| | Good morning and happy Friday. Autumn is usually a period of gradual transition, but this feels like economic whiplash. When the US trade deficit sank to its lowest point in over 15 years in October, the White House's plan to reduce the trade deficit by way of massive "reciprocal tariffs" seemed to be working. But on Thursday, new data from the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis and Census Bureau showed that the deficit spiked 94% in November from the month before, to $56.8 billion, as imports jumped 5% and exports fell nearly 4%. It's the largest month-to-month jump in almost 34 years, blowing past economists' expectations of around $40 billion for the shutdown-delayed report. In fact, the tally of the 2025 trade deficit through November now stands at $839.5 billion, about 4% higher than the same span a year prior. The US net effective tariff rate now stands at 17%, the highest point since 1935, five years after Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. | | | | | Biggie Smalls, the rapper also known as the Notorious B.I.G., wasn't lying when he said more money means more problems. While blue-collar industries in the US grapple with a labor shortage, typically higher-paying white-collar jobs are disappearing by the thousands. The latest example comes from Amazon, one of the world's largest and wealthiest companies, which said this week it's axing 16,000 corporate jobs, following the elimination of another 14,000 in October. "We've been working to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy," Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon, said in a blog post Wednesday. Blame the Bots Jeff Bezos' company isn't the only one accelerating a so-called white-collar recession. Pinterest announced via a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it plans to trim its 5,200-person workforce, by less than 15%. Chemicals company Dow is cutting 4,500 jobs as part of a new initiative to simplify operations and streamline processes, and The New York Times reported earlier this month that Meta plans to trim 10% of staff in its Reality Labs division, which employs about 15,000. What do all these layoffs have in common? They're bringing fears of robots taking human jobs to a boiling point. Amazon and Meta have been heavily investing in AI, while Pinterest said its layoffs were partly due to its prioritization of AI-focused roles and products. Dow also pointed out that its "Transform to Outperform" plan would use AI to boost productivity and shareholder returns by streamlining operations. As AI-related layoffs accelerated late last year, experts told CNBC that some companies may be AI-washing their job cuts. "We spend a lot of time looking carefully at companies that are actually trying to implement AI, and there's very little evidence that it cuts jobs anywhere near like the level that we're talking about," said Peter Cappelli, a professor of management at the Wharton School. But with jobs still going by the wayside, that probably won't make Americans feel much better: - Consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since 2014 in January, surpassing a previous trough driven by job-related worries during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data released by the Conference Board this week. Perceptions of employment conditions specifically also edged lower.
- Write-in responses from consumers about what's affecting the economy included an increase in mentions of the labor market in January (alongside factors like prices and inflation, tariffs and politics), Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board, said in a statement.
  Jobs Day: Consumers' souring mood is likely to play heavily into scrutiny of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' next report on the US job market, by economists and Wall Street analysts alike. The numbers are scheduled to come out next Friday. Written by Mallika Mitra | | | | | | | | | Photo via Fisher Investments | Planning your estate might not sound like the most exciting thing on your to-do list, but trust us, it's worth it. And with The Investor's Guide to Estate Planning, preparing isn't as daunting as it may seem. Inside, you'll find straightforward advice on tackling key documents to clearly spell out your wishes. Plus, there's help for having those all-important family conversations about your financial legacy to make sure everyone's on the same page (and avoid negative future surprises). Why leave things to chance when you can take control? Explore ways to start, review or refine your estate plan today with The Investor's Guide to Estate Planning. Download your free guide now.  | | | | | | | | Tim Cook took out his crossbow and shot an apple off the collective head of the company's skeptics. In October, the Apple CEO set the bar high, saying that the December quarter's revenue would be the "best-ever for the company and the best ever for iPhone." Welp, it was. On Thursday, Apple said it notched record revenue and record iPhone sales. Revenue rose 16%, beating expectations, with sales in China climbing 38% as Apple gains more market share from local rivals. It's About Time Analysts think customers bought new iPhones for a boring reason: It was simply time to upgrade their old devices. The iPhone 17 came along right as people who last bought new iPhones during the pandemic started to notice their batteries dwindling and their screens accumulating one too many scratches. AI features may have helped to convince some shoppers it was time to upgrade, but for others, a smarter Siri was likely just a cherry on top. Now, Apple's feeling the pressure to make AI a bigger focal point and catch up to its Magnificent 7 peers: - The AI-upgraded Siri that Apple launched after a delay isn't considered on par with rivals like ChatGPT — and Apple has actually struck a deal with OpenAI to pass some more difficult queries to ChatGPT. Additionally, Apple announced last week that it has partnered with Google to power its AI and plans to launch a smarter Siri this year. Bloomberg reports that Siri will get two updates, and the second will be a product much closer to ChatGPT.
