high-level business and civic network, with the New York Post, today’s New York Times, and Fox Business Network quickly spotlighting what many inside City Hall now view as one of the most influential emerging multicultural business coalitions and leadership teams to enter New York’s economic debate in years.
During a segment this week on Fox Business Network’s The Bottom Line with Dagen McDowell, McDowell closed the discussion by noting that her own parents made their livelihood operating a bodega and expressed concern that government-backed supermarkets could hurt immigrant-owned neighborhood stores that remain the “bread-and-butter livelihood for everyday people” across New York City.
Now, a newly formed alliance of more than 50 immigrant-led chambers of commerce says it is preparing to formally challenge the proposal before the New York City Council.
The newly launched Multicultural Business Coalition — representing Hispanic, African, Caribbean, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Jewish business organizations — has already assembled a seven-figure political and advocacy operation aimed at slowing or reshaping Mamdani’s supermarket initiative before its first major City Hall test on May 29, when the New York City Council Economic Development Committee is expected to hold its first formal hearing on the administration’s proposed $70 million municipal supermarket plan.
According to coalition chairman Frank Garcia, the organization secured a $1 million donor commitment shortly after launch and raised another approximately $100,000 from small and midsize business owners within days.
Coalition leaders say the issue is not political ideology but economic survival.
“This is not just about supermarkets,” said Duvi Honig, founder of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce and secretary of the coalition. “This is the first time such a broad coalition of immigrant-led business organizations from across New York City has united around a single economic issue. It’s about whether government should directly compete against the same immigrant-owned neighborhood businesses that spent decades building these communities, creating jobs, paying taxes, and keeping New York’s commercial corridors alive through some of the toughest economic conditions the city has faced.
“At the same time, this is not about fighting the mayor — we are absolutely prepared to sit down together and have a serious economic discussion about how to lower costs for families while also protecting the bodegas, neighborhood grocers, and small businesses that are the economic backbone and everyday livelihood of New York City.”
That message appears to be resonating well beyond City Hall.
Unlike many previous anti-Mamdani efforts backed primarily by Wall Street donors, developers, or corporate political groups, the resistance emerging here is rooted largely inside neighborhood business corridors and immigrant-owned commercial strips throughout the city.
The coalition argues that government-owned supermarkets would receive structural advantages unavailable to independent operators, including relief from rent burdens, property taxes, financing costs, and other overhead pressures currently squeezing neighborhood grocers already operating on razor-thin margins.
Mayor Mamdani has framed the proposal differently.
The administration argues city-owned supermarkets could reduce grocery costs in underserved neighborhoods by purchasing inventory wholesale, centralizing warehousing and distribution, and operating without a traditional profit motive. The flagship location is planned for the city-owned La Marqueta site in East Harlem, with additional stores proposed across the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.
Supporters of the initiative point to rising food insecurity across the city, with Mamdani repeatedly citing figures showing roughly one in four New York City children experiences some level of food hardship.
But critics argue the economics become more difficult once the realities of the grocery industry enter the equation.
Supermarket analyst Phil Lempert notes that grocery stores typically operate on margins between 1.5% and 2%, among the lowest in American business. Critics argue municipal stores would effectively compete against private neighborhood operators while benefiting from public support structures unavailable to existing businesses.
“A government-owned supermarket is a mission-driven business,” said Stephen Zagor of Columbia Business School. “At best, maybe they break even. More likely, they require ongoing subsidy.”
Several publicly supported grocery projects elsewhere in the country have struggled financially, including efforts in Kansas City, Atlanta, and Baltimore.
Critics also dispute whether some of the proposed New York locations qualify as true “food deserts,” noting that the planned East Harlem flagship already sits within walking distance of multiple supermarkets and dozens of grocery options.
Supermarket owner John Catsimatidis has sharply criticized the initiative, warning that government-backed stores could place additional pressure on neighborhood operators already dealing with inflation, labor costs, theft, insurance increases, and slowing consumer spending.
Meanwhile, the politics around the issue continue intensifying.
Garcia told the New York Post he rejected outreach tied to fundraising efforts connected to Mamdani allies, underscoring how quickly the supermarket debate is evolving into a wider fight over the future direction of New York’s economy.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin has already signaled caution, saying the Council intends to closely examine both the consumer benefits and the potential impact on existing neighborhood retailers before approving funding.
Without Council approval, the proposed $70 million capital package cannot move forward.
Over the coming weeks, what began as a debate over five grocery stores may evolve into something much larger — a test of whether New York City should directly enter industries traditionally built by immigrant-owned small businesses, and whether those same business communities are now becoming a coordinated political force capable of reshaping economic debates at City Hall.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews13 hours agoHouse Speaker Mike Johnson’s defense of congressional stock trading moved back into public focus this week as lawmakers, investors, and voters renewed debate over whether elected officials should be allowed to actively trade financial assets while serving in office.
Johnson’s argument, originally made last year and widely circulated again this week, centered on a reality many members of Congress quietly discuss in private: congressional salaries have remained unchanged since 2009 even as the cost of living in Washington has risen sharply.
Rank-and-file House and Senate members still earn $174,000 annually, according to the Congressional Research Service. Adjusted for inflation, congressional compensation has effectively declined by roughly 30% over the past 17 years.
Johnson argued that lawmakers today face mounting financial pressures tied to maintaining residences both in Washington and in their home districts while supporting families in an increasingly expensive economy. His broader point was that investment activity has become one of the few ways many members can preserve long-term financial stability while serving in public office.
The discussion resurfaced as new federal ethics disclosures showed President Donald Trump executed 3,642 securities transactions during the first quarter of 2026, highlighting once again how closely politics, investing, and financial markets have become intertwined at the highest levels of government.
According to filings submitted through the Office of Government Ethics, Trump’s disclosed transactions involved companies including Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Goldman Sachs, Palantir, Broadcom, Dell Technologies, and Bank of America, with cumulative values reported within federal disclosure ranges totaling between approximately $220 million and $750 million.
Federal law does not prohibit a sitting president from trading securities, and disclosure forms require only broad value ranges rather than exact purchase prices or profits. A White House spokesperson said the holdings are managed through discretionary accounts while the Trump family business is overseen by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
Members of Congress operate under a similar disclosure framework.
The STOCK Act of 2012 requires lawmakers to disclose securities trades within 45 days, though lawmakers from both parties continue debating whether disclosure alone is sufficient in an era where financial markets react instantly to government policy, regulation, and geopolitical developments.
The issue has become increasingly visible as congressional trading disclosures attract growing public attention.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s household portfolio has frequently drawn notice for outperforming broader market indexes, particularly in technology stocks, while other lawmakers including Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene have also become closely watched by retail investors who now track congressional disclosures almost in real time.
What was once a niche ethics issue has evolved into a broader conversation about wealth, public service, and how modern political life increasingly intersects with financial markets.
Behind much of the debate is the changing economics of serving in Congress itself.
Lawmakers receive no additional salary for committee assignments despite the significant time and fundraising responsibilities attached to them. Research from organizations including Issue One and the Brookings Institution has shown that members seeking seats on influential committees are often expected to raise hundreds of thousands — and in some cases millions — of dollars for party campaign organizations.
At the same time, outside earned income for lawmakers is tightly restricted under congressional ethics rules. Members may earn no more than 15% of their salary from outside employment, while honoraria have been banned for decades. Investment income, however, remains unrestricted.
That structure has gradually made investment portfolios a more significant part of long-term financial planning for many members of Congress.
Johnson’s comments reflected that broader reality.
Rather than framing stock ownership as extraordinary wealth accumulation, the Speaker described it as part of the financial balancing act lawmakers face while navigating rising housing costs, travel demands, fundraising expectations, and stagnant salaries.
Public opinion on the issue remains mixed but increasingly active.
Polling from YouGov and the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation shows broad bipartisan support for restricting or banning individual stock trading by elected officials, including members of Congress, presidents, and Supreme Court justices.
Several proposals remain pending on Capitol Hill, including the Restore Trust in Congress Act, introduced by Representatives Chip Roy and Seth Magaziner, which would require lawmakers and their families to move many investments into blind trusts while prohibiting direct trading of individual stocks.
The legislation remains in committee as lawmakers continue debating where the line should be drawn between financial freedom and public trust.
The conversation unfolding around Johnson’s remarks ultimately reflects a larger shift taking place in Washington and across Wall Street: politics and financial markets are now more interconnected than at any point in modern American history.
Congress writes legislation affecting trillion-dollar industries. Presidents shape economic policy that can move entire sectors overnight. Investors increasingly monitor Washington as closely as they monitor earnings reports and Federal Reserve meetings.
Against that backdrop, the debate over congressional investing is evolving beyond ethics alone and into a broader question about how public officials should participate in the same financial system they help regulate.
Johnson’s central argument was straightforward: congressional salaries have not kept pace with inflation, and lawmakers, like many Americans, are trying to manage the economic realities that come with that shift.
Whether voters view investment activity as a reasonable extension of that reality or believe stricter limits are needed will likely shape the next phase of the debate on Capitol Hill.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews13 hours agoFor years, India sold global investors on one of the most compelling economic stories of the century: a nation of 1.4 billion people poised to become the world’s next manufacturing powerhouse, the democratic counterweight to China, and eventually the planet’s third-largest economy. Global CEOs embraced the narrative. Wall Street poured money into Indian equities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi built much of his economic diplomacy around the promise that India’s rise was not merely coming — it had already begun.
Then the numbers changed.
On February 27, India’s Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) quietly released a revised GDP series that effectively reduced the size of the Indian economy by hundreds of billions of dollars. Under the new methodology, nominal GDP for fiscal year 2025-26 was recalculated downward to approximately ₹345 lakh crore, compared with roughly ₹357 lakh crore under the previous series.
In dollar terms, India’s economy was effectively reduced from around $4.2 trillion to closer to $3.9 trillion.
The downgrade immediately carried symbolic and financial consequences. India, which had celebrated overtaking Japan as the world’s fourth-largest economy in 2025, slipped back behind Tokyo under the revised calculations. Estimated per-capita GDP also fell sharply, dropping from prior estimates near $2,900 to roughly $2,600.
While the government simultaneously revised headline growth rates slightly higher — lifting fiscal 2025-26 real GDP growth to 7.6% — economists quickly focused on the larger implication: India’s economy may not be as large or as structurally strong as global markets had assumed.
The timing could hardly be worse.
As investors digested the revision, nearly every major economic pressure point surrounding India began deteriorating simultaneously.
The Indian rupee fell this week to a historic low near 95.73 against the U.S. dollar, making it Asia’s weakest-performing major currency of 2026. Foreign portfolio investors have already withdrawn more than $20 billion from Indian equities during the first four months of the year, according to data from the National Securities Depository Ltd. (NSDL) — already exceeding last year’s record pace of outflows.
Meanwhile, India’s dependence on imported energy is becoming increasingly exposed amid tightening global oil markets and disruptions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz. India imports approximately 85% of its crude oil needs, leaving the economy highly vulnerable to sustained increases in global energy prices and supply disruptions tied to the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict.
State-run oil marketing companies are reportedly losing as much as ₹1,000 crore per day as the government limits domestic fuel-price increases to contain inflation pressure on consumers.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra warned this week that policymakers may need to intervene more aggressively if currency and inflation pressures continue intensifying.
But the growing concern among economists extends far beyond oil prices or short-term market volatility.
For years, analysts have questioned whether India’s official GDP data accurately reflects underlying economic reality.
Former Indian Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian has repeatedly argued that India’s growth figures likely overstate actual expansion because of structural distortions in measurement methodology. In March, Nicholas Lardy, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, published research arguing that India’s economic trajectory has been materially less stable than headline data suggested. Mumbai-based economist Dhananjay Sinha recalculated India’s post-pandemic growth under the revised methodology and concluded that true growth may be closer to 4.8%, well below earlier estimates.
The pressure intensified after the International Monetary Fund assigned India a “C” grade in late 2025 for the quality and coverage of its national accounts — the second-lowest rating possible — citing outdated methodologies and gaps in real-time economic measurement.
The deeper issue now confronting investors is whether India’s structural transformation is progressing fast enough to justify the enormous expectations embedded into global capital flows and market valuations.
Despite years of flagship initiatives including “Make in India”, production-linked incentive programs, and “Atmanirbhar Bharat” self-reliance campaigns, manufacturing still represents only about 16% to 17% of India’s GDP — far below the levels historically associated with export-driven industrial powers such as China, South Korea, or Vietnam during their rapid expansion phases.
Large segments of advanced manufacturing remain heavily dependent on imported components, machinery, semiconductors, and battery technology.
In a sharply worded note to Prime Minister Modi earlier this year, analysts at Bernstein warned that India faces a narrowing window to restructure its economy before demographic advantages begin fading. The report highlighted India’s continued dependence on imported industrial inputs, the vulnerability of the country’s massive IT outsourcing sector to generative AI disruption, and the continued concentration of labor in low-productivity informal work.
Other forecasters are already turning more cautious. BMI, part of Fitch Solutions, recently cut its fiscal 2026-27 GDP growth forecast for India to 6.7% from 7.7%, citing external pressures, energy-market disruptions, and weakening global conditions.
None of this means India’s economy is collapsing. By almost any global standard, it remains one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world. The country still possesses one of the largest consumer markets on earth, a rapidly expanding digital infrastructure, and an increasingly important role in global supply-chain diversification efforts as companies seek alternatives to China.
But investors are increasingly asking a more uncomfortable question: whether the gap between India’s global economic narrative and its underlying economic fundamentals has become too large to ignore.
The next critical moment arrives May 29, when MoSPI releases provisional annual GDP estimates under the revised methodology. Investors, economists, and policymakers will be watching closely not simply for another growth number, but for evidence of whether the economy behind the headlines is truly becoming the global economic superpower markets have spent years anticipating.
For much of the past decade, belief in India’s future helped drive investment. Increasingly, global markets are demanding harder proof.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews13 hours agoThe US is examining the possibility of establishing a secure artificial intelligence base in Israel’s Negev Desert as part of a broader effort to protect advanced technology from Chinese espionage and cement American dominance in the AI race, Michael Doran and Zineb Riboua of the Hudson Institute wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published last week.
According to Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and Riboua, a research fellow at the same Washington-based think tank, American and Israeli officials are discussing a joint initiative known in Israel as Project Spire. The proposed facility would combine the security standards of a US military installation with the research and engineering culture of a major technology hub.
The plan, as described in the op-ed, centers on three Israeli-proposed sites in the western Negev. Israel would reportedly provide the land through a long-term lease for American use, while the facility itself would be designed to host research and development, major server infrastructure, dedicated energy systems, chip design, AI model training, and potentially advanced semiconductor production.
The strategic logic behind the project is not simply to build another tech campus. Doran and Riboua argue that the next stage of the US-China competition will require protected zones where trusted allies can work together on AI without exposing sensitive technology to theft. In their framing, Project Spire would be the first node in a network of hardened AI bases, allowing American companies and allied researchers to collaborate inside secure perimeters governed by strict US standards.
The op-ed links the project to the Trump administration’s Pax Silica initiative, which is described as an economic-security framework meant to strengthen trusted supply chains, reduce dependence on China, and protect the infrastructure behind advanced computing. The writers cite a January 16, 2026, declaration signed in Jerusalem by US Undersecretary of State Jacob Helberg and Erez Askal, head of Israel’s National AI Directorate, as a possible foundation for the initiative.
Israel, the writers argue, is an unusually strong candidate for the first such base because of its concentration of cyber, intelligence, military technology, chip architecture, and applied AI expertise. They also point to the presence of major American technology companies in Israel, including Nvidia, Intel, Google, and Microsoft, as evidence that the country already sits deep inside the US-led technology ecosystem.
The Negev, in their view, would also offer strategic continuity. The region already has a history of advanced US-Israeli industrial cooperation, including Intel’s long-running manufacturing activity in Kiryat Gat. A new AI base would build on that foundation while moving into a more sensitive domain: the computing power, energy capacity, software development, and chip capabilities needed for the next generation of artificial intelligence.
Doran and Riboua present the project as a way to strengthen both economies. Technologies developed at the base would remain under American ownership, they write, while still allowing production and scaling to take place in the US. That structure, they argue, would create high-value jobs in both countries and help American firms maintain leadership over critical AI systems.
The proposal is also framed as a response to the vulnerability of existing supply chains. Taiwan remains central to global semiconductor production but is exposed to geopolitical pressure from China. Other allies, including Britain, Japan, South Korea, and India, each have major strengths, but the writers argue that Israel offers a rare mix of operational speed, technological depth, battlefield-driven innovation, and trust with Washington.
If approved, Project Spire could become a model for similar secure AI facilities in other allied countries. The core idea is that the US would not retreat from global technological cooperation, but would move it into controlled environments where intellectual property, military applications, and sensitive infrastructure are better protected.
For Israel, the project would mark a significant expansion of its role in the AI and semiconductor race. For Washington, it would test whether a close ally can host a strategic technology base designed not only to produce innovation, but to shield it.
JBizNews14 hours agoKevin Warsh begins his first full week as chair of the Federal Reserve with the 10-year Treasury yield at a one-year high of 4.55%, the U.S. Dollar Index at its strongest level since early March, April CPI at 3.8% — the hottest reading since May 2023 — and CME FedWatch odds of a 2026 rate hike at 45%, up from near-zero a month ago, according to data from Trading Economics, the CME Group and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Warsh, 56, was sworn in Friday after the U.S. Senate narrowly confirmed him Wednesday, replacing Jerome Powell, whose term expired the same day. Wall Street is now waiting on Warsh’s first public communications to gauge whether the new chair will lean rules-based, hawkish, or whether he will, as some critics fear, tilt to accommodate President Donald Trump’s repeated public calls for lower rates.
Warsh’s April 21 confirmation testimony before the Senate Banking Committee offered the clearest signal of his early priorities. He told senators that “the Fed must stay in its lane” and warned that “Fed independence is placed at greatest risk when it strays into fiscal and social policies where it has neither authority nor expertise.” He committed firmly to fighting inflation but, notably, made only one mention of the labor market in his prepared remarks, a tilt that monetary historians read as a return to Paul Volcker-style single-mandate emphasis. Warsh also said publicly elected officials voicing views on rate policy does not, in his view, threaten the Fed’s “operational independence” — a comment that drew applause from the Trump administration but raised eyebrows among economists who argued the standard for political pressure should be higher.
The more consequential policy question is the balance sheet. Warsh has argued for years that the Fed must shrink its footprint in financial markets and rely primarily on the federal-funds rate as its tool, rather than the multi-trillion-dollar System Open Market Account of Treasury and mortgage-backed-securities holdings built up since the 2008 financial crisis. Any signal during his first speech that he intends to accelerate quantitative tightening could send long-end yields higher and pressure mortgage-backed securities and bank stocks. Warsh has also publicly questioned the FOMC’s 2012 decision to formally adopt a 2% inflation target, arguing the figure is “arbitrary.” A move to revise or scrap the target — even rhetorically — would be the biggest framework change since the central bank adopted its flexible average inflation targeting regime in 2020.
The optics are also unusually personal. Warsh is married to Jane Lauder, an Estée Lauder Companies Inc. board member and granddaughter of the cosmetics empire’s founder, putting the new Fed chair in the upper tier of American wealth and giving the Lauder family a direct line to monetary-policy decision-making. He served as a Fed governor from February 2006 to April 2011, dissenting on quantitative easing under chairs Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen, and built much of his market-facing reputation on his role coordinating the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program with then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.
Markets have given Warsh the benefit of the doubt so far. Invesco chief global market strategist Kristina Hooper wrote in a note last month that “longer-term U.S. inflation expectations remain well-contained, suggesting that markets aren’t currently pricing in concerns about political interference in monetary policy.” Five-year breakeven inflation rates have ticked up modestly but remain anchored. Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick and Strategas Research’s Don Rissmiller have both flagged that the Warsh regime is most likely to manifest in subtle communication shifts rather than in sudden rate moves, given the FOMC does not meet again until June 16-17.
The calendar this week sharpens the focus. The FOMC minutes from the April 28-29 meeting — the last under Powell — are released Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET, and any contrast between the Powell-era tone and Warsh’s opening remarks will be scrutinized. Fed governors Christopher Waller, Michelle Bowman and Lisa Cook are also scheduled for public remarks during the week, and any divergence on policy could highlight emerging fault lines within the committee. Friday’s final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment print for May, particularly the five-year inflation expectations component, will be the data Warsh’s team will be watching most closely.
For investors, the practical questions are three: whether Warsh signals an accelerated balance-sheet runoff, whether he hints at a higher tolerance for elevated inflation in service of growth, and whether his rhetoric on Fed independence holds up under the first wave of Trump pressure. The answers will move the U.S. Dollar Index, the 2-year Treasury yield and the S&P 500 in roughly that order of magnitude.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews14 hours agoNextEra Energy is making a massive $66.8 billion bet that America’s artificial intelligence boom will drive a historic surge in electricity demand, announcing plans to acquire Dominion Energy in a blockbuster utility deal that would create the world’s largest regulated utility by market value.
The combined company would serve roughly 10 million customer accounts across Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina and operate about 110 gigawatts of generation capacity. The transaction is structured as an all-stock deal.
The acquisition would give Florida-based NextEra a major foothold in Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” the world’s largest concentration of data centers and a critical hub of the U.S. AI economy.
The deal highlights how rapidly AI is reshaping the U.S. energy industry, with utilities racing to supply electricity to massive data centers operated by companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta.
Dominion alone has nearly 51 gigawatts of contracted data-center capacity tied to customers including Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, Equinix and CoreWeave, according to the companies. One gigawatt can power roughly 750,000 homes.
The companies also said the combined business would have more than 130 gigawatts of additional large-load opportunities tied to rising power demand.
The transaction would also significantly expand NextEra’s presence in the PJM Interconnection region, the nation’s largest power grid covering more than a dozen states and several of the country’s fastest-growing AI infrastructure markets.
The merger marks one of the largest utility transactions in years and reflects growing Wall Street expectations that electricity providers could emerge as major beneficiaries of the AI boom as power demand rises for the first sustained period in decades.
The combined company would derive more than 80% of its operations from regulated utility businesses, a structure investors typically view as more stable and predictable.
Power prices nationwide have already climbed roughly 40% over the last five years, with particularly sharp increases in AI-heavy states including Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
The deal is also part of a broader consolidation wave across the power sector as utilities and investors seek to secure generation capacity and grid access tied to AI-driven demand growth.
Other recent industry transactions include Constellation Energy’s $16 billion acquisition of Calpine, Blackstone’s $11.5 billion deal for TXNM Energy and AES Corp.’s pending $33.4 billion buyout.
The merger is expected to face regulatory scrutiny and still requires approval from federal and state regulators. NextEra said it plans to provide $2.25 billion in customer bill credits across Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina following the deal’s completion.
The companies also said they plan to maintain dual headquarters in Florida and Virginia while keeping Dominion’s utility brands and local operating structures in place. The transaction is expected to close within 12 to 18 months.
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Neither company disclosed additional details about potential operational changes or workforce impacts tied to the proposed merger.
Reuters contributed to this report.
JBizNews14 hours agoWall Street opened the week trying to balance three different markets at once.
Stocks pushed modestly higher Monday morning. Oil climbed again after fresh geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Bond yields stayed near multi-year highs, reminding investors that even as equities continue grinding upward, the cost of money across the economy remains elevated.
The result was a market that looked calm on the surface but increasingly tense underneath.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose roughly 139 points shortly after the open, while the S&P 500 hovered near fresh record territory reached last week. The Nasdaq Composite traded little changed as investors positioned themselves ahead of what is shaping up to be one of the most consequential earnings weeks of the quarter.
Hovering over nearly everything this week is Nvidia.
But before investors even reached Wednesday’s AI showdown, markets were hit Monday morning with the largest utility merger in American history.
NextEra Energy announced a $66.8 billion all-stock acquisition of Dominion Energy, creating what would become the largest regulated electric utility company in the world if approved.
The deal lands at a moment when electricity demand across the United States is beginning to surge under the weight of artificial-intelligence infrastructure expansion.
At the center of the acquisition is Dominion’s footprint in Virginia — home to the country’s largest concentration of hyperscale data centers and increasingly viewed as one of the most strategically important electricity markets in the world.
The region known as “Data Center Alley” has become ground zero for AI-era power demand.
Every new large-language model, cloud cluster, and AI server farm consumes staggering amounts of electricity, forcing utilities into what increasingly resembles an arms race to secure generation capacity before demand outruns the grid itself.
“Scale matters more than ever,” NextEra CEO John Ketchum said Monday morning as the companies unveiled the transaction.
The combined company would control roughly 110 gigawatts of generation capacity and serve approximately 10 million customers across Florida, Virginia, and the Carolinas.
Investors initially treated the deal cautiously.
Dominion shares surged roughly 13% after the announcement, while NextEra fell more than 3% as traders weighed regulatory risks, integration complexity, and the enormous capital demands tied to future AI-era infrastructure expansion.
The regulatory review could stretch well into next year, underscoring just how transformative the transaction may become for the broader utility sector.
Energy demand is now colliding directly with another force reshaping markets this year: geopolitics.
Oil prices climbed again Monday after the United Arab Emirates accused Iran of carrying out drone and missile attacks against civilian nuclear infrastructure over the weekend.
The escalation followed another round of increasingly aggressive rhetoric from President Donald Trump, who warned on Truth Social that “for Iran, the clock is ticking.”
Brent crude rose above $108 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate held near $106, levels that continue feeding inflation concerns throughout the global economy.
The bond market remains highly sensitive to those pressures.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield briefly climbed above 4.6% Monday morning before easing slightly, while the 30-year Treasury remained above 5.1%.
Those levels are increasingly important because they now directly shape mortgage rates, corporate borrowing costs, commercial real-estate financing, and consumer credit across the economy.
In many ways, bond markets are signaling a far less optimistic story than equities.
Investors continue betting aggressively on artificial intelligence, corporate earnings resilience, and economic durability. Bonds, meanwhile, continue reflecting concern that inflation and elevated government borrowing may keep interest rates structurally higher for longer than markets expected just a few months ago.
The biggest corporate shock Monday morning came from Berkshire Hathaway.
The conglomerate’s latest 13F filing — the first major portfolio disclosure overseen by CEO Greg Abel after Warren Buffett’s retirement transition — revealed sweeping changes across Berkshire’s investment holdings.
The company exited positions in Amazon, Visa, Mastercard, Domino’s Pizza, and UnitedHealth Group, while sharply increasing exposure to Alphabet and opening new positions in Delta Air Lines and Macy’s.
The moves are being interpreted across Wall Street as one of the clearest signs yet that Berkshire under Abel may operate differently from the traditional Buffett-era buy-and-hold strategy.
UnitedHealth shares fell nearly 5% following the disclosure.
Elsewhere in biotech, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals plunged more than 11% after a major melanoma-drug trial failed to outperform Merck’s blockbuster cancer therapy Keytruda in a closely watched Phase 3 study.
Analysts responded quickly with downgrades and price-target cuts, viewing the failed trial as a major setback for one of Regeneron’s most important future oncology programs.
Still, almost everything happening Monday feels like setup for Wednesday.
That is when Nvidia reports earnings after the close.
The AI giant now carries a market capitalization approaching $5.7 trillion and has effectively become the single most important stock in global equity markets.
Wall Street expectations remain extraordinarily high.
Analysts increasingly believe Nvidia’s Blackwell AI-chip rollout could become one of the largest product cycles in semiconductor history, fueled by hyperscale AI spending from companies including Microsoft, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Alphabet.
KeyBanc raised its Nvidia price target again Monday morning, citing accelerating Blackwell shipments.
But expectations have become so elevated that many analysts warn the company may need a nearly flawless report simply to sustain current momentum.
“Investor positioning is already stretched,” UBS analyst Tim Arcuri warned clients.
The week also brings earnings from Home Depot, Target, and Walmart, offering one of the clearest reads yet on the condition of the American consumer after months of inflation pressure, higher gasoline prices, elevated interest rates, and slowing labor-market momentum.
The Federal Reserve will add another layer Wednesday afternoon when it releases minutes from its final meeting chaired by Jerome Powell before incoming Fed Chair Kevin Warsh formally takes over.
Markets are entering the week caught between two competing realities.
On one side sits the AI boom, record equity valuations, and massive infrastructure investment tied to the next phase of technological expansion.
On the other sits a world of $108 oil, rising Treasury yields, escalating geopolitical tensions, and an economy increasingly feeling the pressure of higher borrowing costs.
By Friday, investors may have a much clearer sense of which force is beginning to matter more.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews14 hours agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 18, 2026
The United States will need at least another decade — and possibly until the mid-2030s — to break China’s chokehold on the rare earth elements that underpin roughly $1.2 trillion of American economic activity, or about 4% of U.S. GDP, according to a detailed analysis published Friday by Bloomberg’s corporate and economic statecraft reporter Joe Deaux drawing on projections from three independent critical-mineral consultancies. The findings undercut President Donald Trump’s November pledge that the U.S. could end its reliance on Chinese rare earths within 18 months and add hard numbers to a vulnerability that surfaced again this week as the leaders of the world’s two largest economies concluded a closely watched summit in Beijing.
The divide inside the rare-earth market is central to understanding why the timeline is stretching so far into the future. Bloomberg’s analysis suggests the West may gradually loosen China’s dominance over more abundant “light” rare earths by roughly the end of this decade. But the so-called “heavy” rare earths remain the true strategic choke point. Elements such as dysprosium, terbium and samarium are essential to the heat-resistant permanent magnets used in F-35 fighter jets, hypersonic weapons, naval propulsion systems, missile guidance systems, radar arrays and advanced semiconductor manufacturing.
China’s control remains overwhelming. Beijing currently mines roughly 70% of the world’s neodymium-praseodymium supply and controls more than 90% of the downstream refining, metallization and permanent-magnet manufacturing chain. Chinese annual output has expanded rapidly, climbing to roughly 50,000 tons in 2026 from approximately 34,000 tons in 2021, according to Bloomberg’s reporting.
The federal timeline is becoming increasingly urgent. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2027, U.S. law prohibits the use of Chinese-sourced rare earth magnets in American military systems. That restriction affects everything from F-35 Lightning II fighters and Virginia-class submarines to Tomahawk cruise missiles and advanced naval radar systems. The Department of Defense — recently rebranded by the Trump administration as the Department of War — requires roughly 3,000 tons of permanent rare-earth magnets annually.
The United States is nowhere close to producing enough domestic supply to satisfy that demand.
The country’s leading producer, MP Materials Corp., is aggressively expanding operations at its Mountain Pass mine in California and at magnet-manufacturing facilities in Texas. Even so, the company currently expects to produce only around 1,000 tons annually of neodymium-iron-boron magnets by 2028. Heavy rare-earth separation capability at Mountain Pass is expected to begin commissioning only in mid-2026 under a public-private partnership signed last year with the Department of War.
That partnership has become one of Washington’s largest industrial-policy bets. The Pentagon guaranteed MP Materials roughly $140 million in annual EBITDA support tied to its Texas “10X Facility” and committed to purchasing the facility’s entire magnet output. The project also received a $150 million Defense Production Act Title III loan intended to accelerate domestic manufacturing.
Other Western producers are racing to close the gap. Lynas Rare Earths, the Australian-listed producer, signed a $96 million Pentagon-backed contract earlier this year to supply both light and heavy rare-earth oxides from a new Texas processing facility. Once operational, Lynas expects the plant to produce between 1,000 and 1,300 tons annually of NdPr oxide and as much as 3,000 tons of heavy rare-earth oxides.
USA Rare Earth Inc. is advancing the Round Top project in West Texas while pursuing Brazil’s Serra Verde mine, currently the only major producer outside Asia supplying all four critical magnetic rare earths at commercial scale. Additional domestic efforts involve Energy Fuels Inc., operator of Utah’s White Mesa Mill, and Noveon Magnetics, which focuses on rare-earth magnet recycling and domestic production.
Even Saudi Arabia has entered the race. MP Materials recently announced a joint venture with Saudi Arabian Mining Co. (Maaden) and the Department of War aimed at building rare-earth processing infrastructure inside the kingdom, with Maaden holding a controlling stake.
Still, analysts increasingly warn that the largest bottleneck is not mining — it is chemistry and metallurgy. The difficult “oxide-to-metal” conversion process required to transform separated rare-earth oxides into finished alloys and permanent magnets remains overwhelmingly concentrated inside China and, to a lesser extent, Japan.
Without that capability at scale, the United States can mine rare earths domestically but still remain dependent on Chinese industrial processing to turn those materials into defense-grade components.
Japan’s experience demonstrates how difficult diversification can become once China dominates an industrial supply chain. Since the 2010 maritime dispute that triggered Chinese export restrictions, Tokyo has spent more than a decade investing aggressively in alternative sourcing. Yet China still supplies roughly 76% of Japan’s total rare-earth imports, and until recently accounted for nearly 100% of Japan’s heavy rare-earth supply.
The political backdrop remains tense. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer acknowledged Friday that rare-earth export flows from China are “improving” following the Trump-Xi summit but warned that shipments remain inconsistent and vulnerable to renewed restrictions. Beijing suspended a planned expansion of export controls late last year, but the current reprieve expires in November 2026, and analysts told Bloomberg they do not expect a full rollback.
For Wall Street and defense planners alike, the implications are enormous. Rare-earth-linked equities including MP Materials, Lynas, Energy Fuels and the VanEck Rare Earth ETF (REMX) have become increasingly sensitive to geopolitical headlines and export-policy swings. But the broader takeaway from Bloomberg’s analysis is fundamentally structural rather than political.
Building a fully independent Western rare-earth supply chain is not simply a matter of opening additional mines. It requires constructing an entire industrial ecosystem — from extraction and separation to refining, alloy production and magnet manufacturing — that China spent decades building through state-backed industrial coordination and long-term strategic investment.
The result is that even as Washington pours billions into reshoring critical minerals and defense manufacturing, China’s grip on the rare-earth supply chain is likely to remain one of the defining strategic dependencies of the global economy well into the next decade.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews15 hours agoThe Trump administration on Monday unveiled the nation’s first Workforce Pell Grant program, a federal student aid initiative designed to move Americans more quickly into high-demand jobs through short-term training and certification programs.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the program in a FOX Business exclusive interview on “Mornings with Maria,” calling it a key part of President Donald Trump’s workforce and economic agenda.
The initiative will allow eligible students to use Pell Grants for credential and certification programs that can lead to employment in as little as eight weeks, McMahon said.
The administration says the program is aimed at helping fill labor shortages in industries including skilled trades, manufacturing and health care as companies ramp up hiring and expand domestic production.
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“We have to fill our workforce shortage,” McMahon said. “This is a new program – from eight to 15 weeks – where you can go in, get certifications and get into the workforce and get a job.”
Eligible programs include training for electricians, HVAC technicians, carpenters and other skilled trades.
The rollout comes as the administration also pushes broader reforms to the federal student loan system, including new annual caps on graduate and professional school borrowing. Officials say the changes are intended to curb rising tuition costs and shift more students toward career-focused training pathways tied directly to workforce demand.
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McMahon argued that Workforce Pell Grants will offer a cheaper and faster alternative for many Americans seeking stable careers.
“You can stack these credentials in electrical work, HVAC, carpentry – a lot of the skills and workforce that we need because we are desperately in need of this workforce development,” McMahon said.
The administration points to growing shortages in skilled trades as a major driver behind the program. McMahon cited data showing that for every five workers leaving the skilled labor force, only two are replacing them.
“If we don’t reinforce this workforce, by 2030 we’d need about 2.1 million,” she said.
McMahon also said community colleges are increasingly partnering with high schools to allow students to graduate with workforce certifications alongside traditional diplomas.
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“As we are reshoring manufacturing and building anew in this country, we will have the workforce that we need,” McMahon said. “It’s vital that we do that.”
JBizNews15 hours agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, said Sunday that the Federal Reserve cannot cut interest rates with inflation accelerating and bond-market signals turning against easier policy, framing newly installed Fed Chair Kevin Warsh as inheriting the central bank at one of the most difficult moments in years. Speaking during a Sunday morning television interview, Gundlach said the case for rate cuts collapses once the two-year Treasury yield is trading roughly 50 basis points above the federal funds rate, a setup he described as making easing impossible “in my view.”
The warning lands as investors rapidly reassess expectations that the Fed would begin lowering borrowing costs later this year. When short-term Treasury yields trade above the Fed’s own benchmark rate, markets are often signaling that inflation and monetary policy are likely to remain elevated longer than policymakers previously anticipated.
The Federal Open Market Committee voted on April 29 to hold the target range for the federal funds rate at 3.50% to 3.75%, with the effective fed funds rate standing at 3.63% as of May 14, according to Federal Reserve data. While that remains well below the post-pandemic peak above 5%, Gundlach argued that Treasury-market pricing no longer supports the view that the Fed can pivot toward easier policy without reigniting inflation concerns and destabilizing longer-term yields.
The inflation backdrop worsened materially last week. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the April Consumer Price Index climbed 3.8% from a year earlier, marking the fastest pace since May 2023. Wholesale inflation accelerated even more sharply, with producer prices rising 6% annually in April as energy costs surged through the supply chain. Gundlach said DoubleLine’s internal forecasting models suggest the next CPI report could begin “with a four,” a development that would likely force investors to further push back expectations for any policy easing.
Energy markets remain central to the inflation story. The ongoing Iran conflict has driven crude oil prices sharply higher, increasing costs for transportation, refining, manufacturing, and consumer goods across the economy. The five-year breakeven inflation rate — a closely watched market gauge of expected inflation — has climbed to roughly 2.7%, its highest level since the inflation surge of 2022 and 2023, suggesting investors increasingly believe above-target inflation could persist well into the future regardless of central-bank intentions.
That leaves Warsh entering office under immediate pressure. The U.S. Senate voted 54-45 on May 13 to confirm Warsh as the 17th chair of the Federal Reserve, the narrowest confirmation margin ever recorded for the position. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the only Democrat to support President Donald Trump’s nominee. Warsh previously served as a Federal Reserve governor from 2006 through 2011 and now replaces Jerome Powell, whose eight-year term as chair formally ended Friday. In an unusual institutional arrangement, Powell will remain on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and retain a vote on the 12-member committee responsible for setting interest-rate policy.
Warsh’s first major policy test arrives almost immediately. The Federal Open Market Committee is scheduled to meet June 16 and 17, marking the first gathering chaired by Warsh. Gundlach said he expects no rate cut at that meeting and described the incoming chair as stepping into a “rough time” for monetary policy.
Current market pricing broadly aligns with that view. CME Group’s FedWatch tool shows traders overwhelmingly expecting the Fed to hold rates steady through the remainder of 2026, while probabilities of an additional rate hike later this year have begun to rise modestly as inflation expectations move higher.
The economic realities also place Warsh in direct tension with the political environment surrounding his appointment. Trump has repeatedly and publicly advocated for lower interest rates, arguing that reduced borrowing costs would support economic growth and financial markets. Warsh was viewed by many investors as more open to easing than some other potential candidates, though during his April 21 confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee he pledged to operate as a “strictly independent” chair.
Even so, the Fed chair does not act alone. Several voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee have recently indicated they want clearer evidence that inflation tied to tariffs, energy prices, and geopolitical disruptions is fading before supporting any cuts. That dynamic could significantly constrain how aggressively Warsh is able to shift policy even if economic growth slows later this year.
For investors, Gundlach said the implications extend far beyond the next Fed meeting. Long-term Treasury yields, rising inflation expectations, and heavy federal borrowing needs are all working against the assumption that short-term rates can decline without broader consequences across credit markets and government financing costs.
Gundlach also flagged growing concerns inside the private-credit sector, warning that portions of the market increasingly depend on continuous inflows of new investor capital to maintain liquidity and valuations. He specifically pointed to interval funds and other semi-liquid investment structures whose redemption terms may not properly align with the liquidity profile of their underlying assets — a mismatch that could create stress if market conditions deteriorate further.
