Saab, which makes the JAS 39 Gripen, might soon add the APKWS to the fighter’s weapons options.
Company executives told Business Insider they realized they needed cheaper weapons to fight drones.
The 70mm guided rocket system is already being used in and outside Ukraine to battle UAS.
Swedish defense prime Saab is exploring the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System as a cheaper armament option for its JAS 39 Gripen fighters, firm executives told Business Insider this week.
“The APKWS is in interest because other platforms are now integrating 70mm guided rockets. So we are, of course, eyeing that capability now,” Jussi Halmetoja, operations advisor for Saab’s air domain, said at the Singapore Airshow.
Halmetoja said the company was looking at ways to integrate the weapons system, which uses a guided version of the Hydra 70mm rocket, onto its older Gripen C and latest Gripen E models.
He made the comments as he and Mikael Franzên, chief marketing officer for the Gripen program, discussed the company’s observation from the Ukraine war that it needs more inexpensive weapons to counter uncrewed aerial systems.
“I mean, right now we are using very expensive weapons to kill very cheap drones,” Franzén said of traditional Western air combat.
He added that Saab is hoping to potentially equip the Gripen with systems that can fit multiple munitions onto a single hardpoint.
“If you can have four or 10 on each hardpoint, then you can kill a lot more drones,” Franzên said. The APWKS is typically mounted on aircraft with multilaunch pods.
Kyiv has signed a letter of intent with Sweden to potentially acquire up to 150 Gripen E fighters in the coming years. Ukraine’s air force has yet to fly the jet, which is touted as an ideal fighter for battling Russia because it’s built to operate from dispersed, rugged airfields and in the Arctic domain.
Kyiv is now flying much of its small fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons from such small airfields, often moving the aircraft to increase their survivability.
But Franzén and Halmetoja said the Gripen can turn around much faster from dispersed airfields and be ready for a new mission within 10 minutes of landing.
Sweden, South Africa, Brazil, Thailand, Czechia, and Hungary are among the countries that fly the Gripen.
The APWKS, meanwhile, is already being deployed across various systems in Ukraine.
For example, the VAMPIRE counter-UAS systems feature a four-barrel launcher for the guided Hydra rockets that can be mounted on a pickup truck.
The cost of using one APKWS round is estimated at $20,000 to $35,000, compared to weapons more typically associated with modern fighters, such as the AIM-9 Sidewinder, which costs roughly $450,000, and the AIM-120 AMRAAM, which costs roughly $1 million.
Concerns about missile costs against cheaper drones have risen steadily since the war began, and as Russia has continuously grown its loitering munitions mass manufacturing.
Outside Ukraine, the US military has also been using the APWKS to recently fight drone attacks in the Middle East. The weapons system, loaded on American F-16s and F-15s, was responsible for roughly 40% of the drone kills scored by US forces against Houthi drones during last year’s Operation Rough Rider.
Warren Buffett has retired as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO, making way for his top deputy, Greg Abel.
Abel’s key challenges include deploying Berkshire’s huge cash pile and expanding his remit.
He also has to navigate making changes without harming Berkshire’s culture, close watchers say.
Warren Buffett has officially retired as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO after six decades in charge. Close watchers say Greg Abel, who took the reins on New Year’s Day, faces three key challenges.
Abel’s biggest hurdle will be “finding a way to intelligently allocate” Berkshire’s vast and growing cash pile, Alex Morris, the author of “Buffett and Munger Unscripted” and the founder of investment research service TSOH, told Business Insider.
Berkshire’s trove of cash, Treasury bills, and other liquid assets recently breached $350 billion — a figure that exceeds the market values of Home Depot, Procter & Gamble, and General Electric.
Read more about the leadership transition underway at Berkshire Hathaway:
Abel could use Berkshire’s war chest to fund stock buybacks, acquire other businesses, or pay dividends to shareholders, Morris said.
Yet Buffett hasn’t found any of those to be fruitful avenues in recent years. Berkshire hasn’t repurchased shares in its past five reported quarters, only paid a dividend on one occasion under Buffett, in 1967, and has made few material acquisitions in the past 15 years.
As a business icon and legendary investor, Buffett was given “more of a pass” by Wall Street and Berkshire shareholders for hoarding cash than Abel is likely to receive, Morris said.
“Finding a solution here is challenging,” he continued, before suggesting Abel might consider a one-off special dividend.
Greg Abel (middle) took over as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO on January 1.AP Images / Nati Harnik
Prior to becoming CEO, Abel headed up Berkshire’s non-insurance businesses, including Berkshire Hathaway Energy and the BNSF Railway.
Abel is recognized as a world-class operator, but that’s “fundamentally different from identifying accretive acquisitions in the public and private markets,” Luke Rahbari, the CEO of Equity Armor Investments, told Business Insider.
