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Corporate America is scaling back diversity efforts on boards, with S&P 500 companies appointing women and minority directors at rates similar to a decade ago. Nearly 80% of new directors last year were white and about three-quarters were men, marking a sharp decline from diversity gains in 2021. Corporate policies supporting board diversity have also declined. Only about a quarter of S&P 500 companies maintained formal policies last year requiring consideration of gender and racial diversity when appointing directors, down from roughly half the year before. So far this year, that share has fallen to 14%. The retreat comes after legal setbacks, including court rulings striking down California’s board diversity mandates and Nasdaq’s disclosure rule on board diversity. Although overall board demographics remain somewhat more diverse than a decade ago, progress has slowed significantly. At the current pace, boards in the broader Russell 3000 index would not reach gender parity until 2044, according to projections.

 

Wall Street Journal

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The Financial Times has reported that Amazon’s cloud division suffered at least two outages in December linked to issues involving its own AI tools. One disruption in mid-December lasted around 13 hours after engineers allowed AWS’s Kiro AI coding tool to implement changes, with the agent reportedly deleting and recreating part of the environment. Amazon, however, said the incident was brief and caused by user error due to misconfigured access controls, not AI, and stressed that only a single service in one mainland China region was affected, with no impact on core compute, storage or AI services. The report follows a separate major AWS outage in October that disrupted Amazon’s own platforms and third-party apps including Reddit, Roblox, and Snapchat.

 

Financial Times

Reuters

According to Olivier Blum, chief executive of Schneider Electric, artificial intelligence has the potential to significantly reduce electricity consumption, despite being a major driver of global energy demand. By automating power systems, AI could enable homes, factories, and data centres to decrease energy usage by as much as 30%. Blum's insight was shared during the India AI Summit 2026, where the focus on AI's role in energy conservation was being discussed.

 

Bloomberg

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has opened an investigation into automotive rules of origin under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA) to assess “impact on the U.S. economy,” competitiveness, and how the rules fit “recent technology changes.” USMCA requires 75% North American content for duty-free U.S. access, plus labor value rules requiring 40% of passenger car content (45% for pickups) be made in the U.S. or Canada using “core parts” such as engines and transmissions. The ITC will hold a public hearing later this year and issue a report by July 2027.

 

Reuters

Meta has cut equity awards for most employees by about 5% for the second consecutive year, as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg reins in costs to help fund heavy investment in AI. The reduction follows a roughly 10% cut last year and affects tens of thousands of staff, though changes vary by role. The move comes as Meta ramps up AI spending, with projected 2026 capital expenditure of up to $130bn and aggressive recruitment of top AI talent on lucrative pay packages. While overall compensation spending has reportedly risen due to greater rewards for top performers, the cuts to stock awards have frustrated some employees. The company has also made broader efficiency moves, including 1,500 job cuts in its metaverse division, as it seeks to reassure investors about returns on its expanding AI investment.

 

Financial Times

Reuters

Bank of America has committed $25bn to private credit lending, joining other major Wall Street banks in expanding into the fast-growing sector as competition with non-bank lenders intensifies. The move comes amid rising scrutiny over credit quality and liquidity in private markets, following high-profile defaults and concerns about exposure to vulnerable industries such as software companies facing AI disruption. Recent restrictions on investor withdrawals by private credit firm Blue Owl have also heightened concerns about the sector’s stability. BofA said the commitment will strengthen its ability to serve corporate and private equity clients while delivering returns to shareholders. The bank also announced leadership appointments to support the strategy, naming Anand Melvani as head of private credit within its global capital markets division and Scott Wiate as head of private credit structuring and underwriting. The initiative mirrors similar efforts by JPMorgan, Citi, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, as large banks increasingly target private credit as a key growth area.

 

Bloomberg

Financial Times

The Banker

Kathryn Shiber has sued New York M&A advisory boutique Centerview Partners for disability discrimination after being fired, in a trial that could affect Wall Street disability policies. A jury in a federal court in New York next week is to rule on whether Centerview erred by sacking the junior analyst, who said she needed at least eight hours’ rest a night.

 

Business Insider

CNBC TV18

Financial Times

The Teamsters union has urged a federal judge to block UPS from offering $150,000 buyouts to drivers, warning that more than 10,000 workers could accept the deal if it proceeds. UPS plans to extend the enhanced buyout offer to around 105,000 eligible employees as part of a broader restructuring that includes cutting up to 30,000 jobs and closing 24 facilities. The company says the move is aimed at reducing its driver workforce amid falling package volumes and a strategic shift away from lower-margin deliveries for Amazon. The union argues the buyout program violates its 2023 labor contract, claiming UPS failed to negotiate the plan and is barred from making individual agreements with drivers. UPS counters that the contract does not prohibit voluntary buyouts and says blocking the program could force it to implement layoffs instead. Chief U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston said she would issue a ruling shortly.

