Financial Mindset

The December 16, 2025, jobs report confirms that the stall observed since spring has hardened into a structural contraction. While the public narrative remains anchored to the headline “resilience,” a closer interrogation reveals that 2025 was the year we sub-primed our own workforce. We didn’t just witness a cooling market; we oversaw a surgical, structural removal of Black women from the middle class. My proprietary analysis of BLS household data shows that this demographic’s unemployment rate spiked 21 times faster than that of white men . While headlines celebrated a soft landing, the underlying labor market was experiencing a phantom jobs reversal. January 2025 began with a surplus of 751,000 job openings; by December, the market moved into a deficit of 131,000 jobs—an 882,000 swing in labor-market balance. With Chair Powell’s December 10 admission of a 60,000 monthly overcount, the labor market has actually been contracting by 20,000 jobs per month since April. The real-world d...

A surge of Arctic air brought strong winds, heavy snow and frigid temperatures to the Great Lakes and Northeast on Tuesday, a day after a bomb cyclone barreling across the Midwest left tens of thousands of customers  without power . Blustery winds were expected to add to the chill, with low temperatures dipping below freezing as far south as the Florida panhandle, the National Weather Service said. The wild storm hit parts of the Plains and Great Lakes this week with sharply colder air, strong winds and a mix of snow, ice and rain, leading to treacherous travel. Forecasters said it intensified quickly enough to meet the criteria of a  bomb cyclone , a system that strengthens rapidly as pressure drops. Kristen Schultz, who was heading home to Alaska, said it took her four hours to get to the Minneapolis airport on Tuesday. “Just give yourself plenty of extra time and that way, even if things go smoothly, you don’t have to be stressed out,” she said, “and you’re ready in cas...

Environmental journalist Tatiana Schlossberg, one of three grandchildren of the late President John F. Kennedy, has died after she was diagnosed with leukemia last year. She was 35. Schlossberg, daughter of Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, and Edwin Schlossberg, revealed  she had terminal cancer  in a November 2025 essay in The New Yorker . A family statement disclosing her death was posted on social media Tuesday by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. “Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” the statement said. It did not disclose a cause of death or say where she had died. Schlossberg told of being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in May 2024 at 34. While in the hospital for the birth of her second child, her doctor noticed her white blood cell count was high. It turned out to be acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation, mostly seen in older people. In the essay,  “A Battle With My Blood,”  Schlossberg...

President Donald Trump has indicated that the U.S. has “hit” a dock facility along a shore as he wages a  pressure campaign on Venezuela , but the U.S. offered few details. Trump initially seemed to confirm a strike in what appeared to be an impromptu radio interview Friday, and when questioned Monday by reporters about “an explosion in Venezuela,” he said the U.S. struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs “load up.” “There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said as he  met in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . “They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. There’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.” It is part of an escalating effort to target what the Trump administration says are  boats smuggling drugs  bound for the United States. It moves closer to shore strikes that so far have been carri...

President Donald Trump on Sunday insisted  Ukraine and Russia  are “closer than ever before” to a peace deal as he hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Florida resort, but he acknowledged that negotiations could still break down and leave the war dragging on for years. The president’s statements came after the two leaders met for a discussion that took place after what Trump described as an “excellent,” two-and-a-half-hour phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine launched the war four years ago. Trump insisted he believed Putin still wants peace, even as Russia launched  another round of attacks  on Ukraine while Zelenskyy flew to the United States for the latest round of negotiations. “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed,” Trump said during a late afternoon news conference following a meeting with Zelenskyy, whom he repeatedly praised as “brave.” Trump and Zelenskyy both acknowledged thorny issues remain...

The labor market cooled during a rollercoaster year for the economy and financial markets, and 2026 should start off slow but then improve later in the year, according to JPMorgan. In a forecast published earlier this month , economists at the bank attributed 2025’s loss of jobs momentum to business uncertainty created by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade policies. “As a result both long-term and short-term business planning has remained difficult, and layoff and hiring rates have been low,” Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan, said in the report. “Businesses are hesitant to make sweeping changes to either grow or shrink their payrolls when they’re unsure what the next six months might hold.” In addition, Trump’s immigration crackdown and deportation campaign have been more aggressive than expected, JPMorgan added. This reduced supply of workers plus the relatively flat labor participation rate flat mean that the monthly job gains needed to keep unemployment s...