Buffett and his late business partner, Charlie Munger, designed Berkshire as a web of decentralized, autonomous subsidiaries, freeing them to spend much of their days reading corporate filings and searching for compelling investments.
“Greg Abel will not have the time to do this,” David Kass, a finance professor at the University of Maryland, told Business Insider.
Kass said the new boss will have a “full plate” overseeing Berkshire’s subsidiaries, including insurers such as Geico for the first time, managing its roughly $300 billion stock portfolio, and making major allocation decisions outside of the company including acquisitions and other deals.
Buffett and Munger built Berkshire’s culture around core values such as trust, honesty, patience, discipline, and long-term thinking.
They delegated “almost to the point of abdication,” they told shareholders in their Owner’s Manual. The company had nearly 400,000 employees at the end of 2024, but only 27 worked in its Omaha headquarters, per its latest annual report.
Abel is expected to be a more hands-on manager than Buffett. He’s already announced several leadership changes, including the appointment of Berkshire’s first general counsel and a new divisional president.
“The challenge will be institutionalizing the culture while professionalizing a headquarters that has historically been intentionally lean,” Rahbari said.
He added that Abel doesn’t have Buffett’s track record and will have to earn the trust awarded to his predecessor.
“Abel will have to navigate complex relationships with subsidiary management teams where the ‘loyalty discount’ previously given to Buffett may no longer apply,” he said.
Thousands of Microsoft workers have been laid off in the past year, and Washington resident Mike Kostersitz is just one of them. After spending 31 years at Microsoft, he’s now looking for a job for the first time in more than three decades.
In May, the 60-year-old principal product manager lead said a new high-priority meeting appeared on his calendar out of nowhere.
“Me and 120 other anonymous faces got told our jobs had been eliminated,” he told Business Insider (1). The layoff came as a complete surprise. “After 31 years, you would expect at least your manager or your VP or somebody to come to you and say, ‘Hey Mike, this is going to happen and here is why.’”
A few years ago Kostersitz presented an ‘architectural deep dive” in a YouTube video and introduced himself as a PM lead on the Azure Kubernetes Service on Azure Stack HCI (AKS-HCI) team (2).
Kostersitz is among thousands of tech workers suddenly forced to navigate an unfamiliar job market reshaped by automation, AI and an industry-wide slowdown.
The good news is that he recently shared on LinkedIn that “something exciting is brewing” and he is feeling “grateful, fired up and ready to lace up for what’s ahead.”
Microsoft’s layoffs are part of a larger trend. In recent months, Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet have all trimmed their workforces. Amazon cut 14,000 jobs in October, citing a shift toward AI automation. Meta eliminated roughly 600 roles in its “superintelligence” division, while Alphabet reduced staff in its cloud unit.
According to executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, cost-cutting and AI were the top reasons employers cited for job reductions in October (3). The so-called “DOGE impact” is the leading reason cited for layoffs in 2025 overall.
The tech industry announced 33,281 job cuts in October 2025 — a sharp jump from 5,639 in September, and the highest number recorded across any private sector that month. For all of 2025, tech firms have announced 141,159 job cuts, up 17% from the same period in 2024.
While overall U.S. unemployment remains relatively low, it has risen since the start of the year. It would appear competition for tech roles has intensified. Reports suggest thousands of skilled professionals are now competing for fewer openings, often requiring updated skill sets in AI, data science and automation.
Layoffs can be both financially and emotionally jarring. But as Kostersitz’s story shows, there are ways to stay grounded, adapt, prepare for what’s next and land somewhere new and exciting. If you’ve been laid off or fear you will be, here are a few steps to help find a new role and navigate the emotional impact.
It’s normal to feel shocked or even betrayed, especially after spending decades at one company. Kostersitz said he took the rest of the week off before beginning his job search. Taking a few days to reset can help you think more clearly about next steps and what you really want in life.
Some employers, like Microsoft, include career services or financial counseling as part of severance. Kostersitz told Business Insider the tech giant provided a career advisor as part of its layoff package, adding that he also hired a private coach to help with resumes, cover letters, and LinkedIn optimization. If you’re laid off, ask about internal resources you may have access to, such as online training or interview prep.
Kostersitz admitted that reentering the job market after 31 years was like being a fish out of water. Use this period to brush up on emerging tools, especially AI-related technologies, even if your role isn’t technical. Free online courses and certifications can help bridge gaps and make your resume more appealing to recruiters and hiring managers.
Research interview questions in your industry and prepare answers for common questions. Expect behavioral questions. Come up with three to five concise stories that highlight problem-solving, leadership and adaptability, backed by measurable outcomes. The goal isn’t to appear scripted, but to demonstrate that you’re prepared and capable.
