Who could forget those heady days when Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella looked like the smartest man in tech? When ChatGPT emerged in late 2022, his decision to back OpenAI put Nadella’s company at the forefront of the AI boom.

Federal Reserve officials left interest rates unchanged and pointed to improvements in the US economy as they signaled a more cautious approach to potential future adjustments.

Dealing with difficult clients is a topic I discuss often with advisors. When a client is being “difficult”, there are a few key psychological factors to understand. I’ve outlined a process below that may help you navigate these high-stress interactions.

It’s possible to make your communication with clients both more impactful and more efficient if you’re smart and strategic about using the tools you have available. Let’s take a look at how to leverage some of the most common communication tools effectively for your firm.

If you feel like your website is a little outdated or isn’t serving as the lead machine you want it to, it might just be time for a refresh. Before diving in, take some time to get feedback from trusted friends, consider your goals, and always keep your prospects’ pain points top of mind.

Amazon.com Inc. is cutting 16,000 corporate jobs in an effort to remove layers of bureaucracy and “increase ownership,” becoming the latest company to target managers for layoffs in recent years.

Investors wondering about payoffs from the pile of cash being spent on artificial intelligence should get some clues when Microsoft Corp. and Meta Platforms Inc. post earnings after the close Wednesday.

Over the past year, Tether has quietly become one of the biggest players in the global gold market — the embodiment of a meeting of the crypto and gold worlds whose shared distrust of government debt is a major factor behind the surge in prices to never-before-seen highs above $5,200 an ounce.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is amping up pressure on Governor Kathy Hochul to hike taxes for the richest residents and corporations, asking the state to send billions more in aid to New York City as he faces mounting budget holes.

One frustrating characteristic of the AI boom seems to be that everyone must pay for it, regardless of any interest in using it. For some, it will be through rising utility bills as data centers strain the grid.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to halt its interest-rate-cutting cycle this week, as a steadier jobs market restores a degree of consensus at the central bank after months of growing division.

Investing in line with our beliefs, whether about social issues, environmental concerns, or politics, can feel principled and emotionally satisfying. But markets don’t care about our convictions.

There is always uncertainty about the most likely path forward for the economy and markets — and now is no different. We will continue to watch the headlines and data to see the ultimate impact on the consensus view.

Advisors training their future leadership team should be taking the long view — preparing to steadily nurture talent over the years so clients and other employees feel comfortable with your succession plans.

Put me down as an AI optimist. Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the economy and make Americans richer, healthier and more productive. I’d bet money on it — in fact I have, through the shares I own in an index fund, which means I am long the US economy.

The next chapter of the aggregation success story won't be written by deal pace alone. Success will increasingly depend on the ability to attract, develop, and retain exceptional talent across diverse markets and service areas.

Venezuela’s bonds lingered for years in financial purgatory. Investors held them as a lottery-ticket-like bet on the improvement of a dysfunctional country. Most steered clear.

Anthropic PBC is finally having its own ChatGPT moment. A powerful new version of its Claude chatbot can now take actions on a computer, and the broad repercussions of that advance are impossible to predict.

Standard Nuclear Inc., a uranium startup, raised $140 million to boost production of fuel for advanced reactors in an effort to expand the US energy supply chain amid surging interest in fission power.

Blackstone Inc. is planning to hire more people across Asia to tap growing opportunities in private markets, said Ed Huang, the firm’s head of Asia Pacific private wealth.

Mathematics in the investment field is almost 100% phony. Virtually all that is really needed are the four arithmetic operations students learn by the third grade: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The rest of the mathematics used in the investment field serves no purpose other than to impress people.

The circular investing phenomenon that is currently occurring among the Magnificent Seven companies is very similar to the Japanese Keiretsu concept. Under this business model, companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholders dominate a country’s economy.

Investors selling the dollar to buy emerging-market currencies are off to a lucrative start to 2026, with strategists at top banks expecting such strategies to build further on last year’s 18% rally.

This endless sequence of numbers that form ratios, known as the Fibonacci sequence, provides a technical analysis tool for managing financial securities. Before you assume we've lost our minds —relying on biology or, even worse, mysticism to predict stock prices — let us explain.

An increasingly unstable global geopolitical order has turbocharged stocks of military contractors in recent months. Now, with some of the biggest names in the industry set to report earnings this week, investors are eager for evidence that the rally is rooted in reality.