The broader message surrounding the start of the Warsh era is that the Federal Reserve may now have significantly less room to maneuver than markets had assumed only months ago. While the central bank still controls short-term interest rates, Gundlach argued that the bond market — through long-term yields, inflation expectations, and credit spreads — ultimately determines whether monetary policy remains credible.
With inflation accelerating again, oil prices climbing, and federal deficits continuing to run deep into the trillions, the Federal Reserve enters its next chapter facing mounting pressure from markets, politics, and geopolitics simultaneously.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews16 hours agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 18, 2026
Federal prosecutors at the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office are investigating valuation practices at BlackRock TCP Capital Corp., a publicly traded business development company managed by BlackRock Inc., and have reportedly questioned executives as part of a widening probe into how the fund valued portions of its private-credit portfolio during a sharp collapse in net asset value, according to a Bloomberg News report published Friday citing people familiar with the matter.
The investigation centers on how BlackRock TCP Capital — which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker TCPC — marked the value of its illiquid private loans between late 2024 and early 2026, a period in which the company’s net asset value per share plunged roughly 35% from peak to trough. Bloomberg reported that the federal inquiry has been underway for several months. Both BlackRock and the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
The scrutiny lands at a sensitive moment for Larry Fink’s BlackRock, which oversees roughly $11.5 trillion in assets and has aggressively expanded into private credit and alternative investments in recent years as traditional asset-management fees compress. The probe also highlights growing concern across Wall Street and Washington over valuation practices inside the rapidly expanding private-credit industry, where funds often rely on internal models rather than transparent market pricing to value loans that rarely trade publicly.
BlackRock TCP Capital, formerly known as TCP Capital Corp. before its 2024 rebranding, operates as a business development company, or BDC — a publicly traded structure designed to lend directly to middle-market private companies while distributing most income back to shareholders. Unlike traditional mutual funds, BDCs hold illiquid loans that are not priced daily in public markets. Instead, managers use quarterly “mark-to-model” valuations that are reviewed internally and approved by boards of directors.
That valuation process is now at the center of both the federal investigation and a growing series of shareholder lawsuits.
The pressure intensified after BlackRock TCP disclosed fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 earnings on Feb. 27, 2025 showing a steep deterioration in portfolio quality. Net asset value per share fell 22.4% year over year to $9.23, while debt investments placed on non-accrual status — meaning borrowers had effectively stopped making scheduled payments — surged from 3.7% of the portfolio to 14.4%. Total realized and unrealized losses ballooned nearly 186% to approximately $194.9 million.
Investors reacted immediately. Shares fell nearly 10% that day, closing at $8.44. At the time, BlackRock TCP maintained that “the vast majority” of its portfolio continued performing as expected.
A second and more damaging disclosure arrived Jan. 23, 2026. In an after-hours SEC filing, the company revealed estimated net asset value per share had fallen further to between $7.05 and $7.09 as of Dec. 31, 2025 — a 19% sequential decline from the prior quarter and more than 23% below year-earlier levels. Management attributed the drop primarily to “issuer-specific developments.”
The market response was brutal. Shares plunged another 13% the next trading day, closing near $5.10.
The disclosures triggered multiple class-action lawsuits led by firms including Kaplan Fox & Kilsheimer, Rosen Law Firm and Federman & Sherwood, alleging BlackRock TCP and certain executives misled investors about portfolio valuations, restructuring efforts and credit deterioration between November 2024 and January 2026.
The lawsuits include details that may explain why federal prosecutors became interested. Plaintiffs allege that roughly 91% of the company’s losses came from investments originated during the low-interest-rate lending boom of 2021 or earlier, while six individual portfolio companies allegedly accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total decline in net asset value.
That type of concentrated loss profile often draws attention from regulators and prosecutors evaluating whether loan marks were delayed, stale or selectively adjusted — particularly in private-credit vehicles where managers retain substantial discretion over quarterly valuations.
The case also expands legal pressure on BlackRock’s broader alternatives platform following its aggressive push into private lending and private markets.
Separately, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation late last year tied to approximately $430 million in loans originated by HPS Investment Partners, the private-credit firm BlackRock acquired in 2024 for roughly $12 billion. According to court filings, the loans were allegedly backed by fraudulent receivables tied to telecom borrowers. The borrower at the center of the case, identified as Bankim Brahmbhatt, reportedly left the United States, while investigators found his New York office locked and vacant.
BlackRock’s flagship HPS Corporate Lending Fund, known as HLEND, also restricted investor withdrawals earlier this year after redemption requests exceeded internal liquidity thresholds, further rattling confidence across portions of the private-credit market.
The broader industry stakes are substantial. Private credit has exploded into a roughly $1.7 trillion global asset class as banks pulled back from certain forms of middle-market lending following post-2008 regulatory reforms. Asset managers including Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, KKR, Ares Management and Blue Owl Capital have all rapidly expanded private-credit businesses, marketing the strategy as a higher-yield alternative to traditional fixed income.
But critics increasingly warn that the industry has not yet faced a true prolonged credit downturn under modern scale conditions.
Wells Fargo banking analyst Mike Mayo wrote in a March note that “private credit’s biggest test is not the next default — it’s the next markdown cycle,” highlighting growing concerns about whether asset values across the sector accurately reflect deteriorating borrower conditions in a higher-rate environment.
BlackRock TCP shares closed Friday at $5.83, down roughly 60% from their February 2025 highs. Shares of parent company BlackRock Inc. finished little changed near $1,047, maintaining a year-to-date gain of roughly 9%.
For BlackRock and the broader private-credit industry, the Manhattan investigation represents something larger than one troubled fund. It signals that regulators and prosecutors are beginning to focus less on whether private credit can grow — and more on how transparently the industry values risk when markets turn against it.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews17 hours agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 18, 2026
A federal jury in Chicago awarded $49.5 million Wednesday night to the family of Samya Stumo, a 24-year-old American nonprofit worker killed in the March 2019 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, closing one of the last major unresolved wrongful-death cases tied to the Boeing 737 MAX disasters that killed 346 people. The verdict arrived during the same week President Donald Trump announced from Beijing that China would purchase 200 Boeing aircraft equipped with GE Aerospace engines, highlighting the stark contrast between Boeing’s commercial recovery and the legal fallout that continues to shadow the company six years after the crashes.
The jury awarded $21 million for Stumo’s pain and suffering aboard the doomed flight, $16.5 million for the family’s loss of companionship and $12 million for emotional grief damages, according to court filings reviewed by The Associated Press, Reuters and NPR. Boeing had already accepted civil liability before trial, leaving jurors responsible only for determining damages.
The case has long carried symbolic significance for families of crash victims. Stumo was traveling to her first major overseas assignment for the global health nonprofit ThinkWell when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa on March 10, 2019. All 157 people aboard were killed. The crash came just five months after the Lion Air Flight 610 disaster in Indonesia, which killed 189 people and exposed serious flaws in Boeing’s MCAS flight-control software system.
Investigations by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Congress and international aviation authorities ultimately blamed Boeing’s design decisions, pilot-training disclosures and FAA certification oversight failures for both crashes. The disasters triggered a nearly two-year worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX fleet and plunged Boeing into one of the deepest crises in its history.
Stumo’s family became among Boeing’s most vocal critics. Her father, Michael Stumo, repeatedly testified before Congress and publicly accused Boeing and federal regulators of prioritizing profits and production speed over safety. The family resisted settlement efforts for years, pushing instead for a public trial they believed would force greater accountability.
The timing of the verdict is particularly sensitive for Boeing because the company is simultaneously trying to rebuild operational credibility under CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took over leadership in August 2024 following the Alaska Airlines door-plug blowout. Boeing has spent the past year attempting to stabilize production, improve quality-control oversight and restore confidence among regulators, airlines and investors.
The newly announced China aircraft order represents a major commercial win. Under the framework announced during Trump’s Beijing summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, China agreed to purchase 200 Boeing aircraft immediately with a pathway toward as many as 750 over time. Analysts expect the order to include mostly 737 MAX variants along with some 787 Dreamliner widebody aircraft. The agreement would materially strengthen Boeing’s production pipeline through the end of the decade and significantly boost demand for GE Aerospace engines.
Wall Street remains divided over which story matters more. Susquehanna analyst Charles Minervino argued Friday that the China order “materially de-risks Boeing’s 2026–2028 production ramp” and improves the company’s path back toward sustainable free-cash-flow generation. Others remain more cautious, warning that Boeing still faces ongoing regulatory scrutiny, legal liabilities and operational risks following years of manufacturing disruptions.
The verdict also arrives amid broader concerns over aviation safety. The FAA recently announced a reduction in its long-term air traffic controller staffing targets, while recent near-miss incidents and operational failures across the airline industry have renewed questions about regulatory oversight and aviation infrastructure stress.
For Boeing investors, the Chicago verdict serves as a reminder that while the company may be regaining commercial momentum, the reputational and legal consequences of the 737 MAX era remain unresolved. For the Stumo family and other victims’ relatives, the case represents acknowledgment rather than closure.
As National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said Thursday, “No jury award returns the lives that were lost, but accountability is a foundation of safety.”
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews17 hours agoSometime Monday morning, while Americans commute to work, buy coffee, scroll headlines, or fill up gas tanks already strained by rising energy prices, the federal government will quietly cross another line that once sounded unthinkable.
The national debt is set to surpass $39 trillion for the first time in U.S. history.
That number is so large it barely registers anymore in political debate. But broken down into household terms, it becomes harder to ignore.
According to Treasury Department data compiled by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, every American household now effectively carries $288,676 in federal debt. Every man, woman, and child carries roughly $113,792.
No one signed paperwork for it. No bank approved it. But it sits there all the same — the accumulated cost of decades of wars, stimulus packages, entitlement growth, tax cuts, recessions, interest payments, and a political system that has steadily grown more comfortable borrowing than balancing.
The scale of the borrowing has accelerated dramatically.
The federal government is now adding debt at a pace of roughly $85,550 every second.
That translates into approximately:
Over the past year alone, Washington added approximately $2.7 trillion in new debt.
The five-year increase now exceeds $10.7 trillion.
For perspective, it took the United States from the presidency of George Washington through the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis — more than two centuries — to accumulate its first $10 trillion in debt.
The country has now added that much in roughly five years.
The deeper concern inside financial markets is no longer simply the debt itself.
It is the interest.
For decades, low interest rates allowed Washington to borrow enormous sums relatively cheaply. That era has changed quickly.
According to Treasury figures, the federal government spent roughly $970 billion last year purely on interest payments tied to existing debt — nearly a trillion dollars that funded no military equipment, no roads, no schools, no healthcare services, and no infrastructure projects.
It simply paid lenders.
Interest on the national debt has now surpassed annual spending on Medicare and exceeds what the United States spends on national defense.
Roughly fifteen cents of every federal tax dollar collected now goes directly toward servicing debt before the government funds virtually anything else.
And the bill is still climbing.
The average interest rate Washington pays on its debt has risen from roughly 1.5% five years ago to approximately 3.4% today as the Federal Reserve aggressively raised rates to combat inflation.
That shift matters because the Treasury must continuously refinance maturing debt at current market rates.
Every time Treasury yields rise, taxpayers inherit a larger future interest burden.
The government is essentially rolling over trillions of dollars from yesterday’s cheap-money environment into today’s expensive-money environment.
That refinancing cycle is becoming increasingly visible across the federal budget.
The Congressional Budget Office projects this year’s federal deficit — the gap between government spending and tax revenue — will approach $1.9 trillion.
That deficit arrives during a period when unemployment remains relatively low and the economy is still expanding modestly, a combination that historically would not produce borrowing at this scale.
Meanwhile, major spending pressures continue building simultaneously.
Congress remains locked in recurring fights over healthcare subsidies, government funding packages, and entitlement spending. The administration has proposed additional increases in defense expenditures. Discussions surrounding tariff rebate checks and industrial-policy spending continue circulating through Washington.
None of the major political factions currently operating in Congress has proposed a fully developed long-term fiscal stabilization plan capable of materially slowing debt growth over the coming decade.
That reality has started attracting more attention globally.
In May 2025, Moody’s Investors Service removed the United States’ last remaining top-tier AAA credit rating, citing long-term concerns surrounding fiscal sustainability and debt growth.
The downgrade carried symbolic weight because U.S. Treasury debt has historically functioned as the foundation of the global financial system — the benchmark asset against which virtually all other borrowing is priced.
Foreign governments and international investors currently hold roughly one-third of all U.S. federal debt, or approximately $9.3 trillion.
Japan remains America’s largest foreign creditor, followed by the United Kingdom and China.
Every Treasury auction effectively becomes a global referendum on how much confidence investors still place in Washington’s long-term fiscal trajectory.
So far, demand has remained strong.
But rising yields increasingly suggest investors are demanding higher compensation to continue financing America’s expanding debt load.
That tension is now feeding directly into household economics.
Higher Treasury yields influence mortgage rates, credit-card borrowing costs, auto loans, and corporate financing across the broader economy. As federal borrowing expands, competition for capital can place upward pressure on interest rates throughout the financial system.
At the same time, the long-term math surrounding major federal trust funds continues deteriorating.
Social Security and Medicare face projected funding shortfalls within the coming decade absent legislative changes, according to multiple federal trustees’ reports. Without reforms, benefit reductions or additional borrowing eventually become mathematically unavoidable.
Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, warned recently that the United States is moving steadily toward a point where debt servicing itself begins crowding out large portions of government flexibility.
“Interest costs are exceeding what we spend on nearly every line item in the budget,” she said. “And our trust funds are heading toward insolvency and automatic benefit cuts, all because of our inaction.”
For most Americans, the debt remains abstract until inflation rises, borrowing costs climb, or economic growth slows.
But the arithmetic is becoming harder to separate from everyday life.
The government is now borrowing more in a single day than many countries spend in an entire year.
And sometime Monday morning, the United States will officially owe more than the total value of everything the American economy produces annually.
The next trillion dollars, at the current pace, is expected to arrive before Halloween.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews17 hours agoThe U.S. consumer goes on trial this week as the country’s largest retailers report fiscal first-quarter earnings against the backdrop of a 4% jump in WTI crude, the highest 10-year Treasury yield in a year, and a fourth consecutive weekly decline in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF, according to corporate filings and the Schwab investor calendar. Home Depot kicks off the week before the bell Tuesday, followed by Target, TJX Companies, Lowe’s and Williams-Sonoma on Wednesday and Walmart, Ross Stores, Ralph Lauren, Deere and Deckers Outdoor on Thursday. Toll Brothers and Cava Group also report Tuesday, alongside the Census Bureau’s April housing starts and building permits data. The final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment reading for May arrives Friday.
Home Depot Inc. is the first major read. Analysts surveyed by Yahoo Finance expect the Atlanta-based home-improvement retailer to post fiscal Q1 earnings per share of $3.41, down roughly 4% from $3.56 a year earlier, on revenue of $41.54 billion. The company in February guided full-year fiscal 2026 sales growth of 2.5% to 4.5%, comparable sales of flat to +2.0% and adjusted EPS growth of 0% to 4% off a fiscal 2025 base of $14.69. Shares closed Friday near $304, far below their 52-week high of more than $426 and within striking distance of a 52-week low of $299.27. The average sell-side price target sits at $404, with 21 Strong Buy ratings against one Sell, suggesting bulls see deep value after the slide. Investors will look closely at any updated full-year guidance and at any commentary on consumer big-ticket weakness — a pressure that Whirlpool Corp. CFO Jim Peters flagged earlier this month, telling investors that Iran war anxiety has pushed Americans to delay refrigerator, washer and dryer purchases.
Walmart Inc. is the centerpiece. UBS analyst Michael Lasser wrote in a preview note that the world’s largest retailer “continues to gain traction with higher-income consumers” through better merchandise and a deeper digital assortment, and is positioned to “set the bar for the rest of the industry” amid a challenging backdrop. Lasser flagged Walmart’s so-called second profit-and-loss strategy — built around advertising, third-party marketplace and Walmart Connect — as the central margin lever, with returns on that segment “beginning to inflect.” Walmart’s fiscal Q3 results last November set the comparison bar: comparable U.S. sales rose 4.5% excluding fuel and e-commerce sales jumped 28%. Walmart also recently shifted its primary listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq.
Target Corp. is the most pressured of the three majors. The retailer cut its profit outlook in November after shoppers turned to Walmart and Costco Wholesale Corp. for value, and its store-traffic trends have remained soft. The company is also still digesting the unwinding of its in-store Ulta Beauty shop partnership, which had been a meaningful driver of female foot traffic. Analysts will scrutinize any color on the Target Circle loyalty rebuild and on the back-half outlook for school and grocery categories. TJX Companies Inc., by contrast, has been one of the rare bright spots — the T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods parent raised guidance last quarter and cited a “strong start” to spring as value-conscious shoppers trade down. Lowe’s Companies Inc. is expected to mirror Home Depot’s pattern, while Ross Stores Inc. should benefit from the same trade-down tailwind helping TJX.
The sector backdrop is uniformly soft. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF fell more than 6% last week, on pace for its worst weekly performance since October 2025. Weakness concentrated in National Vision Holdings Inc., Kohl’s Corp., Sally Beauty Holdings Inc. and Advance Auto Parts Inc., all down double digits on the week, while larger names including Carvana Co., O’Reilly Automotive Inc., TJX and Amazon.com Inc. also slid. April retail sales excluding autos rose 0.7%, slowing sharply from a 1.9% gain in March, and a sizable share of the dollar growth reflected higher prices rather than higher unit volumes. RSM US chief economist Joe Brusuelas told CNN that “the war has come home, and Americans can feel it and see it in their grocery basket,” with polling showing 75% of Americans say the Iran war has hurt their finances.
Beyond retail, Tuesday’s April housing starts and building permits will give a fresh read on whether elevated mortgage rates and high construction-input prices are finally constraining homebuilder activity. Toll Brothers Inc. earnings the same morning will color the high end of the market. Wednesday’s FOMC minutes — still reflecting the Jerome Powell era — may be eclipsed by Kevin Warsh’s first communications as Fed chair. Nvidia Corp. earnings after the bell Wednesday remain the week’s marquee event.
For investors, the trade is straightforward: a softer-than-expected consumer print from Walmart or Target would harden the case that the Iran war and higher-for-longer rates are finally reaching the checkout line; a beat from Walmart with strong e-commerce and Walmart+ numbers would do the opposite. With the S&P 500 still less than 2% from its all-time high reached Thursday, even small surprises will move the tape.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews18 hours agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 18, 2026
Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a new 39,809,456-share, $2.65 billion stake in Delta Air Lines in its first Form 13F filing of the Greg Abel era Friday afternoon, ending a six-year Warren Buffett-era boycott of the airline sector and giving the Atlanta-based carrier one of the most influential institutional endorsements on Wall Street at a moment when fuel costs, regional consolidation and the Iran war are rapidly reshaping the U.S. aviation industry.
The filing, posted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR system, showed the new position represents roughly 6.1% of Delta’s outstanding shares and ranks as Berkshire’s 14th-largest holding at the end of the first quarter. Delta shares jumped approximately 3% in after-hours trading following the disclosure.
The symbolism surrounding the investment is difficult to overstate. Berkshire entered 2020 holding multibillion-dollar positions in Delta, American Airlines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, only for Warren Buffett to liquidate the entire roughly $4 billion airline portfolio during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020. Buffett told shareholders at the time that “the world has changed for the airlines,” effectively declaring the industry structurally damaged after global travel collapsed.
The airline exit became one of the defining late-era Buffett calls. Buffett had long carried deep skepticism toward airlines, once famously joking that “a farsighted capitalist at Kitty Hawk would have shot Orville Wright down.” He also repeatedly described his earlier investment in US Air preferred stock during the late 1980s as one of the worst trades of his career.
The new Delta position therefore marks not only Berkshire’s return to aviation, but one of the clearest signs yet that Abel intends to reshape parts of the Berkshire portfolio in ways Buffett would likely not have pursued himself.
The choice of Delta specifically appears deliberate.
Under CEO Ed Bastian, Delta has spent the past several years distinguishing itself from the broader airline industry on many of the operational and financial metrics Berkshire historically values most highly: free-cash-flow generation, pricing discipline, premium-cabin revenue growth and loyalty-program monetization.
Delta generated roughly $4.3 billion in free cash flow during fiscal 2025 and produced approximately $1.3 billion in adjusted operating cash flow during the first quarter of 2026 on revenue of $13.7 billion. The airline has guided toward between $7 billion and $7.5 billion in free cash flow for the current fiscal year.
One of the most strategically attractive pieces of Delta’s business is its co-branded relationship with American Express, which now generates more than $7 billion annually for the airline through SkyMiles loyalty-card partnerships and related fee streams. That agreement — extended through 2029 — increasingly resembles the type of stable, contracted cash-flow business Berkshire traditionally favors.
The broader industry backdrop may also have strengthened Delta’s appeal.
The Iran war and continuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz have approximately doubled domestic jet-fuel costs since February, pressuring the weakest airlines and accelerating consolidation across the sector. Spirit Airlines shut down operations earlier this month after prolonged financial strain, while low-cost carriers including JetBlue Airways, Frontier Group Holdings and Allegiant Travel continue facing margin pressure from fuel, labor and financing costs.
At the same time, short-haul regional flying is steadily disappearing from the U.S. aviation system. According to aviation analytics firm OAG, flights under 250 nautical miles have fallen roughly 11% over the past decade, a trend now accelerating as airlines prioritize longer and more profitable routes.
Delta is structurally positioned to benefit from those shifts. The airline operates one of the industry’s strongest international networks and maintains dominant hub positions in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Salt Lake City and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Delta has also invested aggressively in newer aircraft including the Airbus A321neo and A330neo, which offer materially better fuel efficiency than older fleets.
Wall Street analysts increasingly view Delta as the strongest operator among the traditional U.S. legacy airlines.
The carrier currently trades at roughly six times forward earnings, below its own historical valuation averages and at a discount to many industrial and transportation peers. Delta has also reduced debt by more than $20 billion from pandemic-era peaks, and both S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings restored the airline’s investment-grade credit rating earlier this year.
Susquehanna analyst Christopher Stathoulopoulos wrote Friday that Berkshire’s investment “validates the premium-airline thesis that has been visible in Delta’s numbers for two years but underappreciated by the broader market.”
Delta’s current market capitalization stands near $42 billion, compared with roughly $30 billion for United Airlines and approximately $9 billion for American Airlines.
The Delta investment also stands out because of what Berkshire simultaneously sold.
The same 13F filing showed Berkshire fully exited positions in Visa, Mastercard, Amazon.com, UnitedHealth Group, Aon and Domino’s Pizza during the quarter while modestly increasing its holdings in Alphabet and initiating a smaller new position in Macy’s.
Berkshire ended the quarter holding a record $397 billion in cash and short-term Treasury bills after remaining a net seller of equities overall. Against that backdrop, the Delta investment represented roughly one-third of Berkshire’s net new equity capital deployment during the quarter — a significant conviction signal from Abel’s investment team.
The filing also comes after the departure earlier this year of former Buffett lieutenant Todd Combs, who left Berkshire to join JPMorgan Chase. That departure further shifts portfolio influence toward Abel as Berkshire transitions into the post-Buffett era.
For Delta, the endorsement arrives ahead of a closely watched June Investor Day where management is expected to outline updated long-term strategy and capital-allocation targets.
CEO Ed Bastian said Friday evening that Delta “appreciates Berkshire Hathaway’s confidence in our long-term strategy.”
For Greg Abel, the message embedded in the filing may be even more important than the investment itself.
The post-Buffett Berkshire appears willing to break with Buffett orthodoxy when the numbers justify it — and willing to commit real capital behind that conviction.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews18 hours agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 18, 2026
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing to make its public-market debut on Nasdaq on Friday, June 12, in what would be the largest initial public offering in history, according to filings tracked by Bloomberg and Reuters and reporting from CNBC’s David Faber, with the rocket and satellite company seeking a valuation of between $1.75 trillion and $2 trillion and aiming to raise as much as $75 billion in fresh capital. The company filed its registration paperwork confidentially with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in early April and is expected to make the public Form S-1 available the week of May 18, the regulatory minimum 15 days before a roadshow that begins June 8. Shares are expected to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “SPCX.”
The numbers, if they hold, would dwarf every previous offering. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. raised $22 billion in 2014, and Visa Inc. raised close to $18 billion in 2008, leaving the U.S. record-holder positioned at less than a third of what SpaceX intends to take down. The combined merger valuation of SpaceX and xAI following their February 2026 tie-up stood at $1.25 trillion at the time, meaning the IPO target represents a 40% to 60% step-up in just four months. Musk, whose Tesla Inc. holdings have pushed his net worth to roughly $840 billion according to Forbes, would become the first person to simultaneously helm two separate publicly traded trillion-dollar companies — Tesla’s market capitalization is currently around $1.4 trillion.
The offering carries unusual structural features that have drawn attention from market structure specialists. SpaceX intends to allocate up to 30% of the offering to retail investors, triple the typical 10% set aside for individuals, a nod to Musk’s retail-heavy shareholder base. The company is also expected to use a dual-class share structure that concentrates voting power with Musk and a small group of insiders, even as it lists only a sliver — roughly 3.75% — of total equity. Marta Khomyn, a finance researcher at the University of Adelaide, said in a published analysis that the low free float “would normally disqualify a company from major indices like the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq-100,” but that index providers are bending those rules to accommodate the listing, exposing passive funds to fast-onboarding price volatility.
SpaceX generated approximately $15 billion in revenue in 2025, a figure that makes the $2 trillion price tag implicit in the deal roughly 133 times trailing sales. Reena Aggarwal, an IPO specialist at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, told CNBC that even with the Musk premium, “you can have a great company with great fundamentals and a lot of investor interest — and an IPO can still flop if the markets have turned south, if there’s too much volatility.” She added that the U.S.-Iran war and the recent Nasdaq Composite selloff — the index logged its steepest weekly drop in nearly a year this week — have raised the bar for what counts as a smooth launch window. Armand Musey, an independent satellite industry analyst, was more pointed in remarks to SpaceNews: “SpaceX is the most anticipated IPO in history. However, there are lots of questions about valuation and how the current company can justify the price talk. It can’t.”
The case for the valuation rests almost entirely on what Musk intends to build next, not what SpaceX is today. The company conducted 165 orbital launches in 2025, more than any other launch provider, and Starlink now serves roughly 10 million customers across 160 countries. SpaceX has collected more than $24.4 billion in federal contracts since 2008, according to FedScout data, including work for NASA, the U.S. Space Force, the Air Force and the Defense Department’s Starshield program for classified satellite communications. But Musk has told private investors that the IPO proceeds will go primarily toward an ambitious push to launch up to one million data-center satellites into orbit, betting that solar-powered, space-based AI compute will eventually undercut terrestrial data centers on cost and water usage. SpaceX is also pursuing a joint venture with Tesla called Terafab to consolidate semiconductor production for Tesla’s autonomous-driving systems, Optimus humanoid robots and space-hardened orbital workloads.
Skeptics flag the gap between mission and metrics. Ross Carmel, a partner at Sichenzia Ross Ference Carmel, defended the price talk, telling SpaceNews that “SpaceX’s valuation is not based on its current business model, but rather what is possible in the future of space, including becoming an interplanetary species through Elon’s vision of going to Mars.” History, however, is unkind to mega-IPOs. Research from TradingKey found that most of the largest U.S. initial offerings trail the S&P 500 in their first year of trading and over the long run, with the notable exceptions of Arm Holdings plc, which gained 189% in its first year, and Airbnb Inc., which gained 167%.
If SpaceX clears the June 12 target, it would set the pace for what could be a trio of mega-IPOs in 2026, with OpenAI and Anthropic also exploring public listings. For Musk, the offering would close a 24-year arc that began with the founding of SpaceX in 2002 — and would mark the public-market arrival of the largest single corporate bet on humanity’s reach beyond Earth.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews18 hours agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
When The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives in roughly 4,000 North American theaters this Friday, it will mark far more than another installment in the Star Wars franchise. The release represents Disney’s first major Star Wars theatrical test in seven years — and the first time a character born on the Disney+ streaming platform has been asked to carry a blockbuster theatrical release on his own.
For The Walt Disney Co., the film is increasingly being viewed as a referendum on CEO Bob Iger’s effort to reset the company’s largest franchises around a “quality over quantity” strategy after years of oversaturation across streaming and theatrical content.
The stakes are unusually high because the film sits at the intersection of nearly every major part of Disney’s entertainment business: theaters, streaming, consumer products, licensing, and theme parks.
Industry tracking remains cautious heading into Memorial Day weekend. Box Office Pro has projected a domestic three-day opening between $90 million and $100 million, while separate prerelease estimates reviewed by entertainment trade publications suggest a softer performance closer to $80 million over the four-day holiday frame.
Even the high end of those projections would fall well below the $177.3 million domestic debut posted by Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. A weaker opening would also risk falling beneath the $84.4 million three-day launch of Solo: A Star Wars Story in 2018 — currently viewed as one of Lucasfilm’s weakest modern theatrical performances.
The film is directed by Jon Favreau, who co-wrote the screenplay alongside Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor. Pedro Pascal returns as Din Djarin, while the cast also includes Sigourney Weaver and Jeremy Allen White. The score was composed by Academy Award winner Ludwig Göransson.
The larger significance, however, lies in the strategy behind the release itself.
Disney spent years moving Star Wars storytelling toward streaming after a series of uneven theatrical performances following its 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm. Under Iger’s current approach, theatrical films are once again intended to serve as large-scale cultural events capable of driving broader engagement across Disney’s ecosystem, while Disney+ series support and extend the franchise between movie releases.
Former Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy said the decision to elevate The Mandalorian from streaming to theaters was driven largely by the series’ ability to build a loyal audience independent of the original Star Wars saga, particularly among younger viewers.
Favreau himself acknowledged the unusual nature of the transition in a recent interview.
“I’m not sure what, exactly, why we were asked to do this,” he said, before pointing to Grogu’s global popularity and his central role in helping launch Disney+ as the likely explanation.
The commercial logic is difficult to ignore.
Grogu — widely known to audiences as “Baby Yoda” — became one of Disney’s most successful merchandising phenomena of the streaming era almost immediately after The Mandalorian debuted in 2019. Plush toys, apparel, collectibles, and licensing tied to the character generated billions in consumer-product sales globally and helped establish Disney+ as a culturally relevant streaming platform during its launch phase.
For Iger, a successful theatrical run would validate the broader idea that Disney can still convert streaming-born intellectual property into major theatrical franchises — something most media companies have struggled to accomplish.
The outcome will also shape the future of Lucasfilm’s theatrical roadmap.
Disney already has Star Wars: Starfighter scheduled for May 2027 under director Shawn Levy, with Ryan Gosling expected to star. Additional long-discussed projects include a Rey-centered film from director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and a Star Wars origins project from James Mangold.
A strong performance by The Mandalorian and Grogu would likely accelerate those plans. A disappointing result could deepen investor concerns about whether Star Wars still retains the theatrical power it once commanded.
The pressure is amplified by the economics of Disney’s Lucasfilm acquisition itself.
Despite producing multiple billion-dollar global box office releases over the past decade, some industry estimates suggest the cumulative theatrical profit generated across Disney-era Star Wars films has been relatively modest compared with the scale of the investment and franchise expectations.
At the same time, Disney’s broader financial performance has improved considerably.
The company recently reported fiscal second-quarter revenue growth of 7%, while streaming operating income surged 88% year over year to $582 million. Revenue from Disney+ and Hulu rose 13% to $5.49 billion, and the streaming division delivered a double-digit operating margin for the first time.
In a shareholder letter earlier this month, Disney executives including Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro and CFO Hugh Johnston highlighted The Mandalorian and Grogu, Toy Story 5, and the live-action Moana remake as central pillars of Disney’s long-term franchise strategy.
The reasoning reflects Disney’s increasingly interconnected business model: theatrical hits reinforce streaming engagement, drive merchandise sales, support gaming initiatives, and boost attendance at theme-park attractions such as Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
That ecosystem effect is particularly important given Disney’s planned $60 billion expansion of its parks and experiences division over the next decade.
Disney has already begun using Disney+ itself to market the film. A behind-the-scenes promotional special tied to The Mandalorian and Grogu recently climbed into the platform’s global top rankings, suggesting strong baseline interest among existing subscribers even before the theatrical release arrives.
There is also a broader industry dynamic at work. The California Film Commission awarded the production roughly $21.8 million in state tax credits in 2024 — one of the largest incentives granted under the program — underscoring how aggressively major studios now pursue government subsidies even for globally established franchises.
Ultimately, however, Wall Street and Hollywood will focus on a far simpler number: ticket sales.
Analysts estimate the film will likely need to generate between roughly $332 million and $415 million globally to achieve meaningful theatrical profitability after accounting for production, marketing, and distribution expenses.
The central figure carrying that burden is a character who barely speaks.
Whether Grogu’s silence proves to be universal appeal or a limitation on the big screen is the question Disney’s Memorial Day weekend gamble is about to answer.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews19 hours agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 18, 2026
Berkshire Hathaway disclosed Friday in its first Form 13F filing of the post-Warren Buffett era that it exited its entire stake in Amazon.com during the first quarter, eliminated multibillion-dollar positions in card networks Visa and Mastercard, sold out of UnitedHealth Group, Aon and Domino’s Pizza, and reshuffled the portfolio with a new $2.65 billion investment in Delta Air Lines and a fresh stake in department-store operator Macy’s, according to the filing posted on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR system. The quarterly report, the first since Greg Abel formally succeeded Warren Buffett as chief executive on Jan. 1, 2026, also showed Berkshire boosting its position in Alphabet Inc. and modestly adding to its New York Times Company holding, two of the more eye-catching tech-adjacent moves of the new regime.
The headline change is the return to commercial aviation, an industry Buffett famously abandoned during the COVID-19 panic of April 2020 when he dumped roughly $4 billion of airline holdings at a steep loss. The new 39,809,456-share Delta Air Lines Inc. position, valued at roughly $2.65 billion at quarter-end, sent Delta shares 3% higher in after-hours trading. CFRA Research analyst Catherine Seifert told Reuters the move “reads as an Abel signature trade — operational, capital-disciplined, and made when consensus had given up on the sector.” Berkshire also disclosed a smaller new stake in Macy’s Inc., the retailer Buffett had publicly criticized as recently as 2017 for losing ground to Amazon.
The exits are equally telling. The complete divestiture of Amazon.com Inc. closes a chapter that began in 2019, when Buffett disclosed an initial 536,000-share position and publicly admitted he had been “an idiot” for not buying earlier. Berkshire had already cut the Amazon stake by 77% in the fourth quarter of 2025, citing concern over Amazon’s roughly $200 billion in projected 2026 capital expenditures and the resulting collapse in free cash flow. The Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. exits, totaling several billion dollars combined, end positions originally established under former portfolio manager Todd Combs, who left Berkshire earlier this year to join JPMorgan Chase & Co. Combs’ departure has been cited by multiple analysts, including Edward Jones analyst James Shanahan, as the proximate trigger for the broad portfolio cleanup.
The Alphabet boost extends a move first signaled in the third quarter of 2025, when Berkshire disclosed a surprise 17.85-million-share Class C position valued at roughly $4.3 billion. The Q1 filing showed the conglomerate adding to both Class A (GOOGL) and Class C (GOOG) lines, deepening what is now the firm’s largest pure technology bet outside of Apple Inc. The continued accumulation contrasts sharply with the Amazon exit, suggesting Berkshire sees Alphabet’s Google Cloud backlog of roughly $462 billion and its emerging dominance in AI inference workloads as a cleaner free-cash-flow story than Amazon’s capital-intensive AWS expansion.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. was a quieter casualty. Buffett had personally initiated a contrarian $1.6 billion position in late 2025 after the insurer’s stock collapsed in the wake of CEO Brian Thompson’s December 2024 killing in midtown Manhattan and the federal investigation into the company’s Medicare Advantage billing practices. UnitedHealth shares had recovered only modestly through Q1, and Abel chose to take the loss and reallocate. The full exit from insurance broker Aon plc ended another Combs-era position, while the Domino’s Pizza Inc. sale closed a smaller stake that had never reached top-25 status in the portfolio.
Berkshire ended Q1 2026 with a record $397 billion in combined cash and short-term Treasury bills, up from $373 billion at year-end 2025, after the firm was a net seller of $8.1 billion in equities during the quarter. At the company’s May 2 annual meeting in Omaha — Abel’s first as CEO and a noticeably smaller affair than Buffett’s peak-era gatherings — the new chief told shareholders that Berkshire “will not deploy into subpar opportunities” and called patience “a core strength” of the franchise. Operating earnings for the quarter rose 18% year over year to $11.34 billion, with insurance underwriting earnings up 28% to $1.7 billion and float climbing to roughly $176.9 billion.
For markets, the filing offered the clearest read yet on how Abel intends to manage Buffett’s $382 billion legacy portfolio. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew Palazola said in a note Friday afternoon that the moves “show a leader willing to make decisions, not just preserve them” — a pointed contrast to the late-Buffett era’s reputation for inertia. Berkshire Class B shares were little changed in extended trading following the disclosure. The portfolio remains anchored by Apple, American Express Co., Coca-Cola Co., Bank of America Corp. and Chevron Corp., though all five positions have been trimmed at various points over the past 18 months.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
Global oil markets closed Friday with Brent crude holding above $107 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate trading above $103 — prices that appear surprisingly restrained given what the International Energy Agency now describes as the largest oil-supply disruption in modern history.
According to the IEA’s May Oil Market Report, roughly 12.8 million barrels per day of global oil supply have been disrupted since the Iran conflict escalated in late February and effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow shipping channel through which nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil normally flows.
Yet despite the scale of the shock, oil prices remain well below the $138 Brent peak reached on April 7, creating one of the most unusual energy-market dynamics in decades.
The reason, increasingly, is that several powerful stabilizing forces are offsetting what would otherwise be a catastrophic supply collapse.
The supply disruption itself remains enormous.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration, in its May Short-Term Energy Outlook, estimated that production shut-ins across Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain averaged roughly 10.5 million barrels per day in April and could approach 10.8 million barrels per day this month as regional storage systems reach operational limits.
Before the conflict, approximately 20% of global crude exports passed through the Strait of Hormuz. The IEA said crude and fuel flows through the corridor fell by roughly 4 million barrels per day during March and April, while Gulf-region exports across all routes plunged by nearly 16 million barrels per day.
Under ordinary conditions, markets facing a disruption of that scale would likely experience a far sharper price spike.
Instead, three major forces have helped absorb the shock.
The first is demand destruction.
The IEA now expects global oil demand to contract by roughly 420,000 barrels per day in 2026, including an extraordinary 2.45 million barrel-per-day drop during the second quarter — the steepest quarterly decline since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Air travel and petrochemicals have been hit hardest. Jet-fuel consumption has weakened sharply as airports across portions of the Middle East remain disrupted, while lower industrial activity has reduced demand for naphtha and other petrochemical feedstocks.
Goldman Sachs estimates global oil consumption in April ran roughly 3.6 million barrels per day below prewar February levels.
The second stabilizing factor has been inventories.
Global oil inventories entered the conflict near a four-year high of approximately 7.9 billion barrels. The IEA estimates roughly 250 million barrels were released from commercial and strategic stockpiles during March and April alone, effectively adding nearly 4 million barrels per day back into global markets.
The third buffer has been the rapid adaptation of supply routes and non-Middle Eastern production growth.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have rerouted roughly 5.7 million barrels per day combined through Red Sea terminals and Indian Ocean export facilities, partially bypassing the Strait of Hormuz bottleneck.
At the same time, producers across the Americas have accelerated output growth. The IEA recently revised its 2026 supply-growth forecast for North and South American producers upward by more than 600,000 barrels per day to roughly 1.5 million barrels daily.
The geopolitical structure of the oil market has also changed materially during the crisis.
The UAE formally exited OPEC on May 1, removing one of the cartel’s largest spare-capacity holders and reducing projected global spare production buffers. The EIA now estimates OPEC’s collective spare capacity could fall to roughly 2.5 million barrels per day by 2027, down sharply from earlier projections near 3.8 million.
