Financial Mindset

The strangest political convergence of 2026 just got stranger. Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. government may take direct equity stakes in AI giants like OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI — essentially endorsing the populist logic that Sen. Bernie Sanders articulated just days earlier, and validating the fears that have been building inside his own MAGA base for months. “You make them a partnership in this revolution,” Trump told reporters Friday . “It would be a beautiful thing.” The MAGA revolt no one saw coming For months, Trump tried to hold two contradictory positions simultaneously: champion of AI deregulation and defender of American workers threatened by AI disruption. That tension is snapping under pressure from an unlikely combination of forces — his own base, a Vermont socialist and Silicon Valley CEOs who read the writing on the wall before their own allies did. Steve Bannon’s  War Room  has been running episode after episode at...

The U.S. stock market had its worst day since October Friday as a sell-off in big technology companies weighed down the broader market and a strong jobs report boosted expectations that the Federal Reserve will be forced to hike interest rates at some point this year. The S&P 500 sank 2.6%, its biggest one-day drop since October 10, when the Trump administration threatened to impose a 100% tariff on imported goods from China. The losses helped push the benchmark index to its first losing week in the last 10. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.4%, while the Nasdaq composite slumped 4.2%. Tech stocks dragged the broader market lower as companies that had powered the S&P 500 to a series of records the past two months saw losses. Nvidia fell 6.2%, Broadcom dropped 7.9% and Micron Technology slid 13.3% for the biggest loss among stocks in the S&P 500. Shares in Meta fell 5.5% following a published report that the social media giant may seek to do a ne...

Stocks tumbled Friday as a selloff that began earlier in the week over fears about the AI boom’s longevity was compounded by worries about rate hikes from the Federal Reserve. The Nasdaq sank 4%, suffering its worst selloff since April 2025—during the height of President Donald Trump’s tariff shock. The S&P 500 lost 2.6%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.35%. Chipmakers Micron Technology , Intel , Cisco and  Nvidia led the charge lower, while hyperscalers like Meta , which will reportedly plow billions more into AI, as well as Amazon and Microsoft suffered more modest declines. Trouble began when chip designer Broadcom gave disappointing guidance late Wednesday, when it reported quarterly earnings. That sparked a selloff on Thursday that got further stoked by Friday’s strong jobs report. The Labor Department’s monthly tally showed employers added a net 172,000 jobs last month, nearly double Wall Street forecasts. Prior months...

Making the Fortune 500 list is no small feat, yet every year a fresh group of companies elbows its way in by displacing incumbents and reshuffling the ranks of American corporate power.  To make it on the list of the top 500 companies in the U.S. by revenue, a company has to meet strict requirements, including a minimum of $7.5 billion in revenue in 2026. This year 12 companies made it on the list for the first time across industries like crypto, mattresses, and natural gas. Here are the companies making their debut on the Fortune 500 in the list’s 72nd year. Galaxy Digital Fortune 500 Rank : 76 Revenue : $61.3 billion Just over a year after going public through a direct listing in May 2025, Galaxy Digital debuted on the Fortune 500 list at No. 76. The blockchain and digital assets company, which was founded in 2018 by billionaire and former Wall Street hedge fund manager Mike Novogratz, has seized on the increasing institutional adoption of crypto to super...

When the U.S. last hosted the World Cup in 1994, the event drew unexpectedly large crowds . At that time, soccer wasn’t as popular among Americans as it is now, so expectations for attendance had been fairly low. So as the U.S. prepared to host the World Cup again in 2026, expectations for tourism were high. But in the run-up to this year’s World Cup, the ongoing war in Iran has resulted in soaring inflation and high fuel prices , neither of which bodes well for tourism or event attendance. Recent tourism reports indicate there will be fewer hotel reservations than anticipated due to reduced international travel confidence and a growing uncertainty related to U.S. immigration policies, geopolitical instability, tariffs and inflation. We are a professor of hospitality and tourism management and a professor in international sports management . We believe there is good reason for concern in the 11 World Cup host cities in the U.S. An additional five cities in Mexico and...

Airbnb Inc. Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky is starting a new artificial intelligence lab, according to several people familiar with the matter, marking his first foray into the global AI race. Chesky plans to create an AI venture to develop artificial intelligence models and is considering a focus on user interaction and design, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the information is not public. He is in the early stages of funding the lab, one person said, and the details could change.  Chesky will remain CEO of Airbnb, several people said. He will not serve as chief executive of the new lab, one person said.  Chesky co-founded Airbnb nearly 20 years ago after studying design in college. In recent years, he has often said AI applications for travel and e-commerce require a rich user interface, rather than the kind of text-based chatbots popularized by OpenAI and Anthropic PBC. Unlike online travel rivals Expedia Group Inc. and Booking H...

Nvidia has acquired Kumo AI, a small, four-year-old startup that develops foundation models designed to make accurate business predictions, according to two sources familiar with the deal. Kumo’s three co-founders, Vanja Josifovski, Hema Raghavan, and Jure Leskovec, transitioned to Nvidia last month, the sources said. While the founders’ LinkedIn profiles have been updated, and now describe them as Nvidia employees, the Kumo website makes no mention of the change. The financial terms of the deal could not be learned. Nvidia, which has acquired numerous AI startups in recent years, declined to comment. The Mountain View, Calif-based startup had received $37 million in venture capital funding in two 2022 rounds from investors including Sequoia Capital. Its models have been used so far by companies including food delivery app DoorDash , Reddit, and U.K. grocery chain Sainsbury’s. As Fortune ‘s Jeremy Kahn reported last year, Kumo’s RFM model could do f...