Mining stocks in Asia and Europe climbed with metals prices as investors rotated into hard assets, driven by a weakening dollar and growing unease over currencies, geopolitics and global fiscal risks.

The best growth opportunities are overwhelmingly found among highly scalable technology and communications companies. Many of them get started with the help of venture-capital funding and are already behemoths when they go public.

By asking New York traders to confirm the price of the Japanese yen against the dollar on Friday, US authorities handed investors yet another reason to sell the greenback.

The Trump administration said it’s canceling almost $30 billion of financing from the Energy Department’s green bank after reviewing transactions approved under former President Joe Biden.

Chinese officials have told the country’s largest tech firms including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. they can prepare orders for Nvidia Corp.’s H200 AI chips, suggesting Beijing is close to formally approving imports of components essential to powering artificial intelligence.

The biggest US banks cut their combined headcount last year by the most in almost a decade as executives sought to keep a lid on costs through what’s typically the biggest expense line item.

Memory and storage stocks are the market’s hottest trade, but investors aren’t sweating the companies’ suddenly elevated valuations as the buildout of artificial intelligence transforms their cyclical nature.

Tokenized shares are conventional assets — stocks, bonds or private loans — whose ownership records are maintained using blockchain software, often with the goal of faster, more automated settlement behind the scenes.

US stocks extended gains on President Donald Trump’s retreat from tariff threats while traders’ appetite for artificial intelligence bets returned.

A quiet but telling shift is unfolding in the crypto derivatives market, as one of the most reliable money-making trades shows signs of breaking down.

Trend-following funds are starting 2026 with fresh momentum, outperforming stocks and bonds after a year of false starts.

Investors are pouring cash into emerging-market funds at a record pace as momentum builds for a rotation out of US assets.

There is a natural human tendency to assume that your generation has it harder than everyone else. Even by those standards, however, baby boomers (and some older millennials) are on the receiving end of an extraordinary amount of resentment.

The $5 trillion hedge fund industry posted its best returns since the Global Financial Crisis last year, a welcoming reprieve for an asset class that has been overshadowed by the rise of private alternatives. Before declaring the worst is over however, boutique funds have one more myth to bust.

For newly widowed clients, the question of whether to move or not is rarely just about real estate and finances. It’s about finding a sense of belonging, safety, and identity, and understanding how much emotional change one person can handle at a time.

With the AI market evolving so quickly, leadership is everything when it comes to differentiating the contenders from pretenders. Structured training, clear lists of approved tools, defined data sources and easy-to-understand compliance rules go a long way in building confidence.

A unified platform brings direct client benefits: strategies scale smoothly, adjustments happen safely, and proactive alerts keep portfolios aligned. With fewer handoffs and cleaner data flows, advisors can focus on what matters most, deepening client relationships.

These are times in life where any sort of note, acknowledgement or thoughtful gift is likely to be appreciated. You want to be supportive, but you also want to be careful you are taking your client’s feelings into consideration in all ways possible.

Netflix Inc. shares tumbled in early trading Wednesday after giving a disappointing forecast for earnings in the months ahead as it spends more on programming and works to close its $82.7 billion deal with Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.

US mortgage applications for home purchases climbed last week to the highest since January 2023, suggesting a further easing in financing costs is contributing to a thaw in the housing market.

US equities reversed early losses during Donald Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos when the US president said he didn’t want to use excessive force to acquire Greenland

PJM is the name given to the largest regional US electricity grid, stretching from Chicago to the Chesapeake. It is also synonymous with the AI-power surge, being home to Virginia’s ‘datacenter alley’ and seeing recent big increases in bills tied to concerns that the electricity needs of artificial intelligence will swamp supply.

Bitcoin and other digital tokens, once touted as the uncontrolled and decentralized future of money, have proved to be lucrative tools for fraudsters, terrorists and rogue regimes.

In order to develop prudent spending plans for clients that are consistent with their spending goals, advisors should employ reasonable client-specific LPP assumptions. The three-step process and tools highlighted in this article can help advisors get started.

For advisors breaking away to start their own practice, there’s no avoiding the risks that come with entrepreneurship — but in the current economic climate that includes high inflation, market volatility and heightened uncertainty — advisors need to be doubly prepared when going out on their own.