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Catherine Baab

Catherine Baab

Quartz

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Trump canceled or stopped enforcement against 166 corporations in his first year. Many of them were donors

New analysis finds federal agencies halted or limited enforcement and prosecution, including many involving companies and individuals with ties to...

previous day 10

Quartz

Catherine Baab

Goldman Sachs gets rich making the rich richer

The bank's earnings reflect an economy where access to capital, regular markets, private markets, and high-end financial services means everything

thursday 20

Quartz

Catherine Baab

Big banks had a big year — and shareholders made bank

Profits rolled in across Wall Street, with stock prices rising to match. By most measures, 2025 was a great year for the sector

14.01.2026 20

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Catherine Baab

Inflation is steady. Grocery prices are not

A new inflation report is reassuring on some fronts. But it also points to why so many consumers still experience cost-of-living headaches

13.01.2026 10

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Catherine Baab

JPMorgan Chase earnings show a banner year. But now political risk looms larger

A clean earnings beat capped JPMorgan's strong 2025, but Trump’s pressure campaign on credit card interest rates injects new uncertainty

13.01.2026 10

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Catherine Baab

Big banks had a big year. Now they face a big political test

Wall Street is poised to report record profits. But Trump’s threat on credit card interest rates injected fresh uncertainty into earnings season

12.01.2026 5

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Catherine Baab

A turbulent year for jobs ends with signs of an uneven slowdown

The headline numbers suggest an economy still adding jobs, albeit at a sluggish pace. But dig deeper, and the worrying signs begin to pile up

09.01.2026 10

Quartz

Catherine Baab

Layoffs are getting better. The white-collar job market is not

Fewer layoff announcements may be masking a deeper slowdown as white-collar and manufacturing hiring continues to fall

08.01.2026 5

Quartz

Catherine Baab

All about our K-shaped economy

By traditional measures, the economy looks healthy right now. Yet nearly half of Americans say their financial security is worsening

08.01.2026 10

Quartz

Catherine Baab

The white-collar jobs wipeout shows no sign of slowing

Beneath headline employment growth, a new ADP jobs report shows major contraction in the white-collar labor market, especially in tech and consulting

07.01.2026 10

Quartz

Catherine Baab

The Supreme Court increasingly favors wealthy interests. Here's what that means for American business

Economists find a growing gap in how Supreme Court justices rule for rich and poor. Here's what that means for businesses and regulation

06.01.2026 20

Quartz

Catherine Baab

Stocks rise after the U.S. attacks Venezuela. But gold tells a different story

The S&P 500 climbed on energy gains. At the same time, gold and silver rallied amid fears that the geopolitical rules won't hold

05.01.2026 4

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Catherine Baab

OpenAI is paying employees $1.5 million each

A Wall Street Journal scoop reveals average stock-based comp of $1.5 million per employee, a staggering figure even in world-historical terms

01.01.2026 20

Quartz

Catherine Baab

How Wall Street’s biggest banks see stocks in 2026

Major banks expect AI spending and lower interest rates to keep U.S. stocks climbing, even after years of outsized gains

30.12.2025 9

Quartz

Catherine Baab

More and more Americans are shifting the blame for high prices to Washington

A new poll finds Americans across party lines increasingly blaming the federal government for higher prices

30.12.2025 5

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Catherine Baab

Taking stock of a great run for stocks

Let's look at what actually drove the big market returns of 2025 — and which stocks led the charge

30.12.2025 10

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Catherine Baab

What the biggest banks are predicting for the U.S. economy in 2026

When bankers talk “moderate growth” and “uncertainty,” they’re often saying even less than you'd think

30.12.2025 8

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Catherine Baab

The 'godfather of AI' says the AI jobs wipeout is just beginning

Nobel Prize–winning scientist Geoffrey Hinton warns that rapid advances in AI could make many forms of human labor — and human intelligence — obsolete

29.12.2025 10

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Catherine Baab

Nvidia got there first. What companies will hit $5 trillion market caps next?

After Nvidia smashed the biggest valuation milestone in market history, a host of familiar names are emerging as the likeliest to follow

29.12.2025 40

Quartz

Catherine Baab

Gold caps off a monster year with another record breakthrough

The rally striking not just for its scale — gold is up roughly 70% in 2025 — but also because it’s happening alongside a rally in stocks

24.12.2025 6

Quartz

Catherine Baab

The stocks that won 2025 — and what they say about the market

Most of the year's market winners offered access to major themes — AI infrastructure and AI enterprise spending, or the “debasement trade”

24.12.2025 4

Quartz

Catherine Baab

The economy looked great this summer. Americans don't feel it this winter

New GDP data shows the economy as it looked this summer — before hiring slowed, consumer sentiment sagged, and financial stress became more visible

23.12.2025 10

Quartz

Catherine Baab

The rise of the 100-month car loan

Cars are so expensive that what used to be a standard five-year loan has given way to six- and seven-year terms, with some borrowers pushing even...

23.12.2025 7

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Catherine Baab

The year the world doubted America's money

Inflation stopped being just a story about prices in 2025. It arguably became part of a much larger question markets were asking about the U.S. itself

23.12.2025 6

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Catherine Baab

Gold is booming. So are tech stocks. That's not normal

Precious metals are ripping on fear and anxiety just as growth stocks rocket on liquidity and optimism. Can this uncanny market trend actually last?