Referrals can make a world of difference in a competitive hiring field. Kostersitz, for example, landed an interview with Nvidia thanks to a referral from a current employee. Reach out to old colleagues, alumni groups, and industry peers. Even if they can’t hire you, they can often connect you with opportunities or advocate for you internally.
As layoffs continue to rise in the tech sector, now is a good time to get your finances in order. Even if you don’t feel like you’re at risk of a layoff, consider beefing up your emergency fund and refreshing your resume. Preparation — both financially and professionally — can make navigating a layoff easier.
The federal government has released a list of all of the entities helping to pay for President Trump’s lavish White House ballroom, . Big tech is all over this thing, with companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft all shelling out cash to fund the 90,000-square-foot ballroom.
It’s not just big tech. Defense firms are also helping to pony the bill here. Companies like Lockheed Martin and Palintir are sending some cash, as are random billionaires like the Winklevoss twins and Domino Sugar magnate José Fanjul. The list reads like a who’s who of the ultra wealthy and connected.
As we all know, giant corporations and billionaires are kind and selfless, but what if just this one time they want something in return for their largesse? Columbia professor of law Richard Briffault told Time have done “significant” business with the federal government, raising ethical concerns.
“I doubt it’s a literal quid-pro-quo, but it’s probably more like ‘if you give this, I will look favorably upon you.’ Or maybe more like, ‘if you don’t give this, after you’ve been asked, I won’t [look favorably upon you],” Briffault said. “It’s greasing the system by making contributions, and in some ways, his leaning on them for contributions is quasi-coercive.”
Noah Bookbinder, CEO and President of ethics watchdog organization said the whole thing is “extraordinarily unusual, deeply disturbing and does have tremendous ethics implications.” He also said that “Donald Trump has made very clear over the years that he does appreciate people paying tribute to him, and he does tend to do things that benefit those people.”
Trump has been personally woo-ing these potential financiers. There was a fundraising dinner in the East Room last week that included representatives of several of the aforementioned companies. The dinner was billed as an event to “Establish the Magnificent White House Ballroom,” . The outlet also reported that Trump has held meetings at the White House and at his club in Virginia to raise money for the project.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time big tech companies have banded together to pay tribute to Trump. Most of the aforementioned companies and, heck, Apple CEO Tim Cook for some reason.
The construction of this glorious ballroom we all most definitely want has already been at the heart of several controversies. Americans were recently surprised to find that the East Wing of the White House , despite the president previously promising the ballroom would not even touch the actual property.
In any event, we’ll soon be able to watch live feeds of the ultra rich dancing the night away to the Village People or whatever, which is sure to solve all of our problems. In unrelated news, food stamps are likely to run out next week for around 41 million Americans and .
Business Insider has obtained the guidelines that Meta contractors are reportedly now using to train its AI chatbots, showing how it’s attempting to more effectively address potential child sexual exploitation and prevent kids from engaging in age-inappropriate conversations. The company said in August that it was updating the guardrails for its AIs after Reuters reported that its policies allowed the chatbots to “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” which Meta said at the time was “erroneous and inconsistent” with its policies and removed that language.
The document, which Business Insider has shared an excerpt from, outlines what kinds of content are “acceptable” and “unacceptable” for its AI chatbots. It explicitly bars content that “enables, encourages, or endorses” child sexual abuse, romantic roleplay if the user is a minor or if the AI is asked to roleplay as a minor, advice about potentially romantic or intimate physical contact if the user is a minor, and more. The chatbots can discuss topics such as abuse, but cannot engage in conversations that could enable or encourage it.
xAI has laid off at least 500 workers from its data annotation team, the company’s largest, according to Business Insider. The annotation team is in charge of categorizing and contextualizing raw data used to train Grok so that it can understand the world better. Business Insider says the laid off employees were informed via email on the evening of September 12, Friday, that it was going to downsize its team of general AI tutors. They were reportedly told that they would be paid their salaries until the end of their contracts on November 30, but their access to xAI’s systems had been cut off after they received the notice.
When Reuters asked the company for a comment, it referred to a post on X wherein it posted a call for specialist AI tutors instead. xAI said that it will “immediately surge [its] Specialist AI tutor team by 10x” and that it’s hiring across STEM fields. As specialist tutors, the new hires will be “enhancing [the company’s] AI technologies through high-quality inputs, labels and annotations using specialized software.” They’ll gather data and provide their own, not only in text format, but also through audio recordings and video sessions.
