Financial Mindset

China has quietly emerged as the global oil market’s stealthy swing consumer, potentially holding off doomsday a while longer. For months, investors wondered why crude oil prices failed to reach worst-case scenarios, even as a fifth of the world’s supply remained bottled up in Persian Gulf. To be sure, Saudi Arabia diverted exports to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, economies in Asia imposed rationing, and the world’s biggest oil-consuming countries coordinated releases from strategic reserves. But the efforts haven’t fully offset the missing Mideast oil, with the shortfall estimated at more than 10 million barrels a day. At the same time, the U.S. naval blockade on Iran removed took more barrels off the market. As a result, the ongoing stalemate between the U.S. and Iran on reaching a lasting ceasefire deal that reopens the strait has stoked increasing panic from a growing chorus of voices. “We’re approaching unheard of inventory levels,” Exxo...

Israel expanded its ground assault in Lebanon with its broadest incursion into the country in a quarter-century as Hezbollah — Iran’s most powerful regional ally — stepped up attacks on Israel’s north.  According to the Israeli military, Hezbollah fired more than 300 “projectiles” at its soldiers in Lebanon and at northern Israel over the weekend. The latest escalation has shattered a brittle ceasefire declared after the Tehran-backed group attacked Israel in response to its war on Iran, which it launched with the US on Feb. 28. As part of a military operation that started several days ago, the Israeli Defense Forces said in a statement that they’d crossed the Litani River and are near Shi’ite-majority Nabatieh — one of the biggest cities in south Lebanon — which the IDF describes as a stronghold of Hezbollah.  “I have instructed the IDF to expand the incursion in Lebanon. Our forces have crossed the Litani River and took dominant terrain,” Prime Minister Benjamin...

The two biggest U.S. oil companies joined the growing chorus of voices sounding the alarm on the imminent doom global markets could soon face. With the Strait of Hormuz still effectively closed, top oil-consuming countries have been rapidly draining their reserves, helping keep crude prices in check. But Exxon Senior Vice President Neil Chapman warned at an industry conference on Thursday that such drawdowns can’t go on indefinitely. “We’re approaching unheard of inventory levels,” he said, according to CNBC . “I mean really, really low levels. You can debate whether that’s going to hit those really low levels in two weeks or three weeks. Once you get to that point, then you’ll see price shoot up.” For now, the U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks are deadlocked while the Strait of Hormuz remains a contested waterway. That was on display Saturday, when U.S. forces fired a missile at a blockade runner to disable it after ignoring repeated warnings. Iran has also kept up ...

President Donald Trump  on Saturday branded the federal judge who  blocked his renovation  of the Kennedy Center as “an anti Trump Hater” and predicted that the nation’s premier performing arts center he wanted  to shutter for a two-year overhaul  will “soon be closed, probably never to open again.” In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform, Trump fumed about the Friday decision from U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper who also ordered  Trump’s name  removed from the center. Clearly angered by his latest legal setback, he said it was “impossible for me to be treated fairly,” tying Cooper’s ruling to earlier losses, including the Supreme Court’s rejection in February of his  sweeping tariffs . His post aimed to make the case for the project but did not clarify whether he would continue to defend it in court. Hours after Cooper’s decision, Trump said he was backing away from the renovations and making arrangements ...

When Silicon Valley and the Holy See agree, it is worth asking what they know that governments do not. On Monday, Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, calling for AI to be disarmed and regulated in the service of humanity. Standing beside him at the Vatican was Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, who acknowledged that AI companies operate “inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing.” Separately, Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei has stated that “the next tier of risk is actually AI companies themselves” — and that AI leaders, including himself, should not be the ones deciding the technology’s future. This is the architects of the most capable AI systems in existence telling the world they cannot govern themselves alone. The question is no longer whether global AI governance is necessary. It is whether it will be designed before a crisis makes the answer obvi...

In the days before the Memorial Day weekend, rates on 30 year Treasury bonds hit their highest level in 19 years at 5.2%, and the benchmark 10-year reached 4.7%, the top reading since mid-2007. If those kinds of yields take hold, the scenario for federal interest expense posited in the CBO’s “Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036,” released in February, descends from dire to near-disastrous . Takeaway: America’s track to fiscal safety has lost all margin for error, and nothing demonstrates that better than the long-term impact of loftier than expected rates. America’s got so little room to maneuver that even yields that modestly exceed the CBO’s “baseline,” as the numbers compound in the years ahead, deliver a huge extra blow by crowding out big chunks of revenue that would otherwise go towards funding such essentials as Defense, Social Security and Medicare. The CBO forecasts that yields on the 30 and 10-year Treasuries will res...

The cigarette smoking rate among U.S. adults dropped to another all-time low last year, with 1 in 11 adults saying they were current smokers, according to government survey data released this week. Cigarette smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, and it’s long been considered  the leading cause of preventable death . The  preliminary findings  from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were based on survey responses from more than 24,200 adults. In the survey, CDC officials defined current cigarette smoking as smoking at least 100 cigarettes in a lifetime and now smoking every day or some days. In the mid-1960s, 42% of U.S. adults were smokers. The rate has been gradually dropping for decades, due to cigarette taxes, tobacco product price hikes, smoking bans, public education campaigns and changes in the social acceptability of lighting up in public. In 2024, the percentage of current adult smokers fell below 10% for ...

