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Catherine Baab

Catherine Baab

Quartz

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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

latest 2

Quartz

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

yesterday 8

Quartz

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

yesterday 30

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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 3

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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 3

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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 2

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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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

Quartz

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

McDonald's offers a snapshot of a $5 Meal Deal America

The fast food giant’s earnings showed solid global demand. But U.S. momentum was flat as the "bifurcated" economy persists and lower-income diners...

05.11.2025 3

Quartz

Catherine Baab

U.S. adds 42,000 private-sector jobs, but white-collar layoffs mount

ADP’s October report shows modest hiring and flat pay, with white-collar layoffs spreading even as the shutdown dragging on

05.11.2025 10

Quartz

Catherine Baab

The AI boom that built the bull market is starting to wobble

The selloff in Palantir and the Nasdaq highlights a tense dynamic: America’s entire stock market has arguably become a leveraged bet on AI

04.11.2025 3

Quartz

Catherine Baab

They bought homes during the pandemic. Now they're underwater and stuck

A growing number of American homeowners are finding themselves underwater. Here's what that means for the economy

03.11.2025 30

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Catherine Baab

The restaurant recession could be here

Young Americans are ditching $15 burritos for groceries — worrying CEOs and sending fast-casual stocks plunging as much as 80%

03.11.2025 10

Quartz

Catherine Baab

Is 'learn to craft' the new 'learn to code?'

AI can write code, but it can’t fix an air conditioner. So some white-collar professionals are trading PowerPoints for power tools

02.11.2025 20

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Catherine Baab

Are Visa and Mastercard the new “hyperscalers”?

As growth in card spending slows, the two giants are now reframing themselves as the AWS and Azure of money movement — but are such claims legit?

30.10.2025 10

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Catherine Baab

OpenAI is paying former investment bankers $300,000 a year to train its AI models

The company is recruiting banking dropouts to join a secretive effort called Project Mercury. What does it mean for Wall Street's future?

30.10.2025 8

Quartz

Catherine Baab

The Fed is 'flying blind' into a widely expected interest rate cut

It’s a move that Wall Street has already priced in with near certainty, even as the government shutdown has deprived policymakers of data

29.10.2025 4

Quartz

Catherine Baab

The skies are clearing for Boeing. But a $5 billion hit has the stock grounded

CEO Kelly Ortberg said the company is hitting an "important milestone," even as charges related to its 777X tanked the numbers

29.10.2025 4

Quartz

Catherine Baab

UnitedHealth's 'recovery' reveals what's really sick in American healthcare

UnitedHealth’s earnings are a powerful reminder that the country's healthcare math, whether corporate or federal, just does not add up

28.10.2025 20

Quartz

Catherine Baab

Ray Dalio sees a vast American underclass increasingly dependent on the top 1%

The billionaire hedge fund manager says that U.S. economic strength now rests on high-productivity workers, with the bottom 60% “unproductive”

27.10.2025 20

Quartz

Catherine Baab

The Dow plunges 1,000 points and the Nasdaq reels as Trump attacks Powell again

Tesla stock slides and markets go backwards as earnings season meets trade war chaos

23.10.2025 3

Quartz

Catherine Baab

Hedge fund assets just hit a record $5 trillion. Here's why

Hedge funds are seeing their best growth in years, driven by a mix of fresh money, strong returns, and a flight to uncorrelated performance

23.10.2025 3

Quartz

Catherine Baab

Luxury travel is booming as Delta and Hilton thrive on wealthy spenders

The skies may not be friendly for everyone, but for those still flying — and sleeping — at the top end, they remain remarkably cloudless

22.10.2025 6

Quartz

Catherine Baab

Walmart and Target are cutting back for the holidays. That's bad news for Mattel

For toy companies, the quarter preceding the holiday season functions as a preview — with Walmart and Target revealing their holiday sales estimates

22.10.2025 9

Quartz

Catherine Baab