Louis Gerstner, who took over International Business Machines Corp. when it was on its deathbed and resuscitated it as a technology industry leader, died Saturday. He was 83. IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna announced Gerstner’s death in an  email  sent Sunday to its employees, but didn’t provide a cause of death. Gerstner’s nine-year tenure as chairman and CEO of the company known as  “Big Blue”  is often used as a case study in corporate leadership. On April Fool’s Day, 1993, he became the first outsider to run IBM, which was facing a choice of bankruptcy or dismemberment after a period when it had been the undisputed leader in personal computers and mainframes. He pivoted the Armonk, New York-based company toward business services and away from hardware production, reversing a move to break up the company into a dozen or more semi-autonomous units — “Baby Blues” — in pursuit of greater profits. Gerstner slashed costs and sold off unproductive assets, inclu...

Russia’s financial system is reportedly coming under more strain as Moscow’s war on Ukraine nears the end of its fourth full year. The White House is seeking to revive peace talks this weekend with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky due to meet President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday. Russian forces stepped up their bombardment of Ukraine ahead of the meeting, but prolonged fighting presents risks for the economy. “A banking crisis is possible,” a Russian official told the Washington Post recently on condition of anonymity. “A nonpayments crisis is possible. I don’t want to think about a continuation of the war or an escalation.” Russia’s economy was surprisingly resilient in the face of severe Western sanctions after President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. That’s as China and India were eager to snap up cheap Russian oil, keeping the Kremlin’s coffers full and providing revenue for its military. But more recently, energy prices have slumpe...

Graphite mines in the United States largely closed down seven decades ago. Mining the ubiquitous mineral found in everything from nuclear reactors to pencils seemed to make little sense when it could be imported inexpensively from other nations, especially China. That view is changing now. Demand for graphite, a key material in the lithium-ion batteries  that power everything  from phones to electric cars, is surging as trade tensions with China persist. With federal officials concerned about the steady supply of a number of  critical minerals , several companies have plans to mine graphite. In New York, Titan Mining Corp. has mined a limited amount of ore from a deposit in snowy woods about 25 miles (40 kilometers) from the Canadian border, aiming for commercial sales by 2028. Company officials believe  the geopolitical winds  are at their backs to sell graphite concentrate for high-tech, industrial and military uses. That could include heat-resistant coatin...

Predictions abound about which jobs will be automated by AI—but contrary to popular belief, a tech takeover isn’t in full swing yet. In an end-of-year note to investors, Vanguard set the record straight: careers that research claims are most susceptible to AI are actually thriving, not dying out.  “The approximately 100 occupations most exposed to AI automation are actually outperforming the rest of the labor market in terms of job growth and real wage increases,” the Vanguard report revealed . “This suggests that current AI systems are generally enhancing worker productivity and shifting workers’ tasks toward higher-value activities.” Instead of displacing employees from their jobs, AI is helping humans perform better at work, leading to some career wins. The job growth rate of occupations with high AI exposure—including office clerks, HR assistants, and data scientists—increased from 1% in pre-COVID-19 years (2015 through 2019) to 1.7% in 2023 and beyond, according to Vanguar...

CEOs have a reputation for always being “on”; even when they’re off the clock, they’ll tune into business podcasts and leaf through biographies of the greats in search of wisdom.  But when the holiday season rolls around, it’s the perfect time to play catch-up on their must-read roster and guilty pleasure TV shows. This year, chief executives are still finding time for play while staying current on their favorite career-related entertainment.  Fortune got a sneak peek into what CEOs will be reading, watching, and listening to this holiday season: Books Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson “I’ve been reading Elon Musk’s biography. It influenced how I think about being hands-on and staying close to the ground truth,” says Jonathan Siddharth, the CEO and founder of Turing. All About Love: New Visions by Bell Hooks “ All About Love is resonating right now because it mirrors the season I’m in—prioritizing grounded relationships, honest self-reflection, and exploring what love lo...