 

Reuters

Volkswagen workers at the automaker's plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, have voted 96% in favor of a historic first labor deal negotiated by the United Auto Workers union that locks in higher wages, lower health insurance costs, and stronger job security language for the next four years. “This victory shows what happens when workers stand up and refuse to be ignored," said Yogi Peoples, a worker at the plant and member of the union's bargaining committee. "We didn’t just win better wages and raise standards at our plant - we forced respect onto the table and got it all in writing." Reuters notes the South of the U.S. "has been tough for the union to crack."

 

Detroit News

Reuters

The U.S. trade deficit totaled $901.5bn in 2025, barely changed from the previous year despite President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs aimed at reducing the imbalance. The Commerce Department reported that December’s goods and services deficit widened sharply to $70.3bn, up $17.3bn from November and well above expectations. During 2025, the Trump administration introduced a 10% across-the-board tariff on imports along with additional country-specific duties. However, some measures were later softened, and companies front-loaded imports early in the year to get ahead of tariff increases, temporarily widening the gap. The largest goods trade deficits were with the European Union ($218.8bn), China ($202.1bn), and Mexico ($196.9bn). Exports rose to $3.43tn for the year, up nearly $200bn from 2024, while imports climbed to $4.33tn, an increase of about $198bn.

 

CNBC

New York Times

Reuters

New applications for U.S. unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, pointing to a stabilizing labor market. The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial jobless claims dropped by 23,000 to 206,000 in the seven days to February 14th, well below economists’ expectations of 225,000 and down from 232,000 at the end of January. The four-week moving average of new applications was little changed at 219,000, while continuing claims, reported with a one-week lag, rose by 17,000 to 1.869m. “It appears the late-January cold spell and an imperfect seasonal-adjustment process have contributed to the recent volatility in initial claims," said economist Stuart Paul. "We take somewhat more signal from the rise in continuing claims. Workers have been finding it more difficult to find new jobs, and soft labor demand may prevent the unemployment rate from declining further in the months ahead."

 

Bloomberg

Reuters

Wall Street Journal

Walmart has reported holiday-quarter sales growth of nearly 6%, with both earnings and revenue beating Wall Street expectations, driven by strong performance in e-commerce, advertising and its third-party marketplace. Revenues in the fourth-quarter ended January 31st hit $190.66bn, up from $180.55bn a year earlier, and beating the $190.43bn expected among analysts polled by LSEG. Net income slipped from $5.25bn to $4.24bn, or 74 cents per share adjusted, beating the anticipated 73 cents per share. Comparable sales in the U.S. rose 4.6%, and were 4% up at Sam's Club, while e-commerce sales in the U.S. increased 27%. Global e-commerce sales rose 24%. In a presentation to investors on Thursday, Walmart said that growth was driven by upper-income households. “The majority of our share gains came from households earning more than $100,000”, commented chief executive John Furner. “For households earning below $50,000, we continue to see that wallets are stretched, and in some cases people are managing spending paycheck to paycheck”. Its outlook for the current fiscal year disappointed investors, with the retailer forecasting net sales growth of 3.5%-4.5% and adjusted earnings per share of $2.75-$2.85, below analysts’ expectations of $2.96 per share. 

 

CNBC

NBC News

New York Times

Wall Street Journal

Cornerstone Research has promoted Phuong Dinh, Ildiko Magyari, Alan Potter, and Qiqi Zou to principal, strengthening its leadership across economic and financial consulting practices. Based in Boston, Phuong Dinh specializes in data science applications for commercial litigation, including market manipulation, valuations, and digital assets. In New York, Ildiko Magyari focuses on antitrust and competition matters, particularly in M&A investigations and technology-sector litigation. Alan Potter advises on consumer fraud and product liability cases, leveraging large-scale data analysis, while Qiqi Zou concentrates on securities class actions and structured finance disputes. The firm also elevated five professionals to vice president. Chief executive Rahul Guha said the promotions reflect the individuals’ professional leadership and commitment to collaboration.

 

Consulting

The International Monetary Fund has called on China to halve state support for its industries, warning that Beijing’s export-heavy growth model is distorting global trade. In its annual review, the fund estimated that Beijing spends roughly 4% of gross domestic product subsidising companies in critical sectors, and said it should scale that back by about 2 percentage points. China’s industrial policies “are giving rise to international spillovers and pressures” and had combined with weak domestic demand to make China “more reliant on manufacturing exports as a source of growth,” the fund said.

 

Australian Financial Review

Financial Times