As Reuters has noted, the layoffs come after several high-profile departures from xAI, including the company’s chief financial officer Mike Liberatore. The company launched Grok 4 in July, calling it the “smartest AI in the world.” Elon Musk claimed during the model’s reveal that if you make Grok 4 take the SATs and the GREs, it would get near perfect results every time and can answer questions it’s never seen before. He also proclaimed that Grok is going to invent new tech maybe later this year, and that he would be shocked if it doesn’t happen next year.
In Ukraine, crowdfunding foundations play an outsize role in keeping elite units supplied with FPV drones.
One renowned group, the Sternenko Foundation, delivers new, updated drones in days or weeks.
Drone pilots say it’s often the difference between life and death on the rapidly changing battlefield.
Editor’s note: This story features several interviewees who requested to be identified only by their first name or call sign for their safety.
Every few weeks, Ukrainian bridal shop owner Ilia scrapes together a donation — usually no more than $7.
“If I had any doubts about how my money is being used, I wouldn’t give it,” said the grizzled 33-year-old, who is exempt from military service because he is blind in one eye.
Much of that money goes to the Sternenko Foundation, a prominent volunteer group that uses civilian donations to equip Ukrainian defenders with thousands of attack drones. The foundation runs regular online fundraisers, spreading the word on Telegram to Ukrainians like Ilia.
Ilia walks in this park almost every night with his wife, Tatyana, he said. The soldiers’ names are blurred out.Ilia/Business Insider
He’s one of the hundreds of thousands contributing to Ukraine’s extraordinary crowdfunding of its embattled military, which has become a key pillar of the war effort. With Ukrainian forces strapped for resources, crowdfunders domestically and globally raise money for anything Kyiv’s Western allies don’t usually provide, from civilian trucks and defensive drone nets to tourniquets and electric generators.
The Sternenko Foundation, run by Ukrainian activist Serhii Sternenko, specializes in fundraising for first-person-view drones, the most widely used weapon on Ukraine’s battlefield. The group has gained renown among soldiers for providing drones with rapidly updating software and designs. Some pilots say they vastly outperform the drones supplied by Ukraine’s government.
Ilia, like thousands of other donors, sends his money through the foundation’s website — then watches the results on Telegram. Units receiving drones from Sternenko post videos of battlefield hits, mixing heavy metal soundtrack with footage of their drones blasting into infantry troops and artillery.
Sternenko, trained as a lawyer, is a prominent internet personality in Ukraine.Global Images Ukraine/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
For Ilia, the crowdfunding movement is turning his pocket change into real combat power that he can witness.
It’s a remarkably cost-effective formula in the age of modern war. The Sternenko Foundation typically aims to raise $250,000 per day, and its recipients say they are inflicting damage to Russian military hardware that collectively reaches into the billions of dollars over the last three years. As is the norm, they back up most hits with videos.
A famed beneficiary of the fund, the Ronin drone unit of the 65th Separate Mechanized Brigade in Zaporizhzhia, touts perhaps one of the war’s most audacious examples of asymmetric warfare.
Ronin pilots said in January that they had used a 10-inch FPV drone, worth $500, to disable a Buk medium-range air defense system estimated to be worth about $40 million. An uploaded video showed a drone approaching a modern Buk-M3 launcher from on high, before slamming into its missiles.
Over the next few months, Ronin FPV drones pushed deeper and deeper into Russian-held territory. In February, the pilots uploaded videos of attacks against six more Buk systems.
Last year, the Ronin pilots said they had struck just one of the SAMs. By the end of summer in 2025, their videos showed that they’d hit at least 15 in eight months.
The wrath of donated drones
The recent Buk strikes only happened because of Sternenko’s drones, a pilot from the Ronin unit, named Andriy, told Business Insider.
The Sternenko Foundation says it’s delivered over 210,000 drones since the war began, a small fraction of the 2.2 million total drones that Ukraine reported producing in 2024 alone.
Pilots like Andriy, however, say Sternenko’s drones are different.
Battlefield conditions shift fast, so the Sternenko team regularly asks pilots what upgrades are needed. Andriy said the volunteers swiftly relay that information to manufacturers, and then deliver drones with updated hardware and software in days or weeks.
“Even at night, if we are on the attack, and any problems arise, we are in contact with the drone developer, and we can solve it on the spot,” the senior soldier said.
That short feedback loop allowed for constant small tweaks to Sternenko’s drones, Andriy said, so the Ronin pilots gradually improved their 10-inch platforms. These are the workhorses of Ukraine’s FPV drones — radio-controlled, battery-powered quadcopters that use 7- to 12-inch propellers to fly.
Originally designed as flying cameras, they’ve become one of the war’s primary weapons after soldiers started fitting the cheap platforms with small, explosive payloads like rocket-propelled grenades that typically weigh 10 pounds or less. Pilots fly them right into their targets — armored vehicles, fortified positions, and soldiers.
