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Boards are increasingly favoring experienced former chief executives when choosing new leaders, with 23% of incoming CEOs globally in the first half of 2026 having previously led a public company, the highest first-half share in nine years of tracking by Russell Reynolds Associates. Among S&P 500 companies, the proportion reached 34%, up from 22% a year earlier, reflecting the value boards place on experience, judgment, investor credibility, and leadership under pressure. However, traditional succession planning often overlooks whether executives have the physical and cognitive capacity to sustain performance through years of demanding workloads, travel, disrupted sleep, and high-stakes decision-making. With departing CEOs averaging nine years in the role in the first half of 2026, boards are encouraged to treat long-term physical and cognitive capacity as a core element of CEO readiness, alongside strategic judgment, operating experience, cultural fit, and stakeholder management.

 

Yahoo Finance

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The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index rose 0.2% to 99.5 in July, following an upwardly revised 0.1% decline in June, signaling the potential for moderate U.S. economic growth ahead. The index increased 0.2% over the six months through July, marking its first positive six-month growth rate in four years and a sharp improvement from the 1.3% contraction in the previous six-month period. Most components improved, although consumer expectations remained a drag, with The Conference Board forecasting that AI-related business investment will support expansion while higher living costs constrain consumer spending, particularly among lower- and middle-income households. The organization continues to forecast real GDP growth of 1.9% in both 2026 and 2027.

 

US News and World Report

Wall Street Journal

Manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia region expanded more strongly than expected in August, with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s current-activity index rising to 47.4 from 41.4 in July, well above economists’ forecast of 25. New orders and shipments declined but remained above their long-term nonrecession averages, while employment strengthened sharply, with the employment index rising 18 points to 27.9, its highest level since April 2022. Price pressures moderated but remained elevated, with the prices paid index falling 13 points to 40.9, indicating that manufacturers continue to face higher input costs despite the decline.

 

Wall Street Journal

Delta Air Lines and Grupo Aeromexico have won their legal fight to preserve their transborder joint venture. The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals sided with the carriers in their challenge to a U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) decision revoking antitrust immunity for their partnership, which allows them to coordinate pricing, marketing and frequent flyer programs. The court said USDOT "did not reasonably explain why it conducted a far more limited market analysis in this case ​than it has always done in the past or why it imposed a requirement for approval of the joint venture that it did not require of similar joint ventures it approved in Japan."

 

Bloomberg

Reuters

Walmart has reported its weakest U.S. comparable sales growth since 2020, with sales rising 2.6% in the latest quarter, below analysts’ expectations of 3.8%, although growth would have been 3.4% excluding the impact of new pharmacy-pricing regulations. The slowdown reflected continued caution among lower-income consumers and weaker physical-store trading, with in-store comparable sales declining by low single digits, while higher-income households continued to drive market-share gains. However, U.S. e-commerce sales increased 24% as Walmart’s growth increasingly shifts towards digital commerce, advertising and membership, with e-commerce now accounting for nearly a quarter of overall sales and 80% of online orders fulfilled through its stores. Group net sales rose 5.9% to $186.1bn, while net income fell 9.4% to $6.37bn, partly due to declines in the value of equity investments. Analysts have raised concerns that Walmart’s slowing growth could point to mounting pressure on U.S. consumer spending.

 

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

New York Times

Washington Post

Wall Street Journal

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has warned businesses that using consumers’ personal data to set individual prices without adequate disclosure could breach U.S. consumer-protection law. Companies using personalized pricing will be expected to clearly disclose the practice and the types of data used. The FTC is threatening enforcement action against those that fail to comply. The agency, which cannot prohibit personalized pricing outright, said consumers could suffer substantial harm when information such as browsing history, location and purchasing behavior is used without their knowledge to determine what they are willing to pay. The move comes amid growing scrutiny of artificial intelligence-powered pricing algorithms. New York and Maryland have already introduced their own disclosure requirements or restrictions.