That leaves the broader Gulf oil alliance navigating both an active regional conflict and a more fragmented OPEC structure simultaneously.
Energy analysts warn the apparent stability in crude prices may understate underlying stress inside physical fuel markets.
Bill Perkins, chief investment officer at Skylar Capital Management, told CNBC that diesel and jet-fuel markets remain significantly tighter than crude benchmarks imply and cautioned that logistical bottlenecks could persist even if hostilities ease.
The IEA separately warned that oil markets may remain materially undersupplied through at least October even under a relatively quick ceasefire scenario.
The EIA does not expect normal Middle Eastern production and export patterns to fully return until late 2026 or early 2027.
Diplomatic developments remain the market’s largest variable.
Iranian officials reported that approximately 30 vessels successfully crossed the Strait of Hormuz between Wednesday evening and the weekend, though shipping traffic remains heavily restricted and insurance costs elevated.
Meanwhile, a U.S.-backed ceasefire framework failed to secure Iranian agreement this week. President Donald Trump warned Thursday that Iran could face “annihilation” if negotiations collapse, while recent talks involving Chinese President Xi Jinping failed to produce any concrete mechanism for reopening the strait or stabilizing regional exports.
Asian economies remain particularly vulnerable because of their heavier dependence on Gulf crude.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung launched a nationwide energy-conservation campaign this week and approved a supplementary budget worth roughly 26.2 trillion won, or approximately $17 billion, aimed at cushioning the domestic economic impact of higher oil costs.
The IEA noted that Asia is currently absorbing the sharpest demand-side adjustment globally.
For American consumers, the outlook remains mixed.
The EIA projects Brent crude could average roughly $106 during May and June before gradually easing toward $89 by the fourth quarter and approximately $79 by 2027 if Middle Eastern exports normalize.
Residential electricity prices in the United States are still expected to rise roughly 5% next year, with East Coast households likely facing the sharpest increases.
U.S. shale producers are benefiting from elevated crude prices but remain cautious about significantly increasing drilling activity. Surveys conducted by the Dallas Federal Reserve and Kansas City Federal Reserve suggest many shale operators estimate breakeven levels near $60 WTI and remain reluctant to commit large new capital expenditures if prices are expected to retreat sharply once the Strait of Hormuz eventually reopens.
For now, the global oil market remains balanced on a narrow edge.
Strategic inventories, redirected exports, weakened demand, and American production growth have together absorbed a supply disruption that under different conditions could have triggered a historic energy crisis.
Whether that balance survives the summer driving season now depends on diplomacy, shipping security, and how much additional demand destruction consumers around the world are willing to absorb.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoThe U.S. Dollar Index climbed for a fifth straight session Friday and was on pace for a weekly gain of more than 1%, its strongest five-day run since the start of March, after April inflation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics sent traders rushing to price out Federal Reserve rate cuts and increasingly bet on a hike before year-end. Trading Economics data put the DXY at roughly 99.29 in late New York trading, up from a Monday open near 98.10 and trading at its highest level in two weeks. CME FedWatch showed roughly 51% probability of a quarter-point hike at the December FOMC meeting and about 60% odds of a move by January 2027, up from near-zero a month ago.
The repricing was set in motion by the hottest pair of inflation prints in years. April CPI released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday came in at 3.8% year over year, the highest reading since May 2023, while Wednesday’s producer price index report jumped 6% from a year earlier — the hottest pace since 2022 — with headline PPI rising 1.4% month over month against a 0.7% expectation. Energy prices surged 7.8% on the goods side, transportation and warehousing costs rose 5%, and truck freight jumped 8.1%, with core PPI climbing 1% on the month and 5.2% annually. Census Bureau retail sales data Thursday rose 0.5% month over month in April, in line with forecasts but reinforcing the picture of a consumer still spending despite higher prices.
The data overwhelmed what had been a bearish dollar consensus heading into the spring. J.P. Morgan Global Research, which turned bearish on the greenback in March for the first time in four years, had been forecasting EUR/USD at 1.22 by mid-2026. Instead, the euro broke through its May lows and traded toward 1.16 on Friday as the European Central Bank held rates steady and eurozone growth data softened. EUR/USD is the dominant component of the DXY basket at 57.6%, followed by the yen at 13.6%, the pound at 11.9%, the Canadian dollar at 9.1%, the Swedish krona at 4.2% and the Swiss franc at 3.6%.
The biggest single-pair story remained USD/JPY, which traded near 158.60 Friday in its fifth straight winning session as U.S. Treasury yields surged. The 10-year yield jumped roughly nine basis points to 4.55%, a fresh one-year high, widening the rate gap with Japanese government bonds and pulling capital toward dollar assets. The Bank of Japan and Ministry of Finance have intervened repeatedly in recent months to defend the yen, and traders flagged 160 as the level at which fresh action becomes likely. Analysts at National Bank of Canada said wide U.S.-Japan rate differentials “remain the dominant driver” and warned that continued intervention raises spillover risks via potential Japanese sales of U.S. Treasuries.
The hawkish repricing landed on the same week the U.S. Senate narrowly confirmed Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chair, replacing Jerome Powell, whose term expired Friday. Warsh, a former Fed governor and longtime critic of post-crisis monetary easing, has publicly questioned the central bank’s tolerance of services inflation. Currency traders are watching closely to see whether the new chair signals an earlier move to tighten, with Adam Button of ForexLive noting that the dollar’s rally “is no longer just about data — it’s about a regime change at the Fed.” Investors are also assessing whether Warsh will maintain the central bank’s institutional independence, a point that drew bipartisan attention during his confirmation hearings.
Geopolitics added a safe-haven bid on top of the rate story. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that President Donald Trump raised the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz closure with Chinese President Xi Jinping during their two-day Beijing summit, though no diplomatic breakthrough emerged. WTI crude rose about 4% to near $101 a barrel and Brent climbed 1.5% to $107.30, keeping energy prices in the inflation pipeline and reinforcing the higher-for-longer dollar trade.
Dollar strength is rippling through commodity markets. Gold broke a long winning streak, falling roughly $133 to about $4,551 an ounce as the non-yielding metal lost ground to a higher-yielding greenback. Silver, copper and iron ore also retreated on the day. Strategas Research strategist Ryan Grabinski said in a Friday client note that “the higher-for-longer regime is back, and it’s now visible in every asset priced in dollars — from the euro to copper to a barrel of oil bought by an Indian refiner.” For emerging markets, the move spelled fresh pressure: the Indian rupee, Brazilian real and Turkish lira all weakened, complicating the inflation fight for central banks already squeezed by the Iran energy shock.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoThis is the kind of week where markets can change direction quickly.
Investors are entering the stretch with Treasury yields near cycle highs, inflation pressures rebuilding, oil above $100 a barrel, and Wall Street increasingly split over whether the U.S. economy is headed toward a soft landing or something far more difficult.
The setup already looks tense before the first earnings report even lands.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield closed Friday near 4.6%, its highest level in roughly a year, while the 30-year Treasury pushed through 5% earlier in the week, according to Federal Reserve data. Bond markets are now openly challenging the idea that the Federal Reserve will be able to cut rates anytime soon following April’s hotter-than-expected inflation reports.
Against that backdrop, nearly every datapoint this week suddenly matters more.
Monday opens relatively quietly, at least by comparison to what follows later in the week. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York releases its Business Leaders Survey in the morning alongside updated household-spending expectations data.
Ordinarily, neither report would dominate trading. But after April’s sharp acceleration in both consumer and producer inflation, investors are increasingly searching for signs that higher gasoline prices and elevated borrowing costs are beginning to damage consumer demand.
By Tuesday, attention shifts directly toward housing and the American consumer.
The Census Bureau releases New Residential Construction data before the open, followed later by Pending Home Sales from the National Association of Realtors. Housing has become one of the clearest pressure points in the economy as mortgage rates remain near multi-decade highs.
The same morning, Home Depot reports earnings.
The retailer has become one of Wall Street’s preferred windows into middle-class spending behavior because its business sits directly between consumer confidence, housing activity, and discretionary renovation spending.
Investors will be watching closely to see whether the spring home-improvement season recovered at all after months of slowing demand tied to high financing costs.
Internationally, European travel and infrastructure companies including Ryanair, Aéroports de Paris, and Vinci will also report, offering an early look at whether the global energy shock is beginning to hit tourism and travel demand.
Then comes Wednesday — easily the most consequential day of the week.
Before markets open, Target reports earnings amid an ongoing leadership transition. Chief operating officer Michael Fiddelke is scheduled to succeed longtime CEO Brian Cornell next year, and investors are increasingly focused on whether Target’s customer base is beginning to weaken under inflation pressure.
The company occupies an especially difficult position inside today’s “K-shaped” economy, where higher-income consumers continue spending while lower-income households pull back sharply.
The same morning also brings earnings from Lowe’s, TJX Companies, Analog Devices, Intuit, Progressive, and Raymond James Financial.
But the real focus arrives after the bell.
Nvidia reports quarterly earnings Wednesday evening in what has increasingly become one of the most important recurring events in global financial markets.
CEO Jensen Huang stunned investors earlier this year when he projected combined Blackwell and Rubin AI-chip revenue could exceed roughly $1 trillion through 2027, doubling previous expectations.
The scale of AI spending behind that forecast is staggering. Major hyperscale customers including Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta Platforms are collectively expected to spend between roughly $695 billion and $725 billion on infrastructure next year alone.
Nvidia shares have already surged more than 26% year to date and recently hit fresh record highs.
That leaves little room for disappointment.
Historically, Nvidia stock has sometimes sold off even after strong earnings if guidance merely matches expectations rather than significantly exceeding them.
Earlier that same afternoon, the Federal Reserve releases minutes from its April policy meeting — the final meeting chaired by Jerome Powell before newly confirmed Chair Kevin Warsh takes over.
The Fed held interest rates steady at that meeting, but several officials have since publicly expressed concern that inflation may remain elevated longer than markets expect.
The minutes will offer investors a clearer look into how divided policymakers have become internally over whether inflation risks or recession risks now pose the bigger threat.
Thursday shifts attention back toward consumers and labor markets.
Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, reports earnings before the open.
Unlike Target, Walmart often benefits during economic slowdowns as consumers trade down toward lower-cost retailers. Analysts are especially focused on Walmart’s rapidly growing e-commerce business and whether higher-income shoppers continue migrating toward the company’s online platform.
Thursday morning also brings Initial Jobless Claims and the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Survey, both closely watched after rising concern that artificial intelligence, tariffs, and higher energy costs may be beginning to weaken hiring and factory activity simultaneously.
The labor market story extends beyond the government data.
Several major labor disputes are unfolding quietly beneath the surface this week.
Roughly 200 maintenance workers tied to Hersheypark, The Hotel Hershey, and the Giant Center are voting on possible strike action after rejecting the company’s latest contract proposal earlier this month. The timing is significant because Hersheypark is scheduled to fully launch its summer season this week.
At Arconic, the union representing roughly 3,400 manufacturing workers is voting on strike authorization as contract negotiations continue.
Meanwhile, Kroger faces simultaneous labor pressure from multiple union groups tied to grocery and distribution operations.
Friday closes the week with the final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment reading and the latest New York Fed Staff Nowcast update.
Consumer sentiment has taken on renewed importance because inflation expectations have started rising again alongside gasoline prices. Economists increasingly worry that if consumers begin expecting permanently higher inflation, it could become significantly harder for the Fed to stabilize prices without slowing the economy further.
The broader market backdrop makes every release feel amplified.
The S&P 500 has climbed roughly 9% year to date and rebounded sharply since late March despite higher oil prices, rising bond yields, geopolitical instability, and growing skepticism surrounding future Fed rate cuts.
The bond market, however, is telling a far more cautious story.
This week may help determine which side has the better read on the economy: equity investors betting corporate earnings and AI-driven growth can continue overpowering inflation and higher rates, or bond investors increasingly signaling that the era of easy monetary conditions may be over for longer than markets expected.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoBy Maria Stein — JBizNews Desk
The American appliance market has abruptly stopped behaving like a replacement business and started behaving like a recession business.
Consumers who once swapped out aging refrigerators, upgraded kitchen packages, or financed new laundry sets without much hesitation are increasingly doing something far simpler: repairing what they already own and waiting.
That shift is now showing up clearly inside corporate earnings.
Over the past two weeks, nearly every major appliance manufacturer — Whirlpool Corp., Electrolux, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and GE Appliances — has delivered some version of the same message to investors: the U.S. appliance market deteriorated sharply in March and has continued weakening into the second quarter.
The numbers are increasingly difficult to dismiss as temporary softness.
According to figures disclosed by Whirlpool during its May earnings call, U.S. major-appliance shipments fell 7.4% during the first quarter, with March alone collapsing 10% year over year — the steepest monthly decline since the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
Electrolux described the U.S. market as experiencing its worst volume contraction in a decade.
Built-in ovens, dishwashers, and higher-end kitchen packages — among the most discretionary categories in the business — dropped roughly 15% as consumers pulled back on large household purchases.
The timing lines up almost perfectly with the broader economic shock that followed the closure of the Strait of Hormuz after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran earlier this year.
Gasoline prices surged above $4.50 per gallon nationally for the first time in years. Consumer sentiment collapsed. Mortgage rates remained elevated. Inflation reaccelerated. Housing turnover stayed frozen near multi-decade lows.
Inside appliance showrooms, the result has become visible almost immediately.
Consumers are delaying purchases, trading down to cheaper models, or skipping replacement cycles altogether.
“The people who still come in are shopping differently,” one industry executive told analysts privately this month. “They’re fixing old units longer, and when they buy, they’re buying smaller.”
For Whirlpool, the downturn is now severe enough to resemble crisis conditions.
CEO Marc Bitzer told investors the current industry contraction resembles the environment seen during the 2008 financial collapse more than a normal cyclical slowdown.
“This level of industry decline is similar to what we observed during the global financial crisis,” Bitzer said during the company’s earnings call.
Whirlpool’s first-quarter revenue fell nearly 10% to $3.27 billion. North American operating profit effectively disappeared, plunging 96% to just $6 million. The company swung to a quarterly loss, suspended its dividend, slashed earnings guidance, and saw its stock fall toward levels not seen in roughly 17 years.
The pressure extends well beyond earnings.
Whirlpool now carries roughly $6.5 billion in long-term debt and is actively refinancing portions of its balance sheet as borrowing costs remain elevated. Bloomberg reported this month that Citigroup is working with the company on discussions surrounding a large bond refinancing tied to approximately $3 billion in obligations.
At the same time, Whirlpool is aggressively raising prices.
The company pushed through roughly 10% effective pricing increases in April — its largest in more than a decade — and plans additional hikes this summer.
Bitzer believes Whirlpool’s heavy domestic manufacturing footprint gives the company an advantage under the new tariff regime now reshaping global appliance economics.
Whirlpool manufactures roughly 80% of its U.S.-sold appliances domestically and sources most of its steel from American suppliers. Under the new Section 232 tariffs, imported appliances now face duties of up to 25%, with even steeper costs for products tied heavily to steel and aluminum inputs.
That tariff structure is rapidly redrawing competitive lines across the industry.
Manufacturers with substantial U.S. production capabilities may gain relative pricing advantages. Companies heavily dependent on imported appliances face rising pressure to absorb costs or pass them through to consumers already cutting back.
Electrolux is confronting the same challenge from Europe.
The Swedish company reported sharply lower North American sales and swung to a quarterly loss after demand for refrigerators and food-preservation products deteriorated significantly.
CEO Yannick Fierling blamed geopolitical instability and weakening U.S. consumer confidence for what he described as the largest first-quarter market decline in over a decade.
Electrolux responded with aggressive price increases of between 5% and 20% while downgrading its North American outlook and restructuring parts of its manufacturing footprint.
Investors reacted swiftly. Shares fell more than 20% after the earnings release.
Yet the downturn has not hit every company equally.
LG Electronics has emerged as one of the few major appliance manufacturers still showing relative resilience.
The South Korean company posted record first-quarter revenue while maintaining solid margins despite tariffs and rising raw-material costs.
LG executives outlined a strategy increasingly built around extremes rather than the traditional middle market: premium products for wealthier consumers at the top end, value-focused mass-market offerings at the bottom, and less emphasis on the middle-income segment now experiencing the greatest financial pressure.
The company is also leaning harder into subscription-style appliance programs, commercial sales, and emerging-market expansion across parts of Asia, Latin America, and Africa where appliance penetration remains lower and economic conditions differ from the U.S. consumer slowdown.
Samsung, meanwhile, has benefited from a crucial advantage: diversification.
While Samsung’s home-appliance business has weakened alongside the broader industry, its semiconductor division continues generating strong profits from artificial-intelligence infrastructure demand, helping offset softness elsewhere inside the conglomerate.
GE Appliances, now owned by China’s Haier Smart Home, has similarly emphasized supply-chain restructuring and domestic production adjustments to adapt to tariffs and weakening demand.
The broader economic implications now extend beyond appliances themselves.
Historically, the appliance market has functioned as a highly sensitive indicator of household confidence, housing turnover, and middle-class financial health.
People typically buy refrigerators, dishwashers, and laundry systems during home purchases, renovations, or periods of discretionary confidence.
Right now, all three drivers appear under pressure simultaneously.
Existing-home sales remain depressed. Borrowing costs remain high. Inflation continues squeezing household budgets. Energy prices have risen sharply.
Research from the National Retail Federation estimates appliance prices could climb another 19% to 31% under the most aggressive tariff scenarios currently under consideration.
The risk for manufacturers is straightforward: price increases help margins only if consumers continue buying.
The first-quarter data increasingly suggests many are choosing not to.
Repair technicians, by contrast, are staying busy.
For now, the appliance industry has entered an unusual and uncomfortable position: an essential category where demand still exists in theory, but where affordability, financing costs, and economic uncertainty are increasingly delaying the actual purchase.
The next clues may arrive this week.
Home Depot reports Tuesday. Walmart follows Thursday.
Together, they may reveal whether the appliance downturn is still largely isolated to housing-related spending — or whether it is beginning to signal something broader unfolding across the American consumer economy.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday it has activated its emergency operations center and begun mobilizing additional personnel after the World Health Organization formally declared an Ebola outbreak in Central Africa a “public health emergency of international concern,” the highest alert level available under global health rules.
The outbreak, centered primarily in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and now spreading into Uganda, involves the rare Bundibugyo strain of ebolavirus — a variant for which no approved vaccines or treatments currently exist.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the emergency designation Sunday, marking the first global health emergency declaration since the 2024 mpox outbreak.
Satish Pillai, the CDC’s Ebola response incident manager, said the agency is deploying additional experts to affected areas while expanding laboratory testing, contact tracing, surveillance, and border monitoring through its international country offices.
“The risk to the United States remains low,” Pillai told reporters Sunday.
The CDC has issued a Level 2 travel advisory for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a Level 1 advisory for Uganda while implementing enhanced screening procedures at select U.S. ports of entry aimed at identifying potentially symptomatic travelers.
According to the CDC’s latest official outbreak summary, the DRC has now recorded 10 confirmed cases, 336 suspected cases, and 88 deaths tied to the outbreak. Uganda has confirmed two cases, including one death involving a traveler who recently arrived from Congo.
The outbreak is concentrated in eastern Congo’s Ituri Province, particularly around the Mongbwalu, Rwampara, and Bunia health zones — areas already challenged by population displacement, mining activity, and longstanding regional insecurity.
The Bundibugyo strain is exceptionally rare. This marks only the third documented outbreak globally involving the variant and the 18th Ebola outbreak recorded in the DRC since the virus was first identified there in 1976. Historical fatality rates associated with Bundibugyo Ebola have ranged between roughly 25% and 50%.
Congolese health officials formally declared the outbreak May 15 after genomic sequencing conducted by the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale in Kinshasa confirmed the strain. Early rapid diagnostic tests initially returned negative results — a known limitation with Bundibugyo detection that delayed identification of the outbreak.
The first suspected patient, a healthcare worker, reportedly developed fever, vomiting, and hemorrhagic symptoms in late April before dying at a treatment facility in Bunia. Uganda’s Ministry of Health later confirmed its first case involving a 59-year-old Congolese citizen treated at Kibuli Muslim Hospital in Kampala.
The outbreak is now drawing increasing attention from global pharmaceutical and public-health officials because existing Ebola countermeasures are largely designed around a different strain of the virus.
The global Ebola vaccine market — estimated at approximately $2.4 billion this year according to industry research from Mordor Intelligence — is currently dominated by Merck & Co.’s ERVEBO, a vaccine approved specifically for the Zaire strain of ebolavirus.
Johnson & Johnson markets a separate two-dose Ebola vaccine also targeted primarily toward the Zaire strain. Neither product is considered effective against Bundibugyo Ebola.
The lack of approved treatments or vaccines for the current outbreak has intensified concern among international health agencies.
Earlier this year, Merck’s MSD division partnered with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations on a $30 million initiative aimed at lowering Ebola vaccine production costs, while researchers at the University of Oxford launched a broader filovirus vaccine-development effort covering Ebola, Sudan, and Marburg viruses.
None of those programs, however, has yet produced an approved Bundibugyo-specific countermeasure.
Funding shortages are already emerging as a central operational concern.
The WHO has released approximately $500,000 in emergency support funding, while the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has mobilized roughly $2 million. Africa CDC officials warned Saturday that the current funding level remains only a small fraction of what would likely be required if the outbreak expands further.
Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya said response teams have already been deployed to official and unofficial border crossings throughout the region, while isolation procedures, surveillance operations, and contact-tracing efforts are accelerating.
The organization also convened an emergency coordination meeting involving health officials from Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan alongside representatives from the WHO, UNICEF, the African Medicines Agency, the Pandemic Fund, and the U.S. CDC.
WHO officials have advised against broad travel bans or airport shutdowns, arguing that aggressive border restrictions could encourage unmonitored movement and complicate containment efforts.
Instead, the agency cited cross-border transmission risks, unexplained deaths, and uncertainty surrounding the outbreak’s true scale as key reasons for issuing the international emergency declaration.
WHO scientists believe the virus may already have circulated undetected in eastern Congo for several weeks before formal identification.
Operational challenges inside the affected region remain severe.
Health authorities continue to face heavy population movement tied to artisanal mining activity near Mongbwalu, weak healthcare infrastructure, security instability, and the close proximity of outbreak zones to the Ugandan and South Sudanese borders.
Unlike recent Ebola outbreaks where vaccines could be rapidly deployed after confirmation, authorities responding to the Bundibugyo strain are largely relying on traditional containment measures developed during the earliest decades of Ebola response: isolating infected patients, tracing contacts, conducting safe burials, and persuading communities to cooperate with health workers.
For global markets, the immediate financial impact remains relatively limited given the absence of any major pharmaceutical product directly tied to the Bundibugyo strain.
The broader concern now centers on whether the lack of targeted vaccines, combined with funding gaps and difficult field conditions, allows the outbreak to expand more aggressively in the weeks ahead.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
New federal labor data is offering the clearest statistical evidence yet that artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape segments of the U.S. workforce in measurable ways — even as policymakers, economists, and corporate leaders remain divided over how quickly the disruption will spread.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that a group of 18 occupations previously identified by the agency as highly exposed to AI technologies experienced a combined 0.2% employment decline between May 2024 and May 2025, while overall U.S. employment grew 0.8% during the same period.
Excluding medical secretaries — a category still benefiting from strong healthcare-sector demand — employment across the remaining 17 AI-exposed occupations fell 1.6% for the second consecutive year, according to the Bureau’s Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release.
The figures represent one of the first broad federal datasets suggesting that AI-related disruption may already be materializing inside the labor market rather than remaining purely theoretical.
The largest losses occurred in exactly the types of occupations economists have long warned could face automation pressure.
Customer service representative positions declined by approximately 130,180 jobs, a 4.8% drop over the year. Secretaries and administrative assistants outside executive, legal, and medical roles lost roughly 31,000 positions, while wholesale and manufacturing sales representatives declined by nearly 29,000.
Longer-term declines are even more striking. Since May 2022 — shortly before OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT accelerated the generative-AI boom — employment among credit authorizers and clerks has fallen more than 26%, according to BLS data. Broadcast announcers and radio DJs are down roughly 21%, while sales engineer positions have declined more than 13%.
Private-sector labor tracking firms are now reporting similar patterns.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the Chicago-based outplacement firm that monitors corporate layoffs, said employers attributed roughly 21,490 planned layoffs in April directly to AI-related restructuring, accounting for about 26% of all announced job cuts during the month.
Year-to-date, the firm estimates approximately 49,135 announced layoffs have been tied to AI-driven restructuring or investment shifts.
“Technology companies continue to announce large-scale cuts and are leading all industries in layoff announcements,” said Andy Challenger, the firm’s chief revenue officer. “They are also often citing AI spend and innovation. Regardless of whether individual jobs are being replaced by AI, the money for those roles is.”
Corporate America has increasingly begun speaking openly about the workforce implications.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced another 16,000 layoffs in January following earlier reductions last year and warned employees that generative AI and autonomous software agents would likely reduce portions of the company’s corporate workforce over time.
Block, the financial-technology company led by Jack Dorsey, has eliminated roughly 40% of its staff during a restructuring heavily centered on AI adoption. Snap Inc. cut approximately 16% of its global workforce in April, while Meta Platforms CFO Susan Li told analysts the company expected additional staffing reductions tied partly to operational efficiency initiatives.
The broader labor market is also beginning to show signs of softening beneath the headline unemployment rate.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed openings standing at 6.9 million in March, far below the 10.3 million peak reached in early 2023. Hiring rates remain near lows last seen during the pandemic recovery period.
Young workers appear especially vulnerable.
A 2026 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that recent college graduates between ages 22 and 27 faced a 5.6% unemployment rate at the end of last year, above the national average of 4.2% at the time.
Researchers at Stanford University’s Digital Economy Lab, led by economist Erik Brynjolfsson, found workers between ages 22 and 25 employed in highly AI-exposed occupations experienced a 16% relative employment decline since late 2022, while workers over 30 in the same categories saw gains ranging between 6% and 12%.
Federal officials are increasingly acknowledging the disruption publicly.
Outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who is being succeeded this month by Kevin Warsh, told economics students at Harvard in March that large companies “can take out a lot of jobs that can be automated by a very smart large language model. They just can and they will, because their competitors are doing it.”
Powell urged younger workers to adapt by learning to work alongside AI technologies rather than attempting to avoid them.
At Goldman Sachs, economist Joseph Briggs estimates that approximately 6% to 7% of U.S. workers could ultimately face displacement during a decade-long AI transition period. Briggs projects unemployment could rise toward 4.5% before stabilizing as productivity gains spread through the economy.
Washington has begun moving toward a policy response, though slowly.
Senators Mark Warner and Mike Rounds introduced bipartisan legislation in March creating an “Economy of the Future Commission” tasked with developing recommendations on retraining, unemployment insurance, workforce transition policy, and tax reform tied to AI disruption. The proposal has received support from companies including Microsoft and Google.
Additional legislation from Senators Josh Hawley and Jim Banks would require the federal government to formally model AI-related labor-market impacts, while a separate unemployment-insurance overhaul proposed by Senator Ron Wyden remains stalled in the Senate Finance Committee.
Not all economists agree the labor-market deterioration is being driven primarily by AI.
Stephanie Aliaga, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, argues AI-linked layoffs still account for a relatively small share of overall workforce reductions and says much of the productivity acceleration seen over the past year may stem more from pandemic-era restructuring than from AI itself.
Others disagree sharply.
Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, points to rising layoffs in professional and business-services sectors — industries considered among the most exposed to AI automation — as evidence that the transition is already underway.
The political stakes are beginning to rise heading into the midterm election cycle.
Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, who replaced Lori Chavez-DeRemer in April, now oversees what the Trump administration describes as a “worker-first AI agenda” centered on skills training, workforce adaptation, and AI literacy initiatives launched earlier this year.
At the same time, state-level attempts to regulate algorithmic hiring and AI-driven employment decisions increasingly face possible federal preemption under a December executive order, creating uncertainty over how labor protections will ultimately be enforced.
For now, the labor market is sending mixed signals simultaneously: low headline unemployment, slowing hiring activity, weaker entry-level opportunities, and mounting federal evidence that AI-driven restructuring is beginning to reshape portions of the white-collar workforce.
The economic transition has started. The policy response remains unfinished.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
Israel’s economy contracted in the first quarter of 2026 as the conflict with Iran disrupted business activity, consumer spending, and transportation across much of the country, according to data released Sunday by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics.
The agency reported that gross domestic product shrank at an annualized rate of 3.3% during the quarter, marking the country’s first economic contraction since the ceasefire that ended the two-year Gaza war. While the decline was slightly less severe than the 4% drop economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast, it interrupted a rebound that had gained momentum through the second half of 2025.
In quarter-over-quarter terms, GDP declined 0.8%, with officials pointing to March and the early weeks of April as the most disruptive period as ballistic missile attacks from Iran forced repeated school closures, interrupted transportation networks, and temporarily shuttered businesses across central Israel.
On a per-capita basis — often viewed by economists as a more accurate measure of household economic conditions — output fell 4.5%. Business-sector GDP declined 3.1%.
Consumer spending, the largest driver of Israel’s economy, dropped 4.7% as households reduced travel, shopping, dining, and entertainment activity during weeks of missile alerts and shelter advisories. Exports fell 3.7% amid disruptions to ports and airfreight operations, while government consumption declined 4.8%.
One major category continued to expand sharply: fixed-asset investment surged 12.6%, reflecting elevated military procurement, infrastructure spending, and emergency preparedness investments tied to the conflict environment.
The economic slowdown has already forced policymakers to reassess growth expectations for the year.
Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron lowered the central bank’s 2026 growth projection to 3.8% in March, down from the 5.2% forecast issued before the Iran conflict escalated.
“Recent weeks, since the beginning of Operation Roaring Lion, have been marked by considerable geopolitical uncertainty, and the war’s impacts on the economy and on real activity can be seen across all industries,” Yaron said during a press conference in Jerusalem.
He pointed specifically to declines in tourism, weaker consumer activity reflected in credit-card spending data, labor shortages caused by reservist mobilizations, and supply-chain disruptions affecting both imports and exports.
Even so, the downturn was not as severe as the economic shock Israel experienced during the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June 2025, when large-scale mobilizations and nationwide airspace closures brought portions of the economy close to a standstill.
Israel’s Finance Ministry, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, now projects full-year economic growth between 3.3% and 3.8% for 2026, assuming the ceasefire reached with Iran last month remains intact.
Financial markets have remained notably resilient despite the conflict.
The Israeli shekel weakened to roughly 3.1675 per U.S. dollar during the height of the fighting but remains near multi-decade highs reached earlier this year. The Tel Aviv 35 stock index has also continued climbing despite the geopolitical instability.
Yaron told CNBC last month that five-year credit default swaps tied to Israeli sovereign debt had already retreated back toward pre-war levels, suggesting international investors view much of the geopolitical risk as already priced into markets.
“Markets, both abroad and in particular in Israel, are taking the view that the geopolitical situation has improved a lot already,” Yaron said.
Some analysts continue to expect a relatively strong rebound in the second half of the year.
Keren Uziyel, senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC that resilient labor conditions, strong global demand for Israeli cybersecurity and technology exports, and a wave of major acquisition activity could help stabilize growth by midyear.
Among the largest transactions was Alphabet’s Google acquisition of Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz for approximately $32 billion and Palo Alto Networks’ purchase of CyberArk Software for roughly $25 billion. Both deals closed in March and injected substantial liquidity into Israel’s technology ecosystem and investment markets.
The central bank is also increasingly signaling potential monetary easing later this year if conditions stabilize.
Jonathan Katz, chief economist at Leader Capital Markets, said he expects the Bank of Israel to gradually lower its benchmark interest rate from 4% toward a range between 3% and 3.25% by year-end, assuming inflation moderates and the ceasefire continues to hold.
Yaron has repeatedly identified three conditions necessary before significant rate cuts become realistic: a sustained end to hostilities, declining global energy prices, and the return of reservists from military service back into the civilian labor force.
Despite the weak first quarter, Israel’s medium-term growth outlook still compares favorably with many advanced economies.
The International Monetary Fund continues to project Israel’s economy will expand 3.5% in 2026, stronger than its forecasts for the United States, the European Union, and every G7 economy. Israel’s unemployment rate edged up to 3.2% in March but remains relatively low by developed-market standards, while the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio of roughly 70% remains well below the G7 average.
For policymakers and investors alike, however, the larger question now centers less on the first-quarter contraction itself and more on the durability of the ceasefire with Iran.
If fighting resumes, economists warn that the recovery Israeli officials are expecting in the second quarter could evaporate quickly — along with hopes for lower borrowing costs and a broader normalization of economic activity.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
A peer-reviewed analysis published last month in Nature Reviews Endocrinology is intensifying scrutiny around what many researchers now view as the most important unresolved risk tied to the blockbuster Ozempic-class weight-loss drugs: significant muscle loss accompanying rapid reductions in body fat.
The paper, led by researcher Henning T. Langer, reviewed growing evidence that patients taking obesity injections such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound can lose substantial amounts of skeletal muscle alongside fat — a dynamic increasingly shaping the next multibillion-dollar phase of the pharmaceutical obesity market.
According to the review, as much as 25% to 40% of total weight lost on leading GLP-1 and dual-action obesity drugs may come from lean body mass rather than fat tissue alone. That finding is now driving a wave of investment into so-called “muscle-preserving” obesity therapies as drugmakers race to improve what physicians increasingly call the “quality” of weight loss rather than simply the quantity.
The concern is rooted in clinical trial data already embedded inside the industry’s biggest products.
In Novo Nordisk’s pivotal STEP-1 trial for semaglutide — the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy — patients lost roughly 15% of body weight on average, while body-composition scans showed lean mass declines accounting for approximately 40% to 45% of total pounds shed.
Eli Lilly’s SURMOUNT-1 trial for tirzepatide — marketed as Mounjaro and Zepbound — produced even greater average weight reduction of roughly 21%, though lean mass losses represented closer to 25% of total weight lost.
Doctors broadly agree the drugs deliver major metabolic and cardiovascular benefits, including improvements in blood sugar, blood pressure, and heart-disease risk. But geriatric specialists are increasingly warning that rapid weight loss in older patients can create a condition known as “sarcopenic obesity,” where body weight improves on paper while muscle function and physical strength deteriorate underneath.
That risk is colliding directly with surging adoption rates.
Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said earlier this year during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box that between 20 million and 25 million people are currently taking obesity and diabetes medications from the two dominant manufacturers. Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar estimated the obesity-treatment population alone at roughly 15 million patients between the companies, while noting that approximately 110 million Americans are believed to live with obesity overall.
The demographic overlap worries researchers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 40% of Americans over age 60 qualified as obese in 2023 — the same age group already most vulnerable to age-related muscle deterioration and frailty.
The financial stakes surrounding the market are enormous. Analysts at Barclays estimate the obesity-drug sector could generate roughly $150 billion annually within the next decade.
Eli Lilly projected 2026 revenue between $80 billion and $83 billion earlier this year, surpassing Wall Street expectations. Novo Nordisk, by contrast, warned of potential sales pressure after both companies agreed to “most favored nation” pricing arrangements negotiated with President Donald Trump last November, agreements expected to lower U.S. prices while expanding Medicare obesity-drug coverage later this year.
The next frontier in the obesity industry is increasingly focused on preserving muscle while maximizing fat loss.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals presented data last year from its Phase 2 COURAGE trial showing that combining semaglutide with its experimental antibody trevogrumab preserved roughly 50% to 80% of the lean muscle mass typically lost during treatment with obesity drugs alone.
George D. Yancopoulos, Regeneron’s president and chief scientific officer, said the results demonstrated that blocking specific muscle-regulation pathways “can preserve muscle and further increase fat loss” when combined with Ozempic-style therapies.
The race has rapidly expanded across the industry.
Eli Lilly paid up to $1.9 billion in 2023 to acquire Versanis Bio and its muscle-preservation drug candidate bimagrumab. Phase 2b BELIEVE trial data presented at the American Diabetes Association last year showed the bimagrumab-semaglutide combination generated roughly 22.1% total weight loss, with nearly 93% of that reduction attributed specifically to fat rather than lean tissue.
Although Lilly later halted one of its mid-stage bimagrumab studies for what it described as “strategic business reasons,” the broader program remains active.
Other biotechnology firms including Scholar Rock, Biohaven, Veru, and Wave Life Sciences are also developing muscle-sparing therapies designed to pair with GLP-1 drugs. Wave Life Sciences CEO Paul Bolno recently told CNBC the company believes its experimental therapy could potentially “double the weight loss” achieved with obesity drugs while preserving strength and muscle quality.
For now, physicians are increasingly emphasizing lifestyle interventions alongside the medications themselves.
Researchers and geriatric specialists recommend resistance training and elevated protein intake — generally between 1.6 and 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily — to reduce muscle deterioration during rapid weight loss. Existing clinical studies suggest those interventions can reduce lean-mass decline by approximately 15% to 20%.
Another growing concern is weight cycling.
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen recently highlighted data involving more than 125,000 patients showing that between 46% and 65% of users discontinued obesity-drug treatment within 12 months. Separate meta-analysis data found that patients regained an average of roughly 21 pounds within about a year after stopping therapy.
The biological problem is asymmetrical: fat often returns faster than muscle can be rebuilt. Repeated cycles of loss and regain could therefore leave some patients physically weaker over time even if their body weight temporarily improves.
That dynamic is increasingly reshaping how pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and investors think about the obesity market itself.
The next generation of obesity medicine may no longer be judged simply by how much weight patients lose, but by how much strength, mobility, and muscle they manage to keep.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
The first public clash between New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill and FIFA did not center on security, stadium rights, or international politics. It centered on a train ticket.
NJ Transit’s standard round-trip fare between Manhattan’s Penn Station and the Meadowlands normally costs $12.90. For 2026 FIFA World Cup match days at MetLife Stadium, the agency initially proposed charging fans $150. Sherrill, sworn into office in January, publicly challenged the plan and argued that New Jersey taxpayers were effectively subsidizing one of the richest sporting organizations in the world while FIFA collected billions in tournament revenue.
Within days, the fare was reduced first to $105 and then to $98. The cuts did not come because FIFA agreed to contribute additional funding. Instead, a group of corporations — including DoorDash, Audible, FanDuel, DraftKings, PSE&G, South Jersey Industries, and American Water — quietly stepped in to offset part of the transportation burden.
The episode exposed the increasingly uncomfortable economics surrounding the 2026 World Cup, which FIFA expects to become the most commercially successful tournament in the organization’s history.
FIFA confirmed in March that all 16 of its top-tier global sponsorship slots for the tournament had been fully sold, the first time in the organization’s history that every major sponsorship position was locked in ahead of kickoff. Yet while the governing body prepares for what officials expect to be roughly $11 billion in tournament-related revenue, local officials in New Jersey say the state has been left carrying a disproportionate share of the logistical and infrastructure costs associated with hosting the event’s centerpiece matches.
MetLife Stadium — temporarily rebranded by FIFA as “New York New Jersey Stadium” for the tournament — will host eight World Cup matches, including the July 19 final. The venue sits in East Rutherford, New Jersey, a borough with a population of roughly 10,000 residents.
The branding itself has already generated irritation among New Jersey officials, many of whom note privately and publicly that no World Cup matches are actually being played inside New York State despite the prominence of “New York” in FIFA’s marketing language.
The larger dispute, however, revolves around money.
According to public records compiled by NorthJersey.com, New Jersey taxpayers have already absorbed at least $307 million in projected World Cup-related expenses. State officials say FIFA contributed nothing toward the cost of transporting spectators to the stadium, leaving NJ Transit responsible for accommodating as many as 40,000 fans per match under an unusually restrictive operational framework.
NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri has defended the security and crowd-management requirements attached to the event but acknowledged that the transportation costs had to be recovered somewhere. Under pressure from Sherrill, the burden shifted primarily toward event ticket holders rather than ordinary commuters.