Both sides are now locked in a perpetual race to develop new drone defenses, such as jammers that disrupt their radio signals, which drives the need for constant upgrades in the field.
A volunteer holds a ready-made FPV drone in a drone workshop in April 2024 in Lviv.Global Images Ukraine/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Thanks to the updates on Sternenko’s funded drones, the Ronins eventually received FPV quadcopters that could fly reliably beyond 18 miles. Many of Russia’s Buks were positioned beyond that limit, Andriy said.
“We started hitting Buks as fast and as efficiently as we could,” the drone pilot said. Sternenko’s volunteers also provided a new type of drone that acted as a signal repeater, he said, strengthening the wireless communications link between the drone and its operator in jammed areas.
Andriy said the Ronin unit typically takes three to four FPV drones to finish off a Buk air defense system and estimates that it cost them 55 drones, or $27,500, to disable 15 systems collectively worth between $150 million and $600 million.
A striking cost ratio
That cost ratio means that for every $1 spent by donors through Sternenko, the Ronin pilots were inflicting at least roughly $5,450 worth of damage to Russia’s military.
Independent analysts told Business Insider it’s difficult to determine the exact dollar value of these strikes, but that their cost efficiency is astronomically high.
“A Buk-M3 battery is valued at around $100 million, but that would be the export price,” said Benjamin Blandin, a researcher with the Japanese nonprofit Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies.
Older batteries, such as the Buk-M1, might have cost foreign customers around $45 million. Still, Blandin cautioned that the Russian defense ministry is known to purchase homegrown assets, such as tanks like the T-72, at a far cheaper rate than the sale price for other nations.
Many estimates say that, with such a deep discount, the Buk-M1 costs Moscow about $10 million per system.
The Buk relies on launchers and radars that work in tandem to counter air threats.Alexander NEMENOV / AFP via Getty Images
A Buk battery also consists of many parts, including multiple launchers, a command post, and a main radar.
“Typically, the radar itself, and fire control computers are the most expensive part of the system,” said Robert Tollast, a researcher of land warfare for the UK-based Royal United Services Institute.
When analyzing the Ronin videos of Buk hits, he said the unit clearly damaged radars in some clips.
Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher of arms transfers for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said that destroying one critical Buk component, such as the main radar, could put the rest out of action, prompting Ukrainians to say they destroyed the entire thing.
“But no matter what price is taken or how out-of-action the system had been made, it’s still a very much higher USD value lost than that of a few drones used against it,” he added, referring to US dollars.
Donated drones, a class above the rest
Russia, realizing its Buks were being hunted, started pulling them further away from the frontline in Zaporizhzhia, Andriy said. Still, he said his unit was able to use donated drones to hit a Buk at a distance of 55 kilometers, or 34 miles — a staggering feat for today’s FPV technology.
“When we mentioned the distance to other foundations, their eyes went wide with surprise,” Andriy said.
Out of roughly 30 to 40 FPV drones he pilots in a two-day shift, Andriy estimated that 95% typically come from the foundation.
Ukrainian drone pilots receiving drones from Sternenko said they greatly prefer volunteer FPVs.Maks Muravsky/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Ukrainian soldiers also receive drones purchased by the Ministry of Defense. Andriy said these can be outdated, and he prefers the crowdfunded drones.
The commander of the Dovbush Hornets, the drone unit of the 68th Jaeger Brigade in Pokrovsk, told Business Insider that state-funded drone deliveries suffer from a typical issue that plagues governments: It can take too long to turn immediate feedback into updated systems.
In a war where techniques and jamming frequencies evolve in a matter of weeks, that delay can be the difference between victory and death.
“With the Sternenko situation, their representatives call the unit and ask what specific technical characteristics of drones they need, and they just buy the one that suits the unit,” said the major, whose call sign is Fierce. “But for the Ministry of Defense, they already have the drones accumulated, so they just give them to the unit.”
State-funded drones are needed, but often have to be sent to a manufacturer for retweaking.
While Ukraine is filled with drone manufacturers, some military units also have their own drone workshops and specialists.Scott Peterson/Getty Images
“These drones are sometimes impossible to use on certain sections of the front lines,” Fierce said. “So the fighters have to invest their own salaries in the drones, to modify them and change the control frequencies. It takes time and their personal money.”
The issue was common enough for the Sternenko Foundation to launch a refitting project for Ministry of Defense drones, called reDrone, primarily to add hardware upgrades such as motor controllers.
In a statement to Business Insider, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said that its provided FPV drones are purchased from private manufacturers “to create a sustainable, large-scale, and predictable supply system” for its troops.