David Trainer, CEO of research firm New Constructs, is taking a highly contrarian view of the looming SpaceX IPO that’s generating more excitement than any debut in stock market history. And that’s across the spectrum, from institutions anticipating their biggest payday ever from underwriting the shares, to the funds clamoring to get the way-underpriced allocations that should “pop” big the first day of trading, to the Elon Musk fans clamoring to pile in after the bell rings at the Nasdaq market site, probably in mid-June. Trainer’s got a different take: SpaceX is really skewering investors by raising tens of billions that instead of building profits will going to paying down debt, and “fund an increasingly costly AI race” that SpaceX claims it will totally dominate while in fact, it will encounter powerful competition, and intense pricing pressure, from the likes of Amazon , Google and Microsoft . Put simply, Trainer brands SpaceX proje...

Salesforce really wants to counter the narrative that an AI-related “saaspocalypse” has endangered its growth.  So, alongside its record first-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Wednesday, the cloud software giant commenced its largest-ever accelerated share repurchase at $25 billion. In doing so, the company juiced its earnings per share but cut its full-year cash flow growth outlook roughly in half to account for the debt issued to fund the block share repurchase.  The $25 billion accelerated share repurchase (ASR) is part of a $50 billion stock buyback authorization the Salesforce board approved in February 2026. In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Salesforce returned $27.5 billion to shareholders, including $27.1 billion in the mega-share block purchase plus $365 million in dividends. The ASR included upfront delivery of 103 million shares and drove Salesforce’s diluted share count down 10% year over year.  Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said on Wednesday’s...

Forget your salary—this space founder says a simple kids’ marshmallow experiment can reveal whether you’re destined to stay middle class for life.  The classic psychology experiment sees four-year-olds given one marshmallow and a choice: eat it now, or wait until the researcher returns and get two. Most kids can’t resist. And according to Dylan Taylor, philanthropist and CEO of Voyager Technologies, that same impulse is exactly what keeps most people stuck financially in adulthood. “It’s this deferred gratification,” Taylor, who made his first million before hitting 30, explains to Fortune . “It’s like, do you have the mental discipline to defer your gratification?” In his view, grown adults face the same choice every time they sign a car lease or tap a credit card for something they can’t yet afford. “I see a lot of those things—cars and planes and boats and all that stuff…. I support all that stuff when you can afford it, but most people ...

Twenty years ago, betting on New York as a serious technology hub felt contrarian to the point of naivety. Silicon Valley had the engineers, the venture capital, the density of ambition, and most importantly, the shared belief that this was where the future was being built. New York had finance, fashion, and media. The conventional wisdom was that you couldn’t build the next great technology company from a city that didn’t think of itself as a technology city. We met the way builders in New York tend to find each other: less by design and more because we were both doing interesting things in the same small room. This was a moment when people were openly debating whether Silicon Alley was dead. We built anyway. Matt was incubating and backing businesses like Resy, betting that New York’s density and culture were features, not bugs. Patrick was creating new companies at Thrive.  Thrive Capital went on to become one of the anchors of New York’s venture...

Saunas might seem like a new trend in wellness, but they’ve actually been around for thousands of years. From pit saunas in Stone Age Finland to sweat houses used by ancient Islamic cultures, saunas have been bringing heat to humans across the globe for centuries. So, what’s the appeal of the modern sauna, and is there real science behind its benefits? We talked to several experts, including a sports medicine physician and an exercise physiologist, about how saunas may support cardiovascular health, relaxation, and sleep. As interest grows in both traditional and infrared saunas, research is beginning to catch up with what many cultures have practiced for generations. If you’re thinking about adding sauna sessions to your wellness routine, start here. What happens to your body in a sauna? The heat of a sauna will make you sweat—that much is clear to most of us. But what else happens to your body in a sauna? According to Certified Exercise Physiologi...

Dylan Taylor made his first million at 27. Last year, he became a billionaire at 53, after taking his space-holding company, Voyager Technologies, public on the New York Stock Exchange. But don’t expect his two children to inherit all of it. “I’m not a huge believer in generational wealth transfer,” the founder and philanthropist tells Fortune . “I don’t think that’s good for the kids. And I don’t think it’s good for society, frankly.” It’s why, like Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates , Taylor has put a hard cap on what his kids will one day receive; “It’s a lot, but it’s eight figures, not nine,” Taylor responds, when asked exactly how much his children can expect to inherit. When you’re worth as much as Taylor, there’s only so much you can spend in one lifetime. Eventually, the conversation turns to what happens to the rest. “At some point, once you have a couple hundred million dollars, you can’t really spend what you ...

The ongoing dialogue regarding the ever-imminent displacement of white-collar workers by AI is predicated on the assumption that the technology will become as skilled as the very workers it threatens to displace, thereby cutting labor costs. But a new study found that’s not quite what’s playing out in many companies that have carried out AI-related layoffs. A survey of 350 global business executives with an annual revenue of at least $1 billion by the research and advisory firm Gartner found that many have reduced their workforce irrespective of AI adoption. While 80% of those surveyed who have piloted an AI or autonomous technology have reported workforce reductions, the businesses cut jobs due to automation regardless of whether the technology was actually generating returns. “Looking only at layoffs is shortsighted in terms of getting value from AI,” Helen Poitevin, VP analyst at Gartner and a key researcher of the study, told Fortune . “Chasing value only through head...

Two of the most influential CEOs in tech spent the last year warning that AI would gut white-collar employment. Now they’re admitting they were wrong, joining other leaders like Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon in casting doubt on an AI job apocalypse.  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in an interview with Commonwealth Bank of Australia CEO Matt Comyn on Tuesday, said he was “pretty wrong” about AI’s economic impact—a reversal from his June 2025 warnings that entry-level roles were at serious risk. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who once claimed AI could eliminate 50% of white-collar jobs, now says automation may actually expand the work people do. Solomon, meanwhile, has argued consistently since at least late 2025 that the panic was overblown—and is now pointing to a century of American economic history to say he was right. “I’m delighted to ⁠be wrong about this,” Altman told Comyn. “I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-coll...