10 results

• MoneyRich people can get richer while luxury brands still sell less.Citi credit-card data showed U.S. luxury purchases down 6% year over year in September, even as top-end wealth remained resilient. The reason is that wealth, confidence, value perception and willingness to spend are not the same thing.
• MoneyWeight-loss drugs are becoming a snack-company problem.PepsiCo is already fighting inflation, weak snack volumes and investor pressure. GLP-1 drugs add a more structural question: what happens to a food business built around frequent snacking when some customers feel less hungry?
• ExplainedHow can a medicine change what supermarkets sell?GLP-1 medicines reduce appetite and food intake for many users. At population scale, that can alter portion sizes, snacking frequency and the types of foods companies choose to develop, even though the medicines are not food products themselves.
• CultureFashion still says autumn. The weather increasingly does not.Paris Fashion Week reached 28°C as retailers were trying to sell coats and knitwear. Longer, hotter summers are creating a basic mismatch between the traditional fashion calendar and the weather customers actually experience.
• ExplainedAI used to answer. Now it can act. That changes the risk.The FTC has opened an investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI companies over possible consumer risks. The important shift is not simply that models are becoming smarter. It is that some systems can now take actions on a user’s behalf.
• PeopleUnemployment can be low while the job market still feels terrible.The U.S. is approaching the 2026 midterms with unemployment around levels economists call full employment, yet hiring is slower, job switching is weaker and many workers feel insecure. The unemployment rate only measures one part of labor-market health.
• CultureHollywood just put Batman, Harry Potter, Star Trek, HBO, CNN and CBS under one roof.Paramount completed its $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery, creating Skydance, a media giant spanning two film studios, HBO, CBS, CNN, streaming services, sports and some of entertainment's biggest franchises.
• MoneyA few narrow stretches of water can still move the price of almost everything.Energy companies are reconsidering a just-in-time export system after disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb. The lesson is bigger than oil: global supply chains can be efficient and still be fragile.
• MoneyInflation can fall. The cost-of-living crisis can keep going.When inflation slows, prices usually do not return to where they started. New IMF research says repeated food and energy shocks can also change what households expect about future inflation and push more people into poverty.
• MoneyA bond yield just hit a 24-year high. Why should anyone outside Wall Street care?The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield briefly touched 5.34%, its highest level since 2002. That number lives in the bond market, but its effects reach mortgages, business loans, government budgets and the price investors put on almost everything else.