Financial Mindset

Israel Anthem doesn’t want a Trump account for his 14-month-old daughter. “I’m not setting up one for my daughter,” the 38-year-old Nashville father told Fortune . “I’ll put $1,000 of my own money in an account before I do that.” Nearly 70 million Trump accounts have been created through automatic enrollment, White House spokesman Matthew Middleton told Fortune , and more than $8 billion has already been deposited nationwide, according to a Treasury official. But parents still need to claim those accounts to manage them and request the $1,000 federal contribution for an eligible child. As of July, Treasury data showed more than 6.5 million families had signed up, including more than 1.5 million children eligible for the $1,000. Employers have money riding on that step, too. By August, more than 50 companies had committed to contributing to Trump accounts for employees’ children, according to the Treasury Department, with employers including Bank of America , ...

In the burger wars currently raging in the United States, there is one clear loser among the major chains: Wendy’s. Its fortunes have declined so much that it’s now the target of Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management, which is offering to take the restaurant private for $1.4 billion, a sum that’s not even 1% of McDonald’s market value. The restaurant chain, once beloved for its “fresh, never frozen” beef and reputation for being a higher-quality fast-food option, has been struggling for 18 months. Its promotions have fallen flat, intense competition has stolen customers, and a revolving door in the corner office has deprived it of the focus needed to get out of its rut. Long the second-largest U.S. burger chain behind McDonald’s, Wendy’s has slipped to third place behind a resurgent Burger King. In May, Wendy’s overhauled its management, hiring Potbelly’s turnaround veteran Bob Wright as its fourth CEO in three years, as well as Potbelly’s finance chief Steve Cirul...

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and contrary to popular belief, Beijing doesn’t want the yuan to dethrone the dollar as the world’s dominant currency, according to a top China scholar. While China has been trying to internationalize the yuan, also known as the renminbi, it doesn’t want the obligations that come with being the global reserve currency, Zongyuan Zoe Liu, senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relation, wrote in Foreign Affairs this month. To truly take the dollar’s place would require open capital markets, which would threaten the Communist Party’s control over who gets capital and how, she explained. That’s as many elites rely on offshore dollar holdings as a type of insurance against domestic political persecution. Since China actually prefers to keep the dollar on top, the real reason for promoting the yuan abroad is to prevent the U.S. from weaponizing the financial system against it, Liu added, sim...

Stocks suffered more carnage this week as investors remain nervous about the durability of the AI boom in the wake of mixed quarterly earnings reports. Alphabet saw its cash flow sink deeper into negative territory in the third quarter, with the Google parent also joining Meta and Amazon in charging ahead with massive spending plans. On Thursday, Alphabet fell about 12%, its worst day on record. Meanwhile, Microsoft reported strong cloud growth and stayed free cash flow positive, though it said its capital spending will accelerate, while AI chip giant SK Hynix blew away earnings forecasts. And ahead of its IPO, Anthropic’s S-1 filing showed its cash flow turned positive in the first half of this year. Some on Wall Street see investors sorting out AI winners from losers rather than giving up on the sector altogether. That’s after numerous head-fakes in recent years that falsely signaled the AI boom was about to go bust. According to market veteran Ed Yardeni, the ...

Amid all the business risks that Anthropic revealed in its S-1 filing this week , including that its technology could be nationalized or that a bad actor could use Claude to create biological weapons, one potential  pitfall may have been glossed over—the idea that U.S. immigration policies could harm its ability to recruit the best talent. This risk, disclosed by Anthropic Monday, comes as the Trump administration has tried to restrict the number of non-Americans working for companies in the U.S. Although Anthropic did not mention President Trump or the administration directly in the context of immigration policies, the risk brings renewed attention to concerns by companies that cutting back on foreign workers will make the American AI industry less competitive as it struggles for AI dominance with countries like China. The AI company, which is preparing for a potential $2 trillion IPO as early as next month, made clear in its prospectus that good talent gives it an edge...

Chinese audiences may be happy to let AI generate their microdramas—but a fully AI-generated feature film may be a step too far.  China’s first AI-generated feature to release in cinemas, the sci-fi thriller Sanxingdui: Future Past , flopped at the Chinese box office. The movie, produced by Bona Film Group, tells the story of an archaeologist who must save the future world enslaved by AI, according to Chinese state media. It only managed to generate an estimated $180,000 through Monday, according to ticketing platform Maoyan. The film had a budget of $1.5 million, according to AFP . Jiang Defu, the company’s chief operating officer, acknowledged the film’s lukewarm reception in an interview with Chinese film outlet Yuli. Still, he argued Sanxingdui was an important experiment. “We are the first to try it, the first to get a theatrical release permit, and the first to be tested by the audience,” he said. “I think that is not easy at all.” Fortune has reached out to...

The Pentagon wants every major U.S. military base to run for 90 days without outside help if a war cuts off power and supply chains. Across the Atlantic, Britain is telling families to keep canned food, bottled water and cash on hand to get through three days of disruption. The two efforts aren’t known to be coordinated, and neither government has said a new war is imminent. But both are planning for disruptions that could leave homes and military installations without the services they depend on. Inside the Pentagon’s 90-day plan The Pentagon is developing a requirement that every major military installation in the continental U.S. be able to sustain essential operations on its own for at least 90 days, Fox News Digital reported Oct. 25 , citing internal planning documents. The requirement falls under an initiative called FORTRESS, short for Federal Operations for Resilience, Troop Resources, Energy, Supply, and Survivability. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unveiled F...