The dispute quickly evolved into a broader political issue. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer publicly sided with New Jersey’s position despite representing neighboring New York, underscoring the unusual interstate tensions developing around the tournament.
Those tensions escalated further after New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared in late April that “New York isn’t just hosting the World Cup, New York is the World Cup,” prompting widespread backlash online and a community note on X pointing out that every match assigned to the region will actually take place in New Jersey.
U.S. Rep. Nellie Pou, whose district includes the Meadowlands complex, has been among the most vocal critics of FIFA’s branding and financial structure surrounding the event.
Meanwhile, local officials inside East Rutherford have been quietly preparing for what may become the largest logistical operation in the borough’s history. The town has ordered its full police department onto duty during match days. The state approved a $100,000 grant to assist with additional security costs, though borough officials estimate the true expense will likely exceed three times that amount.
Hotels near the Meadowlands have reportedly been instructed to advise guests against walking to the stadium because of FIFA-imposed security perimeters. Independent shuttle operators and private transportation companies that traditionally service stadium events have also complained they will be restricted from dropping passengers near the venue, creating additional frustrations for local businesses that expected to benefit economically from the tournament.
The friction contrasts sharply with the enormous commercial scale FIFA is projecting globally.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino, speaking at CNBC’s Invest in America Forum in Washington last month, said the organization expects approximately $11 billion in revenue tied to the 2026 tournament and pledged that proceeds would be reinvested across FIFA’s 211 member associations.
A joint FIFA–World Trade Organization economic study projects roughly $80 billion in gross economic output across the United States, Canada, and Mexico during the tournament cycle, including approximately $30.5 billion tied directly to U.S. activity.
Tournament prize money has also climbed sharply. FIFA approved a new structure at its April council meeting in Vancouver that raises total tournament prize payouts to roughly $871 million. Demand for tickets has exploded alongside the event’s commercial growth. At one point, premium final tickets listed on FIFA’s official resale platform reportedly reached seven-figure asking prices, with one package briefly appearing at approximately $11.5 million.
The commercial machine surrounding the 2026 World Cup is therefore operating at unprecedented scale. The unresolved question is who ultimately pays for the infrastructure, transportation, policing, and operational burden required to stage it.
Sherrill has already said her administration intends to seek a full accounting of New Jersey’s costs, federal reimbursements, and any financial participation by New York before supporting future joint-hosting arrangements for major international sporting events.
The broader message coming from Trenton is becoming increasingly direct: if New Jersey continues serving as the physical host for globally televised events, the state no longer intends to quietly absorb the financial obligations while others capture the branding and revenue upside.
For FIFA, which has spent years positioning the 2026 tournament as the most commercially advanced World Cup ever staged, the lingering fight on the Jersey side of the Hudson may now represent the tournament’s most politically awkward unresolved issue before kickoff arrives on June 11.
The matches have not started yet. The financial battle already has.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoThe U.S. Navy confirmed Sunday that two Boeing-built EA-18G Growler electronic-attack jets collided in midair during the Gunfighter Skies Air Show at Mountain Home Air Force Base in western Idaho, with all four aircrew successfully ejecting before the aircraft fell to the ground roughly two miles from the base. Cmdr. Amelia Umayam, a spokesperson for Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet, said the collision occurred at about 12:10 p.m. Mountain time while the aircraft were performing an aerial demonstration. The jets were assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 129 based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island in Washington state. All four crew members are being evaluated by medical personnel, and an investigation is under way.
The accident destroyed two of the most expensive tactical aircraft in the Navy’s inventory. According to Naval Air Systems Command, each EA-18G Growler carries a unit cost of roughly $67 million, placing the immediate value of the lost aircraft at approximately $134 million before accounting for the sophisticated electronic-warfare systems mounted aboard each jet. The Growler is the only dedicated airborne electronic-attack platform currently in production in the United States and remains a critical asset for radar jamming, communications disruption, and electronic battlefield operations.
The collision also lands at a sensitive moment for the U.S. defense industrial base and for Boeing, which serves as prime contractor and final assembler of the Growler at its St. Louis facility. The aircraft shares more than 90% commonality with the F/A-18F Super Hornet airframe, allowing Boeing to maintain overlapping sustainment and upgrade operations across both fleets even as new production has slowed sharply in recent years.
Mission-critical systems for the Growler are spread across several major defense contractors. Northrop Grumman supplies the AN/ALQ-218 wideband receiver and helps integrate the aircraft’s electronic-warfare suite, while RTX Corp.’s Raytheon division manufactures the AN/ALQ-99 tactical jamming pods used on the platform. GE Aerospace builds the twin F414-GE-400 turbofan engines powering the aircraft. Together, those programs support a multibillion-dollar sustainment ecosystem expected to continue through at least 2046 under the Navy’s current long-term fleet planning assumptions.
For Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security division, the loss highlights the growing importance of maintenance, modernization, and upgrade contracts as legacy fighter production transitions toward next-generation systems. The Navy is currently pursuing upgrades to the Growler fleet through the Block II modernization package, including the Advanced Cockpit System and integration of the Next Generation Jammer platform led by Raytheon. Each aircraft attrition event tightens the overall fleet count and increases pressure on long-term sustainment and modernization planning.
Beyond the military implications, the crash reverberated through the broader U.S. air show industry, a sector that draws millions of spectators annually and generates substantial tourism, hospitality, and concessions revenue for local communities. John Cudahy, president and chief executive of the International Council of Air Shows, said the industry has averaged roughly one fatality annually over the past decade, down from a historical average closer to two per year. He noted that there were no air show deaths recorded in either 2024 or 2025 and emphasized that no spectator has been killed at a U.S. air show since 1952.
Cudahy described recent years as one of the safest stretches in modern air show history, a trend that has helped sustain corporate sponsorships, municipal investment, and military participation despite rising operational costs and insurance pressures. The Idaho collision, however, arrives as the industry is already facing disruptions tied to global military deployments. According to Cudahy, approximately 10 military air shows have already been canceled in 2026 because flying units were reassigned in connection with the ongoing Iran conflict, removing an important seasonal revenue stream for vendors, hotels, restaurants, and surrounding communities.
The remainder of the Gunfighter Skies Air Show was canceled Sunday afternoon following the collision. The Elmore County Sheriff’s Office closed portions of State Highway 167 from Simco Road to State Highway 67, with the Idaho Transportation Department warning the closure could remain in place for multiple days as investigators secure debris fields and conduct recovery operations. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds demonstration squadron had headlined both days of the event.
Investigators are expected to move quickly because both aircrews survived and can provide firsthand accounts of the moments leading up to the collision. The National Weather Service reported good visibility at the time of the accident, though wind gusts reportedly reached nearly 29 miles per hour in the area. The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration have both been contacted regarding the off-base impact, while the Navy retains primary jurisdiction over the aircraft and squadron operations.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoOpenAI is preparing a possible legal challenge against Apple over the companies’ two-year-old Siri-ChatGPT partnership, with lawyers for the artificial intelligence firm exploring options that could include a formal breach-of-contract notice, according to a report Thursday by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
The dispute between two of the most consequential companies in artificial intelligence and consumer technology threatens a partnership that was initially presented as a landmark moment for mainstream AI adoption when it was unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in 2024.
According to Bloomberg, OpenAI executives have grown increasingly frustrated that Apple’s implementation of ChatGPT inside the iPhone ecosystem has failed to generate the subscription revenue the company expected. Internal forecasts reportedly envisioned billions of dollars in new paid ChatGPT subscriptions driven through Apple devices, but the actual performance has fallen materially short of those projections.
“They haven’t even made an honest effort,” one OpenAI executive told Bloomberg, describing Apple’s implementation as difficult to find, heavily restricted and weakly promoted to users.
Attempts to renegotiate the commercial arrangement have stalled, Bloomberg reported, leading OpenAI and outside counsel to evaluate “a range of options that could be formally executed in the near future,” with a breach-of-contract notice viewed internally as the most immediate possibility.
Such a filing would not necessarily trigger litigation immediately but could serve as leverage in renewed negotiations between the two companies.
The conflict centers largely on how Apple integrated ChatGPT into Siri and the broader iOS ecosystem.
Under the existing arrangement, Siri can transfer more complex user requests to ChatGPT after obtaining user permission, while consumers can subscribe to premium ChatGPT services through Apple’s iOS subscription system, with Apple receiving a percentage of the revenue.
OpenAI had reportedly expected substantially deeper integration across Apple applications and more prominent placement inside Siri itself. Those expectations, according to Bloomberg, were never fully realized.
The tensions arrive as Apple simultaneously broadens its artificial-intelligence relationships elsewhere.
Bloomberg previously reported that Apple struck an agreement estimated at roughly $1 billion annually with Google to incorporate Gemini models into a redesigned Siri experience expected to debut as part of iOS 27 during Apple’s WWDC 2026 keynote on June 8. Apple is also reportedly developing a broader “Extensions” framework that would allow users to connect third-party AI assistants, including Anthropic’s Claude, directly into the operating system.
The company earlier this year also settled a $250 million class-action lawsuit tied to marketing claims surrounding Apple Intelligence features.
The relationship between Apple and OpenAI has become even more complicated as OpenAI expands beyond software into hardware initiatives.
OpenAI’s acquisition of the AI-device startup founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive has intensified competitive tensions between the companies, while Bloomberg reported that some Apple executives have raised concerns internally about OpenAI’s privacy practices and long-term ambitions.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s xAI previously filed litigation against both companies, alleging the original Siri-ChatGPT partnership created anticompetitive dynamics within the AI ecosystem.
The financial and strategic implications are significant for both sides.
For OpenAI, which continues ramping enterprise revenue and consumer subscriptions while positioning itself for a potential future public offering, weaker-than-expected performance from the Apple partnership removes what many internally viewed as a major long-term growth driver.
For Apple, the dispute arrives as the company struggles to convince investors it can remain competitive in consumer artificial intelligence against rivals including Microsoft and Google, both of which have accelerated AI rollouts across their ecosystems.
Apple is also navigating a broader leadership transition. Bloomberg has reported that hardware engineering chief John Ternus is increasingly viewed internally as a potential successor to Chief Executive Tim Cook, with future leadership expected to place greater emphasis on capital deployment, shareholder returns and targeted artificial-intelligence investments.
A prolonged legal conflict with OpenAI would likely become one of the defining strategic issues confronting that next generation of leadership.
Markets reacted only modestly to the report Friday morning, with Apple shares trading little changed as broader weakness across technology stocks tied to the underwhelming Trump-Xi summit overshadowed company-specific developments. Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest commercial backer, also traded roughly flat.
Analysts at Wedbush Securities led by Dan Ives have argued in recent research notes that Apple’s AI strategy requires what they described as a “step-function change” if the company hopes to remain competitive in the next phase of consumer computing.
The dispute also raises broader questions about the economics underpinning the consumer artificial-intelligence industry — particularly whether platform-integration deals controlled by dominant ecosystem owners can generate the subscription growth and monetization AI labs need to finance increasingly expensive computing infrastructure.
OpenAI is not the first company to accuse Apple of limiting commercial opportunity inside the iPhone ecosystem. Spotify, Epic Games and several other firms have raised similar complaints over the years regarding platform control, user friction and subscription economics.
Whether those same tensions now escalate into a legal confrontation with the world’s most recognizable artificial-intelligence company may depend largely on what OpenAI’s lawyers decide to file next.
Both companies declined to comment publicly on Bloomberg’s report.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoThe nation’s top economic forecasters have sharply lifted their projection for U.S. inflation in the current quarter, now expecting the Consumer Price Index to climb to a 6% annualized rate in the second quarter — more than double the 2.7% pace they had projected just three months ago, before U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran sent global oil prices soaring and forced a rapid reassessment of the inflation outlook.
The revision came in the latest Survey of Professional Forecasters, the blue-ribbon panel polled quarterly by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and released Friday morning.
The new 6% projection lands well above the 2% pace the Federal Reserve targets and would, if realized, mark the highest quarterly inflation rate since 2022.
For the full year, the panel now sees headline CPI running at 3.5% and core CPI, which excludes food and energy, at 2.9% — both materially higher than what mainstream economists were forecasting at the start of 2026.
The upward revision follows a string of inflation reports that have already shown prices accelerating well above what economists had penciled in just months ago.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday that headline CPI rose 3.8% in April from a year earlier, the fastest annual pace in nearly three years, with monthly prices up 0.6%.
Energy costs jumped 17.9% on the year — the steepest increase since September 2022 — driven by a 28.4% surge in gasoline and a 54.3% spike in fuel oil.
Wednesday’s Producer Price Index report showed wholesale inflation running at a 6% annual rate in April, the highest reading since December 2022 and a warning that pipeline pressures will continue pushing consumer prices higher in the coming months.
The forecast revision is being driven almost entirely by the energy shock from the Strait of Hormuz closure, which has cut roughly 10 million barrels a day of crude exports from the Persian Gulf since late February.
U.S. national average gasoline prices have climbed nearly 50% since the war with Iran began and have crossed $4 a gallon for the first time in more than three years.
The International Energy Agency has characterized the disruption as the largest in the history of the global oil market by volume.
Even with the United States and China stepping in to plug part of the gap — U.S. exports have surged by roughly 3.5 million barrels a day during the war — Brent crude was trading near $107 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate near $103 on Friday.
The inflation pickup is feeding directly into household budgets.
Walmart, the country’s largest grocer, has flagged renewed price sensitivity among lower-income shoppers, and Target has said inflation in food, beverage and household essentials is absorbing a larger share of customer budgets.
The University of Michigan’s preliminary May consumer sentiment reading collapsed to 48.2 — the lowest in the survey’s 75-year history — with respondents specifically citing high gas prices and tariffs.
Roughly one-third of consumers surveyed spontaneously mentioned gasoline.
Year-ahead inflation expectations in the Michigan survey held at 4.5%, far above the 3.4% pre-war reading.
The data is colliding with a leadership transition at the Federal Reserve.
Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to succeed Jerome Powell as Fed chair, has indicated he would like to see lower interest rates, a position aligned with the administration’s growth-first agenda.
But the run of hot inflation data has tied his hands.
The broader Federal Open Market Committee, according to recent statements, is leaning toward keeping rates steady with an open mind toward additional increases if inflation deteriorates further — the opposite of the easing cycle markets had priced in at the start of the year.
Outside the survey, private-sector economists are reaching similar conclusions.
EY chief economist Gregory Daco wrote this week that headline CPI could surpass 4% in May and that core inflation will approach 3%, with risks of “higher and more persistent inflation” remaining salient.
Edward Jones investment strategist James McCann said that while tax refunds and a resilient labor market have buffered the consumer so far, “there are limits to these buffers.”
The Survey of Professional Forecasters panel also lowered its growth outlook, now expecting GDP to rise at a 2.1% annualized rate in the second quarter and 2.2% for the full year — down 0.3 percentage point from the prior estimate.
The longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, the more difficult the inflation picture becomes.
President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed at this week’s Beijing summit that the waterway “must remain open,” but no timetable was attached to that statement, and major shipping lines remain on hold.
Until the strait reopens at meaningful volume, U.S. consumers can expect higher gasoline, higher airfares, higher diesel-driven trucking costs at the grocery shelf, and higher fertilizer prices feeding into food inflation through the back half of the year.
The 6% forecast is no longer the outlier scenario it would have been three months ago. It is, for now, the consensus.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoNEW YORK — The Trump administration is weighing whether to let wealthy donors contribute appreciated company stock directly to Trump Accounts, the federal child-investment program set to officially launch July 4, in a move that would hand high-net-worth donors one of the most powerful charitable-giving tax breaks in the U.S. code, according to a CNBC report Thursday from the publication’s Inside Wealth newsletter. The structure would allow donors to offload appreciated shares without paying any capital-gains tax on the embedded appreciation while simultaneously deducting the full fair-market value of the donated stock against their personal income — the same “double benefit” long enjoyed by donors to donor-advised funds and university endowments. Cash contributions to Trump Accounts carry no comparable advantage.
The Trump Accounts program was created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and codified at Section 530A of the Internal Revenue Code. Every U.S. child born between 2025 and 2028 receives a $1,000 Treasury Department seed deposit at birth. Parents may add up to $5,000 a year in post-tax contributions, and employers may add up to $2,500 a year per employee or dependent — with employer contributions excluded from the employee’s taxable income. The funds are invested in low-cost, diversified U.S. equity index funds and partially unlocked at age 18. Altimeter Capital Chief Executive Brad Gerstner, who has been the lead private-sector advocate for the program through his Invest America nonprofit, clarified on X earlier this month that “100% of all $$ in Trump Accounts will be in a free index fund that tracks the S&P 500.” Official cash contributions open July 4, 2026.
The mechanics of the proposed expansion are straightforward and powerful. Under current charitable-giving rules, a donor who has held an appreciated stock for more than one year and donates it directly to a qualified charity avoids federal capital-gains tax — up to 20% on long-term gains, plus a 3.8% net investment income surcharge for higher earners — and is permitted to deduct the stock’s fair-market value against ordinary income. For a billionaire founder sitting on, say, $100 million of stock with a $1 million cost basis, donating the shares rather than selling them and donating the cash saves more than $23 million in capital-gains taxes while still producing a $100 million income-tax deduction. Cash donations produce only the deduction. The structure is the single reason most large philanthropic gifts in the U.S. are made in appreciated stock rather than cash.
The program already has a marquee donor commitment in place. Michael Dell, founder and chief executive of Dell Technologies Inc., and his wife Susan Dell pledged $6.25 billion in December to seed Trump Accounts for roughly 25 million children age 10 and under living in ZIP codes with median household income at or below $150,000. The pledge structure, classified by the Internal Revenue Service as a “qualified general contribution” routed through Treasury, distributes $250 per eligible child. Additional corporate and family-office commitments to state-level and employer-matched contributions have come from Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, BlackRock Inc., Uber Technologies Inc., Robinhood Markets Inc., and The Charles Schwab Corp. Robinhood has been designated as the initial trustee for the broader Trump Accounts program — a role that has drawn separate scrutiny in connection with President Trump’s Q1 stock-disclosure filing this week, which showed new personal positions in both Robinhood and Dell.
The legal mechanics of whether Treasury can simply allow stock donations or whether Congress must amend Section 530A are unsettled. Tax-policy experts who spoke with CNBC were split. Manoj Viswanathan, law professor and co-director of UC Law San Francisco’s Center on Tax Law, said he believes an act of Congress would not be required unless Treasury also wanted to permit the accounts to hold individual shares of stock rather than auto-converting donated shares to broad index-fund holdings. Will McBride, chief economist of the Tax Foundation, said an expansion of charitable-giving tax benefits “would face an uphill battle in Congress with a razor-thin Republican majority” but added that “this initiative has Trump’s name on it, so I think they’re going to try to make this as taxpayer-friendly as possible.” Ellen Aprill, senior scholar in residence at UCLA School of Law, said the bigger tax benefit for the ultra-wealthy may not be the income-tax side at all — but rather estate-tax planning, because charitable deductions for gift and estate-tax purposes are unlimited. “Making charitable gifts gets the assets out of their estate and still avoids tax on the built-in capital gain,” she said. “The gift-tax treatment deduction matters a lot to the super rich.”
The administration is keeping its options open publicly. Daniel Aronowitz, head of the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, said Tuesday at a Washington event hosted by law firm Mayer Brown that EBSA is working with Treasury on expanding the categories of donations the accounts can accept. A White House official told CNBC that the administration “is always open to finding new ways to build on the immense success of Trump Accounts” but had no updates to share. A Treasury Department spokesperson declined to comment on the specific possibility of accepting stock donations, saying only that the agency “is committed to maximizing the impact of Trump Accounts, driving sign-ups for all eligible children, and achieving our goal of having every American child own a Trump Account.” Gerstner’s Invest America account on X has separately mused about the symbolism of children eventually receiving a share of SpaceX, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., or OpenAI through such donations — though Gerstner himself has emphasized that any donated stock would be converted to index-fund exposure, not held individually.
The policy critique writes itself. The proposal would expand a charitable-giving deduction structure that the NYU Tax Law Center has already characterized as “an expansion of philanthropy deductions already used by ultra-wealthy donors.” Critics will note that the largest single beneficiaries of an income-tax deduction at marginal rates near 40% — paired with the avoided 23.8% capital-gains tax — are by definition the highest-income, highest-asset donors in the country. Supporters will counter that the program directly addresses wealth-distribution concerns by routing billionaire founder wealth into the S&P 500 accounts of millions of lower- and middle-income American children, and that, as McBride noted, “for many of the very top billionaires, much of their wealth is held in stock that’s appreciated a great deal, so they’re sitting on a lot of unrealized gains.” With the official program launch less than two months away, the timing of any decision by Treasury or Congress will determine whether the next wave of billionaire commitments looks anything like the Dell pledge in scale.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoAn anonymous bidder agreed to pay $9,000,100 to share a private lunch this June in Omaha with Warren Buffett, Stephen Curry and Ayesha Curry, the winning result of a one-week eBay charity auction that closed Thursday and will channel roughly $27 million to two anti-poverty nonprofits once Mr. Buffett layers in a matching personal contribution to each beneficiary.
The auction, which Buffett revived this year for the first time since 2022 in partnership with the Currys, drew an undisclosed pool of bidders before settling just above the $9 million mark.
According to data posted to eBay, the proceeds will be split equally between the Glide Foundation, the San Francisco-based homelessness and addiction-services nonprofit Buffett has supported for more than two decades, and Eat. Learn. Play., the childhood nutrition, literacy and athletics nonprofit founded by Stephen and Ayesha Curry.
Buffett said he would personally match the winning bid for each charity, lifting the total expected donation to roughly $27 million.
The winning bidder, who was not identified, will be permitted to bring up to seven guests to the June 24 lunch in Omaha, Nebraska, where Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate is headquartered.
“We’re overwhelmed with gratitude for this opportunity, which reflects a shared belief that when different generations and institutions come together with purpose, we can create deeper and more lasting impact for the people who need it most,” Stephen Curry and Ayesha Curry said in a joint statement, as reported by The Associated Press.
The auction marks the first Buffett charity meal event in four years.
Between 2000 and 2022, Buffett raised roughly $53.2 million for Glide through 21 annual auctions, an event that became one of the most distinctive features of the Berkshire Hathaway chairman’s public profile.
He paused the tradition after the 2022 sale, which produced a record $19 million winning bid that remains the largest in eBay charity auction history.
Buffett began supporting Glide at the encouragement of his first wife, Susan Buffett, who volunteered at the nonprofit before her death in 2004.
The 2026 auction differs from the earlier series in one important respect: the addition of Stephen and Ayesha Curry alongside Buffett, expanding the beneficiary list and pulling in a broader donor demographic.
Stephen Curry, a guard for the Golden State Warriors, is a four-time National Basketball Association champion and two-time league Most Valuable Player.
Ayesha Curry is an entrepreneur, restaurateur and cookbook author who has built a public profile as an advocate against childhood hunger.
The couple founded Eat. Learn. Play. to address what they describe as the linked challenges of nutritious meals, childhood literacy and physical activity in lower-income communities, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Glide, which is based in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, has used Buffett’s past auction proceeds to underwrite meals, addiction-recovery programs, housing assistance and health services.
Buffett, who turned 95 last year, has long argued that businesses and nonprofits can produce more durable social outcomes when they coordinate directly rather than rely solely on government programs — a thesis that has informed his giving through both the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation and the Gates Foundation.
The auction lands at a transitional moment for Berkshire Hathaway.
Buffett stepped down as chief executive in January 2026 after 60 years in the role, handing the operating reins to longtime vice chairman Greg Abel while remaining as Berkshire’s chairman.
The succession, formally laid out at the company’s annual meeting in Omaha on May 2, has refocused investor attention on capital allocation, succession-era buybacks and Berkshire’s cash position, which sat at roughly $350 billion as of the most recent disclosure.
Berkshire shares have underperformed the S&P 500 by a wide margin since Buffett signaled the transition last spring, a gap that has drawn fresh sell-side commentary about the post-Buffett era at one of the country’s most-watched conglomerates.
For the Currys, the auction provides a rare cross-generational platform alongside one of the most influential investors in American history.
Eat. Learn. Play., which has expanded its reach since launching in 2019, has used corporate partnerships with Workday, Under Armour, Chase, Target and others to fund meal distribution and literacy programs in Oakland and neighboring communities.
The roughly $13.5 million that the foundation stands to receive once Buffett’s match is applied represents one of the single largest contributions in the organization’s six-year history.
The Omaha lunch itself, scheduled for June 24, will be a private affair, with the winner and up to seven guests joining the Buffett-Curry trio.
Berkshire Hathaway, Glide and Eat. Learn. Play. had not publicly identified the winning bidder as of Friday morning.
Whoever is eventually unmasked will be sitting down with a 95-year-old American capitalist and a 38-year-old basketball icon — both, in their respective fields, among the most influential names of the past two decades — for what is likely to remain the highest-priced private meal of 2026.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoNEW YORK — Fifty-nine percent of Americans say they are living paycheck to paycheck, according to an April CNBC affordability survey released alongside a fresh CNBC Select guide to budgeting apps published Thursday — a figure that has held remarkably steady through the Iran war, the energy-price shock, and a national average gasoline price that GasBuddy put at $4.45 a gallon on May 4. Budgeting apps do not change anyone’s income, but they can change what households do with the money they already have. With Intuit Inc.’s Mint permanently shuttered in March 2024 and a wave of new entrants competing for those former users, here is a clear-eyed look at six of the most credible options on the market right now — what they cost, what they actually do, and who each one is best for.
The first and most rigorously structured option is You Need A Budget, commonly known as YNAB. The app uses a zero-based budgeting system in which every dollar of income is assigned to a specific job — bills, savings, debt payoff, investments — before it can be spent. The methodology has a steeper learning curve than any other major app, but YNAB users consistently report it as the single tool that finally broke their paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. The company has built a 15-year following on that reputation. YNAB costs $14.99 a month or $109 a year, with a 34-day free trial that does not require a credit card and 12 months free for college students. One subscription covers up to six users, which makes it economical for families, couples, or roommates splitting the cost.
For users who want a more flexible all-in-one platform, Monarch Money has emerged as the leading Mint successor since the shutdown. Monarch allows users to choose between traditional and flexible budgeting approaches, supports unlimited collaborators on a single account, and integrates investment tracking, Zillow Group Inc. real-estate values, and Coinbase Global Inc. cryptocurrency holdings alongside the standard bank and credit-card sync. The app is particularly strong for couples managing joint and separate finances under one roof. Pricing is $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year, with CNBC Select offering a 50% first-year discount via promotional code.
For beginners, Quicken Inc.’s Simplifi is the softer landing. Owned by the same company behind the desktop personal-finance software that pioneered the category in the 1980s, Simplifi generates a personalized spending plan based on actual income and recurring expenses, then adjusts in real time as bills hit and spending changes. There is no zero-based discipline to learn, just clean menus, customizable reports, and forward-looking cash-flow projections. The app costs $5.99 a month or $35.88 a year.
For users not ready to pay for budgeting at all, Rocket Money — owned by Rocket Companies Inc., the parent of Rocket Mortgage — has the most feature-rich free tier on the market. The free version includes basic budgeting, automatic subscription detection, limited spending categorization, and net-income tracking. The standout free feature is subscription monitoring: the app automatically detects recurring charges across linked accounts and surfaces forgotten streaming services, app trials, and gym memberships that quietly drain budgets. Premium ranges from $7 to $14 a month and unlocks unlimited custom categories and an automated subscription-cancellation service. The company also offers a separate bill-negotiation service that contacts cable, internet, and phone providers on the user’s behalf for a percentage of negotiated savings.
For users with investment accounts, Empower — the personal-finance app that merged with Personal Capital in 2020 and is now part of Empower Retirement — offers the best free option in the category. The free tier syncs 401(k), IRA, and brokerage accounts alongside bank and credit-card data, producing a complete net-worth dashboard that most paid apps do not match. Empower does sell a separate Wealth Management advisory service with a $100,000 minimum, but the personal-finance tools — budgeting, investment tracking, retirement planner, net-worth monitoring — are entirely free and require no advisory enrollment. Day-to-day spending categorization is functional but less granular than Rocket Money or Monarch; some users pair Empower with a dedicated daily-spending app.
Three alternatives round out the market. PocketGuard focuses on a single question — how much can I spend today? — and integrates a debt-payoff plan in its Premium tier at $12.99 a month or $74.99 a year. Goodbudget digitizes the classic envelope method, with a free tier offering 10 virtual envelopes and a Premium tier at roughly $8 a month or $80 a year that unlocks unlimited envelopes and seven years of history. EveryDollar, owned by Ramsey Solutions, applies zero-based budgeting to Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps system — debt snowball, fully funded emergency fund, retirement savings — and is the natural choice for users already following the Ramsey methodology.
The bottom line for households is structural. According to research compiled by The Penny Hoarder, users of budgeting apps save an average of roughly 20% more per year than non-users — a meaningful number for any household trying to break out of a paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. But the technology is a tool, not a solution. CNBC’s separate affordability data show that 41% of credit-card debt is triggered by a single surprise expense, and a recent CNBC survey found that 51% of Americans rate themselves as “great with money” — a number the underlying data flatly does not support. The right app, used consistently, can convert intentions into outcomes. The wrong choice is usually the one that gets downloaded, ignored, and silently auto-renewed. For households starting from zero, the fastest path forward is to pick one of the free tiers — Rocket Money, Empower, Goodbudget, or EveryDollar — link one bank account, and budget a single month before deciding whether to upgrade. Behavior change comes first; the subscription comes second.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoSAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI has hired outside legal counsel and is actively preparing a range of legal options against Apple Inc., including the possibility of sending the iPhone maker a formal breach-of-contract notice, according to a report published Thursday afternoon by Bloomberg News correspondent Mark Gurman that was independently confirmed by Reuters within hours. The escalation is the strongest signal yet that the two-year-old partnership announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2024 — under which ChatGPT was integrated into Siri and other Apple Intelligence features — has reached a breaking point, with the AI company telling people familiar with the deliberations that the integration has failed to deliver anywhere close to the subscriber and revenue growth OpenAI had projected when the deal was struck.
The legal effort, per Bloomberg, is being run by OpenAI lawyers working with an unnamed outside firm. The most likely near-term outcome is a formal breach-of-contract notice to Apple rather than an immediate lawsuit, according to people familiar with the matter cited by both Bloomberg and Reuters. OpenAI still hopes to resolve the dispute outside of court and is unlikely to escalate further until the conclusion of its ongoing trial with xAI chief executive and Tesla Inc. chief executive Elon Musk, who has accused OpenAI of abandoning its nonprofit founding mission. Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment. OpenAI declined to comment on the initial reports.
The core complaint inside OpenAI, according to Gurman’s reporting, is that Apple never built the deep, prominent ChatGPT integration the AI company believed it had been promised. OpenAI executives expected ChatGPT to be woven across additional Apple apps and to receive premium placement within the Siri assistant. Instead, the integration has been buried in Apple software, with features that users struggle to discover and revenue from new ChatGPT subscriptions generated through the partnership running at a fraction of what OpenAI projected. The AI company had internally modeled the deal as a potential multibillion-dollar annual revenue stream; the actual figure, per Bloomberg, has not come close. “We have done everything from a product perspective,” one OpenAI executive told Bloomberg. “They have not, and worse, they haven’t even made an honest effort.” A separate executive added: “They basically said, ‘OpenAI needs to take a leap of faith and trust us.’ It didn’t work out well.”
The financial architecture of the 2024 partnership is the structural reason OpenAI’s frustration is so acute. No money changed hands when the deal was signed. Apple did not pay OpenAI for the use of ChatGPT, and OpenAI absorbed the server and inference costs of running queries from Apple users. The economics were premised on a much larger subscription pipeline: iPhone, iPad, and Mac users would discover ChatGPT through Siri, upgrade to ChatGPT Plus at $20 a month, and Apple would receive a cut of the resulting subscription revenue under the standard App Store revenue-share model. With most users sticking to the standalone ChatGPT app rather than the Siri-routed version, neither side appears to have captured material upside.
Apple has its own grievances that frame the dispute differently. According to Bloomberg, Apple executives have raised concerns about OpenAI’s privacy practices, which sit awkwardly against Apple’s core marketing positioning as a privacy-first technology company. Apple has also been “fuming for more than a year,” per 9to5Mac’s Chance Miller citing Bloomberg, over OpenAI’s aggressive recruiting of Apple engineers — particularly for the OpenAI hardware effort being led by former Apple chief design officer Sir Jony Ive, who joined OpenAI in 2024 to build a family of AI-native consumer devices. OpenAI declined to participate when Apple approached it about working on the next-generation Siri redesign, with people familiar telling Bloomberg that the AI company felt burned by the original partnership.
The timing puts the dispute on top of Apple’s most important product announcement of the year. Apple’s WWDC 2026 keynote is scheduled for June 8, less than four weeks away, and the company is expected to unveil a redesigned Siri powered by Alphabet Inc.’s Google Gemini, alongside support for Anthropic’s Claude as an alternative model selectable by users. The partnership with OpenAI was never structured as exclusive, and the Bloomberg sources emphasized that Apple’s expansion to additional AI providers is not what is driving OpenAI’s legal action — the deal explicitly contemplated other providers from the start. Bloomberg’s Gurman has separately reported that iOS 27, due in public release in September, will introduce an “Extensions” framework in Siri that allows users to route queries to OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, or other models of their choice, which could in practice give ChatGPT more visibility than the current integration provides.
The broader context is the steadily deteriorating leverage of OpenAI across its biggest commercial partnerships. The company’s relationship with Microsoft Corp., its single largest backer and infrastructure provider, has been strained by OpenAI’s push for greater operational independence ahead of its widely anticipated IPO and by competing compute deals — including the SpaceX Colossus 1 agreement under which xAI’s Grok models now run, and Anthropic’s expanded compute footprint at Amazon Web Services and Microsoft. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman is simultaneously fighting the Musk trial, managing a costly compute-buildout cycle, defending the company’s nonprofit-to-for-profit conversion before regulators, and navigating an AI competitive landscape that has materially tightened over the past 12 months as Anthropic, Google, and xAI have closed quality gaps that OpenAI had once owned by a wide margin.
For Apple, the legal exposure is meaningful but bounded. The company has weathered far larger disputes — the Epic Games Inc. antitrust trial, ongoing European Union Digital Markets Act litigation, and the Department of Justice App Store case — without material impact on its roughly $3.5 trillion market value. A breach-of-contract notice from OpenAI would generate headlines into WWDC and potentially complicate the rollout of the Gemini-powered Siri, but it is not the kind of risk that bond investors or major institutional shareholders are likely to reprice. For OpenAI, the calculation is the opposite. The company is privately held, racing toward an IPO, and locked in trench warfare with Musk in a courtroom that is simultaneously consuming senior executive bandwidth. A loud legal fight with one of the world’s most powerful and best-lawyered consumer technology companies, at the precise moment OpenAI is trying to make a clean case to public-market investors, is a risk Altman’s team appears to be calculating very carefully before deciding whether to send the letter.
— JBizNews Desk
© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.
JBizNews1 day agoDespite the largest oil supply disruption ever recorded — roughly 10 million barrels a day of crude exports cut off from the Persian Gulf since the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed in late February — global crude prices on Thursday closed just above $100 a barrel, well below the levels seen during far smaller disruptions like the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The reason, according to the International Energy Agency and U.S. officials, is that the world’s two largest economies — the United States and China — have quietly stepped in to plug much of the gap, leaning on a combination of record U.S. exports, mass releases from strategic reserves, and a tacit working understanding reaffirmed this week in Beijing.
The disruption itself is staggering. In its latest update this week, the IEA said that roughly 10% of total global oil consumption has been removed from accessible supply, with Persian Gulf export volumes collapsing from a normal level of about 15 million barrels a day to an effective 7 million.
By volume, the IEA has characterized the closure as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market — exceeding both the 1973 OPEC embargo and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Yet Brent crude has held just above $107 and West Texas Intermediate near $103 — elevated, but a far cry from the $150-to-$200 spike that pre-war modeling suggested a Hormuz closure of this scale would trigger.
The American leg of the response is being led directly out of the oilfield.
Oil exports from producers outside the Middle East, led by U.S. shale producers and U.S. refiners, have surged by roughly 3.5 million barrels a day during the Iran war, according to the IEA. The United States, now both the world’s largest oil producer and a major net exporter, has effectively become the global market’s marginal supplier.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, speaking to CNBC Friday from the export terminal at Port Arthur, Texas, said the administration has been pushing producers to maximize output throughout the crisis.
“There’s a natural energy trade there,” Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan. “I suspect we’ll see a growth in their oil imports from the United States.”
He was referring to China, the world’s largest oil importer.
Washington has also tapped its strategic reserve aggressively. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, established in 1975 and rebuilt under the Trump administration, sat at 415 million barrels in March and had been drawn down to roughly 409 million barrels by April 10, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data, as the United States joined other International Energy Agency member states in a coordinated emergency release.
Analysts estimate strategic reserve consumption across consuming nations is running at roughly twice the rate originally modeled in pre-war contingency planning.
The Chinese leg of the response is more opaque but no less consequential.
China — which under normal conditions sources roughly 40% of its crude imports through Hormuz — has spent the past decade quietly building one of the world’s largest oil stockpiles for exactly this scenario.
As of December 2025, the EIA estimated China held roughly 360 million barrels in government strategic inventories and as much as 1 billion barrels in commercial inventories at refineries, far above U.S. commercial holdings of about 411 million barrels.
Beijing’s independent “teapot” refineries in Shandong province had also been importing roughly 1.4 million to 1.5 million barrels a day of Iranian crude before the war through a shadow tanker fleet that has continued moving some volumes even with the strait closed.
The combined effect is a market that, while severely stressed, has avoided a price catastrophe.
Saudi Arabia’s pipeline infrastructure — particularly the East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea — has handled what diversion capacity it can, with Arab medium grades increasingly substituting for lost Iraqi Basra crude in European refining systems, according to commodity-analytics firm Kpler.
The OPEC+ group on March 1 added only 206,000 barrels a day of formal production, a muted response reflecting the physical reality that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cannot instantly maximize wellhead output without damaging reservoirs, and that bypass pipeline capacity remains only a fraction of normal Strait of Hormuz throughput.
President Donald Trump’s two-day Beijing summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which concluded Friday, formalized at the leader level what had already been functioning operationally for months.
The two leaders agreed in their joint statement that the Strait of Hormuz “must remain open” to support the free flow of energy, according to the White House. Trump also said China had committed to purchase American crude — an agreement Wright characterized as the natural next step in a complementary trade relationship between the world’s largest exporter and largest importer.
The structural question, Wright acknowledged, is duration.
Even an optimistic ceasefire scenario in the U.S.-Iran war would leave global markets facing months of strategic reserve rebuilding, infrastructure repair around the strait, and a structural shift toward security-driven stockpiling.
Kpler estimated that Brent for delivery later in 2026 is currently undervalued at around $74, with a “normalized fair value” closer to $85.
The longer Hormuz stays closed, the harder the emerging U.S.-China oil backstop will be to sustain. For now, it is the only thing standing between the global economy and an oil shock the modern energy system has never been tested against.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoWASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate confirmed Kevin Maxwell Warsh as the 17th chair of the Federal Reserve on a 54-45 vote Wednesday evening, the narrowest margin in the central bank’s 113-year history, capping a four-month nomination fight and clearing the way for Warsh to take office Monday after Jerome Powell’s term as chair expires Friday at midnight. Warsh will serve a four-year term as chair and a 14-year term as a member of the Board of Governors, beginning a tenure that — as Wall Street has been pricing in for weeks — will pivot the central bank toward a more politically aligned policy stance under a chair who turns 56 today and who has spent the last 15 years openly criticizing the post-pandemic monetary regime he is now inheriting. Here is the resume that put him in the seat.
