I recently spent a week working with advisors and team members on a variety of things, all human-element related. The financial business is one of numbers and quantifiable results, but we all know it is much more than this. This week’s column will encapsulate my aha moments from this week.

We’ve all seen how AI tools can boost our productivity and efficiency but, like most things in life, the benefits must be weighed against potential risks. Here are five best practices to help guide fiduciaries and ensure they benefit from these tools without running afoul of regulations.

The outlook for Boeing Co. to earn copious cash flow is bright. It just turned free-cash-flow positive in the second quarter after years of losses, and the company already has its sights on cash earnings of $10 billion a year. This is driven almost entirely by a rebound of commercial aircraft production.

South Korea expects to deploy more than 1 trillion won ($707 million) of fresh capital into a new sovereign wealth fund targeting AI and other strategic industries next year, joining a global push by governments to mobilize investment and gain an edge in high-tech sectors.

Bank of America Corp. unveiled a $250 billion initiative to invest in critical infrastructure across the US over the next year, joining its peers pushing for innovation across the country.

For many high-net-worth individuals and families, access is part of everyday life. They can secure reservations at impossible-to-book restaurants, obtain tickets to sold-out events, or open doors that remain closed to most others. Healthcare often feels like it should work the same way. It doesn't.

Unlike the previous 17 years, during which U.S. stocks were the best-performing asset class, they are in the middle of the results with a 10.5% return. Consequently, diversification beyond U.S. stocks and bonds has added value this year, as evidenced in portfolio performance.

A common pattern for couples who are trying to manage their spending goes like this: The partners sit down together, look at the numbers, lay out a spending plan, and agree on what has to change. This works for a few weeks. Then either or both slip back into old behaviors, and there’s a fight about money.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has made it easier for data center owners to sell asset-backed securities, potentially opening the door for more debt sales as tech firms scour Wall Street for ways to pay for artificial intelligence.

A few months into the second Trump administration, I found myself in a packed room alongside senior officials of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The topic, “Ensuring the Quality of US Statistics,” would have drawn little more than a collective yawn a decade ago.

Intel Corp. raised $20 billion in an upsized share sale, a third more than it was targeting when it announced the deal Monday morning.

Nasdaq Inc. agreed to buy off-exchange stock-trading venue LeveL Markets to expand its role in the equity market, according to people familiar with the matter.

GDP — for gross domestic product, the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a county’s borders — is in many ways the ideal economic statistic, both for what it measures and what it represents. It is a single number that captures so much information, with a scope and history unmatched by almost any other measure.

What stock fund could be safer than a total U.S. stock market index fund with thousands of securities? That was my thinking for the last three decades, but things are changing.

Our thesis remains largely unchanged. Today's “exploding” CDS spreads and bond yields are pricing an Oracle problem. The question investors should be asking isn't whether Oracle is an outlier. It clearly is. The question is whether Oracle is a preview of what happens to credit markets more broadly if AI capital spending keeps outrunning AI revenue.

When data can’t give us the answer, we have to think from first principles. If your objective is to maximize the risk-adjusted return of your savings, finance theory and common sense both suggest that higher risk, all else equal, calls for cutting exposure, not adding to it.

San Juan, the economic hub of Puerto Rico, triggered a rush for its $121 million muni-bond sale this week, as investors seized a rare opportunity to get exposure to island.

The leveraged ETF boom is creating new ways to profit from sudden bursts of volatility in tech stocks.

US natural gas futures rose by the most in more than two months as an unusually large swing in weather forecasts triggered a wave of short-covering among money managers who were the most bearish on gas since 2020.

US lawmakers from both parties are seeking to boost federal funding for quantum computing as China and other countries race to transition from research to deployment of the nascent technology across defense, intelligence and cybersecurity.

Getting on an airplane has become the perfect metaphor for life in America. On the one hand, flying has become cheaper and more accessible. On the other, it has become more stratified and stressful.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is setting up a reinsurance vehicle with Talcott Financial Group that has so far raised $1 billion.

After spending much of the year in the stock market doghouse over fears about their profligate spending on artificial intelligence, the world’s biggest technology companies are suddenly leading the way once again.

US Treasuries rallied after data showed employers unexpectedly cut jobs in July, suggesting labor market challenges that could impact the Federal Reserve’s willingness to raise interest rates.

Gold jumped more than 3% after an unexpected contraction in the US jobs market, extending a rebound from its slump below $4,000 an ounce.

Given America’s political environment, you would be forgiven for thinking the country has slipped into a dark age of energy recidivism; burning oil, gas and coal left and right; and tossing wind and solar farms on the scrap heap.

A growing number of investors from the US to South Korea are using leveraged exchange-traded funds for long-term investing, a far cry from the day trading they were designed for.

Alphabet Inc. is looking to raise as much as $25 billion from its latest US investment-grade bond offering, a deal that will test investor appetite for AI-related debt following a July selloff.

Finding a place to stash the keys to your cryptocurrency hoard has never been easier, thanks to options that run from putting them in a retired Swiss nuclear bunker to the humdrum use of digital-asset exchanges. It’s also never been harder to keep them safe from thieves.

On Wall Street, money speaks louder than words. The way Big Oil is currently allocating dollars suggests the supermajors are, quietly, preparing for leaner times. It’s the right approach: Oil is a cyclical business, and lower prices are always around the corner. This time, they may be even closer.