Data centers have emerged as a national issue during this midterm election cycle, and candidates for the House and Senate have seized on it in their campaigns. But state and local officials actually have more sway over data center construction and energy infrastructure, so the winners of lower-profile races may hold the economy’s future in their hands. Hyperscalers have been spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year, with forecasts for 2027 topping $1 trillion. JPMorgan has estimated AI-related investment was responsible for about one-fifth of GDP growth over the past year. Analysts at ING believe AI will account for a third of growth in 2026. With Election Day just over a week away and early voting already in full swing in many states, expectations for big Democratic gains could weigh on the stock market, which has sold off in recent days on fears the AI boom will go bust. If there is a further stock slump, it will be because a “blue wave” at ...

Scott Kirby caused a stir last week when he said the U.S. should have a national wealth tax, but the United Airlines CEO didn’t back down and also offered another idea, this time for national service. In a New York Times Q&A last Sunday, he was asked if he’s concerned that the general public has less trust in CEOs. Kirby replied that wealth inequality poses a danger to society and should be addressed. “We should have a national wealth tax—it won’t work by state because people will just move,” he added. “And I think we should have inheritance taxes that get close to 100% at some level. I would pay them.” The remarks came as California voters will decide next month on a billionaire tax, which some economists have said could “ kickstart a movement ” that spreads to other states and countries. Conservative pundits and politicians quickly slammed Kirby over his wealth tax comments with some suggesting he should give awa...

Pepsi has suffered many setbacks in recent years, but perhaps few were as symbolic as being jilted by a long-time partner it used to own, KFC.  The fried chicken chain said last week that it would begin replacing PepsiCo’s namesake soft drinks with Coca-Cola products at its 3,700 U.S. restaurants in January. The two companies’ partnership stretches back 40 years, since the time PepsiCo bought the fast food chain. (PepsiCo spun KFC off in 1997.) KFC represents a tiny sliver of Pepsi sales, but the defection reflects the ongoing deterioration of the drink’s brand power . How Coke pulled ahead For decades, the Coke vs. Pepsi cola wars were a part of mainstream culture, with memorable ads showcasing blind “Pepsi Challenge” taste tests of the two drinks. Pepsi’s TV commercials with pop star Michael Jackson and model Cindy Crawford in the 1980s and ’90s became part of the larger zeitgeist. Back then, Coke’s U.S. market share was just a percentage point or two more th...

Canada is the world’s top producer of maple syrup, and the vast majority of it comes from Quebec, but the province is nearly tapped out of reserves. The Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, which oversees the strategic syrup reserve, predicted the stockpile will be completely empty by February. While new supplies will continue to be produced, the reserve will not be able to help ease any wobbles in output, which depends heavily on the weather and can be volatile. The strategic reserve consists of three warehouses in Quebec that can hold about 218,000 barrels. Canadian maple syrup has seen demand increase in recent years as producers have diversified to more market beyond the U.S. About 65% of Canada’s syrup exports go to its southern neighbor, down from 80% two decades ago. But last year saw an especially big spike in demand after President Donald Trump launched his global trade war. To get ahead of anticipated tariffs, Americans rushed to buy up Canadian syrup sup...

Every year after Halloween, Spirit Halloween’s stores empty out and the signs come down. To shoppers, the chain disappears, until next September or so, when another store pops up somewhere in the neighborhood. But to Steven Silverstein, it never closes. “There’s nothing temporary about a temporary store,” Silverstein, CEO of Spencer Spirit Holdings, told Fortune . “We are 24/7, 365 Halloween, and you just don’t see it.” Its stores open for eight to 10 weeks a year, but planning for next Halloween starts before this year’s doors close. The rest of the year goes to signing leases, making and shipping millions of costumes, and lining up tens of thousands of seasonal workers. When Silverstein joined parent company Spencer’s in 2003, there were only 130 Spirit stores nationwide. Now, there are roughly 1,600 locations a year. Moody’s estimated that Spencer’s and Spirit together made about $1.9 billion in 2023 , and Spirit’s two-months of operations brings in more than...

A successful exit brings with it a world of possibilities. You can move your family halfway around the world, back the next generation of brilliant ideas, or never answer a work email again. My first exit gave me that freedom, but also a sense of unfinished business. In the years leading up to and following our acquisition by Visa , I watched Tink change, and slow down in a way that will be painfully familiar to many founders. Ideas my co-founder Fredrik and I used to dream up in a taxi and ship within a week now needed to be cross-checked by dozens of people across half as many departments. Compliance as we know it has a way of eroding the very things that make building in tech attractive: speed, agility, and the confidence to try something that’s never been done before. Growth is what every founder chases – it opens doors and tells you you’re doing something right. But the bigger Tink grew, the harder it became to move at the speed of our own ideas. Don’t misunderst...

As French protesters took to the street this week over the country’s escalating debt crisis, poor school conditions, and political gridlock, retailers were caught in the crossfire. More than 3,000 businesses were looted or damaged over the weekend, according to Commerce Minister Serge Papin, including shops in Paris’s Les Halles district. Those shops included Hermes, North Face, and Louis Vuitton. Just hours after looters rummaged through stores at the sites of demonstrations, online listings of cosmetic and skincare products and handbags began popping up on e-commerce platforms, raising concerns of widespread resale of stolen goods. By Monday evening, Papin and digital minister Anne Le Hénanff had summoned Vinted, French secondhand marketplace Leboncoin, Amazon , eBay, Meta , and TikTok to a videoconference to demand the listings come down. Vinted, Europe’s leading online secondhand marketplace, said it had taken steps to mitigate suspicious listings on its platform. ...