The early life is upstate New York. Warsh was born April 13, 1970 in Albany to Robert Warsh, a manufacturer of school uniforms in Loudonville, and Judith Philipson Warsh, a journalist and freelance writer. He was the youngest of three children, raised in a Jewish family, and attended Shaker High School, where he played tennis and competed in New York State championships. He told SUNY-Albany’s School of Business in 2007 that “I learned much of what I need to know about the real economy in my first eighteen years here.” The education credentials are blue-chip: a bachelor’s in public policy from Stanford University in 1992, a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1995 with a focus on economics and regulatory policy, and supplementary coursework in market economics at Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The first chapter of his career was on Wall Street. From 1995 to 2002, Warsh worked in the mergers-and-acquisitions group at Morgan Stanley, eventually rising to vice president and executive director — the operating experience inside the U.S. capital markets system that would later distinguish him from academic economists at the Fed. He left Morgan Stanley in 2002 to join the George W. Bush administration as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Executive Secretary of the White House National Economic Council. In that role he managed domestic finance, capital markets, and banking policy, served as White House liaison to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and helped shepherd the administration’s response to the Enron and WorldCom scandals — work that produced the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.
The first Fed appointment came in 2006. President Bush named Warsh to the Board of Governors at age 35, making him the youngest Fed governor in U.S. history. He served from 2006 to 2011, including throughout the global financial crisis, where he worked closely with then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke and then-New York Fed President Timothy Geithner. Bernanke later wrote in his memoir that Warsh was “one of my closest advisers and confidants” and credited his “political and markets savvy and many contacts on Wall Street” as “invaluable” during the crisis response, including in negotiating the rescue of his former employer Morgan Stanley in September 2008. Warsh served as the Fed’s representative to the G-20, as the Board’s emissary to Asia, and as Administrative Governor managing the central bank’s operations. He resigned in March 2011 — three years before his term was set to end — in opposition to the Federal Open Market Committee’s second round of quantitative easing, the $600 billion Treasury bond-buying program known as QE2.
The post-Fed years were spent constructing a hybrid policy-and-finance portfolio. Warsh joined the Hoover Institution at Stanford in 2011 as the Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Economics and as a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, positions he held continuously until his confirmation this week. He became a partner at Duquesne Family Office, the private investment vehicle of legendary hedge-fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller. He joined the board of directors of United Parcel Service Inc., where he served until the Fed nomination. He is a member of the Group of Thirty, the closed-door body of senior central bankers and financiers. In 2017, President Trump considered him for Fed Chair but chose Powell instead — a decision Trump has since publicly called “bad advice.” In 2024, Warsh was the leading candidate for Treasury Secretary until Trump chose Scott Bessent.
The nomination fight that ended this week was unusually difficult. Trump named Warsh as Powell’s successor in January 2026. North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis placed a hold on the nomination until the Department of Justice dropped its investigation of Powell — a probe widely interpreted in Washington as an attempt to force Powell out before his term expired. DOJ dropped the investigation in April. Warsh’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on April 21 was dominated by questions of Fed independence, the Trump administration’s pressure on Powell, and Warsh’s own past criticism of central-bank policy. He told senators that “inflation is a choice, and the Fed must take responsibility for it” and characterized the post-pandemic price surge as “the biggest policy error in 40 or 50 years.” Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman crossed over to provide a critical vote. Warsh was confirmed as a Fed governor on May 12 in a 51-45 party-line vote replacing Stephen Miran and as chair on May 13 in the 54-45 vote.
The personal balance sheet is meaningful. Warsh married Jane Lauder in 2002. Jane Lauder is granddaughter of Estée Lauder founder Estée Lauder and daughter of Ronald Lauder — a major Republican donor, billionaire, and current president of the World Jewish Congress. Warsh’s personal net worth, by Senate disclosures, is at least $100 million, with private investments including stakes in prediction-market platform Polymarket and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Senate Democrats criticized Warsh for declining to disclose the full size of those holdings. He has pledged to divest all such assets within 90 days of being sworn in. Critically for the institutional dynamics inside the Eccles Building, Powell has said he will remain on the Board indefinitely as a governor — his governor term runs through 2028 — citing Trump’s “unprecedented” pressure on the central bank’s independence. Warsh, who prefers trimmed-mean inflation measures over the Fed’s preferred core PCE gauge and who has aligned with the Trump view that artificial intelligence-driven productivity gains can deliver non-inflationary growth, will take the gavel Monday with Powell sitting beside him on the same panel. The next FOMC meeting will be the first real test.
— JBizNews Desk
© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.
JBizNews1 day agoA newly built home may cost more upfront, but buyers could come out ahead over time as newer properties require less maintenance and use less energy, according to a new Realtor.com report.
The report suggests buyers should look beyond listing prices and consider the long-term cost of homeownership when comparing new and existing homes.
The findings arrive as housing affordability continues to dominate economic concerns for many Americans ahead of the midterm elections.
THIS MIDWESTERN STATE LEADS THE NATION IN HOME FORECLOSURES AS US FILINGS JUMP BY 26%
Realtor.com found buyers of new-construction homes save an average of $25,335 during the first 10 years of ownership compared with buyers of 20-year-old homes. The savings stem largely from lower utility bills and reduced spending on major repairs and replacements, including HVAC systems, roofs and water heaters.
The study compared homes built in 2025 with homes built in 2005, using a standard home size of 1,750 square feet. Researchers found newer homes benefit from updated building codes, improved insulation and more energy-efficient systems.
WHITE HOUSE TEASES MAJOR HOUSING AFFORDABILITY PLAN AS PRICES SQUEEZE AMERICANS
Savings varied widely by region, with New England states seeing the biggest long-term savings. Massachusetts led the nation at nearly $39,000 over 10 years, which researchers attributed to colder climates and stricter energy codes.
Southern states, including Arkansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, Florida and Texas, saw smaller savings despite lower upfront new-construction costs. Realtor.com said milder winters reduce potential energy savings.
The report identified 16 metro areas where long-term savings offset the upfront premium for new construction, including San Diego, Salt Lake City, Seaford, Delaware, Salem, Oregon, and Madison, Wisconsin.
AMERICANS KEEP MOVING TO TEXAS AND FLORIDA — BUT ONE OTHER RED STATE IS GROWING EVEN FASTER
Researchers also noted that builder incentives, including price cuts, cash credits and mortgage-rate buydowns, could further improve affordability.
Realtor.com estimates new-home buyers currently pay mortgage rates roughly one percentage point lower than buyers of existing homes, potentially saving more than $30,000 over 10 years.
The findings underscore how operating costs and financing incentives are becoming a larger part of the affordability equation for homebuyers.
JBizNews1 day agoFor decades, large corporations were built around a familiar workforce structure: senior leadership at the top, experienced managers and professionals beneath them, and large pools of junior employees handling research, spreadsheets, presentations, scheduling, note-taking, customer responses, formatting, and administrative work.
Artificial intelligence is now rapidly reshaping that model — and dramatically increasing the value of experienced employees who know how to use the technology effectively.
Increasingly, companies are discovering that a properly trained employee using multiple AI systems simultaneously can now perform the functional output that once required several junior workers, assistants, researchers, coordinators, or support staff. Employees using platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and other enterprise AI systems are increasingly acting as orchestrators of multiple virtual assistants at once — drafting communications, conducting research, analyzing data, preparing presentations, summarizing meetings, refining proposals, and managing workflow streams simultaneously.
The result is not simply faster work, but a fundamental multiplication of employee productivity that is dramatically increasing the value of experienced workers while creating substantial long-term savings for employers.
Inside corporate America, experienced employees who know how to direct AI systems effectively are increasingly becoming some of the most valuable assets inside organizations. The combination of institutional knowledge, human judgment, AI-assisted communication, and productivity enhancement is allowing companies to operate faster, leaner, and more efficiently than ever before.
Many executives now describe these systems as personalized virtual assistants for employees — tools that allow one trained worker to complete tasks that once required interns, assistants, analysts, or even entire support teams.
One of the clearest examples came this week from Citadel founder and CEO Ken Griffin, who described how dramatically AI capabilities have advanced in a short period of time. Speaking at the Stanford Leadership Forum, Griffin said modern “agentic AI” systems are now performing work inside Citadel that previously required teams of finance professionals holding master’s and doctoral degrees — completing in hours or days what previously consumed weeks or months. Griffin said the productivity of the firm’s AI toolkit had undergone what he called a “step change” over the past nine months.
The financial implications for employers are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
A mid-level office employee earning roughly $90,000 annually who is trained to orchestrate multiple AI assistants across communication, research, analysis, and document preparation can generate between $30,000 and $90,000 or more in additional productive value each year, depending on role, workflow, and the depth of AI integration.
For a small business with 25 trained employees earning an average of $60,000, AI-driven productivity gains can translate into approximately $750,000 to more than $1.5 million in additional annual productive value through faster workflow, reduced administrative burden, stronger communication efficiency, and fewer support hires.
Mid-sized companies with 500 trained employees earning an average salary of $75,000 can potentially recover roughly $15 million to $30 million annually in labor efficiency, workflow acceleration, customer responsiveness, and operational productivity.
Applied across a Fortune 500 employer with 20,000 professional employees, the same multiplier effect can imply between $700 million and $1.5 billion or more in annual labor efficiency without proportional increases in staffing levels.
The multiplier effect has also become visible in public corporate disclosures.
Klarna, the global payments firm, reported that its AI assistant handled 2.3 million customer conversations in its first month of deployment — performing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents and contributing an estimated $40 million in profit improvement, according to disclosures from CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski. Klarna has since adopted a hybrid model, with humans handling complex cases and AI managing routine inquiries, but the scale of the productivity gains underscored how dramatically AI can multiply workforce output.
Inside many offices, communication itself is becoming one of the largest areas of productivity improvement.
Employees are increasingly using AI to draft emails, summarize meetings, organize follow-ups, refine presentations, prepare reports, respond to customers, and improve the speed and professionalism of daily communication.
For businesses, that creates both productivity gains and direct revenue opportunities.
Sales teams can respond to prospects faster and with more personalized outreach. Customer-service departments can handle higher volumes with quicker turnaround times. Managers can coordinate projects more efficiently. Executives can prepare polished communications in minutes instead of hours. Marketing teams can produce campaigns, presentations, proposals, and client-facing materials dramatically faster than before.
Corporate leaders increasingly view AI-enhanced communication as one of the technology’s most valuable benefits because faster and more effective communication often translates directly into stronger customer relationships, quicker deal flow, improved responsiveness, and ultimately more business.
For many executives, the conclusion is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore:
AI is evolving into a personalized virtual assistant for every trained employee — one that never sleeps, scales instantly, improves communication, accelerates workflow, and allows experienced workers to deliver dramatically greater value to the companies they serve, while employees who fail to learn how to use the technology increasingly risk being replaced by those who do.
By comparison, enterprise AI subscriptions often cost only a few hundred dollars annually per employee, making the economics increasingly compelling for employers.
That economic reality is now beginning to reshape hiring itself.
A new CEO Agenda 2026 survey released by the Oliver Wyman Forum in partnership with the New York Stock Exchange — based on responses from 415 chief executives representing roughly 10% of global market capitalization — found that 43% of CEOs plan to deprioritize hiring for junior roles over the next year, up sharply from just 17% a year earlier.
The survey also found that 34% of CEOs expect staffing to tilt toward more mid-level employees, signaling that companies increasingly view AI-trained professionals as a more efficient path to growth than the traditional model built around large classes of entry-level support staff. Among advanced AI deployment leaders, 49% said their AI investments are already meeting or exceeding expectations, compared with just 17% among slower adopters.
Academic research is increasingly validating the productivity gains executives say they are already seeing inside companies.
A landmark study by Erik Brynjolfsson of Stanford University, Danielle Li of MIT Sloan, and Lindsey Raymond of MIT — published as National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 31161 and later peer-reviewed in The Quarterly Journal of Economics — tracked 5,179 customer support agents and found workers using generative AI resolved 14% more tasks per hour on average, with gains reaching 34% for less-experienced employees.
A separate study led by Harvard Business School postdoctoral fellow Fabrizio Dell’Acqua, conducted alongside Karim Lakhani, Edward McFowland III, Ethan Mollick, Katherine Kellogg, and researchers at Boston Consulting Group and Warwick Business School, examined 758 BCG consultants. Consultants using GPT-4 completed 12.2% more tasks, worked 25.1% faster, and produced output rated 40% higher in quality than colleagues who did not use AI. The lowest-performing consultants improved by 43%, meaning AI lifted less-skilled workers significantly closer to the output of top performers.
Those figures, however, largely reflect gains from a single AI platform operating across controlled tasks. Inside real workplaces, where trained employees increasingly route different streams of work to multiple AI assistants simultaneously, executives say the compounding productivity effect is substantially larger.
Those firm-level gains broadly align with projections from the McKinsey Global Institute, which estimated that generative AI could create the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion in annual global value across 63 enterprise use cases — roughly the size of the United Kingdom’s entire economy. McKinsey senior partners Alex Singla and Alexander Sukharevsky, who oversee the firm’s AI division QuantumBlack, identified customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering, and research and development as the largest sources of economic value.
Independent academic research also suggests the workforce restructuring is already underway. A Harvard University working paper by researchers Seyed Mahdi Hosseini Maasoum and Guy Lichtinger, drawing on data from nearly 285,000 firms, found companies adopting generative AI reduced junior-level hiring by roughly 7.7% relative to non-adopting firms, while senior-level employment continued to grow.
A separate Stanford University study by Brynjolfsson and colleagues at the Digital Economy Lab, updated in November, found a 16% relative decline in employment for early-career workers in occupations most exposed to AI automation — a decline researchers attributed primarily to slower hiring of new entrants rather than widespread layoffs.
For many executives, the conclusion is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoon-day, the Long Island Rail Road affect haltes support for 300,000 commuters.
As of midnight on Saturday, Long Island Rail Road employees are actually on strike, essentially shutting down the nation’s busiest commuter railroad in its first major economic downturn in the region ahead of Memorial Day vacation.
After last-minute negotiations between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and a coalition of five rail unions failed to reach a salary agreement, the attack ended support for almost 300,000 daily riders.
The MTA advised travellers to work remotely if possible as a result of the significant congestion and delays that are expected to occur throughout the municipal place on Saturday, as well as the announcement that all LIRR support was suspended.
According to New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s company, the strike could result in lost economic activity for commuters who are searching for alternatives and businesses that are preparing for disruptions.
GEN Z IS ONE-HANDEDLY RESTORING AMERICA’S Business Stores TO LIFE.
The Long Island Rail Road workers ‘ attack is their first since 1994. While negotiating a new work deal, union leaders claimed coalition employees had spent more than three times without raises.
If the MTA and LIRR had provided our people with the acceptable words that the government had repeatedly recommended,” this strike would not have taken place.” However, control “refused,” according to Mark Wallace, chairman of the Teamsters Rail Conference and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.  ,
AMID MAMDANI CLASH, TAX THE RICH, SLOGAN TO, DISGUSTING RACIAL SLURS, AND A TITAN COMPARES IN NYC
” We hope LIRR is shortly to stop hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers from experiencing unwanted disruption.” When they’re prepared, they know where to find us: on the streets.
MTA employees argued that the unions were requesting salary increases that might eventually increase fares and put a strain on the financial stability of the transit system.
Janno Lieber, the MTA’s head and CEO, warned that citizens and riders was ultimately bear the costs of larger salary increases and that the organization” cannot responsibly make a package that implodes MTA&rsquo, s budget.”
Lieber also accused union leaders of planning to strike despite MTA&rsquo ;s offers, claiming that the most recent proposal offered workers “everything they said they wanted in terms of pay.”
Governor of New York The attack was criticized as “reckless,” according to Kathy Hochul, who warned that it might harm commuters, businesses, and the region’s market as a whole. Hochul, who is running for reelection later this year, claimed that Long Islanders may be subject to union demands for higher taxes and suffer increases.
President Trump even weighed in, accusing Hochul of allowing the attack to take place.
Trump wrote on Truth Social,” If you can’t figure it out, let me know, and I’ll show you how to get things done.”
As labour unions push for higher pay as travel agencies grapple with shifting commuting patterns and resources pressures, the standoff highlights growing pressure on public transportation systems across the country.
FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO: Press HERE.
As commuters in the New York area seek option transportation options, transport officials have never indicated when negotiations may begin or how much the strike might remain.
JBizNews1 day agoThe Trump administration is reportedly encouraging the UAE to become more directly involved in the war against Iran, with some officials suggesting Abu Dhabi seize Iran’s Lavan Island according to a report from the Telegraph.
A former senior Trump security official told the Telegraph that using UAE forces would avoid putting US troops in the line of fire.
“Go take ’em!” the official said. “It would be UAE boots on the ground instead of the US.”
The push comes amid disclosures about the UAE’s increasing engagement in the Iran conflict and its growing ties with Israel.
The UAE has faced heavy Iranian retaliation since Israel and the US began striking Iran in late February, including a reported more than 2,800 missiles and drones.
The attacks have become a turning point for the UAE, pushing it to reassess its defense strategy, alliances, and regional role. The war has strengthened the UAE’s ties with the US and Israel, while deepening tensions with Gulf neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
According to the Telegraph, the UAE reportedly asked Saudi Arabia and Qatar to join counterattacks against Iran early in the war, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
Reports cited in the Telegraph also claim the UAE struck Iranian targets, including Lavan Island, in early April, though Abu Dhabi has not confirmed this.
Iran has accused the UAE of being “an active partner” in the aggression against them, while the UAE rejected Iran’s claims and said it reserves the right to respond to threats.
UAE-Israel ties have reportedly expanded during the conflict. Earlier this month, United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee confirmed that Israel sent Iron Dome batteries to the United Arab Emirates to use in defense against Iranian attacks during an interview at a Thursday Tel Aviv University conference.
It was also recently disclosed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UAE in March at the beginning of Operation Roaring Lion, and that talks produced a “significant breakthrough,” though Abu Dhabi denied the visit took place.
Dr. Burcu Ozcelik, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank, was cited in the Telegraph as stating that the war has “accelerated a US-Israel-UAE alignment.” However, Dr. Ozcelik added that this new alignment and deeper military cooperation with Israel could lead other Arab states to view the Emirates as complicit in Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
JBizNews1 day agoThe numbers came out quietly. On April 9, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics reported that the U.S. general fertility rate fell to 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 in 2025, another record low and 23% below the 2007 peak. Total births dropped about 1% year over year to roughly 3,606,400, with 22,534 fewer babies registered than a year earlier. The teen birth rate fell 7% to 11.7 per 1,000, down more than 72% since 2007.
Behind the small annual decline sits a much larger economic story, one that is already moving capital, reshaping household budgets, and forcing federal forecasters in Washington to rewrite their long-range models. The CDC report shows births rising only among women in their 30s and 40s; for women under 30, the rate fell sharply, with the 20-to-24 cohort dropping to 52.2 per 1,000 from 55.8 a year earlier. The U.S. fertility rate, which sat at 2.12 in 2007, is now near 1.6 and falling. The Congressional Budget Office, in its January 2026 Demographic Outlook, projects the rate will dip to 1.58 this year and to 1.53 by 2036, with annual U.S. deaths set to exceed births starting in 2030.
The proximate driver, according to most of the economists studying it, is affordability. LendingTree, citing data from Child Care Aware of America, calculated that the average annual cost of care for an infant and a four-year-old now runs $28,190 nationwide. To meet the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ definition of affordable childcare — no more than 7% of household income — a two-child family would need to earn $402,708 a year. The average two-child household earns $145,656, requiring a 176.5% raise to close the gap.
“With numbers like these, it’s easy to see why birth rates are falling,” said Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree. “Many Americans are saying that having kids doesn’t make financial sense.”
Other expenses compound the squeeze. An updated USDA-derived estimate puts the cost of raising a child from birth through age 18 at roughly $303,418, a 28% jump since 2023. Housing accounts for 29% of that total, childcare and education another 18%. The Brigham Young University American Family Survey released last year found that 71% of U.S. adults disagreed with the notion that having children was affordable for most people, and 43% cited insufficient financial resources as being a barrier.
The national average masks sharp local variation. According to data released by the New Jersey Department of Health and compiled by Rabbi Shlomo Schorr, legislative director of Agudath Israel of New Jersey, 5,420 babies were born in Lakewood Township in 2024, the highest of any municipality in the state and the fourth consecutive year the town surpassed 5,000 births — more than Newark, the state’s largest city, despite Newark having roughly double the population.
Lakewood, anchored by the country’s largest Orthodox Jewish community, has a median age of roughly 18 years and average family sizes far above the national norm. The financial pressure on those families is, if anything, steeper than the national picture: with roughly 42,000 students enrolled in private yeshivas, Orthodox parents in Lakewood shoulder tuition costs that range from roughly $18,140 on average for elementary school to $25,000 per child at some yeshivos, on top of the broader cost-of-living squeeze — and entirely out of pocket, since the families pay public school taxes while none of their tuition is covered by state education funding.
That communities are continuing to grow against those numbers points to a variable the standard economic models do not capture.
Duvi Honig, founder and chief executive of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, said the Lakewood data reflects a counterforce that financial incentives alone cannot replicate.
“Religion is what the president is fighting to protect, and it is the one force strong enough to reverse the woke ideology that has convinced a generation that marriage and children are not worth the cost,” Honig said. “When religious values are restored, the financial math does not get any easier, but the priorities change. You will see Christian and religious communities across America begin to grow again.”
The macroeconomic implications of the broader national decline are no longer theoretical.
IMPLAN, the regional economic modeling firm, estimated that the 2025 fertility slowdown alone will subtract $103.9 billion from U.S. gross domestic product, $86.2 billion in household spending, and 740,000 jobs that would otherwise have existed.
“An economy requires a steady stream of people who work, spend money, and replace those who retire,” said Nadège Ngomsi, an economist at IMPLAN. “When the birth rate falls and immigration slows, this necessary talent supply dries up.”
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the ratio of working-age Americans to those 65 and older will fall from 2.7 today to roughly 2.2 by 2040, intensifying pressure on Social Security and Medicare.
Corporate America is already adjusting.
Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Huggies, cut 5,000 jobs in 2018 with its chief executive acknowledging that diaper demand in mature markets had peaked; Procter & Gamble launched its Always Discreet adult incontinence line to offset structural decline in the Pampers franchise.
Carter’s, the largest U.S. children’s apparel brand, has seen revenue fall roughly 17% from its 2019 peak.
In toys, the flip is even starker: adults overtook the preschool segment as the largest buyer category last year, with LEGO doubling revenue over the past decade by targeting adult collectors and Hasbro now drawing more than 60% of its sales from consumers age 13 and older.
Policymakers are scrambling.
Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act expanded the federal child tax credit and lifted the cap on dependent care flexible spending accounts to $7,500 from $5,000. The White House issued an executive order earlier this year expanding access to in vitro fertilization, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz has publicly pushed for what he called a “Trump baby” boom.
International experience suggests the levers move slowly: France, which spends a larger share of GDP on family support than any other major economy, has watched its fertility rate slide from 2.0 to 1.68 anyway. Japan, the cautionary tale most often cited, averaged 0.83% annual GDP growth from 1991 to 2019 against the U.S. average of 2.53% over the same span.
The bottom line for American families is that the decision to have a child has become, in measurable dollar terms, one of the most expensive financial commitments a household can make.
The bottom line for the U.S. economy is that the consequences of millions of such individual decisions are now flowing into corporate revenue forecasts, federal entitlement projections, and labor force math that will shape the next half century.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoTEL AVIV — European carriers are beginning a phased return to Ben Gurion International Airport after roughly three months of suspended service, with Hungarian low-cost giant Wizz Air Holdings Plc restarting flights on May 28 and the Lufthansa Group AG carriers — including Austrian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines AG, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, and Eurowings GmbH — staging a sequenced reopening between June 1 and mid-July, according to coordinated announcements Wednesday from the airline groups and confirmed by Israeli business publication Globes. The reopening follows Tuesday’s softening of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency‘s Conflict Zone Advisory for the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, the regulator’s first material easing since the outbreak of the war between Iran and a U.S.-Israeli coalition on February 28.
The schedule, as detailed by Lufthansa Group, places Austrian Airlines and Lufthansa Cargo as the first carriers back, reopening the Vienna-Tel Aviv and Frankfurt-Tel Aviv cargo routes on June 1. Lufthansa mainline passenger service and Swiss International Air Lines are scheduled to resume on July 1, with ITA Airways, the Italian flag carrier acquired by Lufthansa Group last year, expected to restart its Rome Fiumicino-Tel Aviv route on the same date. Eurowings, the group’s leisure-focused low-cost arm, is expected to resume operations in mid-July. Brussels Airlines, the group’s Belgian carrier, has announced it will keep its Tel Aviv flights suspended through October 24 — the longest holdout among Lufthansa Group carriers. “This decision was made after a comprehensive security and safety assessment,” Lufthansa Group said in its statement.
Wizz Air is moving faster than any of the Lufthansa Group carriers, putting it back in the Tel Aviv market a full month before Lufthansa mainline returns. Wizz Air Chief Commercial Officer Ian Malin said in the company’s announcement that “as Europe’s reliable airline and Israel’s number one low-cost airline, we are thrilled to confirm our return to Tel Aviv,” adding that “the safety and security of our passengers and crew remain our top priority, and we have taken a cautious and measured approach to this decision.” Wizz Air had been preparing to establish a permanent operational hub in Israel by April 2026 — a strategic move expected to bring meaningful price competition to a market where round-trip fares from Western Europe to Tel Aviv routinely run two to three times pre-war levels — before the February 28 outbreak forced a postponement. The May 28 restart is the first step in resuming that broader hub plan.
The reopening reflects the practical impact of the EASA advisory update. The European regulator extended its airspace warning for the region through May 27 but for the first time since the war began softened its assessment language significantly, describing the situation as having shifted from “active, intense military conflict” to “high tension” with “limited and isolated incidents.” The updated guidance continues to recommend that operators do not fly within the airspace of Iran, Iraq, or Lebanon but for Israel, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, EASA now recommends only that carriers “exercise caution and take potential risks into account” when planning operations — a meaningful downgrade in regulatory language that gives major European carriers political cover to schedule resumed service.
The market that Wizz Air and the Lufthansa Group are returning to has been dominated for three months by a much narrower pool of carriers willing to fly. The largest national flag carrier serving Israel, El Al Israel Airlines Ltd., has continued operations throughout the conflict and has captured an outsized share of incoming passenger traffic, with fares reflecting the limited competition. Foreign carriers that resumed service before the EASA softening include Etihad Airways of Abu Dhabi, flydubai, Aegean Airlines of Greece, Bluebird Airways, Cyprus Airways, Sky Express, Tus Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, Azerbaijan Airlines, Smartwings of the Czech Republic, FlyOne, SkyUp, Air Seychelles, and Russian carrier Red Wings. The roster underscores how the market has been served largely by smaller regional and Gulf carriers rather than the major European and U.S. flag carriers that historically dominated Tel Aviv traffic.
The major U.S. and remaining European carriers continue to sit on the sidelines. British Airways has extended its Tel Aviv suspension through June 30 with a limited route expected to start in July. Air France suspended through May 27. Iberia Express, owned by International Consolidated Airlines Group SA, canceled flights through end of May. easyJet Plc, the U.K.-based low-cost carrier and direct Wizz Air competitor, has said it will stay away from Ben Gurion until at least winter. U.S. carriers have been the most conservative: Delta Air Lines Inc. has canceled its New York-Tel Aviv service through September 5, United Airlines Holdings Inc. has not yet resumed service, American Airlines Group Inc. has canceled flights through September 8, and Air Canada has suspended through September 8.
The business implications are concrete. Israel’s tech and biotech corridors — including the Tel Aviv offices of Intel Corp., Nvidia Corp., Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc., and a large cohort of multinationals with Israeli R&D operations — have been operating for three months under significantly constrained executive travel. The Lufthansa Group decision restores direct same-day connectivity between Israel’s commercial capital and most of continental Europe’s major business hubs. Wizz Air’s May 28 return reintroduces leisure-priced capacity. Whether the full restoration extends to British Airways, Air France-KLM SA, the major U.S. carriers, and easyJet will depend on EASA’s next advisory update, the durability of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, and the operational risk frameworks of each individual carrier. For now, the airlines flying back are doing so on a calendar of risk assessment that is finally pointing in a different direction.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoIn some parts of America, the economy still feels surprisingly strong.
Luxury hotels are full. High-end restaurants remain booked. Ferrari dealerships are moving inventory. Wealthy travelers continue filling resorts in Aspen, Palm Beach, and Miami. Premium beauty brands, designer retailers, and luxury cruise operators are still reporting healthy demand from affluent consumers who, for now, continue spending aggressively.
But travel a few miles in another direction and the picture changes quickly.
Dollar stores are seeing more budget-conscious shoppers buying smaller quantities. Used-car buyers are stretching loans longer than ever. Families are pulling back on discretionary purchases, delaying vacations, cutting restaurant spending, and struggling with rising utility bills, insurance costs, groceries, rent, and debt payments.
The divide between those two economies — one relatively comfortable, the other increasingly strained — has quietly become one of the defining features of the American recovery.
And according to a growing body of research from the Federal Reserve, Moody’s Analytics, and major financial institutions, the U.S. economy is becoming more dependent than ever on wealthy households continuing to spend.
The clearest evidence arrived earlier this month from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which published new research through its Liberty Street Economics platform analyzing consumer spending patterns across income groups.
The findings revealed a widening gap.
According to Fed economists Rajashri Chakrabarti, Thu Pham, Beck Pierce, and Maxim Pinkovskiy, households earning more than $125,000 annually posted cumulative real spending growth of roughly 7.6% through March 2026. Middle-income households saw spending growth closer to 3%. Lower-income households earning under $40,000 annually managed only about 1% growth.
The researchers warned that relying heavily on one segment of consumers creates growing economic fragility.
The numbers from Moody’s Analytics are even more striking.
Chief economist Mark Zandi estimates that the top 10% of earners now account for roughly 49.2% of all U.S. consumer spending, the highest share recorded in data going back to 1989. In the early 1990s, that figure stood closer to 35%.
According to Moody’s, spending by the top 10% of households surged approximately 62% between 2020 and 2025, dramatically outpacing every other income group. Meanwhile, the bottom 60% of American households now account for only about 23% of total consumer spending.
“As long as they keep spending, the economy should avoid recession,” Zandi said recently. “But if they turn more cautious, for whatever reason, the economy has a big problem.”
What makes the divide especially important is that it is increasingly being driven not by wages, but by wealth.
The New York Fed researchers found that gains in financial assets — particularly stocks and investment portfolios — have become the dominant driver of upper-income consumer spending. Rising equity markets through 2024 and 2025 significantly boosted the balance sheets of wealthier households, allowing them to continue spending despite higher interest rates and inflation.
For lower-income Americans, the experience has been very different.
Inflation continues consuming a larger share of household budgets among lower-income families, particularly for essentials such as food, transportation, utilities, insurance, and housing. Many households that built savings during the pandemic have now largely exhausted them.
According to TD Economics, the wealthiest 20% of American households now control roughly 72% of total household wealth, a concentration that has continued widening over the past several years.
The effects are increasingly visible across the broader economy.
Companies that depend heavily on middle-income and lower-income consumers are beginning to report softer demand, while luxury-oriented businesses continue outperforming.
Beth Ann Bovino, chief economist at U.S. Bank, said businesses are increasingly planning around the assumption that economic growth is now disproportionately dependent on wealthier consumers. “There’s a clear slowdown in spending among lower-income levels, and that’s starting to affect middle-income households as well,” Bovino said.
Retailers, restaurants, automakers, hospitality companies, and consumer brands are now adapting pricing strategies and marketing plans around a more financially divided customer base.
Even the car market increasingly reflects the shift. The average price of a new vehicle in the United States now sits near $50,000, effectively pushing millions of middle-class consumers out of the traditional new-car market altogether.
Not all economists agree the trend is entirely new.
Researchers at Pantheon Macroeconomics argue that wealthy Americans have represented an outsized share of total consumer spending for decades, suggesting today’s “K-shaped economy” may simply reflect a long-running imbalance becoming more visible after inflation and pandemic disruptions intensified financial pressures on lower-income households.
Still, even skeptics acknowledge the underlying vulnerability now facing the broader economy.
If affluent households slow spending meaningfully, overall growth could weaken quickly.
Recent consumer-credit data from TransUnion showed financially secure “superprime” borrowers with credit scores above 780 remain relatively stable, while lower-income borrowers are experiencing rising debt burdens and growing delinquency rates, particularly on auto loans and credit cards.
The concern for economists is that the American economy now increasingly resembles a structure balanced on a narrow foundation.
At the same time, additional pressures continue building. Rising oil prices tied to the Iran conflict are pushing transportation and household costs higher. Tariffs have raised import costs across multiple industries. The labor market, while still relatively stable overall, is showing signs of slowing momentum in several sectors.
Goldman Sachs still forecasts U.S. GDP growth around 2.5% for 2026, above broader consensus expectations. But increasingly, much of that growth depends on one question: whether affluent households continue spending aggressively enough to offset growing financial strain across everyone else.
For now, they are.
But the gap between the Americans carrying the economy and the Americans struggling to keep up is becoming harder to ignore — and far more central to the country’s economic future.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoWASHINGTON — A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers from auto-heavy battleground states is publicly pressuring President Donald Trump not to use the U.S. car market as a bargaining chip in his Beijing summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, warning that any opening for Chinese automakers would devastate domestic manufacturing in the Rust Belt and reverse one of the few sectors of American industry where U.S. policymakers from both parties have held a unified line for two decades, according to a CNBC report Thursday from Washington correspondent Christina Wilkie. The lobbying push has grown urgent because Trump told the Detroit Economic Club in January that it would be “great” if Chinese automakers wanted to build plants in the United States and employ American workers — a statement that immediately set off alarm bells across Detroit, the United Auto Workers, and the broader auto supply chain.
The hidden complication, and the part of the story that CNBC placed at the center of its reporting, is that Chinese companies are already deeply embedded in the American auto industry. More than 60 U.S.-based parts suppliers are now owned by Chinese corporate parents, according to industry tracking, and Chinese-origin components — batteries, electronics, semiconductors, software modules, wiring systems, and rare-earth-derived materials — sit inside virtually every vehicle currently rolling off American assembly lines. The political fight in Washington is therefore not about eliminating Chinese influence from the U.S. automotive ecosystem; that influence already exists at scale. The battle is over whether BYD Co., Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd., SAIC Motor Corp., Chery Automobile Co., and Great Wall Motor Co. should be allowed to directly sell branded Chinese vehicles to American consumers in the same way they now do across Europe, Mexico, Brazil, and other major global auto markets.
The legislative centerpiece of the pushback is the Connected Vehicle Security Act of 2026, introduced last week by Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) and Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan), alongside a House companion bill led by Representative John Moolenaar (R-Michigan), chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Representative Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan). The legislation would prohibit the import, manufacture, sale, and operation of vehicles produced in China or in any nation designated as a national-security threat, with software restrictions beginning in 2027 and hardware bans phased in by 2030. The proposal expands upon a Bureau of Industry and Security rule finalized by the Biden administration in January 2025 restricting certain Chinese-origin connected-vehicle systems. Slotkin described connected Chinese cars as “TikTok on wheels,” framing the issue primarily as one of surveillance, cybersecurity, and data access rather than traditional tariff protectionism.
The coalition behind the legislation is unusually broad for Washington. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents nearly every major automaker selling vehicles in the United States, endorsed the bill publicly and said it “sends a clear message: the U.S. will not throw open the doors to Chinese automakers.” General Motors Co. separately backed the legislation. Honda Motor Co. Ltd., despite suffering its first-ever annual loss this week tied partly to its collapsing EV strategy, also endorsed the proposal. The United Auto Workers has signaled support, and major steel-industry groups followed with their own letter to the administration. Even the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, typically skeptical of broad Trump-era tariffs, praised the measure. ITIF Vice President Stephen Ezell told CNBC that “Chinese automakers are not normal market competitors. Their EVs are the product of decades of state-backed mercantilism designed to help China capture global leadership in advanced industries.”
The pricing gap between Chinese and American electric vehicles is the core economic fear driving the political reaction. BYD’s entry-level Seagull EV starts at roughly $10,300 in China. Geely’s EX2 electric vehicle sells in Mexico for about $22,700 — still dramatically below the cheapest Tesla Inc. Model 3 sold in the United States at roughly $38,630. General Motors’ upcoming Chevrolet Bolt EV is expected to retail near $28,995. The average new vehicle transaction price in the United States now exceeds $51,000. Chinese automakers have already rapidly gained global market share through aggressive pricing: Chinese brands doubled their share of Europe’s EV market to roughly 6% in 2024, while dominating EV growth in Brazil and rapidly expanding in Mexico and Canada. In Mexico alone, 34 Chinese automotive brands are now operating, collectively controlling about 15% of the market. Even Toyota Motor Corp., the company that once disrupted Detroit itself, has publicly acknowledged difficulty competing against subsidized Chinese pricing structures.
The political implications are especially acute because the states most exposed to auto manufacturing — Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Wisconsin — remain central to both the 2026 midterm elections and the 2028 presidential map. For Republicans, restricting Chinese automakers aligns directly with the administration’s economic-nationalism messaging and its broader China strategy. For Democrats, the issue centers on preserving unionized manufacturing jobs and preventing further industrial erosion in the Midwest. Few major economic sectors currently produce this level of bipartisan alignment in Washington.
What President Trump ultimately signs with Xi Jinping in Beijing could determine whether the Connected Vehicle Security Act becomes a symbolic statement or an urgent congressional firewall. The Boeing aircraft announcement earlier Thursday already disappointed Wall Street by falling short of expectations. Auto-sector language emerging from the summit will now be scrutinized just as closely by lawmakers, unions, suppliers, and investors. If the final Beijing readout suggests even a limited path for BYD, Geely, or SAIC to build or sell vehicles directly in the United States, Congress appears prepared to move rapidly — and the political consequences would land squarely in the industrial swing states both parties view as decisive.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews1 day agoBy Julia Parker — JBizNews Desk
When Bill Ackman rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell on April 29, the event was about far more than a new stock listing. The launch of Pershing Square USA under the ticker PSUS represented a broader wager that a largely dormant Wall Street structure — the closed-end fund — can be revived into something resembling the permanent-capital engine that allowed Warren Buffett to build Berkshire Hathaway into one of the most powerful investment vehicles in financial history.
Pershing Square USA raised roughly $5 billion at $50 per share, instantly becoming one of the largest closed-end fund launches in years. But the core attraction for Ackman is not merely the size of the raise. It is the permanence of the capital. Unlike traditional mutual funds or exchange-traded funds, investors in a closed-end structure cannot redeem shares directly from the fund at net asset value. They can only sell shares on the open market, insulating the portfolio manager from the redemption pressures that often force hedge funds and open-end vehicles to liquidate positions during market stress.
That permanence has long fascinated Ackman, who has repeatedly pointed to Berkshire Hathaway as proof that permanent capital allows concentrated, long-duration investment strategies to survive volatility and compound over decades. Pershing Square USA is explicitly designed around that logic. The vehicle plans to hold approximately 12 to 15 large-cap North American investments, broadly mirroring the strategy already run inside Pershing Square Capital Management, while charging a 2% annual management fee and no performance fee.
The structure also reflects lessons from Ackman’s earlier failed attempt to bring the concept to market. In 2024, Pershing Square abandoned plans for what had initially been envisioned as a $25 billion launch after institutional demand weakened and investors balked at the size and valuation dynamics of the offering. The final version that came public this spring was dramatically smaller — roughly one-fifth the original target — and included an important concession to market skepticism.
For every five PSUS shares purchased in the IPO, investors also received one free share of Pershing Square Inc., the separately listed management company trading under the ticker PS. The arrangement effectively bundled ownership of the asset-management platform together with the investment vehicle itself, underscoring Ackman’s broader ambition to simultaneously build both a public investment company and a publicly traded manager around it.
