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California is home to the highest fuel prices in the U.S. as well as the busiest containership port complex in the nation. So as the Iran war enters its sixth month and petroleum-product prices remain elevated, consumers across the U.S. could be hit with higher prices for a host of everyday products.  Nearly one-third of containership imports and exports travel through the San Pedro Bay port complex. In other words, before goods end up on …

Visa on Monday said it is acquiring fraud detection startup BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash, expanding the payment giant’s push into cybersecurity as banks confront a surge in artificial intelligence-powered scams and account takeovers. Under the deal, Visa will get BioCatch’s behavioral biometrics platform, which analyzes data including keystroke timing, touch screen pressure and other signals to distinguish real users from scammers and bots. Visa said it is acquiring the firm from London-based private …

China’s domestic tourism market is weakening faster than expected, clouding one of the few bright spots in the country’s sluggish consumer economy. Hilton China said last week it now expects revenue per available room (RevPAR) to fall by low single digits this year, worse than expectations earlier this year for a flat performance. The hotel group’s RevPAR swung from 1.3% growth in the first quarter, to a 2.2% fall in the second quarter. “The China …

Bond market investors may want to shift their focus toward the front of the yield curve, according to Allspring Global Investments’ Noah Wise. The bottom line: Focus exposure on short-term Treasurys over long duration. Wise, the firm’s head of global macro strategy and a senior portfolio manager, sees the strategy as part of a diversified portfolio to deliver profits due to the monetary policy backdrop. “You see a market that’s pricing in a couple of …

Clear Street, the prime brokerage startup that recently shelved plans for its own IPO, is now aiming to give investors access to some of Silicon Valley’s hottest private companies before they go public. The firm is close to announcing a new platform designed to let accredited investors buy interests in late-stage private companies, starting with AI software titan Databricks, valued this month at $188 billion, CNBC is first to report. “The goal is to remove …

The stock market looked unusually tranquil. Beneath the surface, one of Wall Street’s fastest-growing funds devoted to artificial intelligence investments was unraveling. In a matter of weeks, Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness went from managing roughly $45 billion to being forced into a sweeping reduction of its listed-stock positions as a historic momentum reversal triggered losses on both sides of its portfolio and set off margin calls and compulsory sales. Situational Awareness had built concentrated positions …

Two years ago, Leopold Aschenbrenner argued he was one of few people in the world who saw the future clearly. In a sprawling, 165-page essay that became required reading in Silicon Valley, the former OpenAI researcher positioned himself as a kind of prophet for the coming age of artificial super intelligence. But this week, the limits of Aschenbrenner’s vision were on display when the AI-themed hedge fund he runs — named Situational Awareness, also the …

New York state sued prediction market platform Kalshi on Friday, alleging that the company is running an “illegal gambling operation.” In a case filed in a Manhattan state court, the lawsuit claims that Kalshi accepts wagers as a gambling business in disregard for the state’s constitution and laws by not being registered with the New York State Gaming Commission.  “No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple,” …

Federal Reserve officials who voted this week against the decision to hold interest rates steady said Friday they favor hiking now as a way to stave off inflation. “In my view, now is the time for the [Federal Open Market Committee] to act to speed the return of PCE inflation to our 2 percent objective and deliver on our commitment to price stability for the American people,” Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said in a …

Five years after the initial public offering boom of 2021, public markets look a lot different as more companies are choosing to stay private for longer. In 2021, public markets saw a multitude of companies join the ranks. The Nasdaq said it welcomed 743 IPOs that year, while the New York Stock Exchange said it added more than $1 trillion in new market capitalization, marking the second straight year of record new listings. The biggest …