Economy & Finance

Harley-Davidson Shares Plunge As Bike Demand Stalls Harley-Davidson shares plunged in premarket trading after the company reported an unexpected decline in motorcycle shipments and a far deeper-than-expected sales miss in the fourth quarter. The results suggest the company is still battling soft demand, with the brand having peaked with boomers and struggling to connect with […]

US Retail Sales Disappoint In December As Small Business Optimism Dips Today’s Retail Sales data is for December and so should be ‘clean’ from the perspective of the January storms which dramatically reduced consumers ability to spend year-to-date, as illustrated by BofA’s ‘rest of US’ spending indicator… After a big bounce in November, expectations were

Futures Drop As Traders Brace For Flood Of Data And Earnings US equity futures are lower, reversing earlier gains and trading near session lows in a narrow, jitter overnight session as traders prepare for a heavy slate of earnings and readings of consumer sales and small-business due later. As of 8:15am ET, stock futures were muted,

BP Suspends Buybacks As Energy Major Pivots To “Rebuilding Trust” In Capital Allocation BP Plc shares fell nearly 6% in London trading after the oil and gas giant said its board has suspended share buybacks to allocate excess cash to strengthening the balance sheet and has withdrawn guidance to return 30% to 40% of operating

Kering Erupts After Gucci Sales Beat Estimates, Igniting “Turnaround Hopes” French luxury group Kering jumped as much as 14% in Paris trading, the biggest intraday move in almost six years, after better-than-expected fourth-quarter sales at its Gucci unit. The UBS Luxury basket (UBXELUX) rose nearly 2%, driven largely by hopes of a turnaround at the

Ukraine Launching Arms Exports At Centers Across Europe Ukraine has another money-making idea – instead of begging for urgently needed funds from Western partners, it plans to start exporting weapons, instead of only buying them. But there is a big and unexpected catch to the whole scheme. Flush with external funding connected to the war

Struggling AI Startups Kept Afloat Despite Never Becoming Profitable Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), For years, artificial intelligence (AI) startups have been pitched as the vehicles of the next productivity boom. But as product delivery lags behind the hype, some AI companies are slipping into a quieter, more troubling category: startups

Do People Trust The Media Or Government More? Trust in institutions shapes how societies function—from whether people follow public health guidance to whether they believe election results. Yet confidence in governments and the media has diverged sharply across countries. This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte, shows whether people trust the media or the government

“Today, We Are Preparing For War”: French Defense Chief Says Europe Has Until 2030, Cites Russia As Biggest Threat Via Remix News, France and Europe have four years to prepare for war, said Fabien Mandon, chief of the defense staff of the French Armed Forces, who cited Russia as Europe’s biggest threat. His speech at

Mapping The Global Cost Of Living In 2026 How does the cost of living vary across countries in 2026? To find out, this graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, visualizes Numbeo’s Global Cost of Living Index, which measures the price of everyday expenses, including rent, relative to New York City (baseline of 100). If a country has