The market response has so far remained cautious. PSUS quickly traded at a discount estimated between 16% and 18% below its IPO price, reflecting one of the oldest and most persistent problems in the closed-end fund industry: shares frequently trade below the value of the underlying assets.
Ackman’s existing European-listed vehicle, Pershing Square Holdings, which trades in the U.S. under the symbol PSHZF, has spent years trading at roughly a 30% discount to net asset value despite the firm’s long-term investment record. Analysts viewed that precedent as an early warning sign for how PSUS could behave.
Eric Boughton, portfolio manager at Matisse Capital, warned before the offering that the fund would likely trade below NAV almost immediately even without a performance fee attached. John Cole Scott, president of CEF Advisors, has similarly argued that closed-end fund pricing ultimately reflects investor sentiment, liquidity conditions, and market psychology more than the underlying portfolio value itself.
That structural challenge is one reason the closed-end fund market had largely faded from relevance on Wall Street. According to industry data from the Closed-End Fund Association, only 46 new U.S. closed-end funds have launched since 2019. PSUS became the first major IPO in the category since 2022, when a comparable offering raised only about $53 million.
The PSUS debut therefore represents more than a single fund launch. It is increasingly being treated as a referendum on whether the closed-end structure can reclaim relevance inside modern U.S. capital markets.
Ackman is not entirely alone in revisiting the format. Robinhood Markets launched the $1 billion Robinhood Ventures Fund I earlier this year to provide retail investors with indirect exposure to private companies including SpaceX, Stripe, Databricks, and OpenAI. ARK Investment Management’s ARKVX interval fund is pursuing a similar model aimed at private-market exposure through semi-liquid structures.
The renewed interest has already produced signs of speculative excess. Earlier this year, one pre-IPO-focused closed-end vehicle briefly traded at nearly 3,000% of its underlying net asset value as retail investors scrambled for indirect exposure to SpaceX. The same structural mechanics currently pushing PSUS into a discount created a speculative premium at the opposite end of the market. Increasingly, the sector is being priced as much on narrative and investor belief as on traditional valuation mathematics.
Ackman is now moving aggressively to give PSUS that narrative momentum. Pershing Square’s latest 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed the firm recently initiated a position in Microsoft while trimming its stake in Alphabet. Days earlier, Pershing Square also proposed acquiring Universal Music Group N.V. in a transaction valued at roughly $64.4 billion, a move consistent with Ackman’s long-standing preference for concentrated, long-duration investments requiring stable capital behind them.
That strategy reflects the core thesis behind PSUS: permanent capital allows investors to think more like owners and less like traders.
What happens over the next several years may determine whether the closed-end fund structure experiences a genuine revival or remains a niche corner of the market. If Ackman can produce Berkshire-style compounding while narrowing the PSUS discount through buybacks, investor outreach, and sustained performance, the structure could regain credibility it has largely lacked in the United States for nearly two decades.
If the discount instead widens over time, markets may conclude that Buffett’s permanent-capital model works only when the manager carrying it is Buffett himself.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews2 days agoFor hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, the weekend arrived with an unsettling realization: one of the city’s most important transportation lifelines had simply stopped moving.
At 12:01 a.m. Saturday, the Long Island Rail Road officially shut down after five unions representing roughly 3,500 workers walked off the job, triggering the first LIRR strike since 1994 and immediately throwing the region’s commuting system into turmoil.
By sunrise, confusion had already spread across Long Island and New York City.
Penn Station’s normally crowded LIRR concourse sat eerily quiet. Commuters searched phones for alternate routes. Shuttle buses filled quickly. Highways began backing up earlier than normal. Families with weekend travel plans scrambled for options. And with Monday morning approaching, anxiety across the region only intensified.
The strike halts the busiest commuter railroad in North America, which carried roughly 250,000 weekday passengers last year and remains a critical artery connecting Long Island to Manhattan.
“This is not the result we were looking for,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said shortly after the shutdown began. “We cannot responsibly make a deal that implodes the MTA’s budget.”
Union leaders blamed management.
“After two days of round-the-clock negotiations, parties were unable to reach a deal,” said Kevin Sexton, national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, who accused the MTA of introducing healthcare concessions late in negotiations that unions say were never previously discussed.
The dispute centers largely around wages.
The unions are seeking annual raises of roughly 5%, arguing workers have gone years without meaningful increases while inflation sharply raised living costs across the New York region. The MTA offered approximately 3%, with some proposals potentially reaching 4.5% tied to work-rule changes.
To riders already frustrated by rising fares and service disruptions, the breakdown now leaves the entire region paying the price.
The LIRR generates roughly $636 million annually in fare revenue — approximately $2 million per business day — while ridership has only recently recovered to about 90% of pre-pandemic levels. MTA officials warned earlier this year that fully meeting union demands could force systemwide fare hikes across subways, buses, and Metro-North while also increasing pressure for potential job cuts elsewhere inside the transit system.
But for commuters, the financial debate quickly became secondary to the logistical nightmare unfolding in real time.
The MTA spent Saturday attempting to roll out emergency contingency plans involving shuttle buses from Long Island into Queens and Brooklyn transit hubs. Nassau Inter-County Express buses were redirected toward subway connections. Additional traffic crews and highway support teams were deployed across Long Island.
Even MTA officials acknowledged the replacement network could only absorb a fraction of normal rail traffic.
“We couldn’t possibly accommodate that by buses,” LIRR President Rob Free warned before the strike began.
One test commute from Long Island to Penn Station reportedly stretched to nearly two hours — roughly double a normal trip.
The strike also lands during a packed New York sports and entertainment weekend. Citi Field, hosting the Subway Series between the Mets and Yankees, normally depends heavily on LIRR traffic. Madison Square Garden could soon face additional strain if the Knicks continue their playoff run next week.
Traffic experts already warned Saturday that Monday morning could become one of the worst commuting days the region has faced in years if the strike continues.
“This will mean headaches and more traffic gridlocks in the short term,” said labor historian Jason Russell of SUNY Empire State University, noting that remote work only partially offsets the disruption because large portions of the workforce still commute physically into the city.
The political fallout began almost immediately.
Governor Kathy Hochul blamed what she called premature federal mediation decisions tied to the Trump administration, calling the strike “reckless.” President Donald Trump fired back on Truth Social, directly blaming Hochul for allowing negotiations to collapse and claiming he could “properly” resolve the dispute.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican candidate for governor, accused Hochul of failing Long Island commuters, saying “hundreds of thousands of Long Islanders woke up to chaos.”
Behind the political finger-pointing sits a deeper problem facing not just New York, but public transit systems nationwide.
Transit agencies are struggling to balance rising labor costs, aging infrastructure, post-pandemic ridership shifts, inflation, and mounting financial pressure all at once. Workers argue their wages no longer keep pace with the cost of living in one of the most expensive regions in America. Transit officials argue they cannot absorb significantly higher labor costs without forcing painful fare increases onto already strained riders.
Meanwhile, the people caught in the middle are ordinary commuters.
The office worker in Mineola trying to get to Midtown Monday morning. The nurse commuting from Ronkonkoma. The small-business employee in Hicksville. The family already stretched financially now facing higher gas costs, longer commutes, parking fees, childcare complications, and lost work hours because one of the region’s core transportation systems has ground to a halt.
For now, no additional negotiations have officially been scheduled.
Union picket lines are expected to continue Sunday outside Penn Station and key Long Island stations. The MTA says prorated refunds for monthly pass holders are under consideration.
But unless negotiations resume quickly, the region now faces the possibility of a prolonged transportation crisis with consequences far beyond delayed trains.
Because for New York, the Long Island Rail Road is not simply a commuter system.
It is part of the economic bloodstream of the entire region.
And right now, that bloodstream is frozen.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews2 days agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 18, 2026
A record 45 million Americans are expected to travel at least 50 miles from home during the Memorial Day holiday weekend despite gasoline prices hovering above $4.50 a gallon, underscoring the remarkable resilience of U.S. consumer travel demand even as inflation, elevated borrowing costs and the Iran-driven energy shock continue squeezing household budgets. The forecast, released Monday by the American Automobile Association, covers travel between Thursday, May 21, and Monday, May 25 and surpasses last year’s 44.8 million travelers, setting a new Memorial Day record.
The surge comes against one of the most difficult fuel-price environments Americans have faced outside the 2022 energy crisis. National average gasoline prices are now roughly $4.50 per gallon, according to AAA data, up sharply from about $3.17 during Memorial Day weekend last year and only modestly below the all-time seasonal highs reached in June 2022. The price increase is being driven largely by the ongoing Iran conflict and the continuing closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has disrupted global oil flows for more than two months and pushed crude oil back above $100 a barrel.
Despite the pressure, Americans are still traveling. AAA projects 39.1 million people will drive during the holiday period, while 3.66 million are expected to fly and millions more will travel by train, cruise and bus. The scale of the demand has surprised even energy analysts who expected fuel costs to meaningfully suppress discretionary travel this spring.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told Bloomberg that holiday travel behavior remains unusually resistant to gasoline-price spikes. “People aren’t going to want to restrict their travel on holidays,” De Haan said. “Even if gas is $6 a gallon, it’s the holidays where people are still going to travel.”
AAA Vice President of Travel Stacey Barber said the organization continues seeing strong leisure demand despite worsening economic pressure. “Travel demand remains strong, and despite higher fuel prices, many people are prioritizing leisure travel during holiday breaks,” Barber said in the agency’s release.
The resilience, however, is not without limits. AAA noted that the growth rate in Memorial Day travel this year is the slowest outside the pandemic period since 2010. Adrienne Woodland, spokeswoman for AAA — The Auto Club Group, said rising fuel prices and persistent inflation are causing many consumers to modify behavior even if they are not canceling trips outright.
“Although travel demand remains strong, higher fuel prices and persistent inflation may cause some travelers to shorten trips, delay plans, or stay closer to home,” Woodland said.
Michigan offers one of the clearest examples of the pressure consumers are absorbing. Average gasoline prices there have climbed to roughly $4.73 per gallon from $3.20 a year earlier. Similar increases are visible across much of the Midwest and Northeast.
Air travel has so far remained comparatively resilient. AAA said average airline ticket prices are still roughly 6% lower for travelers who booked early, though much of that pricing was locked in before the recent surge in jet fuel costs that has rattled airline balance sheets and contributed to the shutdown of Spirit Airlines earlier this month. Car-rental demand is also surging, with Hertz telling AAA that Thursday and Friday are expected to be the busiest pickup days of the weekend.
Among domestic destinations, Orlando, Seattle, New York City, Las Vegas and Miami rank among the most popular travel markets. Internationally, Rome, Paris, London, Athens and Vancouver are seeing strong booking activity as Americans continue prioritizing travel experiences despite broader financial strain.
The transportation system itself is expected to be heavily stressed. Traffic analytics firm INRIX warned that congestion in major metropolitan areas could more than double during peak departure and return windows. Last Memorial Day weekend, AAA roadside assistance crews responded to more than 350,000 emergency calls involving dead batteries, flat tires and empty fuel tanks. Similar or even heavier volumes are expected this year.
Beneath the headline numbers sits a broader economic trend increasingly referred to by economists as the “experience premium.” Consumers appear willing to continue spending aggressively on vacations, dining and entertainment while simultaneously cutting back on large durable purchases such as appliances, furniture and home upgrades.
Recent earnings calls across corporate America reflect the shift. Whirlpool Corp. warned earlier this month that consumers are delaying purchases of refrigerators and washing machines. At the same time, Royal Caribbean Group, Carnival Corp. and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings all reported record booking trends and particularly strong demand for family and multigenerational vacations.
The political implications are also growing. President Donald Trump publicly voiced support Monday for a temporary federal gasoline tax holiday, targeting the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal fuel tax that finances the Highway Trust Fund. Analysts at the Tax Foundation estimate the actual savings at the pump would likely be closer to 12 to 15 cents per gallon after accounting for refinery and distribution pricing dynamics, and any change would require congressional approval.
Diesel prices remain another major concern. National diesel averages are hovering within roughly 20 cents of record highs, creating additional inflation pressure across trucking, shipping, food distribution and logistics networks. Meanwhile, rising jet fuel prices have already prompted airlines to cut marginal routes, particularly short-haul regional service.
The broader takeaway for investors and policymakers is increasingly clear: Americans are still traveling, but they are paying substantially more to do it and quietly making trade-offs elsewhere in their budgets to keep those vacations intact.
Whether that resilience survives through the July 4 travel season — traditionally the peak period for summer fuel demand — may become one of the clearest indicators of how much strain the U.S. consumer can ultimately absorb.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews2 days agoThe Trump administration allowed its temporary sanctions waiver on Russian seaborne oil to expire at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Saturday, restoring a tougher sanctions posture against Moscow at one of the most fragile moments for global energy markets in years.
The expiration was confirmed after the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) failed to publish a renewal notice for General License 134B, the authorization issued on April 17 that temporarily permitted transactions involving Russian crude already loaded onto tankers. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had signaled in recent days that the administration did not intend to extend the waiver.
The move lands as the global oil market is already under severe strain from the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints.
Brent crude settled near $108 a barrel Friday, while West Texas Intermediate traded above $103, with both benchmarks posting weekly gains estimated between 8% and 10%. Traders increasingly warn that the market is no longer pricing temporary volatility but rather a sustained period of constrained global supply.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said crude and refined fuel flows through Hormuz fell by roughly 4 million barrels per day during March and April and warned this week that the market could remain materially undersupplied through at least October even if the Iran conflict eases next month.
The waiver itself had a short and politically contentious life. The Trump administration initially eased restrictions in March, allowed them to lapse on April 11, then abruptly reversed course on April 17 after Bessent said more than 10 energy-vulnerable countries requested relief from soaring crude prices.
India, currently the world’s largest buyer of Russian seaborne crude, reportedly pushed hardest for the extension as its imports from Russia climbed near record levels during April and May. Indonesia also lobbied Washington to preserve access to Russian oil supplies amid mounting energy costs.
European allies strongly opposed both rounds of sanctions relief, arguing that easing pressure on Russian energy exports undermines Western efforts to restrict Moscow’s wartime revenues tied to the conflict in Ukraine.
For financial markets and commodity traders, the expiration immediately tightens legal and operational risks surrounding Russian oil transactions.
Banks, insurers, commodity trading houses, and shipping firms had temporarily relied on the OFAC waiver to process certain transactions involving previously loaded cargoes. With the waiver gone, compliance departments across the global energy sector are now reverting to stricter pre-waiver sanctions protocols involving vessel ownership verification, payment routing scrutiny, ship-to-ship transfer monitoring, and counterparty risk reviews.
The broader G7-European Union-Australia price cap system technically remains in place, still allowing certain maritime services involving Russian oil traded below specified price thresholds. But the added flexibility created by General License 134B has now disappeared.
The timing comes as some of the world’s largest energy companies warn that the supply picture is becoming increasingly dangerous.
Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser told reporters this week that the oil market may not fully normalize until 2027 if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed beyond mid-June. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth, speaking earlier this month at the Milken Institute Global Conference, warned that fuel shortages were becoming a realistic concern in some regions, telling CNBC that “it’s not just a question of price.”
Investment banks are also growing more concerned about inventory depletion. Goldman Sachs warned in a research note Monday that while global crude inventories are not yet critically low, supplies of refined products — including jet fuel, naphtha, and liquefied petroleum gas — are tightening rapidly.
The political implications for the White House are becoming increasingly delicate.
President Donald Trump returned this week from meetings in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping facing mounting domestic concern over energy-driven inflation. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration data, crude oil costs remain the largest component of retail gasoline pricing, meaning sustained increases in Brent and WTI prices quickly feed into higher gasoline, diesel, shipping, airline, and freight costs across the economy.
Federal Reserve officials have repeatedly warned that prolonged energy inflation can reshape consumer expectations and complicate monetary policy decisions. Analysts increasingly believe another sustained oil rally could delay interest-rate cuts or even reopen discussions around additional tightening if inflation pressures broaden further.
The deeper question now facing global markets is whether the international sanctions system can maintain pressure on Russian exports without triggering a broader energy supply shock.
Despite years of Western restrictions, Russia remains a critical supplier to global oil balances. Buyers continue navigating discounted cargoes, intermediary payment systems, opaque shipping routes, and so-called “shadow fleet” tanker operations to keep Russian crude flowing into global markets.
Allowing the waiver to expire signals that the Trump administration is prioritizing sanctions discipline over short-term energy relief. But traders say the real test will be whether enforcement intensifies against intermediary banks, covert shipping networks, and ship-to-ship transfer systems that continue facilitating Russian exports outside traditional Western oversight.
For now, markets remain trapped between three destabilizing realities: a closed Strait of Hormuz, tighter restrictions on Russian oil flows, and shrinking global inventory buffers.
Many traders increasingly describe current oil prices not as a temporary spike, but as a new floor for global energy markets unless geopolitical conditions improve significantly in the months ahead.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews2 days agoMiami-Dade County’s two-track 2026 economy came into sharp focus Friday: million-dollar-plus single-family home sales jumped 20% in the first quarter of 2026, according to the Miami Association of Realtors, while the county shed more than 10,000 residents in the year ending July 2025, the U.S. Census Bureau reported in April — the third-steepest population drop of any county in the nation, trailing only Los Angeles County and Florida’s own Pinellas County. The widening split between a booming luxury tier and a shrinking working population was the focus of a Wall Street Journal analysis published Friday morning by reporter Arian Campo-Flores.
The county’s headcount fell to 2,802,029 from 2,812,144 between July 2024 and July 2025, according to the Census Bureau estimates. Miami-Dade County Public Schools is teaching 13,200 fewer students in the current 2025-2026 school year than it did the year before, a separate data point reflecting the demographic shift. The broader Miami metropolitan area logged its worst-ever year for net domestic migration in 2025, losing roughly 113,700 more U.S. residents than it gained, according to Census data analyzed by Reventure Consulting founder Nick Gerli — surpassing the area’s previous record set during the 2008 financial crisis. Resale inventory in Miami-Dade rose 119.2% in April 2026 from a year earlier, with 12,808 units available, signaling a growing pool of listings but few qualified buyers below the luxury tier.
Yet at the top of the income distribution, the picture is the opposite. Miami’s millionaire population grew 94% between 2014 and 2024 to roughly 38,800, the second-largest percentage gain among the major U.S. cities tracked by Henley & Partners in its USA Wealth Report 2025, behind only the San Francisco Bay Area, which posted 98% growth to about 342,400 millionaires. Basil Mohr-Elzeki, managing partner at Henley & Partners North America, has attributed much of the broader U.S. wealth surge to the strength of U.S. equity markets and demand for tax-advantaged jurisdictions within the country.
The newcomers are dramatically wealthier than the residents being displaced. People who relocated to Miami-Dade County from other states had an average adjusted gross income of roughly $178,000 — more than double that of residents who left for other states — according to an analysis of 2022 and 2023 Internal Revenue Service data by Maria Ilcheva, associate director of the Jorge M. Pérez Metropolitan Center at Florida International University, reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal. Newcomers from Manhattan earned an average of about $358,000, and those arriving from Chicago averaged $711,000.
Marquee financial relocations have anchored the trend. Ken Griffin moved his hedge fund Citadel from Chicago to Miami in 2022, citing a more business-friendly climate. Asset managers, private-equity firms, family offices, and crypto-native firms have followed in the years since.
The wealth wave is reshaping how the city looks and what it sells. The Miami Design District, a former furniture-trade hub that fell into disrepair in the 1980s, has been transformed by developer Dacra into a high-end retail and cultural corridor anchored by LVMH-owned Bulgari and Fendi, alongside designer boutiques, contemporary art galleries, and Michelin-starred restaurants. Sales in the district grew 350% between 2019 and 2025 and foot traffic measured by car counts rose 250%, Craig Robins, chief executive of Dacra, said in remarks published Friday by The Wall Street Journal. A new condominium project, hotel, and office buildings are in development.
The high-end housing market is tracking the influx. Gay Cororaton, chief economist at the Miami Association of Realtors, told the Wall Street Journal that the million-dollar-plus segment is outperforming the overall housing market in Miami-Dade County, with the 20% first-quarter gain in luxury single-family sales nearly triple the 7% rise in overall single-family sales. Miami Beach ranks among the priciest residential markets in the country, with average prime-apartment prices of roughly $17,200 per square meter, according to Henley & Partners.
The other side of that strength is severe affordability strain. The average price of a home in Miami-Dade County reached $711,025 in 2025, while the maximum a median-income Florida family can afford is roughly $258,000, according to the Reventure analysis. Housing prices in the region have climbed 53% since June 2020. About half of Miami-Dade County households are classified as cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing, the Wall Street Journal analysis noted.
“Miami is becoming very different,” Richard Florida, the urbanist and author who lives part of the year in Miami Beach, said in remarks published Friday by The Wall Street Journal. “We have never witnessed this kind of relocation of wealth,” he said, but “it’s getting harder and harder for the young professional to enter.”
The bifurcation cuts in two directions for the local economy. Affluent newcomers fill municipal tax coffers and underwrite premium retail, hospitality, and professional-services jobs, and the broader Florida state revenue picture has benefited from inbound wealth migration as well. The same dynamic, however, is intensifying housing affordability debates and tightening the labor market for the service-sector employers — retail, hospitality, construction — who depend on workers being able to afford to live within commuting range. The drop in Miami-Dade County Public Schools enrollment is one downstream signal.
Whether the inflow of high-net-worth residents continues at its post-pandemic pace will determine how much further the split widens. Henley & Partners projects continued net inbound millionaire migration to the U.S., with Miami, the Bay Area, Austin, and West Palm Beach among the most popular destinations, driven by tax policy and persistent concerns about quality of life in higher-cost coastal markets. Whether the workforce that sustains daily life in those cities can afford to stay is the harder question.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews2 days agoThe Neue Galerie New York and the Metropolitan Museum of Art will merge, creating the most significant collection of 20th-century Austrian and German art outside of Europe. The Met will take over the Neue Galerie’s collection, which includes iconic works by Gustav Klimt, and its Beaux-Arts building at 1048 Fifth Avenue, in 2028, following necessary approvals.
“Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” also known as “The Lady in Gold,” by Gustav Klimt. Public domain via Wikimedia
The Neue, opened by cosmetics heir Ronald S. Lauder in 2001, is home to Klimt’s famous “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer,” as well as art from Vienna around 1900 and works from major German movements of the early 20th century. Lauder told the New York Times that the famous portrait piece, also known as “The Lady in Gold,” will stay in its current home.
“‘Adele Bloch-Bauer’ stays where it is,” Lauder said. “It is our Mona Lisa.”
Following the merger, the combined museum will be renamed The Met Ronald S. Lauder Neue Galerie, joining The Met Fifth Avenue and the Met Cloisters.
“The merger with The Met in 2028 will preserve and strengthen the Neue Galerie’s legacy in perpetuity,” Lauder said in a statement. “I am especially grateful to Max Hollein for his leadership and deep understanding of the historical importance of this collection. Under his direction, The Met continues to stand not only as one of the world’s great museums, but as a steadfast guardian of culture, memory, and identity.”
The Neue Galerie will be closed for the summer, starting May 27, as part of a restoration of the 1914 building designed by Carrère & Hastings and later renovated by Annabelle Selldorf. The museum will reopen in the fall with a special 25th anniversary exhibition, with details to be announced in the coming months.
Lauder and his daughter, Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer, plan to donate a selection of 13 Austrian and German paintings from their personal collection to the institutions. As the New York Times reported, the museum’s endowment has been estimated at $200 million. According to the newspaper, most of the new endowment for the Neue has already been raised thanks to an undisclosed lead gift from Marina Kellen French, a Met board member, and contributions from several other trustees.
“The Neue Galerie represents a lifelong passion for my father and a legacy our family is proud to help carry forward,” Zinterhofer said. “To see it join The Met is incredibly meaningful. It ensures these works will continue to be preserved, studied, and shared with the widest possible audience for generations to come.”
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JBizNews2 days agoIn a recent conversation with NAIOP President and CEO Marc Selvitelli on the Inside CRE Podcast, Chad Lavender, president of capital markets for North America at Newmark, outlined a commercial real estate environment defined by improving liquidity, narrowing bid-ask spreads, and renewed investor confidence across nearly every major asset class.
“It’s a constructive market,” Lavender said. He described today’s investors as disciplined, informed and highly strategic.
“The pretenders are out of the business,” he said. “The people who are transacting today are very knowledgeable and are using all the technology and information to their behest to go make better investment decisions.”
That sophistication is translating into stronger pricing transparency and healthier transaction activity. According to Lavender, “the bid-ask gap has narrowed,” while cap rates across many sectors have stabilized.
He also made it clear that, in his view, the market recovery is already underway.
“I’d say we’re definitely in a recovery,” Lavender said. “Blackstone called the bottom last summer, so that’s good enough for me.”
Lavender sees opportunity across nearly every property type, though each sector has a different story driving capital flows.
Industrial remains one of the strongest performers, especially for large logistics facilities with limited new supply. “There’s virtually no speculative development and no supply for the big million-square-footers,” he noted.
Retail has also staged a major comeback. “There’s no new supply in the asset class,” Lavender said. “If there are any tenants going out, there’s a line out the door to come in, and generally at a higher rate.”
Meanwhile, senior housing is attracting significant investor interest after years of underperformance. Lavender highlighted projected NOI growth of 15% to 20% there over the next three years.
Office continues to be bifurcated. Class A assets are drawing institutional buyers and benefiting from scarcity, while Class B properties are increasingly viewed for repositioning or conversion.
One of Lavender’s clearest messages was that debt availability is no longer the constraint many feared two years ago.
“The availability of efficient financing is an all-time high from our perspective and super competitive,” he said.
While private credit has stepped in aggressively, Lavender emphasized that banks are returning in force as lenders seek to deploy excess deposits.
Compared to the Global Financial Crisis, he believes today’s market environment is dramatically healthier.
“Back then, there was no liquidity on the debt side, so you couldn’t really get anything done,” he said.
Looking ahead, Lavender said investors are less focused on predicting interest rates and more focused on economic growth and asset-level fundamentals.
“You can’t control what rates are,” he pointed out. Instead, investors are concentrating on replacement costs, NOI growth and long-term market positioning.
One overlooked opportunity, according to Lavender, is Class B real estate.
“I think the Class B and C side of the multifamily space and your discount to replacement cost and your yield premium to Class A multifamily – I think that’s a great opportunity,” he said.
For the market to fully regain momentum over the next 12 to 18 months, Lavender believes stability will be the key ingredient.
“As soon as we start seeing rapid NOI growth across sectors,” he said, “we’re going to see incredible sales activity pick up.”
Listen to the full episode of the Inside CRE podcast.
This post was created with the assistance of AI tools; all content was reviewed by the author.
JBizNews2 days agoA Blackstone seasoning blend has been recalled due to a potential risk of salmonella contamination, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Blackstone Products of Providence, Utah, announced it was voluntarily recalling certain lots of its Parmesan Ranch seasoning products following the discovery that California Dairies, Inc. recalled dry milk powder due to potential salmonella contamination.
The affected milk powder was supplied to a third-party manufacturer and used in the seasoning product, according to the FDA.
The affected products were sold nationwide exclusively through Walmart stores and the Blackstone Products website.
CHECK YOUR FREEZER: ORGANIC ICE CREAM RECALLED IN 17 STATES OVER POSSIBLE METAL FRAGMENTS
The recalled products are labeled as Blackstone Parmesan Ranch 7.3 oz seasoning products with item number #4106. The lot code and best-by dates are located on the bottom of the product packaging, according to the FDA.
The recall specifically impacts lot numbers 2025-43282, 2025-46172 and 2026-54751 with “best by” dates of July 2, 2027, Aug. 5, 2027, and Aug. 12, 2027, respectively.
No illnesses have been reported from the affected seasoning products, but the FDA warns salmonella can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems.
Salmonella is an organism that can cause fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain in otherwise healthy people, according to the FDA. In rare cases, the infection can enter the bloodstream and cause more severe illnesses, including arterial infections, endocarditis and arthritis.
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A representative for Blackstone did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ request for comment.
Consumers are urged not to use the recalled seasoning and should dispose of the product immediately.
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The FDA said consumers who purchased the affected products should not consume the seasoning and should throw it away immediately.
Customers who purchased the affected products may contact Blackstone Products at 1-888-879-4610 to receive a replacement product or ask additional questions.
JBizNews2 days agoNew York City is launching a “neighborhood passport” to help New Yorkers and visitors explore the five boroughs and find affordable ways to experience this summer’s FIFA World Cup. Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the initiative on Thursday, which will allow participants to collect stamps from hundreds of community organizations and public events across the city while encouraging exploration of immigrant neighborhoods, cultural institutions, and small businesses. NYC Tourism + Conventions will also launch a new calendar and interactive digital map to help users discover low-cost events, promotions, and activities during the tournament.
“The World Cup isn’t just coming to MetLife Stadium. It’s coming to Corona and Flatbush, Astoria and Sunset Park, and every neighborhood that makes New York the most diverse, dynamic city in the world,” Mamdani said.
“Whether you’re arriving at JFK for the first time or you’ve lived in the five boroughs your whole life, we want every New Yorker and every visitor to experience the full breadth of this city during the World Cup,” he added.
Starting June 11, the passports will be available at every public library across the city. Each special stamp has been designed by NYC-based artists with roots in India, Colombia, Iran, Korea, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Vietnam, Ghana, Mexico, and Argentina, reflecting both the countries participating in the World Cup and the cultural diversity of the five boroughs.
Featured events include dance performances, film screenings, art exhibits, book talks, block parties, and much more, which will motivate participants to venture to all five boroughs in order to collect the stamps. Locations were selected to highlight immigrant communities, including Little Senegal in Harlem, Little Colombia and Little India in Queens, among others.
Participants include the American Museum of Natural History, El Museo del Barrio, the New York Botanical Garden, the Museum of the City of New York, and the Bronx Museum. A full list of participating organizations and stamp locations is available here.
The Mamdani administration and Team Wonder are also launching “Already Home,” a nationwide storytelling campaign inviting soccer fans and non-fans to share what the World Cup means to them.
Participants will be able to submit video or audio recordings, which will become part of a national collection spanning cities including Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle, Albuquerque, and El Paso.
NYC Tourism + Conventions’ interactive events map will launch on May 27. Businesses and organizations can submit events and promotions for consideration free of charge.
Last month, the City Council introduced a package of legislation to support local businesses during the nearly six-week tournament at MetLife Stadium, which includes five group-stage matches on June 13, 16, 22, 26, and 27, a round of 32 match on June 30, a round of 16 match on July 5, and the final on July 19, as 6sqft previously reported.
One bill included the creation of a “cultural passport program” to encourage exploration of local businesses and institutions. Another aimed to establish a centralized events calendar to help attendees find festivals, parties, and cultural corridors tied to participating teams.
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JBizNews2 days agoGen Z shoppers are helping fuel a new chapter for America’s malls as younger consumers increasingly favor in-person shopping experiences over simply filling online carts. Their spending habits are becoming a major focus for retailers and mall operators looking to adapt to changing consumer behavior.
FOX Business’ Madison Alworth joined FOX Business’ Stuart Varney on “Varney & Co.” to report on how malls are redesigning spaces and adding new experiences aimed at younger shoppers, from social media-friendly dressing rooms to activities like indoor rock climbing walls.
BURLINGTON TO OPEN OVER TWO DOZEN NEW STORES ACROSS COUNTRY IN MAY
According to data firm NielsenIQ, Gen Z retail spending is expected to surpass $12 trillion globally by 2030, with growth outpacing every other generation. Data from Circana also found shoppers between 18 and 24 years old made 62% of their general merchandise purchases in physical stores last year, compared to 52% among consumers 25 and older.
Those trends come as broader retail spending has remained resilient despite ongoing economic uncertainty. U.S. retail sales rose 0.5% in April from the previous month and climbed 4.9% year over year, according to Commerce Department data released Thursday, showing consumers are still spending even as higher interest rates continue pressuring household budgets.
Macerich Executive Vice President of Asset Management Cory Scott said younger shoppers are increasingly prioritizing experiences alongside purchases.
WALMART CUTTING OR RELOCATING ABOUT 1,000 CORPORATE JOBS
“They value experiences almost more than they value material things. So it’s as much about the journey as the shopping and the things that they’re taking home with them,” Scott said.
Some Gen Z shoppers told FOX Business malls offer a social connection that online shopping cannot fully replace.
One shopper said, “We grew up during like quarantine… Getting out and hanging out with people was a very big thing we didn’t appreciate during that time… As we grow older, we see that we need to be doing these things and it’s kind of fun.”
JBizNews2 days agoAmazon is facing a new class action lawsuit accusing the company of failing to refund tariff-related costs it passed on to consumers through higher prices in order to appease the Trump administration.
Consumers allege in a proposed lawsuit filed in Seattle that the tech giant collected hundreds of millions of dollars in unlawful tariff costs by raising prices on imported goods before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February that President Donald Trump lacked authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose certain tariffs.
While thousands of companies have sought billions of dollars in refunds from the government following the ruling, Amazon has failed to do so, the complaint states, “not because it lacks a legal basis to do so, but because it seeks to curry favor with Trump by allowing the federal government to retain the funds.”
“Amazon’s decision to forgo recovery serves its own political and commercial interests at the direct expense of the consumers who bore the tariff costs in the first place,” the lawsuit alleges.
AMAZON’S 30-MINUTE DELIVERY PUSH RAISES STAKES IN RACE FOR SPEED
“The problem is that the funds Amazon is using to stay in the President’s good graces do not belong to Amazon,” the complaint continues. “These funds were wrongfully taken from consumers to cover IEEPA tariffs that have since been invalidated. Those funds belong to the consumers who paid them.”
The lawsuit also alleges Amazon “has no intention” of returning the costs passed on to consumers.
“It has, in short, generated and retained a windfall from unlawful government action, and consumers — not Amazon — are the ones left paying for it,” the filing states.
The complaint accuses Amazon of unjust enrichment and violating Washington state’s consumer-protection law.
MORE THAN 125,000 CHILDREN’S TOWER STOOLS RECALLED NATIONWIDE DUE TO POSSIBLE DEADLY DEFECT
The legal clash comes after consumers filed similar lawsuits against companies, including Nike and Costco, over claims they failed to pass tariff-related refunds on to customers.
The lawsuit against Amazon also alleges the company faced White House pushback in April 2025 after reports surfaced that it was considering displaying how much of a product’s cost stemmed from IEEPA tariffs.
Amazon denied the report, saying it never considered listing tariff-related prices on its main retail site. However, the lawsuit alleges the report prompted Trump to call Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos to complain.
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More than 2,000 companies have filed suits in the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking to recover tariffs paid on imported goods.
FOX Business has reached out to Amazon and the White House for comment.
Reuters contributed to this report.
JBizNews3 days agoNew York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Friday he has attempted to meet with billionaire Citadel CEO Ken Griffin after the hedge fund executive blasted the mayor’s viral “Tax the Rich” video targeting him.
Mamdani said a member of his team reached out to Griffin but had not received a response.
“We reached out to set up a meeting,” Mamdani said Friday. “We’re still waiting to hear.”
“That continues to be an open invitation, and it’s part of invitations that I’ve made to a number of business leaders across the city,” he continued. “I’m there to listen and there to have a conversation that goes beyond places of agreement, but perhaps places of disagreement to hear honest reflection and critique, without putting any precondition on the nature of that conversation.”
The outreach comes after Mamdani posted a video on April 15 highlighting Griffin’s property while promoting a new pied-à-terre tax proposal.
In the video, the mayor — who has pledged to raise taxes on wealthy New Yorkers — stood outside Griffin’s 24,000-square-foot penthouse, which Griffin purchased in 2019 for $238 million, the most expensive residential sale in U.S. history.
Griffin later criticized the video, calling it a “creepy and weird” political advertisement.
A spokesperson for Griffin did not say whether he plans to meet with the mayor.
MAMDANI TAX BREAK PROPOSAL SPARKS FEARS AS BUSINESS LEADERS WARN OF ‘FRAGILE’ NYC ECONOMY
“Ken cares deeply about New York City and welcomes thoughtful, serious conversations about the policies that can grow the city’s economy and create more opportunity for all New Yorkers,” the spokesperson said in a statement to FOX Business. “Reckless political theater serves no purpose and undermines the future of one of the world’s most important cities.”
In the April video promoting higher taxes on wealthy New Yorkers and a pied-à-terre tax on second homes, Mamdani singled out Griffin’s penthouse as an example of what he called a “fundamentally unfair system.”
“This is an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners do not live full-time in the city—like this penthouse, which hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin bought for $238 million,” Mamdani said in the video.
Speaking at the Milken Conference in Los Angeles earlier this month, Griffin said Mamdani’s “frightening” video reaffirmed his decision to “double down” on business in Miami.
MAMDANI THANKS SAME BILLIONAIRE HE TARGETED IN TAX VIDEO FOR NYPD MONEY
“Mamdani has made it very clear—New York does not welcome success,” Griffin said during the panel.
Citadel is currently building a new headquarters in Miami, and Griffin reiterated plans to expand the company’s presence in Florida, citing the state’s pro-business policies.
The mayor’s office previously told Fox News Digital that Mamdani “wants all New Yorkers to succeed,” including Griffin, whom it described as a major employer in the city.
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“That does not negate the fact, however, that our tax system is fundamentally broken,” the statement continued. “It rewards extreme wealth while working people are pushed to the brink.”
“The status quo is unsustainable and unjust,” it added. “If we want this city to become a place that working people can afford, we need meaningful tax reform that includes the wealthiest New Yorkers contributing their fair share.”
FOX Business’ Nikolas Lanum and Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.
JBizNews3 days agoAn organic ice cream brand has recalled select flavors over the potential presence of metal fragments, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Straus Family Creamery, based in Northern California, voluntarily recalled a limited number of production runs of its Organic Super Premium Ice Cream on Wednesday after the company discovered the potential presence of foreign metal material, according to an FDA report published Friday.
The recall impacts select pint and quart containers of vanilla bean, strawberry, cookie dough, Dutch chocolate and mint chip ice cream distributed to retailers in 17 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.
Not all Straus Family Creamery ice cream products are affected by the recall. The company said the recall applies only to certain production runs identified by “best by” dates ranging from Dec. 23, 2026, through Dec. 30, 2026.
DOZENS OF ICE CREAM PRODUCTS RECALLED OVER UNDECLARED ALLERGENS POSING ‘LIFE-THREATENING’ RISK
The affected products began appearing on store shelves on May 4. Consumers can identify recalled products by the “best by” date printed in black on the outside bottom of the container.
According to the FDA, no injuries or illnesses have been reported in connection with the recalled products.
In its recall notice published by the FDA, Straus Family Creamery said it is “working with retailers to remove the potentially affected products from shelves.”
Consumers are urged not to eat the recalled ice cream and should discard the product rather than return it to stores.
ICE CREAM SOLD AT WALMARTS ACROSS 16 STATES RECALLED DUE TO UNDECLARED ALLERGEN
Customers seeking a voucher for a replacement product can visit the company’s recall website.
Consumers with questions can contact Straus Family Creamery at [email protected] or 1-707-776-2887 Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT.
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Last month, California-based Loard’s Ice Cream recalled dozens of products sold in Northern California over undeclared allergens including milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts and soy, according to the FDA. No illnesses were reported in that recall.
A representative for Straus Family Creamery did not immediately respond to FOX Business’ request for comment.
JBizNews3 days agoHonda Motor posted its first-ever annual loss this week since it was first listed on the stock market in 1957.
The Japanese car company’s bet on electric vehicle sales left it with $9 billion in restructuring costs due to low demand and President Donald Trump’s “Made in America” policies.
“EV demand has declined considerably, due to the rollback of environmental regulations in the U.S. and other factors,” Honda said in a statement.
CEO Toshihiro Mibe said on Thursday that the company, which suffered a $2.7 billion loss, would also abandon its target to make electric vehicle sales 20% of profits by 2030.
TRUMP ESCALATES BATTLE WITH NEWSOM, SHUTTING DOWN GOVERNOR’S LEFT-WING RULES ROCKING CAR INDUSTRY
The company had also previously set a goal to fully move to electric or fuel-cell vehicles by 2024.
