Financial Mindset

Visa entered  Formula 1  in 2024 with Red Bull Racing its  first new global sports sponsorship  agreement in 15 years. But it was a bumpy launch as its entry came with a name  mocked as one of the worst  in motorsports history. Didn’t matter to Visa, which on Thursday announced a four-year contract extension through 2030 that expands its partnership with Red Bull Racing and Visa Cash App Racing Bulls. Some fans call it VCARB, others call it Racing Bulls, and some even say Visa Cash App. “When people embrace what you’re doing, people will find a way to talk about your name in positive light,” Frank Cooper, chief marketing officer of VISA, told The Associated Press. “Names become affectionate names once people find some kind of close connection to the company, the drivers, the team, and so people have gotten comfortable with it. “I don’t know anyone has settled on ‘This is exactly what we’re going to call it every single time’ because sometimes people w...

As companies send mixed signals about how AI will impact white-collar jobs, one thing is certain: entry-level jobs are facing the brunt of AI uncertainty—and the effects are being felt around the world.  A new report from the Irish Department of Finance found that AI’s impact on the labor market is concentrated most among young workers. About 63% of jobs in the country are “relatively exposed” to AI, but some industries, like tech and financial services, are already seeing the effects of AI adoption.  Young workers (ages 15 to 29) in the tech sector are experiencing one of highest rates of job stagnation in Ireland, with employment falling 20% between 2023 and 2025. During that same period, employment for “prime-age” workers (ages 30 to 59) grew by 12%, the study found. The effects are most felt among younger workers in the financial, tech, information and communications sectors. Employment among 15-to 29-year-olds in ‘at risk’ sectors declined by 1%, between 2023 and 2025...

The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate slipped this week to its lowest level in more than three years, but remains around 6% in the same narrow range it has been in this year. The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate fell to 6.01% from 6.09% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the rate averaged 6.85%. The modest pullback brings the average rate to its lowest level since Sept. 8, 2022, when it was 5.89%. That was the last time the average rate was below 6%. Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s  interest rate policy decisions  to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans. The 10-year Treasury yield was at 4.08% at midday Thursday, down from around 4.09% a week ago. Mortgage rates have been trending lower for months, helping drive a pickup in home sales t...

In a meta-experiment on the future of the global economy, Deutsche Bank Research Institute turned to the machine itself for answers. Rather than relying solely on traditional economic modeling, analysts asked their proprietary AI tool, dbLumina, to identify exactly which industries it intends to upend. The resulting report offers a stark vision at a “great rebalancing,” pinpointing exactly where the algorithms expect to displace human labor. The experiment, detailed in a report titled “What AI says about AI eating itself and the world…,” utilized Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro model to generate a deep analysis of global sectors. The findings suggest that data-rich industries with repetitive tasks are standing on a precipice, while those requiring human empathy or manual dexterity in unpredictable environments remain safe—for now. (And Fortune Intelligence, the wing of the Fortune newsroom that uses generative AI as a research tool, conducted a meta-meta-experiment to expedite the publishin...

“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” So said George Santayana , the Spanish-American philosopher who was a star Harvard professor before resettling in Europe and becoming an influential public intellectual. Santayana’s writings served as a guiding light during some of the darkest days of two World Wars and the near cataclysm of the mid-20th century—a fate that none other than Ray Dalio sees repeating itself in the near future. So maybe it’s time for a quick history lesson about the first couple industrial revolutions, with the labor force going through what leaders such as Nvidia’s Jensen Huang have described as another one: the AI boom. In the early 1800s, as inventions like the Spinning Jenny and the steam engine reshaped Britain and soon the world, old mills were suddenly able to produce more goods than ever. Productivity soared in a way that historians are still grappling with measuring. Meanwhile, worker pay remained stagnant for more than 50 years—a phenom...

One could argue that last week’s surprisingly robust jobs report has made Jerome Powell’s job harder, as it defies the narrative economists had widely believed when it came to the slowing pace of the economy. On the other hand, some might argue that the Fed chairman’s exit from the top job at the central bank just got easier, because it may support a call for inaction by the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). Prior to Wednesday, speculators had been fairly balanced in their view on whether a 25bps cut would come at the FOMC’s next meeting in March, giving it a probability of around 40%, per CME’s FedWatch barometer. But the jobs report , showing nonfarm payroll employment rose by 130,000 in January, blew those odds out of the water: They now indicate a more than 92% likelihood of a hold at the next meeting. That inverse relationship comes from the idea that the Fed will only continue to reduce the base rate if it needs to in relation to its mandate: Keeping i...

In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady reports on new threats to the loyalty economy. The big leadership story: Why corporate accountability for the Epstein files is so hard to come by. The markets: U.S. futures are trending lower after the holiday break. Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune . Good morning. Americans love their loyalty points. Almost three-quarters of them use a credit card that lets them earn rewards. And the income generated from issuing those points is critically important to many players in the Fortune 500, especially airlines, hotels, and merchants. Delta Air Lines alone reported a 6% increase in loyalty revenue last year, with co-brand income from Amex up 11% to $8.2 billion .  U.S. companies are expected to issue or redeem about $26 billion in points for customers this year. That doesn’t include the hundreds of billions of dollars in uncashed points that keep people tethered to their loyalty programs, despite devaluations, or perks t...