“At the same time, in wartime conditions, certain units may have specific needs that can be promptly met through volunteer initiatives,” it wrote. “The flexibility of drone supplies from volunteers complements the large-scale state system of equipping the army.”
Civilians at the heart of the fight
In Konotop, just 60 miles from the northern front, Ilia is also a volunteer. He said he’s driven donated vehicles and equipment dozens of times to soldiers in the greater Sumy and wartorn Donbas regions.
Ilia said he was nearly killed on four occasions on these supply runs near the frontlines.
“God decided I am more useful here on this Earth,” he laughed.
Ukraine, strained from years of war, has long relied on its civilians to support the front with battle supplies.
“This war is a black hole that just keeps sucking up all of our resources,” said Oleksandr Skarlat, the Sternenko Foundation’s director.
The overwhelming majority of donations received by the foundation come in small amounts from Ukrainian civilians, said Skarlat, a national finswimming athlete before the invasion.
The foundation says it raises roughly 300 million hryvnia, or about $7.2 million, from over 450,000 individual contributions a month.
The group operates like a hub, connecting manufacturers with drone units, then paying for and delivering drones to those troops, Skarlat explained to Business Insider.
“The foundation’s advantage is speed and time,” he said. “An expensive drone is not always better. If new components are released, they must be purchased and transferred to the units immediately.”
Members of a drone unit record themselves thanking the Sternenko Foundation for a new delivery of FPV drones on August 20.Sternenko Foundation website/Business Insider
That process is now a well-oiled machine, but it is limited by whatever resources Sternenko’s team can raise. They try to prioritize squads that produce better results, such as the Ronins and Dovbush Hornets, which operate in Pokrovsk.
Sternenko, a popular internet personality, uses his following to promote fundraisers and repost strike footage uploaded by recipient units. In May, he was shot in the thigh during an assassination attempt that Ukraine’s security service said was orchestrated by Russia.
As proof to donors, the foundation meticulously records its drone deliveries, their cost, and recipients in a public database. Sternenko’s team posts daily videos of drone squads receiving hundreds of FPVs, paid for by civilians.
Over time, the foundation has become one of Ukraine’s premier crowdfunders, well-known among the military units flying the deadly FPVs filling the battlefield.
An example of the reports of drones sent to each Ukrainian unit, with payment documents linked to each entry.Business Insider
“I don’t want to offend anyone,” said Fierce, the Dovbush Hornets commander. “But there are some organizations and people that try to help, and they don’t even understand the quality of their drones and how they can fit the tasks of our units. The Sternenko Foundation has a well-built base, and they have the quality.”
A formula that works, oft-uncredited
More recently, the foundation is asking civilians to donate to a new project, dubbed “Shahedoriz,” that raises funds for interceptor drone development. Ukraine, hard-pressed to stop Russia’s intensifying Shahed waves, is trying to develop more interceptors that can destroy enemy drones and missiles to shore up its struggling air defenses.
One of the new drones is the Sting, a high-speed piloted FPV drone designed by Ukrainian manufacturer Wild Hornets to chase down the Shahed-136.
Alex Roslin, a Canada-based foreign coordinator for Ukrainian drone manufacturer Wild Hornets, said the Sting has achieved more than 130 successful kills so far. All of the interceptors were purchased by Sternenko, he told Business Insider.
Roslin believes local crowdfunders like the foundation play an outsize role in the war but are strangely overlooked in the West.
“Without these volunteers and the donors who generously contribute, for Ukraine, it would be a catastrophe,” he said.
Ukraine has seen limited use of interceptor drones to down the Shahed, but has in recent months been driving hard at development to counter Russia’s growing drone waves.Wild Hornets/Telegram
Skarlat put it in stronger terms. “If not for the support of the volunteers,” he said, “Ukraine would most likely already be in the hands of the occupation regime.”
At night, Ilia looks up and watches Shaheds hurtle through the Konotop sky, Ukrainian tracer bullets and drones soaring up to meet them. “This is why we just keep donating, keep sending money,” Ilia said.
Many of the Shaheds fly onward to Kyiv, but some strike at home in Konotop too, and the number of casualties in the city has grown steadily, he said.
A Ukrainian mobile fire group tries to down a Russian Shahed. With the exploding drones increasing in number with time, Kyiv has been pushing hard for new solutions to guard its skies.Oleg Palchyk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
Ilia, grinning, said he doesn’t seek shelter during the air raid warnings. Three and a half years of war have driven the fear of bombs from him, he said. But when asked in a video call about his son in the third grade, and the boy’s future, the bridal apparel businessman’s smile fell.
After a few moments of silence, he cleared his throat. “My main motivation is him,” he said. “It is my motivation to keep helping and donating.”