Losses related to its electric vehicle operations are expected to reach $16 billion, the company said.
The Trump administration has moved away from electric vehicle incentive programs, including blocking California’s stringent electric vehicle mandates and removing former President Joe Biden’s EV tax credit.
MASSIVE HONDA RECALLIMPACTS 440K VEHICLES OVER AIRBAGS POTENTIALLY DEPLOYING ‘UNEXPECTEDLY’
Honda, however, stemmed the bleeding through an increase in motorcycle sales – 20 million more than last year, which translated to a half a percent increase or $138 billion for the fiscal year through March.
Honda, which makes the Accord sedan and Super Cub motorcycles, sold 3.4 million vehicles around the world in the fiscal year through March, down from 3.7 million the previous year.
The company is the main motorcycle seller in some markets, including India.
Despite the loss, Honda is still forecasting a $1.7 billion profit for the fiscal year through March 2027.
“We will continue our research to develop future technologies including electric vehicle batteries,” Mibe said. “We will get back on a growth track,” adding that the company will continue a goal of carbon neutrality while acknowledging the need to work on hybrids and regular gasoline-engine models as well.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
JBizNews3 days agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 15, 2026
Bitcoin dropped back below the $80,000 threshold on Friday, trading at $79,108 in late-afternoon U.S. action as profit-taking and a hawkish repricing of Federal Reserve policy expectations rippled through the digital-asset market, according to live pricing data from Coinglass and SoSoValue.
Major crypto prices Friday afternoon:
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index slipped to 46, holding sentiment in neutral territory after several weeks bouncing between greed and neutral readings.
The selling was concentrated and forceful. Coinglass data showed 127,628 traders were liquidated in the prior 24 hours for a combined $440.26 million, with the bulk of the wipeout hitting long positions that had built up on the recovery move toward $90,000 earlier this week. Funding rates across major perpetual swap markets remained negative even as spot prices firmed earlier in the week, an unusual configuration flagged by anonymous derivatives trader Cryptoinsightuk, who said the divergence “shows derivatives traders remain heavily positioned to the short side” and described Friday’s weakness as “not panic level, just logical.” The same trader argued that pullbacks toward the middle of long-term price channels often serve as logical reset zones before the market chooses a direction, and noted that the negative funding setup could fuel a sharp short squeeze if Bitcoin breaks above the current range.
The macro backdrop is doing most of the heavy lifting on the downside. April CPI released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Tuesday came in at 3.8% year over year, the highest reading since May 2023. April PPI released Wednesday jumped 6% annually, the hottest pace since 2022. The two prints together forced traders to abandon any remaining bets on a 2026 Federal Reserve rate cut and to begin pricing in the possibility of a quarter-point hike before year-end. CME FedWatch odds of a December hike climbed to roughly 51%, with January 2027 odds near 60%, up from near-zero a month ago. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield jumped to 4.55%, a fresh one-year high, draining liquidity from speculative assets that had been rallying on the assumption of an easier policy path.
The Fed transition added another layer. Kevin Warsh was sworn in Friday as Federal Reserve chair, replacing Jerome Powell, whose term expired the same day. Crypto traders are watching closely to see whether Warsh — known for a rules-based, anti-inflation stance — strikes a more hawkish or more rules-based dollar tone in his first communications. Geoffrey Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, recently cut his year-end Bitcoin price target to $100,000 from $150,000, citing reduced odds of rate cuts before the Iran war even factored into the model. Kendrick said the selloff to date “has been less extreme than previous ones and has not seen the collapse of any digital asset platforms,” a comment echoed by Ark Invest founder Cathie Wood, who called Bitcoin’s roughly 50% peak-to-trough drawdown “a real victory” against the 85% to 95% declines of prior cycles.
ETF flows tell a mixed story. SoSoValue data showed net inflows of $131.3 million across U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs on Thursday, a partial recovery after a brutal Wednesday print that registered net outflows of $635 million — one of the largest single-day outflow totals on record. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) remained the dominant flow vehicle, while Fidelity’s FBTC also recorded inflows. Total spot Bitcoin ETF assets under management stand near $109 billion, an all-time high, with the structural ratio of ETF holdings to daily miner production now sitting at roughly 10 to 1 — a dynamic that analysts at Phemex cited as the key reason this cycle’s drawdowns have been shallower than the 2018 or 2022 collapses.
Corporate Bitcoin purchases, a key marginal demand vector last year, have slowed sharply. Buying by publicly traded treasury accumulators is down roughly 80% from the prior month as institutional buyers use the price recovery to take partial profits rather than add to positions. The Iran war, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz since March 4, and WTI crude trading above $100 a barrel continue to act as a sticky inflation overlay that argues for tighter Fed policy and a stronger dollar — neither friendly to crypto. The U.S. Dollar Index is on pace for its best week since early March, having climbed for a fifth straight session to near 99.29.
For now, traders are watching three levels: $78,000 as the next major support for Bitcoin, the $2,200 line on Ether that has held since April, and the $1.40 mark on XRP, which traders said would need to break to confirm a deeper retracement. Whether Warsh’s first public remarks lean rules-based or hawkish may decide which level gives way first.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoBanks underwriting corporate borrowings in the U.S. leveraged loan market raised the size of at least six proposed deals by a combined $2.6 billion ahead of investor commitment deadlines Thursday, Bloomberg reported, in the clearest sign yet that demand for risky dollar-denominated debt has heated into a full-blown imbalance — with funds, collateralized loan obligation managers, and private-credit pools chasing more paper than the market is currently producing.
The Thursday upsizes, tracked by Bloomberg, mark a deepening of a trend that has been building for months. Strong inflows into CLO funds and exchange-traded products, combined with stretched cash piles at private-credit shops and reignited buyout activity, have created the most lender-friendly conditions for borrowers since the post-pandemic refinancing wave.
Banks running syndicated processes have been able to widen ticket sizes, tighten pricing, and pull deals forward — a dynamic that has fed back through the secondary market into ever-richer pricing on existing loans.
The numbers tell the story.
Through the first stretch of 2026, $77 billion in U.S. leveraged loans has priced across 54 deals, alongside $22.6 billion in high-yield bond issuance across 20 deals, according to data published by Octus.
Bank of America strategists project full-year 2026 leveraged loan issuance to climb 10% to roughly $470 billion, fueled by a doubling of merger-and-acquisition and leveraged-buyout volume to about $260 billion.
JPMorgan Chase analysts have separately estimated that M&A and LBO debt issuance could reach $80 billion in high-yield bonds and $225 billion in loans this year.
The pipeline backing those forecasts is already visible.
The roughly $55 billion take-private of Electronic Arts by Silver Lake is expected to bring $20 billion of debt to the syndicated loan market in the months ahead, led by JPMorgan.
Blackstone and TPG’s $18.3 billion buyout of medical-diagnostics company Hologic will require another $12 billion of debt.
Air Lease is being taken private in a $28 billion deal, and Bloomberg has calculated that banks have already underwritten roughly $65 billion of leveraged-buyout debt scheduled to come to market in 2026.
Borrowers, in many cases, are pricing those packages at the tightest spreads in years.
The pricing reflects the supply-demand mismatch.
The average institutional loan margin in the third quarter of 2025 was just 3.13%, the lowest quarterly average on record, according to Debtwire data.
Average bids in the secondary market are running at 95 to 97 cents on the dollar.
Roughly 40% of outstanding institutional loans are trading at or above par, leaving managers of CLOs — the dominant institutional buyer of leveraged loans — scrambling for newly priced paper at any kind of yield premium.
CLO issuance in the U.S. reached a record $472 billion of broadly syndicated CLO volume in 2025 across more than 1,000 transactions, plus another $84.7 billion in private-credit CLOs, per Octus.
“This year is really the perfect storm for credit because we have a fiscal expansion and simultaneously also have monetary easing,” Neha Khoda, head of U.S. credit strategy at Bank of America, said at a recent industry roundtable. “Historically, whenever we’ve seen these happen concurrently, it’s been good for credit.”
Michael Marzouk, a loan portfolio manager at Aristotle Pacific Capital, told industry attendees that corporate fundamentals “remain in good shape” and that easing should help spur further M&A activity off trough levels.
Adam Abbas, head of fixed income at Oakmark, said he expects buy-side investors to migrate from high-yield bonds into leveraged loans as the asset class normalizes.
The risks, however, are creeping back into view.
Loans priced below 90 cents on the dollar climbed to 9.4% of the market in November, matching a mid-year peak.
The September 2025 blowups of Tricolor and First Brands have left what one Deutsche Bank analyst, Jamie Flannick, described as “a fog hanging over” the leveraged finance market.
Covenant-lite loan issuance is rising, which reduces lender protections and historically lowers recoveries in defaults.
Moody’s forecasts speculative-grade defaults to decline to 3.0% in the U.S. and 2.4% in Europe by October 2026 — down from 5.3% and 3.8% a year earlier — but warns that tariff shifts, inflation and geopolitical tensions could disrupt the base case.
With the Strait of Hormuz still closed and second-quarter inflation now forecast at 6% by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Survey of Professional Forecasters, the macro backdrop is far from clean.
The other complication is CLO profit math.
Spreads on the underlying loan paper have compressed so much that Morgan Stanley strategists recently estimated CLO equity arbitrage is at its slimmest level in about a year.
Tom Majewski, founder of Eagle Point Credit, captured the trade-off at the Opal Group’s annual industry conference in Dana Point, California: “Picture a wall of sand coming at you from one side and you’re trying to move boulders on the other.”
Strategists at Citigroup, led by Michael Anderson and Steph Choe, have noted that the AI capital-expenditure cycle — which is on track to draw an estimated $150 billion from leveraged finance markets over the next five years for data centers — is itself “a mixed bag for credit,” boosting corporate animal spirits while threatening incumbent business models.
For now, the imbalance is producing more — and bigger — deals.
Until either the Federal Reserve signals a clearer pause, the AI-driven capex cycle slows, or a fresh credit event tightens risk appetite, borrowers and bankers appear set to keep pushing the limits of what investors will absorb.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoBy JBizNews Desk | May 15, 2026
Wall Street ended a volatile week on the back foot Friday, with the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite all selling off sharply as a two-day Beijing summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping produced no major policy breakthroughs, crude prices climbed back above $100 a barrel on renewed Iran war anxiety, and the 10-year Treasury yield spiked to a fresh one-year high. CNBC and TheStreet reported the S&P 500 fell about 1.1% to roughly 7,424, the Dow dropped about 480 points or near 1% to around 49,580 — slipping back below the 50,000 mark it reclaimed just a day earlier — and the Nasdaq Composite slid 1.3% to about 26,300. The small-cap Russell 2000 dropped roughly 2.1% as risk-off trading swept through cyclicals. The selloff threatened to end what had been a seven-week winning streak for the S&P 500, which only Thursday had closed above 7,500 for the first time in history.
The catalyst was the conclusion of President Donald Trump’s trip to Beijing, where he met with Xi Jinping alongside 16 senior U.S. executives. Trump told reporters the talks produced “fantastic” trade deals, but the headline announcements landed below Street expectations. The president said China agreed to purchase 200 Boeing aircraft equipped with GE Aerospace engines, with a path to as many as 750 over time. Jefferies analysts had been positioned for a deal as large as 500 planes, and Boeing Co. shares fell 2.8% to $222.70. Trump also said China had committed to buying U.S. crude oil, naming Texas, Louisiana and Alaska as origin points, and oil prices firmed on the news. WTI crude rose about 4% to roughly $101 a barrel while Brent climbed 1.5% to $107.30, both still trading near war-era highs reached after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz on March 4. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump raised the Iran war and the Hormuz blockade with Xi but stressed Washington was not asking Beijing to mediate.
The bond market did the heaviest lifting in shaping the Friday tape. The 10-year Treasury yield jumped nine basis points to 4.55%, its highest in a year, as traders priced in stickier inflation tied to the Iran energy shock. CME FedWatch data showed odds of a 2026 Federal Reserve rate hike climbing to roughly 45%, up from just 1% a month ago, with markets now seeing a quarter-point move to 3.75%–4% as the most likely next step. The repricing landed on the same day Jerome Powell’s term as Fed chair expired, with Kevin Warsh preparing to take the gavel. Dan Niles of Niles Investment Management told CNBC that 10 of the last 12 recessions were preceded by oil spikes and warned the current move “is starting to get uncomfortable.”
Technology stocks bore the brunt of the rotation after weeks of record-setting AI gains. Intel Corp. sank roughly 5%, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. lost 3%, Micron Technology Inc. fell 4% and Nvidia Corp. dropped 2% ahead of its earnings report next week. Marvell Technology, Arm Holdings and ASML Holding NV each shed 4% to 5%. Cerebras Systems, which surged 75% in its Nasdaq debut Thursday in a $5.55 billion IPO — the largest U.S. tech offering since Uber in 2019 — gave back about 4%. Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge said the chip group “has witnessed an extremely unsustainable move in recent weeks and remains vulnerable to profit taking regardless of the headlines.” Bucking the trend, Microsoft Corp. advanced after Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square disclosed a new position, calling the valuation “broadly in line with the market multiple.”
The week’s biggest single-name story was Cisco Systems Inc., which jumped 13.4% Thursday after reporting fiscal third-quarter revenue of $15.84 billion, up 12% year over year, and lifting its fiscal 2026 AI infrastructure orders guidance to $9 billion from $5 billion. Piper Sandler, Citi, Bank of America and KeyBanc raised price targets, while HSBC analyst Stephen Bersey upgraded Cisco to Buy with a $137 target. On Friday, Morgan Stanley reiterated Netflix Inc. as overweight following the streamer’s upfront and kept a buy rating on Applied Materials Inc., while TD Cowen reiterated Buy on Nvidia with a $275 target.
Economic data reinforced the inflation narrative driving the bond move. April CPI released Tuesday showed energy lifting headline prices, and PPI data flagged sticky services inflation. Retail sales rose 0.5% from March to April, though CNN noted much of the gain reflected higher prices rather than higher unit volumes. Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US, told CNN that “the war has come home, and Americans can feel it and see it in their grocery basket,” with polling showing 75% of Americans say the Iran war has hurt their finances.
Corporate cost discipline also drew attention. Starbucks Corp. said it will lay off 300 corporate employees, its third round of cuts under CEO Brian Niccol, taking $400 million in restructuring charges. Verizon Communications Inc. CFO Tony Skiadas confirmed a fresh round of layoffs as the carrier targets $5 billion in operating expense savings by the end of 2026. Investors head into next week eyeing earnings from Nvidia, Home Depot Inc., Toll Brothers Inc. and Cava Group Inc., alongside April housing starts and building permits.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoWSB-TV Channel 2 Action News reported Thursday that residents of a northwest Atlanta neighborhood say dozens of empty autonomous vehicles operated by Waymo have been streaming into their dead-end streets at daybreak, circling for hours with no passengers aboard and raising fresh questions about how robotaxi fleets behave in residential areas. In a report by Channel 2’s Steve Gehlbach, neighbors on Battleview Drive said as many as 50 driverless cars passed through their cul-de-sac between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. on a single recent morning.
The pattern began about two months ago, residents told the station, but intensified sharply in recent weeks as larger clusters of the autonomous Jaguar I-PACE vehicles began looping through residential streets. “It’s almost every little cul-de-sac in our area, so I think it’s a problem,” one neighbor said. Another told the station the family woke up to a steady procession of driverless cars at sunrise: “I think yesterday morning, we had 50 cars that came through between 6 and 7.” Residents said they want the vehicles confined to main traffic arteries unless they are actively picking up or dropping off a rider.
The Atlanta robotaxis are operated by Waymo, the autonomous-driving subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., and are dispatched exclusively through the Uber app in the metro area under a partnership the two companies launched on June 24, 2025. The service covers roughly 65 square miles spanning Buckhead to Lakewood Heights and operates a fleet of fully electric Jaguar I-PACE SUVs equipped with the Waymo Driver autonomous system. Nicole Gavel, head of business development and strategic partnerships at Waymo, said at launch that Atlantans would gain access to “the same safety, comfort, and convenience” the company has rolled out in San Francisco and Austin. Sarfraz Maredia, who oversees autonomous mobility and delivery at Uber Technologies Inc., has positioned the tie-up as central to the ride-hailing company’s strategy of scaling driverless trips without owning the fleet.
What residents are seeing on Battleview Drive is the underside of that scaling effort. Empty autonomous cars routinely “deadhead” — driving without passengers to reposition between trips, recharge or stage near anticipated demand. Routing algorithms optimized for system-wide efficiency can funnel large numbers of vehicles into pockets of a service map at the same time, with little regard for the local character of the streets they are using. Battleview Drive appears to have become one of those pockets.
In a statement provided to WSB-TV, Waymo said it has already adjusted the behavior. “At Waymo, we are committed to being good neighbors. We take community feedback seriously and have already addressed this routing behavior,” the company said, adding that its autonomous service completes more than 500,000 weekly trips nationwide and is designed to reduce traffic injuries. The company said it remains “focused on providing a seamless, respectful, and safe experience for riders and residents alike.”
Residents said earlier outreach went unanswered. Several told the station they had contacted Waymo directly, their representative on the Atlanta City Council and the Georgia Department of Transportation, but saw no change before the local broadcast aired. One homeowner placed a neon-green “Step2Kid” children-at-play sign at the entrance to the cul-de-sac in an effort to deter the driverless vehicles. The result was not a solution but a small spectacle: the sign confused the cars rather than redirecting them, and eight Waymos at one point bunched together as they tried to figure out how to turn around. Channel 2 saw only one Waymo circling the area during a mid-morning visit, and a human safety operator was in the driver’s seat.
For families on the street, the concern is less about novelty than about basic neighborhood safety. “We have small kids, we have animals and pets, we’ve got kids getting on the bus in the morning, and it just doesn’t feel safe to have that traffic,” one resident said. The pre-dawn timing of the surges coincides with the window in which school buses begin their rounds in much of the Atlanta area.
The Atlanta episode is not the first time the company’s Atlanta fleet has drawn local attention. In April, three Waymo robotaxis brought traffic to a standstill at an Atlanta intersection with a blinking red light. The company is also navigating a recall of 3,791 vehicles tied to a software issue that caused some autonomous cars to drive into flooded streets, according to regulatory filings.
For Alphabet and Uber, the Battleview Drive complaints arrive at a sensitive moment in the buildout of driverless services. Both companies have leaned heavily on the message that robotaxis improve street safety. Whether they can also deliver on the quieter promise of being a good neighbor — staying off small residential streets when no one needs a ride — is now becoming part of the test.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoA global rout in government bonds intensified Friday as Brent crude climbed past $106 a barrel and back-to-back inflation reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics raised the specter that the war-driven energy shock will force the Federal Reserve and other major central banks to abandon any near-term rate cuts and pivot to tightening.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose nearly 10 basis points to about 4.58%, its highest level in a year, while the 30-year bond pushed above 5% — a threshold that Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets, called “particularly concerning” given its implications for mortgage rates, corporate borrowing costs and equity valuations.
The selloff was global in scope and unusually broad in maturity.
U.S. 2-year yields climbed to 4.06%, a level not seen since March 2025, capping the largest weekly jump in long-end Treasuries since President Donald Trump’s tariff salvo first jolted markets in April 2025.
In Tokyo, the 30-year Japanese Government Bond yield hit 4% for the first time since the security was introduced in 1999, while the 20-year JGB rate reached its highest since 1996 and the 40-year touched a record going back to its 2007 debut.
U.K. 10-year gilt yields jumped as high as 5.17%, the most since 2008, with 30-year gilts at a 28-year peak.
Yields in Germany, Spain, Australia and New Zealand all moved in lockstep.
The trigger is the same energy shock that produced the worst inflation readings in three years.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday that the Consumer Price Index rose 0.6% in April and 3.8% from a year earlier — the highest annual pace since May 2023 — driven by a 28.4% surge in gasoline prices and a 17.9% jump in the broader energy index.
One day later, the Producer Price Index showed wholesale prices rose 1.4% on the month and 6% over twelve months, the largest annual gain since December 2022.
Core PPI rose 1% in April, more than double the consensus forecast.
Fed Governor Michael Barr told an audience Thursday that inflation is now the overwhelming risk facing the economy, a marked shift in tone from a central bank that had signaled patience for most of the spring.
Markets responded accordingly.
According to data compiled by Bloomberg, traders are now pricing in nearly a two-thirds probability that the Fed will raise interest rates in December — an outcome that would mark the central bank’s first hike under incoming Chair Kevin Warsh, whom President Trump tapped to succeed Jerome Powell and whom the U.S. Senate confirmed on Wednesday.
The current federal funds target range stands at 3.50% to 3.75%.
John Briggs, head of U.S. rates strategy at Natixis North America, said in a client note that 10-year Treasury yields may continue to push higher as the global inflation impulse from the energy shock works through producer and consumer pipelines.
“Bond yields definitely feel like they are getting unhinged,” Subadra Rajappa, head of U.S. rates research at Société Générale Americas, told Bloomberg Television.
Stephen Spratt, a rates strategist at Société Générale in Hong Kong, said the move suggests investors are aggressively unwinding carry positions and short-yield bets that had been built up in expectation of a more dovish Fed.
The Japanese leg of the rout carries unusual significance.
Rinto Maruyama, senior FX and rates strategist at SMBC Nikko Securities, said the 30-year JGB at 4% is a historic break for an economy that has battled deflation for most of three decades.
Wage gains, sticky producer prices and a fresh supplementary budget being weighed by the government in Tokyo are all feeding bets that the Bank of Japan will continue to tighten.
In London, the bond selloff was compounded by a political crisis threatening Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham signaled he will seek a return to Parliament, raising the prospect of a Labour leadership challenge that could unwind Starmer’s effort to restrain government spending.
Gilts sold off sharply on the news.
Equities absorbed the bond move with notable weakness.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 494.48 points, or 0.99%, to 49,568.98.
The S&P 500 dropped 76.15 points, or 1.02%, to 7,425.09.
The Nasdaq Composite slid 339.74 points, or 1.28%, to 26,295.48, dragged lower by losses in Intel, AMD, Micron Technology and Nvidia.
Microsoft bucked the trend after Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management disclosed a new position in the stock.
Prashant Newnaha, senior Asia-Pacific rates strategist at TD Securities in Singapore, summed up the mood: “The move higher in global bond yields is a little unsettling.”
With the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed, the Trump-Xi summit having ended without a breakthrough, and U.S. inflation data running hot, investors are bracing for a long summer of repricing.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoA large Coca-Cola bottling plant in Southern California will shut down permanently this summer, ending a longstanding relationship between the company and the city.
Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling made the announcement in a May 8 WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notice – a legally required 60-day “heads-up” that employers must give to workers before a major layoff or office closure.
“We regularly assess our locations, products, and services to ensure we can continue driving sustainable growth and innovation across our business,” a spokesperson for Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling wrote to SFGATE. “As such, we have announced the closure of our Ventura Distribution Center and the transfer of operations to our other Southern California facilities.”
COCA-COLA’S SUGARCANE SHIFT: STATES THAT COULD BENEFIT FROM THE BEVERAGE GIANT’S LATEST MOVE
The closure of the Ventura plant will impact 85 employees, the company said.
“Most (78) will be reassigned to other RCCB facilities,” the spokesperson said. “Additionally, affected employees have the option of applying for any open roles for which they are qualified within RCCB and our sister companies.”
The last day of operations will be July 10, Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling said. The roles slated for elimination include drivers, fleet mechanics, merchandisers and customer growth representatives.
The facility was most recently used as a distribution center. The closure will end Ventura’s long relationship with Coca-Cola, which spanned more than a century, according to local reports.
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FOX Business has reached out to Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling and the city of Ventura for further comment.
A Coca-Cola plant in American Canyon, California, closed last year, laying off 135 employees in August 2025. That same month, Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling closed its Salinas plant after more than seven decades, SFGATE reported.
JBizNews3 days agoNEW YORK — May 15, 2026 — Americans are overpaying for wireless service by an average of $456 per year, according to a Consumer Reports analysis that has been quietly reshaping the U.S. cell-phone market — and a wave of low-cost carriers running on the exact same cellular towers as Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., and T-Mobile US Inc. is finally giving cost-conscious households a credible exit. Major-carrier postpaid plans now run $60 to $80 per single line, while equivalent coverage from Mint Mobile, Visible, US Mobile, and Cricket Wireless is available for as little as $25 per month — a 40% to 70% discount on the same physical network. For households living paycheck to paycheck, the wireless bill is one of the largest recurring discretionary expenses that can be cut without sacrificing service quality.
The original disruptor is Mint Mobile, the prepaid brand co-founded by actor Ryan Reynolds and acquired by T-Mobile in 2024 for $1.35 billion. Mint Mobile runs on the T-Mobile network — which by T-Mobile’s own coverage data now reaches roughly 99% of Americans through its combined 4G LTE and 5G footprint — and is structured around annual prepay pricing. The company’s most popular plans now center around the $25-to-$30 range, with the unlimited plan running $30 a month if paid annually. Free calling and texting to Canada and Mexico are included on all plans. The catch is that the headline pricing is introductory; renewal rates can step up modestly, and taxes are extra.
Visible, owned outright by Verizon, has positioned itself as the simplest no-prepay alternative. The base plan is $25 a month, taxes and fees included, with truly unlimited data, calls, and texts on the Verizon 4G LTE and 5G network — which covers roughly 98% of the U.S. population. There is no annual contract and no multi-line discount because the per-line pricing is already at parity with the family-plan tier of the major carriers. Visible+ at $35 a month adds access to Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network and a Global Pass day for international travel each month. A new Visible+ Pro tier at $45 a month, launched in April, adds calling to more than 85 countries. Visible is the cleanest pick for users who want major-carrier coverage without the major-carrier bill and do not want to prepay a year up front.
US Mobile is the most flexible of the three. Rather than locking customers to a single network, US Mobile allows users to choose between Verizon, Verizon Ultra Wideband, AT&T, and T-Mobile — and switch between them via eSIM without changing accounts or porting numbers. The Unlimited Starter plan runs $25 a month with 20 gigabytes of hotspot data, taxes included, plus free international calling on all plans. Annual prepay drops the same plan to $16.60 a month for new lines. Consumer Reports ranked US Mobile first overall among prepaid carriers in 2025 with a score of 89 out of 100, ahead of Mint Mobile at 80 and Visible at 77.
Cricket Wireless, a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T, is the most family-oriented of the budget options. The company’s newer multi-line structures can push per-line pricing into the low-$30 range for families, while Boost Mobile, Tello, Total Wireless, and Metro by T-Mobile all now compete aggressively around the $25 price point. The result is that the American wireless market has quietly entered a price war most consumers have not fully noticed yet.
The ownership map is the part many customers still do not realize. Verizon owns Visible, Total Wireless, Tracfone, Straight Talk, Simple Mobile, Page Plus, and Walmart Family Mobile. AT&T owns Cricket Wireless. T-Mobile owns Metro by T-Mobile and Mint Mobile. The Big Three created these brands precisely so they could capture budget-conscious consumers without lowering their own premium pricing or damaging their flagship brand positioning. The cellular network is identical. The price is not.
The single tradeoff is data deprioritization. During periods of network congestion — typically major events, stadium evenings, urban rush hour in dense markets — postpaid customers of the parent carrier receive priority access to the network and budget-carrier customers may experience slower speeds temporarily. For most users, the impact is minimal. For heavy data users at large events or in dense cities, it can matter. Visible+ at $35 a month upgrades the user to Verizon’s premium data priority, largely eliminating the issue.
The savings, however, are immediate and substantial. The average American household with two adults on a major-carrier family plan is paying roughly $140 to $180 a month for wireless service. Switching two lines to $25 plans can save $80 to $130 a month — between $960 and $1,560 a year. For households trying to escape the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, few recurring bills can be reduced this dramatically without changing daily life at all. The switch now takes about 15 minutes through eSIM activation. The bigger question is why so many consumers are still paying flagship-carrier prices for the exact same towers.
— JBizNews Desk
© JBizNews.com. All rights reserved. This article is original reporting by JBizNews Desk. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution is strictly prohibited.
JBizNews3 days agoThe price of gasoline is set to drop as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) appears poised to collapse, experts predict. OPEC has long kept crude oil prices higher than they would otherwise be. If this pans out, it will be a major victory for the Trump administration, which is resetting global energy markets.
The news of a probable end of the oil cartel also vindicates President Donald Trump, who has previously said OPEC is “ripping off the rest of the world.” For a long time, the president has led a pressure campaign against OPEC, which has vast crude oil reserves that could easily be pumped. But the organization restricts the number of barrels of oil that each country may pump each day. That keeps gasoline prices elevated across the U.S. and much of the rest of the world.
Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at The PRICE Futures Group and a FOX Business contributor said, “Over time, the breakup of the cartel should cause gas prices to fall. With more player pricing, oil only being contained by market forces should lead to an ounce of supply and lower prices. Competition is good as it lowers prices and collusion by producers raises prices.”
WHAT A UAE EXIT FROM OPEC MEANS AND WHY IT MATTERS
The poster child for the possible beginning of the end of OPEC came in late April when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced it would quit OPEC and OPEC+ on May 1.
Flynn linked the U.S.-Israel war with Iran as a historic marker. “I think that is a real possibility and more OPEC countries want to control their own destiny. In fact, when we look back at one of the strategic victories from Operation Epic Fury, it is that it has changed the face of the OPEC cartel forever and shifted energy dominance from the cartel back into our hemisphere. The UAE was getting tired of playing second fiddle to Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the cartel. The UEA wants to assert its leadership and has a competitive goal to not only increase oil production in the long term, but it wants to assert itself as the leader of the region.”
The simple act of the UAE quitting the cartel led immediately to OPEC losing out in a big way.
“[The UAE’s] departure removes both production weight and institutional credibility, and that’s got to be a concern to Saudi Arabia and others who remain,” says Elaine Dezenski, head of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) center on economic and financial power. “I think we’re now seeing one of the final nails in the coffin for OPEC. We’re seeing alignment from the UAE towards the U.S., which is, I think, part of a broader economic statecraft.”
Some analysts say there is also a high likelihood that the UAE’s decision to leave OPEC could trigger a domino effect. Other OPEC countries will have seen the news that the UAE will be able to increase their daily production from slightly more than three million barrels a day to five million next year. That gain in production could easily prompt countries such as Iraq to jump ship, as they would then be free to pump as much oil as they can and need rather than be constrained by OPEC quotas.
HOW VENEZUELA WENT FROM SOUTH AMERICA’S RICHEST TO POOREST ECONOMY DESPITE MASSIVE OIL RESERVES
Not everyone sees the cartel’s end.
“OPEC+ is not built around noise. It is built around capacity, credibility, and coordination,” Salman Al-Ansari, a Saudi geopolitical analyst, told FOX Business. “On these fronts, the UAE is not among the most decisive players in the group. Politically, this appears less like a major economic rupture and more like a symbolic move to signal leverage and independence. But symbolism does not always translate into influence.”
Al-Ansari doesn’t foresee a collapse of OPEC. “I believe OPEC+ can continue to function and thrive,” he said. “The institution has managed internal differences before, and its strength ultimately depends on disciplined coordination rather than political signaling.”
But there’s an additional aspect to OPEC’s potential downfall.
“Cartels have a long history of working efficiently for a while and then collapsing,” Pete Earle, director of economics and economic freedom at the American Institute for Economic Research, told FOX Business. The reason for that is that members of oil cartels have an incentive to produce more fuel than their OPEC production quota. And, the cheating can ultimately lead to a breakdown of the organization, he said.
There are some things that will be different if OPEC disappears. “I don’t know whether American energy producers, oil producers, will feel happy about a lower oil price,” said Bernard Haykel, a senior fellow at FDD.
That said, major American energy companies are highly innovative at adapting to economic changes. They have done so for many decades, so lower prices might not pose a significant challenge.
Earle also said that while oil prices will come down without OPEC, they will be more volatile, making for a roller-coaster ride for anyone buying gasoline. However, there are ways for energy companies to use sophisticated financial derivatives to smooth some of the volatility.
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Earle said some countries rely heavily on oil revenues, and falling prices might lead to unintended consequences. “Lower, less stable prices that would possibly translate into domestic instability.” He continued, “Iraq and Nigeria would probably be impacted by instability.”
Whatever happens to OPEC, there is some good news on the horizon.
“We’re likely to see lower prices in the future. I’m not talking now or in six months, but let’s say a year from now, once things get back to normal, you’ll see a much lower price because of this UAE decision,” Haykel said.
Flynn, a FOX Business contributor, said, “OPEC is not only on life support, it is dead in the traditional sense. This is no longer your daddy’s OPEC and oil politics have changed forever because of what has happened since Operation Epic Fury. Still, as long as Saudi and Russia, their non-OPEC competitor, stay together, they are still a force that cannot be ignored.
JBizNews3 days agoWASHINGTON — May 2026 — U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael W. Banks resigned effective immediately Thursday after 37 years of federal service, telling Fox News congressional correspondent Bill Melugin that “it’s just time” — and handing American employers across construction, agriculture, hospitality, food processing, and meatpacking a fresh round of uncertainty about how the most aggressive interior immigration-enforcement regime in a generation will be run from here. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott confirmed the resignation in a written statement Thursday afternoon, thanking Banks “for his decades of service” and congratulating him on “his second retirement after returning to serve during one of the most challenging periods for border security.” Neither CBP nor the White House named a successor.
The business stakes underneath the personnel news are unusually concrete. Under Banks, Border Patrol was tasked with playing a substantially larger role in immigration enforcement far from U.S. borders, including coordinated workplace operations and “roving” patrols in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis led by Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino — operations that were largely discontinued after the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year. For companies in immigrant-heavy industries, the Banks-Bovino era reshaped the regulatory calculus on hiring, I-9 compliance, E-Verify enrollment, and audit risk. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Home Builders have both flagged labor-availability concerns to the administration in recent months. Tyson Foods Inc., JBS SA’s U.S. arm, and other large processors have invested heavily in compliance infrastructure since the start of 2025. The Associated Builders and Contractors has warned that the construction workforce is short hundreds of thousands of workers heading into the FIFA World Cup infrastructure push and the broader federal infrastructure pipeline.
The funding overhang only deepens the question. Banks’s departure follows a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security from February through late April, when congressional Democrats refused to approve funding for the agency, citing concerns over Banks- and Bovino-era enforcement tactics. The deal that ended the shutdown did not include funding for ICE or CBP, leaving the two enforcement agencies operating on stopgap appropriations and creating real uncertainty for federal contractors, technology vendors, biometric and surveillance suppliers, and the privately operated detention network that the agencies rely on. CoreCivic Inc. and The GEO Group Inc., the two largest publicly traded detention contractors, have publicly cited federal funding risk in recent investor communications. Vendors providing Flock Safety-style license-plate readers, drones, and surveillance infrastructure are watching the same fight.
Banks’s personal narrative was framed as victory. “I feel like I got the ship back on course from the least secure, disastrous, chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen,” he told Fox News. “Time to pass the reins, 37 years, it’s time to enjoy the family and life.” In a farewell message to agents obtained by CBS News, he wrote that the workforce “took the United States Border from the most chaotic and unsecured border in the history of this great Nation and have delivered the most secure border this country has ever seen.” Southwest border encounters are at multi-decade lows by CBP’s own monthly data. Banks said he would return to Texas to focus on family and his ranch.
The resignation is the latest in a rapid turnover at the top of every major federal immigration enforcement agency. Former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem was replaced as DHS secretary in March by former Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, a former mixed-martial-arts fighter confirmed March 24 amid backlash over the Minneapolis operation and her appearances in agency television advertising. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons is set to step down at the end of May and will be replaced on an interim basis by a longtime agency official. Bovino retired in March. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi was dismissed from the Justice Department and replaced by Todd Blanche. Former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has also departed. For corporate compliance officers, the cumulative effect is that the federal counterparties they have spent the past year building working relationships with are gone — and the new counterparties are largely unknown.
Banks’s tenure was also shadowed by reporting six weeks ago from the Washington Examiner, which cited six unnamed current and former Border Patrol employees alleging that Banks had bragged to colleagues in a prior management role about paying for sex during trips to Colombia and Thailand. A CBP spokesperson told the publication that “these allegations date back more than a decade and were reviewed years ago” and that “the matter was closed.” CBP said it “takes allegations regarding misconduct seriously” and works “to uphold the rule of law.” Neither Banks nor the agency tied Thursday’s resignation to the allegations. CNBC said it had asked CBP whether the reporting played any role in the decision and was awaiting comment.
The business question now is succession. Banks’s January 2025 appointment was itself unprecedented: the Border Patrol chief role had long been filled by career agency officials, not political appointees. Whether Trump continues that practice — or reverts to the career-official model — will be one of the first organizational tells of how the administration intends to operate the agency through the second half of 2026. A career chief would signal continuity for the compliance environment companies have built around. A second political appointee would signal that interior enforcement remains a top White House priority and that the workplace-raid playbook of the past year is likely to expand rather than contract. Either outcome has direct labor-cost and operational implications for industries that depend on immigrant labor, and for the larger universe of vendors and contractors that have built businesses around the federal enforcement apparatus. The next name out of the White House will tell the markets what to price.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoCuba has completely exhausted its reserves of diesel and fuel oil, the country’s energy minister announced on state television Wednesday night, triggering overnight protests across Havana and pushing the island’s collapsing electrical grid into what officials described as a “critical” condition.
The blackout crisis — the worst Cuba has faced since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago — now sits at the center of an escalating economic confrontation between the Trump administration and the communist government just 90 miles off the Florida coast.
“We have absolutely no fuel oil, and absolutely no diesel. We have no reserves,” Vicente de la O Levy, Cuba’s minister of energy and mines, said during remarks carried on state-run television.
According to the minister, the only fuel still feeding portions of the national grid is limited domestic natural gas production alongside small amounts of locally extracted crude oil and renewable energy generation — together covering only a fraction of national electricity demand.
In Havana, a city of more than two million residents, rolling blackouts have stretched between 20 and 22 hours per day in some neighborhoods. Power outages have spread even deeper into Cuba’s interior provinces, where infrastructure conditions are often worse.
The deteriorating conditions spilled into the streets overnight Wednesday into Thursday.
Residents in Havana neighborhoods including Lawton and Dolores blocked roads with burning trash, banged pots and pans from balconies and intersections, and chanted “turn on the lights,” according to videos circulating widely on social media and eyewitness reporting from Reuters journalists inside the capital.
The demonstrations mark the largest visible unrest in Havana since the historic July 2021 anti-government protests and present a direct challenge to the administration of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
In a statement posted on X, Díaz-Canel described the situation as “particularly tense” and blamed what he called the “genocidal U.S. blockade” for worsening the island’s economic collapse.
The immediate cause of the crisis traces directly to tightening U.S. policy.
In late January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring Cuba an “extraordinary threat” to the United States and warning that countries shipping fuel to the island could face tariffs and secondary sanctions.
Within weeks, Mexico and Venezuela — historically Cuba’s primary fuel suppliers — sharply reduced or halted shipments.
Cuba’s position worsened further after the collapse of Venezuelan support infrastructure earlier this year. Following the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, the long-standing Caracas-Havana energy pipeline that had sustained Cuba’s grid through years of economic decline effectively collapsed.
Since December, only one major tanker — the Russian-flagged Anatoly Kolodkin — has reportedly delivered crude oil to Cuba, offering only temporary relief.
The humanitarian and economic fallout is now accelerating rapidly.
Tourism, Cuba’s largest source of foreign currency, has deteriorated sharply as airlines cancel flights over fuel shortages and hotels struggle to maintain basic operations across Havana, Varadero, and Cayo Coco.
Hospitals have postponed surgeries due to electricity shortages and limited backup fuel. Food distribution systems have broken down in parts of the country. Garbage collection has reportedly stopped in several districts, while schools and public transportation networks face growing disruptions.
Reuters correspondents described long lines outside the few remaining operational gas stations alongside an expanding diesel black market where prices have surged beyond what many Cuban households can afford.