22.12.2025 5

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Catherine Baab

Inflation is complicating Trump's narrative

A delayed inflation report came in cooler than expected. But fogginess in the data following the government shutdown makes it more of a blunt snapshot

18.12.2025 4

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Catherine Baab

Why the dollar got weaker in 2025 — and what it means for 2026

How a sharp early-year drop, political uncertainty, and shifting capital flows ended the U.S. dollar’s long era of easy dominance

18.12.2025 8

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Catherine Baab

General Mills' ugly quarter is a warning sign for the economy

Lower-income and more middle-class shoppers are increasingly reaching for generic store brands and looking to cut their grocery bills any way they can

17.12.2025 3

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Catherine Baab

The jobs market slowdown is here — and it's real

A delayed jumbo report serves as a cold reality check, showing that official data is catching up to a slump that many workers and employers already...

16.12.2025 6

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Catherine Baab

Being a 401(k) millionaire matters more than ever. Here's why

In a world where AI may reshape careers faster than ever, long-term stock market wealth may be the single strongest defense ordinary Americans have 

16.12.2025 10

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Catherine Baab

Is $140,000 really the new poverty line?

A viral claim that the poverty line should be $140,000 has ignited a fierce debate about what it really costs to raise a family

15.12.2025 4

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Catherine Baab

The white-collar layoffs have come to McKinsey

McKinsey’s move lands with particular symbolic weight because of the firm’s cultural role in white-collar America

15.12.2025 20

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Catherine Baab

The gentrification of Walmart

As higher-income households flood into Walmart, the retailer isn’t just winning market share —it’s redrawing the class map of American retail

15.12.2025 10

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Catherine Baab

Inside America's Costco economy

A retailer once built around broad middle-class value is now powered overwhelmingly by its most affluent, most loyal, most economically insulated...

12.12.2025 10

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Catherine Baab

Why the Fed thinks America may be losing jobs in secret

Jerome Powell says official hiring data could be so inflated that the U.S. economy is actually shedding jobs, not adding them

11.12.2025 3

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Catherine Baab

The Fed prepares to cut interest rates again — even as it flies half-blind

Another rate cut is all but certain today. But lingering data delays, layoffs, and soaring bond yields may make this Jerome Powell’s toughest call yet

10.12.2025 4

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Catherine Baab

Understanding the Fed's AI doom loop

What if the Fed's interest rate cuts, intended to support a struggling jobs market, end up accelerating the very technology contributing to job...

09.12.2025 2

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Catherine Baab

China shrugs off Trump's tariffs with a world-record $1 trillion trade surplus

China is emerging from Trump’s 2025 trade wars more or less intact, replacing U.S.-bound exports with other partners

08.12.2025 4

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Catherine Baab

Everyone hates Microsoft Copilot. Does it even matter?

The passion behind the complaints may be, ironically, a sign of Copilot’s enormous visibility and spread thus far.

07.12.2025 5

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Catherine Baab

Welcome to America's dollar store economy

Discount retailers have been the stealth winners of a challenging 2025. Dollar General's earnings show that millions of shoppers are trading down

04.12.2025 30

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Catherine Baab

The business of baldness

For as long as there have been men with power, there have been men terrified of losing the appearance of it

04.12.2025 3

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Catherine Baab

Dollar Tree is one of 2025's hottest retailers — and that should worry everyone

A record Halloween and near-10% sales growth at Dollar Tree shows 2025's great trade-down

03.12.2025 3

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Catherine Baab

The short-seller who bet against Enron has a new warning about Nvidia and AI

Jim Chanos, most famous for his prescient Enron call in the early 2000s, is warning that Nvidia has created a risky new corner of the debt market

01.12.2025 6

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Catherine Baab

The stock market zooms toward a Thanksgiving feast as AI plays surge

Google has added almost $1 trillion in market cap over the last six weeks, driven by positive reception to its newest Gemini AI model

26.11.2025 6

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Catherine Baab

Who's afraid of an AI bubble? Alibaba stock surges on tech rally and strongest growth in years

Instant commerce surged 60% and cloud revenue soared on AI workloads, sending shares higher for a second straight day

26.11.2025 20

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Catherine Baab

Google is soaring toward a $4 trillion market cap as Nvidia stock slumps

A.I. Google is soaring toward a $4 trillion market cap as Nvidia stock slumps Google stock has shot up almost 35% in the last six weeks, adding...

26.11.2025 10

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Catherine Baab

Flight cuts are causing widespread pain. Here's what you need to know

Even if the government shutdown ends this week, a top official has signaled that disruptions could stretch well into the holiday season

10.11.2025 5

Quartz

Catherine Baab

The FAA is cutting flights at 40 major airports. Here's what it means for travelers

A record-long government shutdown has the agency set to throttle flight volumes by 10% at dozens of airports, with the holiday travel season coming

06.11.2025 3

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Catherine Baab

Trump's economy is worse than it looks

The headline numbers average out the extremes, but the underlying picture is one of wealthy consumers thriving and everyone else trading down

06.11.2025 20

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Catherine Baab

Consultants rule the Earth

From the Fortune 500 c-suite to the White House to the Vatican, consultants are everywhere. What do they actually know?

06.11.2025 20

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Catherine Baab