“I don’t need the Russians to die. I won’t go to their home when this is over. I just want them to leave so I can protect my family,” he said. “We just want to live a normal life.”
Some top investors are eyeing AI opportunities outside of the Magnificent 7.
Nvidia and other major AI firms face high expectations and a potential growth slowdown.
Experts suggest investing in data storage and hardware providers for AI opportunities.
The first wave of AI stocks — including chipmakers like Nvidia and Broadcom, as well as hyperscalers like Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon — may all still be great buys.
But there’s no mistaking the high expectations that investors are placing on these household names going forward. Plus, the uber-explosive earnings growth for names like Nvidia may soon start to slow, as the company told investors in its recent earnings call.
So if you missed their run-ups in the market, you might be feeling like you missed the boat on the AI trade. (To be fair, you probably didn’t miss out entirely — these companies have huge exposures in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100, meaning most index investors already have some fairly sizeable positions in the AI giants.)
But if you’re looking for some overlooked AI firms, there are still plenty of opportunities out there, according to Que Nguyen, the CIO at Research Affiliates, and Brian Mulberry, a senior portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management.
In recent interviews with Business Insider, the duo shared some of their preferred non-mega-cap AI stocks right now.
For Nguyen’s part, she said to look to stocks like Western Digital (WDC), Seagate Technologies (STX), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and Micron Technology (MU) — all data storage providers.
“One of the things that I see is AI is spreading and benefiting an entire ecosystem of technology companies,” Nguyen said. “So you look at even boring companies like hard disk companies — in order to have AI you need to be able to store a lot of data and get it quickly, right?”
“None of these companies is nearly as expensive as the Mag 7,” she continued. “Don’t just stick with the Mag 7, or Nvidia and AMD. Look more broadly — own something diversified. You have no idea where the next killer app is going to come, or where the next big investment theme is going to be.”
Some examples of diversified products offering specific AI and tech stocks expsoure include the Global X Artificial Intelligence & Technology ETF (AIQ) and the iShares AI Adopters & Applications UCITS ETF (AIAA).
Meanwhile, Mulberry said he likes stocks like Amphenol (APH) and Emcor (EME).
Both are hardware providers, and are raking in money from hyperscalers as they spend hundreds of billions to build out their AI data centers, Mulberry said. Consensus earnings estimates for both firms show growth in the next couple of years, he said.
“They’re simply benefiting from the actual dollars being spent without having to increase their own capex,” he said of the stocks.
He continued: “They’re very specialized electrical connectors, and they don’t have to do anything other than just show up and start helping build out data centers with their expertise.”
WASHINGTON, DC, April 28, 2025 (Newswire.com)
– Black Book Research today released findings from six exclusive surveys conducted between January 22 and April 27. 2025, capturing the concerns of 1,664 healthcare leaders across hospitals, health systems, payers, and more.
These leaders provide a clear view of the far-reaching effects of early policy decisions in President Trump’s second term, revealing rising costs, workforce instability, and access to care disruptions.
The findings highlight how federal policy shifts are impacting the healthcare sector, with a focus on cost-containment measures, the rollback of Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions, Medicaid funding cuts, and workforce layoffs. The surveys show the significant strain these changes are placing on healthcare organizations, and the long-term risks they pose for patients.
Cost-Driven Actions: Providers Face Financial Strain and Operational Challenges
The Trump administration’s cost-containment policies are having an immediate and wide-reaching impact on healthcare organizations across the U.S.
Emergency Budget Recalibration: 83% of healthcare leaders report entering “emergency budget recalibration mode,” with nearly half of all organizations slashing capital project budgets by up to 30% in response to rising tariffs on medical imports and sweeping federal budget cuts.
Agency Layoffs and Program Cuts: The elimination of an estimated 20,000 federal positions, including staff at the CDC, NIH, and FDA, has led to the abrupt cancellation of critical programs, such as grants for HIV research, autism, chronic disease, teen pregnancy, and substance abuse prevention.
ACA and Medicaid Rollbacks: 93% of healthcare leaders are deeply concerned about the rollback of ACA support, especially the reduction of navigator funding and the rescinding of extended enrollment periods. These changes could result in the loss of coverage for between 750,000 and 2 million Americans, with the most severe impact in Southern and rural states.
Medicaid Funding Threatened: The administration’s proposed $880 billion cut to Medicaid over 10 years is seen as a direct threat to expanded coverage, particularly for low-income and pediatric populations. Experts warn these cuts could lead to hospital closures, staffing shortages, and a surge in uncompensated care.
Cultural Shifts and Executive Power Moves: Rewriting the Ethos of U.S. Healthcare
The Trump administration’s policy shifts are not only financial but also aim to reshape the cultural and regulatory landscape of U.S. healthcare.
