Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
When Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office to announce Project Vault, the headline number did much of the talking: a $12 billion financing blitz, anchored by a $10 billion federal loan and supplemented by private capital, to build a Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve. The initiative is framed as an emergency response to U.S. Geological…
Workday has seen roughly $40B in market value erased after investors balked at its AI-era growth trajectory, turning a once high-flying enterprise software name into a cautionary tale about transition risk. Now cofounder Aneel Bhusri is stepping back in as CEO with a pay package worth about $138.8M, a comeback bet that ties his fortunes…
The Dow Jones Industrial Average just smashed through 50,000, capping a 1,207 point surge that ended what traders called the SaaSpocalypse week and extending a run that had already seen the index gain 515 points earlier in Feb. That kind of milestone can tempt anyone to chase hot stocks or cash out entirely. I want…
The couple thought they were ending the night with a deal: dinner at a neighborhood restaurant, paid for with a discounted Synergy gift card they had picked up at Costco. Instead, staff at the Greek Corner Cafe had to tell them their card would not go through, leaving them stunned and reaching for a backup…
Russia’s central bank cut its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points on February 7, 2025, lowering the key rate from 16% to 15.5% and signaling that more easing may follow if inflation behaves as expected. In its guidance, the Bank of Russia said it would assess the need for a further key rate cut…
Idle cash in brokerage accounts rarely gets much attention from investors, yet a new ruling is set to decide whether clients can claw back years of lost interest on those balances. On a recent decision date set out in the primary legal document, a panel weighed claims that JPMorgan’s cash sweep program quietly diverted earnings…
When Fifth Third Bancorp officially closed its all-stock acquisition of Comerica Incorporated on February 2, 2026, the celebration for shareholders quickly gave way to anxiety for workers in Texas. Within days, Comerica began notifying state officials of fresh layoffs tied to the integration, filing Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification notices that outlined job cuts at…
Michael Burry, the hedge fund manager made famous by “The Big Short,” is now targeting Palantir, the data analytics company that has become a central player in the NHS’s push into AI. His new bearish bet implies as much as 200 billion dollars of downside for a firm that has been pitching itself as indispensable…
Los Angeles Unified is racing toward a rescheduled February 2026 vote on sweeping reductions-in-force, with the district up against the March 15 statutory deadline to notify employees of potential layoffs. At the center is a roughly 200 million dollar budget hole colliding with previously negotiated, phased wage increases that are still rolling out. Superintendent Alberto…
A new Democratic report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee minority says some Trump-era deportations to third countries cost taxpayers up to $1 million per migrant, driven by charter flights and months of overseas detention. The report examines secretive agreements through Jan. 2026 and estimates total third-country removals at likely upward of $40 million, including…
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