Money, Wealth & Power—A Daily Look at the Financial World
The first weeks of 2026 have delivered a harsh reality check for anyone hoping the United States housing market would glide into a gentle recovery. Instead of a smooth landing, three clear warning signals are flashing at once: weakening demand, swelling supply and a grinding affordability squeeze that refuses to ease. Taken together, they point…
Global investors are yanking cash out of stock funds at a pace that signals a sharp rethink of risk. Massive withdrawals from U.S. and Chinese strategies are driving a record exodus from global equity products, even as some money rotates into select emerging markets and cash-like havens. The shift is reshaping how portfolios are positioned…
Artificial intelligence is already reshaping who wins and who loses in the global economy, and the early pattern is stark. Productivity gains are flowing fastest to the people and firms that were already ahead, while a wave of automation threatens to erase exactly the kind of entry level jobs that used to be a ladder…
Bank of America has just fired off one of its starkest messages in years, arguing that the stock market’s apparent calm is masking deep structural risks. The bank is warning that investors are leaning on an outdated playbook at a time when positioning, valuations, and sentiment all look stretched, leaving portfolios exposed if conditions turn….
Top executives are no longer couching their climate arguments in polite boardroom language. Faced with a ferocious political and cultural backlash against green policies, a group of prominent CEOs has started using blunt, even expletive-laced warnings to insist that abandoning climate action would be a historic mistake. Their message is simple: the fight over net…
California is once again in open court combat with Washington, this time over a plan to restart coastal oil pipelines that ruptured in a notorious spill a decade ago. The state has filed a sweeping lawsuit to block the Trump administration from greenlighting Sable Offshore Corp.’s restart of the Las Flores pipeline system, arguing that…
When Warren Buffett told shareholders that America’s “incredible period” was winding down, he was not calling for collapse so much as a comedown from extraordinary tailwinds. His warning landed in a moment of high inflation, rising rates and stretched stock valuations, raising a sharper question: was the country’s long run of easy gains already behind…
California Governor Gavin Newsom is warning that if the gap between the very rich and everyone else keeps widening, democracy itself “will die.” The anxiety is not abstract: the top 1 percent now controls a towering share of national wealth while wages for typical workers struggle to keep up with housing, health care, and education…
Bond investors are used to thinking of Treasurys as the safest corner of the market, but one of Wall Street’s biggest banks is waving a red flag. Bank of America is telling clients that, in the current environment, traditional bonds look more like a source of risk than a refuge. I see the same backdrop…
The United States relies on foreign buyers to finance a towering federal debt load, and a handful of countries now sit at the center of that web. As political tensions rise and the dollar wobbles, investors and policymakers are asking whether those big creditors might try to use their holdings as leverage. I see a…