Financial Mindset

U.S. stock futures fell and oil prices rose after peace talks between the U.S. and Iran got off to a rocky start on Sunday, with President Donald Trump wasting no time with threats to renew war. Futures tied to the Dow Jones industrial average fell 191 points, or 0.37%. S&P 500 futures were down 0.52%, and Nasdaq futures lost 0.74%. U.S. oil futures rose 2.1% to $78.19 a barrel, while Brent crude climbed 1.2% to $81.53. Gold dropped 1.5% to $4,180.40 per ounce. Earlier in Switzerland, Vice President JD Vance said both sides had already made “great progress” in talks, saying the U.S. side represented an “outstretched hand” toward the people of Iran. But after Iran said Saturday that it’s closing the Strait of Hormuz again as Israel continues attacking Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, Trump told Fox News on Sunday he spoke with Iranian officials and warned them, “You close it and you won’t have a country. You won’t even make it back to yo...

The male labor force participation rate in the U.S. has been falling for generations, perplexing economists who have struggled to come up with an explanation. According to the Labor Department’s latest data , the rate for men 20 years and older was 69.5% in May, down from 76% in May 2006. That means fewer men were employed or unemployed but actively looking for a job. The male participation rate peaked at 86.4% in 1950, but slid to 79.7% in 1970, and 76.4% in 1990. By contrast, female participation rose steadily until the 1990s, peaked in 2000, and has dipped only slightly since then. Numerous theories have been thrown around to try shedding light on the more recent declines among males. After the housing bubble popped and triggered the Great Recession, for example, the sudden loss of construction jobs was partly blamed for men dropping out of the work force. The introduction of more advanced video games since the early 2000s has even been cited as a cause for ...

President Donald Trump may have signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran to end the war late Wednesday, but it doesn’t resolve a much darker issue: Iran’s nuclear weapons.   While Iran affirms that it won’t develop nuclear weapons in the agreement , curbing the actual process of making those weapons—stockpiling and enriching uranium—is left to be finalized later. Crucially, the MOU states that in the meantime, Iran will “maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program.” “What the negotiators are trying to capture is that Iran takes no further advances with its nuclear program, but they should have considered that the status quo is pretty poor,” Andrea Stricker , a national security expert specializing in nuclear weapons, told Fortune . “If I were negotiating, I would have insisted that restoration of monitoring and access would have to be something that Iran had to do in the MOU because it’s so important.” Iran hasn’t allowed the UN watchdog responsible for mo...

U.S. and Iranian negotiators headed to a Swiss venue Saturday for talks on adding key details to their  interim agreement to halt  the war , hours after Tehran said it closed the  Strait of Hormuz because of Israel’s attacks in  Lebanon  and warned that little might be achieved if the fighting doesn’t stop. U.S. President Donald Trump , in response, unleashed a new threat to impose American tolls in the crucial waterway if a final deal with Iran isn’t reached in 60 days, saying the money would be for “services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East.” The agreement calls for toll-free travel for 60 days. The announcements indicated a rough start to the technical-level talks that key mediator Pakistan said will begin Sunday, with Qatari mediators also participating. U.S. Vice President  JD Vance  left for Switzerland on Saturday evening, just as Iranian state TV posted video showing Iran’s negotiators arriving there. They are led ...

There’s growing alarm among European leaders over the flood of Chinese exports threatening their home-grown industries, and their response could resemble something from President Donald Trump’s trade war. Frustration is boiling over as China’s goods trade surplus with the European Union hit 360.6 billion euros ($414 billion) in ​2025, up 15% from 2024. And in the first four months of this year, the gap has expanded by 10%. In fact, French President Emmanuel Macron even suggested a course of action that’s straight out of Trump’s own playbook. “We must take protective measures, safeguard measures,” he said last month, calling for “the European equivalent of Section 301.” Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the U.S. to impose tariffs in response to unfair or discriminatory trade practices. After the Supreme Court struck down the global duties Trump levied last year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, he plans to use ...

When Jim Fitterling of Dow and Tim Cook of Apple step down as CEOs in July and September respectively, the Fortune 500 will lose two widely respected leaders who led their companies through transformational eras.  The exits of the two men, who both identify as gay, will also mark a dispiriting step backward for LGBTQ+ representation in the C‑suite. After September, there will be only one out LGBTQ+ chief executive left in the Fortune 500: Land O’ Lakes’ Beth Ford. It’s a reminder of how the highest echelons of corporate America remain largely straight, white, and male—and how difficult it is to maintain gains in representation. Only three years ago, there were four LGBTQ+ CEOs when Macy’s was still led by Jeff Gennette, who stepped down in 2024. Outside of the Fortune 500, there have also been recent exits: Coty , the beauty products maker giant, saw its CEO Sue Nabi, a rare transgender executive, leave her job late last year.  Other historically underrepresented gro...

Singapore has spent decades selling the world on the promise that it can be trusted by all sides. For a new generation of AI companies, that pledge has never been more valuable. OpenAI and Google DeepMind both established applied AI labs in the city-state over the past year, while Anthropic began advertising local positions in finance, product support, and economic research. Chinese firms like Tencent have also deepened their investment in the country. “All the AI companies I work with, whether they’re from China, Korea or Japan, all use Singapore as a hub,” Gunja Gargeshwari, the chief revenue officer of Israel-headquartered web scraping firm Bright Data, told Fortune on the sidelines of the SuperAI summit in Singapore. “It’s easiest to operate in the region if I have people in Singapore—it’s where conversations are happening, and where the innovation hubs for different providers are being set up.” Bright Data, for instance, has chosen to position Singapore as its APAC he...