 

Reuters

Wall Street Journal

Starbucks is laying off more than 200 corporate employees as chief executive Brian Niccol continues to streamline the business and target $2bn in cost savings by the end of fiscal 2028. The cuts include about 120 technology employees who declined to relocate to the company’s new Nashville office, as well as 104 roles in coffeehouse design and development, and do not involve additional cafe closures. The reductions follow 300 U.S. corporate layoffs earlier this year and around 2,000 corporate job cuts in 2025, alongside the closure of hundreds of U.S. stores. Starbucks is simultaneously investing in cafe operations and a new $100m Nashville office for 2,000 employees, while its turnaround has shown signs of progress, with recent quarterly sales and earnings beating expectations and the company raising its full-year same-store sales and earnings forecasts.

 

Fox News

Chattanooga Times Free Press

Wall Street Journal

The San Francisco Bay Area, once the heart of the tech industry, has been surpassed by New York in terms of the size of the tech talent workforce, according to a report from CBRE. New York's tech workforce reached 394,300, while the Bay Area's dropped to 375,730, marking a 6% decline from 2022 to 2025. Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE's Tech Insights Center, observed: “The Bay Area is likely to remain . . . the central location for the AI industry and for innovation. But as we've seen during past cycles, as it tends to grow, that spreads out to all the key markets.”  The report also highlighted that 71% of adults believe AI will lead to fewer jobs in the U.S. over the next two decades.

 

Los Angeles Times

Initial jobless claims declined last week after nearly a month of increases, signaling that layoffs remain relatively limited despite a slower labor market. The Labor Department reported 206,000 new unemployment benefit claims in the seven days to August 15th, down 6,000 from the prior week’s upwardly revised 212,000 and below economists’ expectations of 210,000. The four-week moving average rose 4,250 to 204,000, while total claims, reported with a one-week lag, hit 1.8m, up from 1.78m. “The labor market has yet to show any sign of wear and tear from the surge in oil prices since the start of the war with Iran and the global energy supply shock,” commented High Frequency Economics chief economist Carl Weinberg.

 

ABC News

Bloomberg

Wall Street Journal

AICPA's Auditing Standards Board has approved SAS No. 151, a new standard designed to clarify and strengthen auditors’ responsibilities for identifying and responding to fraud or suspected fraud in financial statement audits. While the standard does not change the definition of fraud or auditors’ overall objective of obtaining reasonable assurance that financial statements are free of material misstatement, it introduces more specific requirements around professional skepticism, fraud risk assessment, documentation, communication, and responses to suspected or identified fraud. Among the changes, auditors will be required to assess fraud risks more explicitly, understand an organization’s whistleblower or fraud-reporting program where one exists, and follow expanded requirements for communicating suspected fraud to management and those charged with governance. The standard retains the presumption of fraud risk in revenue recognition and emphasizes that management and those responsible for governance remain primarily responsible for preventing and detecting fraud. The final standard is expected to be published in October and will apply to audits of financial statements for periods ending on or after December 15, 2028, with early implementation permitted.

 

Accounting Today

CPA Practice Advisor

Research into an online-first, multi-brand electronics retailer, published in the Harvard Business Review, suggests that physical stores create value not by replicating e-commerce, but by solving customer problems that digital channels handle less effectively. An analysis of 26 months of transaction data found that three store openings reduced nearby online net revenue by roughly 8% to 11%, but two large, experience-focused stores more than offset this cannibalization, increasing total net revenue across channels by 21.7% and 23.2%. One store’s uplift eventually reached 27.5%. By contrast, a smaller, convenience-focused store produced no significant increase in total net revenue. The findings indicate that retailers should evaluate stores across the entire customer journey rather than treating physical and online channels as separate businesses. The larger stores generated growth primarily by encouraging existing customers to shop more frequently, while also attracting new customers. This means metrics such as total net revenue, customer acquisition, purchase frequency, retention, and returns can provide a better picture of a store’s contribution than store sales, online growth, or foot traffic alone.

 

Harvard Business Review

Charles Schwab plans to expand the workforce at its newly opened ​global capability center in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad to about 2,000 employees by the ‌end of 2027. The state government said the U.S. financial services firm plans to bring some technology work ​that is currently handled by local contractors in-house. "So ‌the ⁠ones who are laying off have already been around for quite some time in India and they are optimising on their bloated workforce with AI," Pareekh Jain, founder of technology consulting firm EIIRTrend, observed. 

 

Reuters