The Trump administration has framed the crisis as an opportunity for political change rather than immediate sanctions relief.
The U.S. State Department announced Wednesday it was renewing an offer of roughly $100 million in humanitarian aid but tied the package to what officials called “meaningful reforms to Cuba’s communist system.”
In a statement, Washington said Cuban authorities must now decide whether to “accept our offer of assistance or deny critical life-saving aid.”
The United Nations last week criticized the tightening U.S. energy embargo, arguing that it risks obstructing Cubans’ “rights to food, education, health, water and sanitation.”
The crisis is also creating ripple effects inside the United States.
Florida’s large Cuban-American community has reportedly accelerated remittance transfers to relatives on the island while humanitarian organizations and shipping groups have urged Washington to permit limited fuel deliveries tied specifically to hospitals, food logistics, and medical infrastructure.
Immigration officials are also monitoring concerns that worsening conditions could trigger a new migration wave toward South Florida at a time when U.S. border enforcement resources remain heavily strained.
Geopolitically, the situation signals a broader strategic shift.
The Trump administration has increasingly indicated that following the stabilization of Middle East tensions, Cuba and Venezuela may become primary focuses of a renewed Western Hemisphere pressure campaign.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime advocate of tougher policies toward Havana and Caracas, said earlier this month that Cuba’s collapse stems from “decades of communist mismanagement” rather than sanctions alone — remarks Cuban officials dismissed as “lies.”
High-level discussions between U.S. and Cuban officials took place in Havana on April 10 but produced no public breakthrough.
Whether the latest protests represent the beginning of a larger political rupture remains uncertain.
Historically, Cuban authorities have responded to unrest through mass arrests, internet shutdowns, and the deployment of paramilitary “rapid response brigades.” Reports Thursday suggested internet access had already been throttled in several Havana neighborhoods overnight.
The next major test may arrive over the coming weekend, as temperatures climb into the 90s across much of the island while millions of Cubans remain trapped inside a collapsing electrical grid with little access to refrigeration, ventilation, or air conditioning.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoJerome Powell’s eight-year run as chair of the Federal Reserve officially ends Friday, closing one of the most consequential and politically scrutinized tenures in modern central-banking history and handing the gavel to Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor and avowed monetary hawk who has promised what he himself has called “regime change” at the world’s most important central bank.
Warsh, 56, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 13 in a vote that fell largely along party lines, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota urging colleagues from the Senate floor to support a nominee he said understood “not only the macro” but also the “microeconomy” — what Thune described as “hardworking Americans, their jobs and their livelihoods.”
Warsh will become the 17th chair in Federal Reserve history, with a separately confirmed seat on the Federal Reserve Board running until 2040. Warsh previously served as a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011, helping coordinate the rescue of Bear Stearns during the 2008 financial crisis.
Mr. Powell, 72, who said last month he had “long planned to be retiring,” took the unusual step of announcing he will remain on the board as a sitting governor through the end of his separate 14-year term in January 2028. Most departing Fed chairs have left the central bank entirely.
Powell told reporters at his final press conference on April 29 that he intended to “keep a low profile as a governor,” adding: “There’s only ever one chair of the Federal Reserve Board. When Kevin Warsh is confirmed and sworn in, he will be that chair.”
Powell has tied his continued presence to the resolution of an investigation into the Fed’s headquarters renovation project, which he wants to see “well and truly over, with transparency and finality.”
Warsh’s arrival marks the most ideologically distinct shift in Fed leadership in at least a generation.
In his confirmation hearing, he openly criticized the central bank’s handling of the 2021-22 inflation surge — the worst in four decades — and called for a fundamental reset of how the Fed communicates with markets, the public and Congress.
He has indicated he may scale back the post-meeting press-conference cadence that Powell institutionalized, and he has questioned whether the Summary of Economic Projections — the quarterly “dot plot” showing where Fed officials expect rates to head — has helped or hindered the central bank’s ability to change course quickly.
“Looking at doing it in a different, better way is the most natural thing in the world,” Powell told reporters of the communications question, acknowledging the decision would be up to his successor.
The new chair is taking the helm at a particularly difficult moment.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Survey of Professional Forecasters, released Friday, lifted its projection for second-quarter CPI inflation to a 6% annualized rate, more than double the 2.7% pace economists had projected just three months ago before U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran sent energy prices soaring.
April CPI rose 3.8% from a year earlier, the fastest annual pace in nearly three years, and April’s Producer Price Index climbed 6%, the highest reading since December 2022.
The University of Michigan’s preliminary May consumer-sentiment index also collapsed to a record-low 48.2.
The political pressure on the new chair is no less intense.
President Donald Trump, who has openly campaigned for lower interest rates throughout his second term, has placed an unusual public spotlight on the central bank.
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said in a Fox News interview earlier this month that markets were relieved Warsh would “help lower interest rates over time.”
Warsh, however, denied at his confirmation hearing that the President had ever pressured him on a specific rate decision.
“The President never once asked me to commit to any particular interest rate decision, period,” he testified. “Nor would I ever agree to do so if he had. I will be an independent actor if confirmed as chair of the Federal Reserve.”
Even with the gavel in hand, Warsh will not be able to move quickly.
Monetary policy at the Fed is made by the 12-member Federal Open Market Committee, comprising seven Washington-based governors and five regional Reserve Bank presidents on a rotating basis.
At the FOMC’s April 29-30 meeting — Powell’s last — three regional Fed presidents pushed back hard against any language suggesting the next move on rates would be a cut, leaving Warsh with a divided committee just as inflation accelerates.
Vice Chair Philip Jefferson, confirmed to a four-year term in September 2023, remains in place.
Stephen Miran, the Trump-appointed governor whose seat Warsh technically takes, has publicly downplayed concerns about overlapping influence between the outgoing and incoming chairs.
What “regime change” will look like in practice now becomes the central question for Wall Street.
Fewer press conferences, a more streamlined Summary of Economic Projections, a narrower communications mandate, and a willingness to hold rates steady — or move counter to White House preference — in the face of an inflation rate running three times the Fed’s 2% target would together amount to one of the most consequential institutional shifts in the central bank’s 113-year history.
With Powell remaining on the board as a moderating voice, and with the FOMC divided along clearly visible lines, Warsh’s opening months will be defined less by what he says he wants to do than by what the committee will let him do.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoNEW YORK — May 15, 2026 — The Home Depot Inc. and Lowe’s Companies Inc. are facing a growing consumer backlash over the quiet rollout of AI-powered license-plate-reading cameras in their store parking lots, a loss-prevention program that the two home-improvement giants describe as a tool against organized retail theft but that shoppers say they were never told about — and that some are now citing as a reason to take their business elsewhere, according to a fresh report Thursday from TheStreet and an earlier investigation by 404 Media. The cameras, manufactured by Atlanta-based surveillance startup Flock Safety Inc., were installed at hundreds of locations beginning in 2024, with neither retailer running a public announcement before the program went live.
The hardware is mounted on tall poles alongside solar panels at parking-lot entrances and exits and is built on the same automated license-plate reader, or ALPR, platform that Flock sells to more than 5,000 police departments nationwide. According to the company’s own marketing, each camera captures six to twelve images of every passing car, along with the make, model, color, and what Flock calls “unique features” — roof racks, dent patterns, bumper stickers. Every scan flows into a national database that Flock licenses to law enforcement. 404 Media reported last August that a single Texas sheriff’s office had searchable access to data from 173 cameras at Lowe’s locations across the country and dozens at Home Depot stores within Texas alone. Shoppers entering for a sheet of plywood or a bag of mulch are being scanned in the same way drivers passing a highway checkpoint would be.
The retailers say the cameras are about shrink, not surveillance. According to the National Retail Federation, the average number of shoplifting incidents per store rose 93% between 2019 and 2023, and both companies have repeatedly described retail theft as one of their most pressing operational problems. Home Depot Chief Executive Ted Decker told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in 2023 that “this isn’t the random shoplifter anymore,” framing the problem as organized rings rather than individual lifters. Lowe’s Chief Executive Marvin Ellison told a Goldman Sachs retail conference the same year that the company was leveraging technology behind the scenes to manage shrink. The companies point to landmark cases — including what authorities described as the largest organized retail-theft operation ever targeting Home Depot, with losses exceeding $10 million, and a yearlong Connecticut investigation that produced six arrests for $250,000 in Lowe’s thefts last October — as evidence the investment is producing returns.
But customers say they had no idea the cameras existed. Threads on Reddit’s home-improvement and privacy boards over the past several weeks have included shoppers expressing surprise at discovering the cameras, with multiple commenters saying they have either stopped going to one or both retailers or started parking on adjacent public streets to avoid the lot scans. Lowe’s discloses the program on its website with language that the company uses ALPRs at some stores “when allowed by law” and that the data is collected to “help ensure security, prevent theft and fraud, assist with parking enforcement, and to help maintain your safety.” Home Depot discloses that its cameras are used for “detecting and preventing theft and protecting the safety of our customers and associates” and that the company “does not grant access to our license plate readers to federal law enforcement.” Neither retailer posts the disclosure at the cameras themselves or at store entrances.
The federal-access carveout has not satisfied critics. Home Depot shares its Flock data on a standing-access basis with local police, who are themselves networked into the national platform. State audit logs reviewed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation from Virginia, Colorado, Georgia, and Washington state show federal agents accessed the broader Flock network through local police intermediaries during 2024 and 2025. Flock Chief Executive Garrett Langley has said publicly that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not have direct access to the company’s platform, and Flock has acknowledged ending a pilot program with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations after public exposure.
The legal exposure is now beginning to bite. Home Depot was hit with a class-action lawsuit in California last month alleging the company installed the cameras without customer consent and without the safeguards required under state privacy law. The filing, reviewed by the Daily Journal, argues the retailer has shared Flock camera feeds with law enforcement since at least March 2025 in violation of customer expectations. The California Senate Judiciary Committee on April 21 separately passed legislation that would require Home Depot to publicly disclose immigration-enforcement activity at its stores, with state lawmakers citing the company’s lack of voluntary disclosure. Dominick Miserandino, chief executive of retail analytics firm RTMNexus, told TheStreet that the two retailers are “effectively turning their parking lots into a law enforcement database.”
For the chains’ shareholders, the program has so far produced limited financial impact. Home Depot closed Thursday at roughly $384 a share with a market value above $380 billion. Lowe’s is valued at roughly $135 billion. Neither retailer has commented on whether it will modify, pause, or expand the Flock rollout in light of the California lawsuit or the recent consumer pushback. With 38 civil-society organizations — including Fight for the Future, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Federation of Teachers — having sent an April 1 letter to Ellison demanding the company terminate its Flock contracts, and with the legal calendar now ticking forward, the pressure on the two home-improvement giants is unlikely to ease in coming months.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoThe morning’s soft tape on Wall Street turned into a sharper sell-off into the lunch hour Friday, with losses deepening across the major indexes as a sudden spike in U.S. Treasury yields, a fresh round of corporate layoffs, and the absence of a concrete trade framework out of Beijing combined to push investors firmly out of risk assets — even as small-caps and a handful of mega-cap names ran in the other direction.
The S&P 500 fell 1.14% to roughly 7,420, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.81%, or about 400 points, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite retreated 1.62%, shedding more than 450 points. The standout, however, was the small-cap Russell 2000, which climbed 0.67% as investors rotated out of stretched mega-cap technology and into more domestically focused, rate-sensitive names — an unusual divergence given the broader risk-off tone.
The pressure was amplified by a sharp rise in U.S. Treasury yields, with the 10-year yield climbing several basis points as traders pulled forward their assumptions for Federal Reserve patience in the second half of the year. The move followed Wednesday’s Producer Price Index print showing wholesale prices climbing 1.4% in April — the largest monthly jump in nearly four years — and Tuesday’s hotter-than-expected Consumer Price Index report. With inflation running at a 3.8% annual pace and oil pressing higher, futures markets continue to dial back expectations for a near-term Fed cut.
Microsoft was the day’s most-watched winner. The software giant traded higher into midday after Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management disclosed a newly built position in the stock, taking advantage of the pullback in mega-cap tech.
“We were able to establish our position at a valuation of 21 times forward earnings, broadly in line with the market multiple and well below Microsoft’s trading average over the last few years,” Ackman wrote in the firm’s investor letter, as reported by CNBC.
The disclosure provided a rare bid in an otherwise heavy mega-cap tape and triggered a wave of sell-side commentary on whether the AI-driven multiple expansion in software has finally reset to investable levels.
Starbucks moved lower after the coffee chain announced it would lay off 300 U.S. corporate employees in its third round of job cuts under chief executive Brian Niccol’s turnaround strategy. The company is also closing some regional support offices, a sign that the operational reset announced last year continues to cut into the corporate workforce even as store-level traffic stabilizes.
The move follows a similar pattern this week at Walmart, which has begun trimming corporate headcount, and Cisco Systems, which disclosed 4,000 layoffs alongside its post-earnings surge.
Several sharp single-stock losers stood out across the midday tape. York Space Systems dropped 18%, Tango Therapeutics lost 14%, and POET Technologies retreated 12.71%, according to data tracked by TheStreet. The breadth of single-stock breakdowns underscored that the sell-off, while concentrated in technology at the index level, was being felt across themes — from defense-adjacent space names to biotech to optical photonics.
Oil prices added to inflation worries and to the day’s risk-off backdrop. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.55% to $102.74 a barrel and Brent crude climbed 1.49% to $107.30, after President Donald Trump told reporters in Beijing that China had agreed to purchase American crude oil as part of the summit outcome, according to a readout from NBC News.
The president called the trip a success, telling reporters he had secured “fantastic” trade deals and that “a lot of different problems” had been resolved with President Xi Jinping. Investors, however, focused on the absence of a formal tariff framework or a market-access agreement — the structural changes Wall Street had built into the run-up to the meeting.
Precious metals reversed sharply, with spot gold tumbling 1.43% to $4,583.02 an ounce and silver falling more than 5% to $79.07. Bitcoin firmed about 2.3% to roughly $81,400.
With the Trump-Xi summit now behind investors, attention turns next week to retail earnings from Walmart, Home Depot, Target and Lowe’s — a stretch that will offer fresh evidence on whether the squeeze on lower-income consumers is deepening; to the next print of the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, which collapsed to a record-low 48.2 in the preliminary May reading; and to the ongoing Federal Reserve chair transition, with nominee Kevin Warsh advancing through Senate confirmation as outgoing Chair Jerome Powell prepares to step down from the chair role while staying on as a Fed governor.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoNEW YORK — May 15, 2026 — The numbers look like a double paradox. President Donald Trump has spent recent weeks reminding voters that the United States pumped a record 13.6 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2025 — more than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined — and the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s May 12 Short-Term Energy Outlook confirms domestic output will hold near 13.5 million barrels a day this year. Yet in the same window, the administration has authorized the largest emergency release in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s 50-year history, ordering 172 million barrels onto world markets as part of an International Energy Agency coordinated action — more than every other participating nation combined. So if the United States is the world’s biggest producer, why is the reserve draining at all, and why are we selling more of it than anyone else? The answers lie in the math underneath the “energy dominance” slogan, and they are harder than they look.
The first piece of math is the gap between production and consumption. The United States pumps roughly 13.5 million barrels per day. It consumes roughly 20.5 million barrels per day, according to EIA forecasts. That gap of about 7 million barrels a day is filled by imports — overwhelmingly of heavier and sourer crude grades from Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and historically Venezuela — and by drawdowns of commercial and government inventories during disruptions. The country has been the world’s largest producer for years and the world’s largest consumer for decades; production leadership and net energy independence are not the same thing.
The second piece is quality, and this is where the program really splits from the politics. The shale revolution that took American production from roughly 5 million barrels a day in 2008 to 13.6 million in 2025 has produced almost entirely light, sweet crude from the Permian Basin and other tight-oil formations. But the Gulf Coast refining system that processes the bulk of American petroleum was built decades ago to run on heavier, sourer feedstock. Galveston Bay and the Motiva Port Arthur complex, the two largest U.S. refineries — each capable of processing over 600,000 barrels per day — are designed around coker and conversion units that yield more diesel and jet fuel from medium-sour crude than from light-sweet shale. So the United States simultaneously exports millions of barrels of its own light crude and imports millions of barrels of heavier grades. When the Strait of Hormuz closes, it is the heavy side of that ledger that breaks first. The SPR, which holds both light and medium-sour grades and connects directly via pipeline to refining hubs in Houston, Texas City, Freeport, Port Arthur, Lake Charles, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge, is the only American supply that can deliver heavy and medium-sour barrels into those refineries within days.
The third piece is refining capacity. The United States today operates roughly 131 refineries with a combined throughput capacity near 18.4 million barrels per day, according to the EIA. That number has been shrinking. Seven major refinery closures and conversions since 2019 — including Philadelphia Energy Solutions at 335,000 barrels per day, LyondellBasell’s Houston refinery at roughly 264,000 barrels per day, Phillips 66’s Los Angeles refinery at about 139,000 barrels per day, and Valero Energy Corp.’s Benicia, California, plant at roughly 145,000 barrels per day — have permanently removed more than 1.2 million barrels per day of processing capacity. No new major U.S. refinery has been built in nearly half a century. Even with abundant domestic crude, the country’s refining throughput is now the binding constraint on how much gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel can actually be made and delivered to American pumps. Refiners are running at roughly 95% utilization. There is no more headroom to push.
The fourth piece is the global price. Oil is a globally traded commodity, and U.S. producers sell their barrels at the global price — not a discounted “American” price. When Brent crude jumps to $117 a barrel because of a war in the Middle East, West Texas Intermediate follows it almost minute for minute. American producers do not voluntarily discount to American drivers. WTI closed Thursday at $102. The national average retail gasoline price was $4.45 a gallon on May 4 according to GasBuddy data, with some regions above $6. That math holds regardless of who pumps the most crude, because the crude itself trades at world prices.
The fifth piece is timing. Even when high prices give American shale producers every incentive to drill more — and they are — bringing new wells online from leasing to first production typically takes six to nine months. The SPR can move oil to a refinery dock in days. When the Strait of Hormuz closed on February 28, the administration did not have the option of waiting two quarters for new Permian wells to ramp; global inventories were already drawing down at roughly 4.8 million barrels a day, according to Morgan Stanley.
That answers why we drain. The harder question is why we drain more than anyone else — and the answer has four parts. First, the United States is not technically selling the barrels. The 172-million-barrel release is structured as an exchange: recipients must return every borrowed barrel plus an 18% to 22% premium between September 2026 and September 2028. If the program executes as designed, the SPR ends up larger by roughly 15 million barrels at no cost to taxpayers. The 2022 Biden-era release was a straight sale; the 2026 Trump-era release, on paper, is a loan. Second, the United States is the biggest contributor because we have the biggest reserve and the biggest consumption. The U.S. SPR held about 415 million barrels going into the release — by far the largest single national stockpile. Japan, holding the third-largest at 263 million, contributed 80 million. Germany contributed 19.5 million. The United Kingdom contributed 3.5 million. America’s 172-million-barrel contribution roughly matches our share of global oil consumption and our share of IEA-coordinated stocks.
Third — and this is the structural reason most often missed — the United States is the only country whose emergency reserves physically reach the global market. European, Japanese, and South Korean reserves are largely refiner-held commercial stocks those countries legally require their refiners to maintain. When those nations “release,” local refiners just run down inventories at home. Almost no barrels physically move. The U.S. SPR is structurally different: government-owned crude sitting in salt caverns along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast, connected by pipeline to deep-water export terminals. When America releases, the oil actually ships — which is why nearly half of the current release has flowed to Rotterdam, Asia, and Latin America. Fourth, IEA coordination is the political deal. When the United States wants global market stabilization — and we do, because global prices set our prices — we have to participate proportionally. If America held back, the coordinated release collapses and prices spike harder for everyone, including American drivers.
The unresolved question is whether the exchange structure actually holds. Several Biden-era 2022 loans were quietly restructured or delayed when oil prices fell below the return strike. If Brent drops sharply by 2028, recipient traders such as Trafigura Group, Vitol Group, Shell Plc, and BP Plc will return cheap barrels gladly. If prices stay elevated, the math gets ugly and Washington negotiates. The “no cost to taxpayer” claim is forward-looking; the verdict comes in three years. Production leadership is a real and significant achievement, and the SPR exchange is a legitimately innovative use of government inventory. But neither one shields American consumers from a global price shock, a heavy-crude shortfall at Gulf Coast refineries, or the simple fact that being the biggest stockholder in a shared global insurance pool means being the biggest payer when the claim comes due.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoNew York State lawmakers are advancing a proposal to impose a new 1% tax on all-cash home purchases of $1 million or more in New York City, a measure expected to generate roughly $160 million annually as Albany works to help Mayor Zohran Mamdani close the city’s widening budget deficit.
According to officials in New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s office, the proposal is expected to be included in the final negotiations surrounding Governor Kathy Hochul’s $268 billion fiscal 2027 state budget, with legislative votes anticipated next week.
The tax would apply to buyers paying entirely in cash and would function alongside New York City’s existing mortgage-recording tax, which currently captures financed purchases but largely bypasses all-cash transactions.
The proposal comes as cash purchases increasingly dominate New York’s luxury real-estate market.
According to data compiled by the nonprofit Center for New York City Neighborhoods, more than 60% of roughly 18,000 residential transactions recorded in New York City during the first half of 2025 were completed entirely in cash.
In Manhattan’s luxury market, the numbers are even more dramatic. Roughly 90% of transactions above $3 million were reportedly closed without financing, reflecting the growing influence of hedge fund executives, foreign investors, private-equity partners, and ultra-high-net-worth buyers.
A spokesperson for Heastie confirmed lawmakers are also debating whether to eventually expand the tax statewide to include suburban and upstate markets.
The proposed cash-purchase levy is one of two major real-estate tax measures currently moving through Albany.
Governor Hochul on Thursday also submitted detailed legislative language for a separate pied-à-terre tax targeting second homes in New York City valued above $5 million that are not used as primary residences.
According to estimates from Hochul’s office, the second-home surcharge could generate approximately $500 million annually for New York City.
The proposal would apply to one-to-three-family homes assessed at $5 million or more and would impose additional taxes ranging from roughly 4% to 6.5% above existing property-tax obligations.
The surcharge would initially remain in place for five years before requiring legislative renewal.
Together, the two measures reflect the increasingly difficult fiscal environment confronting City Hall.
Mayor Mamdani recently unveiled a $124.7 billion city budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 while warning that New York faced a historic budget shortfall exceeding $12 billion when his administration took office.
City officials said the administration reduced the deficit to approximately $5.4 billion through agency spending cuts and savings initiatives led by newly appointed “chief savings officers” across city government.
Albany ultimately agreed to provide approximately $4 billion in additional state aid to help stabilize the city’s finances.
The new tax proposals are intended to create recurring revenue streams capable of supporting that state assistance without broader increases to income or corporate taxes — tax hikes Hochul has consistently resisted.
The proposals have triggered immediate backlash from New York’s real-estate industry and several high-profile business leaders.
James Whelan, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, warned that additional transaction taxes could weaken housing activity and ultimately damage the property-tax base supporting both city and state finances.
“New York residents are already among the most heavily taxed in the country,” Whelan said in a statement.
Billionaire hedge fund founder Ken Griffin, whom Mamdani has publicly criticized during speeches targeting wealthy New Yorkers, also warned that additional taxes could accelerate the migration of high-income residents and businesses to lower-tax states.
President Donald Trump separately criticized Mamdani’s broader tax-the-rich approach earlier this year, arguing New York should encourage wealthy residents and investors to remain in the city rather than risk driving them elsewhere.
Economists and brokers say the biggest near-term concern is the so-called “cliff effect” that could emerge if the new levy takes effect.
New York City already imposes an existing mansion tax beginning at 1% on purchases above $1 million and scaling up to 3.9% for properties above $25 million.
Under the proposed framework, a buyer paying cash for a $1.5 million Manhattan apartment could face roughly $30,000 in combined transaction taxes at closing.
Industry professionals interviewed by Bloomberg said they expect a rush of transactions to close before any new taxes officially take effect, followed by a likely slowdown afterward.
While ultra-luxury buyers may absorb the costs more easily, brokers warn the greatest impact could fall on middle- and upper-middle-class buyers using inheritance proceeds, retirement funds, or profits from prior home sales to make all-cash purchases in the $1 million to $2 million range.
The state budget is now more than six weeks overdue past its April 1 deadline.
Speaker Heastie told reporters Thursday he expects lawmakers to begin voting on portions of the budget package by the end of next week, with final legislation expected to provide detailed tax language and implementation timelines.
Until then, New York’s real-estate industry, investors, brokers, and homebuyers remain closely focused on Albany negotiations that could significantly reshape the economics of buying property in the nation’s largest housing market.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoAt sundown Friday, the United States will begin the first nationally proclaimed Sabbath observance in its 250-year history, a White House-backed initiative arriving at the same moment federal courts and regulators are rapidly expanding legal protections for Americans seeking religious accommodations in the workplace.
President Donald Trump’s Jewish American Heritage Month proclamation, signed May 4, calls on Jewish Americans to observe a national Shabbat from sundown Friday through nightfall Saturday — following the traditional halakhic definition of the Sabbath under Jewish law — in what the administration has branded “Shabbat 250.”
The initiative places the Jewish Sabbath at the center of the country’s semiquincentennial programming under the broader Freedom 250 framework and arrives as workplace religious-liberty disputes increasingly move from the margins of employment law into the center of national politics, corporate policy and federal enforcement.
“Jewish Americans are encouraged to observe a national Sabbath,” Trump wrote in the proclamation. “This day will recognize the sacred Jewish tradition of setting aside time for rest, reflection, and gratitude to the Almighty.”
Participation has spread across synagogues, outreach organizations and Jewish communal institutions nationwide. Shabbat-250.com, a pledge platform tied to the initiative, showed more than 18,500 Americans registered as of Friday afternoon.
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), described the Trump administration as “one of the most openly and obviously religious White Houses in many years,” telling Jewish Insider he had observed “an unprecedented and extraordinary effort to ensure a particular comfort level for Jewish Americans” at the White House.
At the local level, synagogues and organizations from Brooklyn to Houston and Pensacola scheduled Friday-night dinners, prayer services and community events tied to the observance. NJOP, the National Jewish Outreach Program founded by Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald, folded the initiative into its longstanding “Shabbat Across America” network, which organizers say has reached more than 1.1 million participants over three decades. Rabbi Chesky Tenenbaum, director of the Jewish Uniformed Service Association of Maryland, organized a Baltimore Shabbat dinner with the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America for veterans and active-duty military personnel ahead of Armed Forces Day.
The national observance also arrives at a pivotal moment in the legal fight over workplace Sabbath accommodations.
The Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce has been active for years in advocating stronger workplace protections for Sabbath-observant employees and other religious workers, efforts that helped contribute to major Supreme Court victories expanding religious-accommodation rights under federal law. The Chamber joined coalition amicus briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court alongside the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs (COLPA) and other Jewish organizations in cases centered on Sabbath observance and workplace religious liberty, including the unanimous Groff v. DeJoy ruling in 2023. The filings, authored by constitutional attorney Nathan Lewin of Lewin & Lewin, argued that the long-standing legal framework established under TWA v. Hardison left many observant Americans vulnerable to workplace discrimination and economic pressure because of religious practice, forcing some workers to choose between employment and faith.
In Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that employers seeking to deny religious accommodations must show “substantial increased costs,” replacing the long-standing “de minimis” standard established under TWA v. Hardison (1977) that for decades made it easier for employers to reject requests from Sabbath-observant workers.
“This is a historic moment for the American Jewish community,” said Duvi Honig, Founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce. “For generations, many observant Jews in America lived with the understanding that keeping Shabbos could cost them their livelihoods. My grandparents came to America as Holocaust survivors who had already lost everything for being Jewish, and like many others from that generation, they experienced firsthand the pressure observant Jews faced in the workforce.”
Hours before the national Sabbath observance was set to begin Friday evening, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a federal religious-discrimination lawsuit against a Texas Chick-fil-A franchise operator accused of firing a worker who sought Saturdays off to observe her Christian sabbath.
The Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce said the timing of the lawsuit underscored why the fight over workplace religious accommodations remains far from over, even as legal protections have expanded significantly in recent years.
“The fact that, hours before America’s first nationally proclaimed Sabbath, the federal government is still suing employers accused of firing workers for requesting Sabbath accommodations shows how much work remains,” said Duvi Honig, Founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce. “The legal victories have been historic, but protecting religious workers in the real world remains an ongoing fight.”
The case is one of a growing number of religious-accommodation actions pursued under EEOC Chair Andrea R. Lucas, who has made workplace religious-liberty enforcement a larger priority during the Trump administration. The agency said earlier this year it had filed 16 religious-discrimination lawsuits and recovered more than $63 million on behalf of religious workers since January 2025.
Not every segment of American Jewish life has embraced the initiative. Amy Spitalnick, chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, told eJewishPhilanthropy that maintaining clear church-state boundaries has historically helped protect minority religious communities in the United States, even while acknowledging the symbolic significance of the proclamation.
Still, by Friday evening, synagogues, homes, campuses, military bases and community centers across the country were preparing to welcome what organizers describe as the first coordinated national Sabbath observance ever formally encouraged by an American president — one arriving at a moment when Sabbath protections in American labor law are simultaneously being strengthened in the courts and tested in the workplace.
JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoJERUSALEM — WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum has donated $200 million to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem through The Koum Family Foundation, the largest single gift in the history of Israel’s healthcare system and a sum that will triple the physical footprint of one of Israel’s largest hospitals, according to the hospital’s announcement and reporting confirmed across The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, eJewishPhilanthropy, and Globes. The institution will be officially renamed Koum Shaare Zedek Medical Center in honor of the gift, marking the first time in the hospital’s 124-year history that the Shaare Zedek name will be combined with a donor’s name.
The donation will fund the construction of a 24-story medical tower spanning more than 1.5 million square feet at the hospital’s existing Bayit Vegan campus in west Jerusalem. According to architectural plans developed by Mochly-Eldar Architects with construction management by Margolin Bros., the new tower will house significantly expanded surgical and emergency-care facilities, large underground protected spaces engineered for “developing regional threats,” on-site housing for medical staff, and a rooftop helipad for direct helicopter access. The project has already received approvals from the Israeli government and the Jerusalem Municipality and is reported to be advancing rapidly through the city’s planning institutions. Shaare Zedek currently operates approximately 1,000 beds; the expansion is expected to roughly triple total capacity.
Koum, 50, was born in Kyiv and immigrated to the United States as a teenager. He co-founded WhatsApp in 2009 with Brian Acton and sold the messaging platform to Meta Platforms Inc. — then Facebook Inc. — in 2014 for approximately $19 billion. The acquisition remains one of the largest private-technology deals in history and made Koum one of the wealthiest individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has since divided his time between California and Europe and has become one of the most active major donors in American Jewish philanthropy, supporting Bay Area community institutions, Russian-speaking Jewish community programs, Stanford University’s Israel studies program, AIPAC, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel on Campus Coalition, the Maccabee Task Force, Friends of Ir David, and the Central Fund of Israel. The new gift to Shaare Zedek follows a $50 million Koum Family Foundation donation last year to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba after the complex sustained a direct hit from an Iranian ballistic missile in June 2025 that caused heavy damage to the hospital’s surgical wing and laboratories.
“We are proud to partner with Shaare Zedek Medical Center, an institution that defines medical excellence in Jerusalem and beyond. This gift reflects our confidence in a future of medical innovation and research that will benefit patients in Israel and around the world,” Koum said in a statement issued by the hospital. Shaare Zedek President Prof. Jonathan Halevy called the gift “truly a special moment in Shaare Zedek Medical Center’s 124-year-old history” and said the donation reflected “remarkable confidence in our hospital, our staff, the city of Jerusalem, the nation of Israel, and a heartfelt embrace of Zionism.” Shaare Zedek Director-General Prof. Ofer Merin described the gift as “a mark of honor for every employee of our hospital” and said the partnership “will allow us to forge ahead with the construction of our new medical tower, which will set a new standard for Israeli healthcare.” The deal was structured over months of strategic negotiations led by Halevy and Merin alongside Akiva Holzer, the hospital’s director of special projects, and Yana Kalika, president of The Koum Family Foundation.
The $200 million figure surpasses the previous record set in August 2025 by Anat and Shmuel Harlap, who donated $180 million to Rabin Medical Center’s Beilinson Hospital outside Tel Aviv to fund the “Tower of Hope,” scheduled to open in early 2027. Beilinson is part of Clalit Health Services, Israel’s largest health-maintenance organization, which has substantially greater access to state budget allocation than independent hospitals like Shaare Zedek. The back-to-back nine-figure gifts represent a pattern that Israeli healthcare executives and government budget officials are watching carefully. According to reporting by Globes, Ynetnews, and Ctech, private capital — most of it American-Jewish — is now funding hospital infrastructure expansions at a scale that the Israeli state is not financing on a comparable timeline. The trend highlights a widening structural gap between institutions capable of attracting transformational private philanthropy and those dependent primarily on state budget allocations.
The healthcare-economics implications are substantial. Shaare Zedek operates as a financially independent hospital not affiliated with any of Israel’s four health funds — Clalit, Maccabi, Meuhedet, and Leumit — and consequently depends on philanthropic support more heavily than peer institutions to grow. The economics of attracting and retaining medical professionals in Jerusalem are also a meaningful factor in the project. Israel’s nationwide nursing shortage and the chronic shortfall of senior physicians in Jerusalem specifically — where housing costs are substantially higher than in peripheral cities and competing offers from Tel Aviv-area hospitals are common — have made on-campus staff housing one of the most important recruiting tools an Israeli hospital can offer. The new tower’s integrated staff housing component, funded through the Koum gift, is designed in part to address that recruiting problem and to support clinical staffing for a hospital that is about to triple its bed count.
For Israel’s healthcare system, the Koum donation is a marquee proof point that diaspora philanthropy can move on a scale and timeline that the state budget cannot match — particularly during a wartime year in which the Iran conflict has consumed substantial fiscal capacity. For the Koum Family Foundation, the gift consolidates a position as the largest single private donor to Israeli healthcare in the country’s history. And for Jerusalem, the new tower — when complete — will be the largest and most advanced single hospital facility in the city, set to anchor the medical district at the western edge of Israel’s capital for the next generation of patients.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNewsJBizNews3 days agoNike Inc. is confronting the deepest crisis its China business has faced in decades, as Chinese consumers increasingly abandon the American sportswear giant in favor of fast-growing domestic competitors including Anta Sports and Li-Ning, forcing Nike into a sweeping strategic overhaul in what was once its most important international growth market.
According to Nike earnings filings and reporting reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, revenue in Greater China now sits roughly 28% below comparable levels from five years ago, while the company has recorded six consecutive quarters of year-over-year sales declines in the region.
The deterioration has transformed China from one of Nike’s most valuable growth engines into the weakest-performing major region in the company’s global portfolio.
In Nike’s latest reported quarter, Greater China revenue fell 17%, with footwear sales down 21%, extending a prolonged decline that has weighed heavily on consolidated results and contributed to significant stock weakness over the past year.
The region still accounts for roughly 15% of Nike’s total global revenue, making the slowdown impossible for investors and management to ignore.
Chief Executive Elliott Hill, who returned to Nike in October 2024 after previously spending more than three decades at the company, acknowledged during a recent earnings call that China represents “the longest road” in Nike’s broader turnaround effort.
“This market requires a complete reset,” Hill told investors.
Nike’s China ambitions date back decades.
Co-founder Phil Knight famously described China as “one billion people, two billion feet,” a phrase that became central to Nike’s long-term international expansion strategy and helped turn China into one of the company’s most profitable regions by the early 2010s.
For years, Nike’s China playbook became a model studied by consumer brands across corporate America.
But the environment has changed dramatically.
According to Wall Street Journal reporting, internal execution problems compounded broader market shifts. Much of the operational breakdown reportedly occurred during the tenure of former China General Manager Angela Dong, who has since departed the company along with former Chief Commercial Officer Craig Williams.
Nike has since appointed longtime company veteran Cathy Sparks as Vice President and General Manager of Greater China to stabilize operations and oversee the turnaround effort.
Nike’s decline has coincided with the explosive rise of domestic Chinese sportswear brands.
Anta Sports, headquartered in Fujian province, has aggressively expanded store networks throughout China’s interior cities while strengthening its presence in performance athletics and Olympic sponsorships — categories once dominated by Nike.
Meanwhile, Li-Ning, founded by the former Chinese Olympic gymnast of the same name, has successfully blended patriotic branding, localized marketing, and lower pricing to gain share in running and basketball apparel.
Both companies have benefited from faster mainland-based supply chains and significantly shorter design and production cycles than Nike’s more globally distributed manufacturing network.
A growing number of local athleisure and outdoor brands have also fragmented the market further.
Industry analysts increasingly view Chinese sportswear brands not as low-cost imitators but as legitimate global competitors capable of challenging Western brands on product quality, innovation, and consumer engagement.
Nike’s digital execution in China has also lagged competitors.
The company reportedly did not launch a flagship store on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok owned by ByteDance Ltd., until 2024 — roughly two years after Anta, Li-Ning, and other domestic brands had already built massive followings on the platform.
Douyin has become one of China’s dominant retail-discovery ecosystems for younger consumers, particularly in sportswear and lifestyle categories.
Nike’s delayed entry into the platform cost the company valuable market share and consumer relevance during a critical period of digital transformation in China’s retail sector.
The company also faced political and cultural backlash following a controversial 2024 Paris Olympics advertisement featuring an Asian female table-tennis player licking her paddle, which drew criticism from Chinese state media during a period of heightened nationalist sentiment.
The controversy contributed to growing pressure on then-Chief Executive John Donahoe, who later departed the company.
Broader geopolitical tensions have further complicated Nike’s position.
Ongoing tariff disputes under the Trump administration, rising U.S.-China political tensions, and lingering controversies involving Xinjiang cotton sourcing have created a more difficult operating environment for American consumer brands throughout China.
While competitors such as Adidas AG have managed to return to growth in China through more localized product strategies and faster execution, Nike continues struggling to regain momentum.
At the same time, premium athletic brands including Lululemon, Hoka, and On Holding are capturing market share globally, intensifying competitive pressures beyond China alone.
Hill’s turnaround strategy centers on what Nike internally calls a “back to sport” approach — refocusing the company on performance running, basketball, and athletic training after years emphasizing lifestyle apparel and fashion-oriented collaborations.
Nike said early signs from March showed stabilizing traffic trends at some Chinese stores, particularly in performance-running categories, where sales reportedly returned to double-digit growth.
Still, analysts at firms including Jefferies, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup continue identifying China as the single largest risk factor facing Nike’s fiscal 2026 outlook.
For Wall Street and the broader retail industry, Nike’s struggles underscore a major shift underway in the Chinese consumer economy.
The China market that once fueled decades of relatively easy growth for American companies including Nike, Apple, Starbucks, and others has fundamentally evolved.
Chinese consumers are wealthier, more digitally sophisticated, more nationalistic, and increasingly loyal to domestic brands capable of competing globally.
Whether Nike can reclaim its lost market share — or whether China’s “two billion feet” have permanently moved elsewhere — may ultimately define Elliott Hill’s leadership and the company’s future growth trajectory.
— JBizNews Desk
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JBizNews3 days agoCoffee giant Starbucks is slashing about 300 U.S. support roles and closing some regional support offices.
“We are taking further action under the Back to Starbucks strategy, building on our strong business momentum and working to return the company to durable, profitable growth,” a Starbucks spokesperson said in a statement to FOX Business.
Leaders have taken a hard look at their respective functions to further sharpen focus, prioritize work, reduce complexity, and lower costs. As a result, we’re eliminating approximately 300 U.S. support roles,” the spokesperson said.
The company is also closing some regional support offices.
“We are streamlining our real estate footprint including consolidating U.S. regional support office space and taking several other steps with leases and lease commitments,” the spokesperson noted.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
