Finance
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This upstart stablecoin bank just won a rare OCC charter and raised $40 million. Its CEO is only 25
“This is the best product in the history of the world but distribution is broken,” says Ferdinand Dabitz, holding up a $100 bill. Even though U.S. dollars are the world’s favorite currency, says Dabitz, many people seeking to get them must rely on an antiquated system of banks with limited hours staffed by clerks. The
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Forget the Rust Belt or the Sun Belt. The ‘Wired Belt’ may be the next frontier of American political power
The laid-off factory worker from Youngstown, Ohio, became the defining figure of American politics for the past two decades. The jobless financial professional from Philadelphia’s suburbs could be the defining figure of the future, and their demands may be harder to ignore. That’s the warning from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. The American AI
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Markets sell off as U.S.-Iran ceasefire plans go nowhere, leaving Trump with military options to reopen the Strait of Hormuz
Hopes for a peace deal with Iran waned on Sunday, raising the risk that the global energy crisis will drag on and leaving the U.S. to weigh military operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial average fell 200 points, or 0.40%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.33%, and Nasdaq futures lost 0.28%.
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Mah Sing sees natural ‘spillovers’ from Malaysia’s strong growth, as the conglomerate bets on premium residences and data centers
A Malaysian property developer founded six decades ago as a plastics trader is repositioning itself for the artificial intelligence era, leveraging land banks in the Klang Valley and Johor to court data center operators. Mah Sing, No. 422 on Fortune’s Southeast Asia 500 list, had a blockbuster 2025, reporting decade-high real estate sales of 2.51
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Market guru Yardeni sees S&P 500 hitting 8,250 this year, highest among top Wall Street forecasters, as earnings bolster ‘Roaring 2020s’
Yardeni Research President Ed Yardeni, who has been beating the drum about another Roaring Twenties since the decade began, is even more optimistic on stocks this year as recent earnings are driving a meltup. On Sunday, the market veteran hiked his year-end forecast for the S&P 500 to 8,250 from 7,700—making him the most bullish
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World’s largest oil company reports 25% profit jump as exports via Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline bypass Strait of Hormuz closure
Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, reported Sunday that its first quarter profits jumped 25% over last year, as it increased exports by using a pipeline that avoids shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been disrupted by the Iran war. Formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., Aramco reported a profit of
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The global economy is experiencing the largest capex cycle ever, with nearly $5 trillion seen by the end of the decade—and it’s not all AI spending
AI hyperscalers aren’t the only big spenders fueling the economy and financial markets as the energy sector is experiencing its own capital tsunami. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft have been plowing hundreds of billions of dollars a year into AI. But the Iran war and closure of the Strait of Hormuz have highlighted another factor
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Qatar sends first LNG shipment through Hormuz since war started
A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar appears to have transited the Strait of Hormuz, marking the country’s first export out of the region since the Iran war began. The Al Kharaitiyat, which loaded at the Ras Laffan export plant earlier this month, exited the strait and is in the Gulf of Oman, ship-tracking
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‘This is the way’: Elon Musk endorses Warren Buffett’s famed 5-minute plan to fix the national debt
The national debt is set to reach $40 trillion in the near future if it continues to grow at its current pace. That has caught the attention of the richest man in the world. Elon Musk has joined the likes of Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in supporting a solution to
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‘Americans are literally getting squeezed’: A top economist on why your wages are disappearing while the rich keep booking vacations
Consumer sentiment in the U.S. has officially never been worse. The University of Michigan’s final April reading came in at 49.8, the lowest in the survey’s 74-year-history. Three of the four lowest sentiment readings ever recorded have now happened in the past nine months. To be fair, the survey isn’t without its critics. Economists have