- Yesterday, Apple made what the Financial Times reports is one of its largest-ever acquisitions, buying Q.AI for nearly $2 billion. The startup's tech, which is patented for use in headphones and glasses, analyzes and interprets facial expressions as "silent speech." Apple's buy could help it get ahead of competitors in the AI wearables space and set it apart from products like Meta's Ray-Ban glasses.
Powered Up: Apple has to take a big bite out of 2026 to meet the expectations of investors, who want AI to be a driving force in tech sales. But with strong iPhone 17 revenue, it has more money to play with. That could mean more acquisitions: Cook said in July that Apple's "very open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap." Products like Apple's new foldable phone, due this year, could also buoy sales, especially in China, where foldables from Huawei and Honor have proven popular. But looking further out, Apple is facing a global memory shortage, driven by competing demand from AI data centers, which could impact its tech supply chain. Written by Jamie Wilde | | | | | | With more than a trillion dollars of assets under management, Blackstone is the size of a G20 nation. Fittingly, its earnings report on Thursday featured some big, big numbers. There are the usual suspects: inflows of $71 billion in the final quarter, which pushed its capital base to nearly $1.3 trillion, yet another gargantuan record. Meanwhile, quarterly distributable earnings rose 4% year over year to $2.2 billion, impressing analysts who favor the free cash flow proxy metric. But the most crucial figure might just be the still-big-but-slightly-smaller $956 million, which is what the firm earned in net realizations from investment exits. That's a 59% surge year over year, and enough for President Jon Gray to declare that the dealmaking environment has finally achieved "escape velocity." But if you ask Wall Street, merely rising above the upper limits of the atmosphere isn't impressive enough. Let's Make a Deal Nobody is happier about the exit uptick than Blackstone executives, whose realized performance compensation reached $1.1 billion overall last year, a 15% uptick from 2024 and the highest figure since 2022. Of course, not all exits are created equal. Net realizations for Blackstone's real estate and private credit arms accelerated 415% and 185%, respectively. But its private equity arm's net realizations increased just 5%. Shares of Blackstone slipped 2.6% on Thursday as traders proved unenthusiastic. Still, the asset manager is betting that a revived IPO market sets Blackstone up for success in 2026: - According to sources who spoke with the Financial Times, Blackstone is expected to deliver Copeland, the industrial refrigeration group it acquired for $9.7 billion in 2023, and sandwich shop Jersey Mike's, which it bought a year ago for $8 billion, to public markets this year.
- The optimism and suddenly frothy IPO market is fueled in no small part by the recent successful IPO of Blackstone-backed medical supply company Medline, which debuted in December at a $55 billion valuation after Blackstone acquired it for $34 billion in 2021.
"Medline was a symbolic moment," Gray told the FT. "A lot of the criticism at the time was that you couldn't exit these deals, but I do think this IPO definitely says that you can." The River of Wealth: Whatever reservations Wall Street seems to have aren't stopping the flow of money into the firm. Total inflows for 2025 reached $239 billion. Just over half steered toward its credit and insurance unit, while its wealth management unit drew $43 billion, its highest mark in three years. Written by Brian Boyle | | | | | - The Grok-eteer: Elon Musk's plan to put data centers in orbit might happen sooner with a proposal to merge SpaceX with xAI, lair of the Grok chatbot, before an IPO, according to Reuters.
- AI Ethics: A dispute over the use of Anthropic's Claude in domestic surveillance and lethal weapons is undermining the company's $200 million Pentagon contract.
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