Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
Gold has smashed through the psychological ceiling of $5,000 an ounce, turning a long‑running bull market into a flashing warning light for the global economy. The move caps a two‑year climb that has transformed the metal from a quiet portfolio hedge into a front‑page barometer of fear about debt, inflation and political risk. For investors…
Investors hunting for market-beating returns are zeroing in on a handful of exchange-traded funds that have already proven they can outpace the S&P 500 and may have the structural tailwinds to keep doing it for years. One fund in particular, focused on financial stocks, is attracting heavy inflows as the economic backdrop shifts in its…
Norway’s $2.1 trillion sovereign wealth fund is being told to harden itself against a fresh round of political and economic shocks from its single most important market, the United States. The world’s biggest owner of listed equities is not planning to retreat from America, but its managers and political overseers are openly bracing for tariffs,…
Washington is again racing the clock as a funding deadline approaches and a partial federal shutdown looms for this weekend. The immediate trigger is a clash over money for immigration enforcement and border security, but the stakes reach far beyond one department, from air travel and tax filing to key economic data and immigration processing….
Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to revive a traditional, pro-market conservatism built on tax cuts, deregulation, and faster growth. Now some of the country’s most prominent economists argue that what has emerged instead is one of the most interventionist and fiscally reckless economic agendas in modern Republican history. They warn that the costs will…
Tax season is delivering a political promise in cash form: bigger checks landing in mailboxes and bank accounts across the country. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act has supercharged refunds for millions of households, turning the annual filing ritual into something closer to a midwinter stimulus payment. Hidden behind that windfall is a long tail…
Artyom Panfilov/Unsplash Winter storms across the eastern United States have turned the quiet hum of AI data centers into a flashpoint for the power grid, sending wholesale electricity prices to levels that would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago. In parts of “data center alley,” real-time costs spiked into four figures per megawatt-hour…
German companies poured money into Chinese factories, research centers and joint ventures in 2025, even as political rhetoric in Washington and Berlin warned of overreliance on Beijing. Investment flows reached their highest level in four years, turning the threat of a new trade war into a catalyst for deeper corporate entanglement with the world’s second‑largest…
Millions of Americans are working, yet unable to secure the hours or wages they need to cover basic bills. The official unemployment rate still looks low, but a growing body of data shows a far larger share of the workforce stuck in unstable, low paid, or part time roles that do not add up to…
The world’s biggest trade deals of 2026 are being signed without Washington at the table, and that is not a coincidence. From a vast India–EU pact to new agreements linking Canada and China, major economies are wiring together alternative trade routes while the United States leans on tariffs and one-off bargains. What is taking shape…