In 1997, the day before Greg Hart joined Amazon , he was summoned to a meeting—on a Sunday—with its founder, Jeff Bezos. At the time, Bezos had interviewed virtually every one of Amazon’s circa 200 employees; Hart was one of the few the tech entrepreneur hadn’t personally appointed. Over the next 23 years at the online giant, Hart reported directly to Bezos as technical advisor to the CEO, and to Amazon’s current CEO, Andy Jassy. The lessons Hart learned at one of the world’s most famous businesses have stayed with him to this day, where he leads $1.35 billion online learning giant, Coursera . Hart tasked himself with shepherding the company through a transformation—conveniently, in time for demand to explode, as job seekers and employees alike rushed to add an all-important AI qualification to their CVs. Many of the changes Hart brought to Coursera—and its more than 1,000 employees—will be familiar to Amazon alumni. Hart said that Bezos’ practice of interviewing every employee in...

In June 2026, the world’s leading Web3 taxi app will be launched in the Big Apple. This ride-hailing app—called TADA—uses blockchain technology to connect drivers and riders via smart contracts. Its use of decentralized tech enables greater transparency, fairer earnings for drivers, and cost savings for riders, co-founder Kay Woo told Fortune in a Dec. 24 interview. “We don’t work as an intermediary. We are becoming the software for both [drivers and riders] and while they’re using our network, they just need to simply pay a small fee,” Woo says.  TADA was founded in Singapore in 2018 by two South Korean tech entrepreneurs: Kay Woo and Jay Han. The ride-hailing app is best known for its “zero commission model”, which charges drivers a flat software fee (of around 78 to 92 cents) rather than a cut of their earnings. The platform has a significant and growing share in Singapore’s crowded ride-hailing market, constituting 11.1% of market share in 2022, according to data platform...

This  holiday season , many U.S. drivers are getting the gift of lower gas prices. According to data from motor club AAA, December has been the cheapest month for prices at the pump this year. The national average for unleaded gasoline has stayed below the $3 mark since Dec. 2, falling to its lowest level of about $2.85 a gallon on Monday. That figure has inched up slightly since, sitting at closer to $2.86 a gallon Tuesday — but overall, consumers hitting the road ahead of the Christmas holiday will likely continue to see mild prices. As always, some states have cheaper averages than others, due to factors ranging from nearby refinery supply to local fuel requirements. Hawaii had the highest average of about $4.44 a gallon on Tuesday,  per AAA  — followed by $4.30 in California and $3.92 in Washington. Meanwhile, Oklahoma had the lowest average at about $2.30 per gallon, followed by nearly $2.42 in both Arkansas and Iowa. Still, nationwide, unleaded gasoline is down ...

A  news segment  about the Trump administration’s immigration policy that was abruptly pulled from “ 60 Minutes ” was mistakenly aired on a TV app after the last minute decision not to air it touched off a public debate about journalistic independence. The segment featured interviews with migrants who were sent to a notorious El Salvador prison called the  Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT , under President Donald Trump’s aggressive  crackdown on immigration . The story was pulled from Global Television Network, one of Canada’s largest networks, but still ran on the network’s app. Global Television Network swiftly corrected the error, but copies of it continued to float around the internet and pop up before being taken down. “Paramount’s content protection team is in the process of routine take down orders for the unaired and unauthorized segment,” a CBS spokesperson said Tuesday via email. A representative of Global Television Network did not immediately re...

Artificial intelligence was certainly top of mind for chief financial officers this year. AI-enabled transformation and ROI are key topics of discussion between CFOs, their boards, the broader C-suite, and other stakeholders. As 2025 draws to a close, it’s time for predictions about what’s to come in the new year. Fortune asked more than a dozen CFOs of prominent companies: How do you think AI will continue to shape finance in 2026? The finance chiefs broadly expect AI, including agentic AI, to shift from experimentation to proven, enterprise-wide impact, transforming the finance function. At the same time, they stress that success will depend on factors such as strong governance, clean and trusted data, modernized architectures, and human judgment. Overall, they frame AI less as a mere efficiency tool and more as a catalyst to reinvent finance as a proactive, strategic driver of the business. Below are CFOs’ predictions for 2026: Gina Mastantuono, president and CFO, ServiceNow...