Financial Mindset

TrumpRx, the president’s direct-to-patient (DTP) purchasing platform for pharmaceutical drugs, was launched late last week to a controversial reception. The New Republic called it a “ Big Fat Scam ,” but it is now up to the public to decide, with it making its first appearance as a supposed market restructurer.  For decades, the American government has played a powerful but disciplined role in healthcare markets. At first, it was a passive purchaser, then a coverage expander, and only recently has it become a price negotiator, albeit in a limited capacity. However, TrumpRx, which seeks for pharmaceutical companies to grant the U.S. “most favored nation” status, is a departure from these models and signals a continued shift toward government market interventionism. TrumpRx also emerges in a political environment where government intervention in drug pricing is no longer considered unacceptable. While the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) marked a small first step towar...

Robinhood announced on Tuesday evening that a developers’ version of its custom built blockchain, known as Robinhood Chain, is now live. The move, announced at the Consensus event in Hong Kong, comes as the company accelerates its push into crypto-based financial services, including tokenized versions of popular stocks. Robinhood Chain, which the company teased last June , is currently in the so-called testnet phase. That means it is publicly visible but restricted to a limited number of partners and participants who can test its infrastructure, and introduce experimental features. In coming months, the “mainnet” version of Robinhood Chain will go live and be used to process customer transactions. “We now have Alchemy, LayerZero, Chainlink, and other big crypto players. But moving forward, when the mainnet is live, customers will be able to interact directly with it,” Robinhood’s SVP of Crypto, Johann Kerbrat, told Fortune . Kerbrat added that Robinhood Chain will support transactio...

Victoria’s Secret is betting that the generation raised on body positivity—not “heroin chic”—is ready to reclaim its famously glittering runway. Younger shoppers seem unabashed in their love of the spectacle and sparkle, the glamour of the lingerie, notes CEO Hillary Super . Formerly CEO of Anthropologie and competitor Savage X Fenty, she joined the company in the fall of 2024 after several ill-fated attempts to change the narrative surrounding the once hot brand. And though Victoria’s Secret had previously ditched its runway show, Super has re-energized it. The Gen Z customer watching the new version of the show today didn’t grow up with the body image trauma of the 2000s like millennials did. She was raised by a Gen X mom who tried not to pass on her own body issues, who wanted her daughter to be “strong and unbothered by all that noise,” Super notes. Gen Z can appreciate the fun of the Victoria’s Secret Angels without necessarily seeing them as aspirational—or triggering. That sh...

As Wall Street embraces blockchain technology, the crypto industry is still dealing with an existential problem: how to scale the tech so that it can handle the massive volume created by traditional finance entities like the New York Stock Exchange. Meanwhile, big banks and trading firms are seeking reassurances that their sensitive client data does not appear on the public ledger of a blockchain like Ethereum or Solana. One startup believes it has found a way to address these concerns. On Tuesday, the Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia-backed crypto company LayerZero announced a proposed solution: a new blockchain called Zero designed to meet the needs of Wall Street. Though a slew of previous blockchain companies have purported to build TradFi-grade trading infrastructure, LayerZero is also announcing an impressive array of Wall Street players who are coming onboard as investors, partners, and advisors, including the market making giant Citadel as well as Ark’s Cathie Wood and the Inte...

British Prime Minister  Keir Starmer  vowed Monday to fight for his job as revelations about the relationship between the  former U.K. ambassador to Washington  and  Jeffrey Epstein  spiraled into a full-blown crisis for his 19-month-old government. The prime minister’s authority with his own Labour Party has been battered  by fallout  from the publication of files related to Epstein — a man he never met and whose sexual misconduct has not implicated Starmer. Some lawmakers in Starmer’s center-left Labour Party have called on him to resign for his judgment in appointing  Peter Mandelson  to the high-profile diplomatic post in 2024 despite his ties to the convicted sex offender. The leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, joined those calls Monday, saying “there have been too many mistakes” and “the leadership in Downing Street has to change.” Starmer’s chief of staff and his communications director have also quit in quick...

A leading U.S. health official on Sunday urged people to get inoculated against the measles at a time of  outbreaks across several states  and as the United States is at risk of losing its  measles elimination status . “Take the vaccine, please,” said  Dr. Mehmet Oz , the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator whose boss has raised  suspicion about the safety and importance of vaccines . “We have a solution for our problem.” Oz, a heart surgeon, defended some recently  revised federal vaccine recommendations  as well as past comments from President Donald Trump and the nation’s health chief, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., about the efficacy of vaccines. From Oz, there was a clear message on the measles. “Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But measles is one you should get your vaccine.” An outbreak  in South Carolina in the hundr...

The Kremlin’s financial situation is becoming increasingly dire and could come to a head in a matter of months as oil revenue shrinks while President Vladimir Putin shows no intention of ending his war on Ukraine. Russian officials have been warning Putin with growing alarm that a financial crisis could hit by the summer, sources told the Washington Post . They pointed to weak oil revenue, which crashed by 50% in January from a year earlier, and a budget deficit that continues to widen, even after Putin hiked taxes on consumers. A Moscow business executive also told the Post that the crisis could arrive in “three or four months” amid spiraling inflation, adding that restaurants have been closing and thousands of workers are getting laid off. The economic strains go back to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago. As sanctions took hold and Putin mobilized the economy for a prolonged war, a tight labor market and high inflation forced the central bank to keep interest rates high...