Withdrawal from Global Health Leadership: 94% of healthcare leaders are alarmed by the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the scaling back of USAID’s global health programs. This raises concerns about the nation’s ability to respond to future public health threats and its diminishing role in international healthcare leadership.
DEI and Health Equity Rollbacks: 88% of respondents express concern over the elimination of federal advisory groups focused on health equity and the rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Many fear that these actions will undermine culturally competent care and exacerbate health disparities.
Executive Orders and Regulatory Uncertainty: 80% of survey participants reported that the flurry of over 100 executive orders-many issued in the first weeks of the administration-has created significant regulatory uncertainty, making it difficult for healthcare leaders to plan for the future.
Provocative Policy Concerns: Undiscussed Shifts with Potential Long-Term Impacts
In addition to the major policy shifts, the Black Book Research survey also identifies other potentially disruptive policy changes that have yet to be fully discussed in mainstream discourse.
Surprise Billing Protections and Regulatory Overhaul: Adjustments to surprise billing protections could favor larger insurance companies, leaving smaller providers to absorb the costs of out-of-network care and manage complex billing disputes.
Medicaid Work Requirements and Block Grants: Stricter Medicaid work requirements could lead to instability in coverage for vulnerable populations. Furthermore, the proposal for Medicaid block grants could destabilize care in states that heavily rely on federal Medicaid funding, potentially leading to closures and staffing shortages.
Public Option Proposals and Competition with Private Insurers: The introduction of a public option could lower premiums but create significant price pressure on private payers and provider contracts. This could financially strain hospitals and health systems that rely on higher reimbursement rates from private insurers.
Mandatory Drug Price Negotiations and Research Cuts: While federal drug price negotiations aim to reduce costs, they could reduce pharmaceutical companies’ revenues, curbing investments in research and development of new treatments. This could have a ripple effect on hospital formulary practices and drug pricing.
Telemedicine Regulatory Shifts: Ongoing regulatory discussions about telemedicine licensure and reimbursement parity could create uncertainty for providers and payers, especially regarding cross-state licensure and the scope of Medicare coverage for remote services.
Consequences: Immediate and Long-Term Risks for Providers and Patients
The survey reveals that healthcare leaders foresee significant risks stemming from the Trump administration’s policy changes:
Rising Costs and Delayed Care: 91% of payer executives predict double-digit premium hikes, while 94% of provider IT leaders have delayed digital transformation projects. As coverage declines, patients face higher out-of-pocket costs, leading to delayed diagnoses, avoidable complications, and an increase in uncompensated care.
Operational Disruption: 45% of healthcare organizations have formed crisis response teams to manage the economic shock, with many renegotiating vendor contracts or seeking alternative supply chains to mitigate the impact of tariffs.
Erosion of Public Trust: 67% of leaders believe the rollback of health equity and DEI initiatives, along with the removal of LGBTQ+ content from federal resources, is damaging to public trust and the perceived legitimacy of federal health agencies.
Workforce Instability: Federal layoffs have exacerbated concerns about unemployment, particularly in underserved communities, further reducing access to care.
Healthcare Leaders’ Priorities and Recommendations
The Black Book Research survey highlights key priorities among healthcare leaders:
Safeguard Coverage: 81% of healthcare leaders favor a balanced approach that preserves access to care while maintaining program integrity. Respondents emphasize the need for policymakers to protect Medicaid funding, maintain or expand ACA subsidies, and extend enrollment periods for vulnerable populations.
Promote Transparency and Stability: Healthcare leaders call for greater transparency in federal decision-making and more consistent communication to reduce uncertainty and support long-term planning.
Invest in Innovation and Equity: Despite ongoing cost pressures, healthcare leaders stress the continued importance of investing in medical research, digital health, and culturally competent care to address the evolving needs of diverse patient populations.
“These policy changes are creating significant challenges for healthcare systems. Operations are under strain, capital projects are delayed, and sourcing is disrupted. At the same time, patient affordability is becoming more uncertain. The next few months will be a critical period for healthcare organizations as they adapt to these shifts while maintaining care delivery. Healthcare leaders are focused on protecting coverage, ensuring stability, and navigating a rapidly changing landscape as they face these new policy dynamics,” said Doug Brown, Founder of Black Book Research
About Black Book
Black Book Market Research is committed to delivering independent, data-driven insights to the healthcare industry, grounded in verified client experiences and globally recognized research standards. We maintain neutrality by refraining from offering consulting services, performance improvement programs, or acting as intermediaries between IT buyers and vendors. This ensures that our rankings, reports, and recognitions remain free from commercial bias. Our mission is built on trust, transparency, and the belief that healthcare decisions deserve to be guided by real experiences-not commercial influence. Read more on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blackbookmarketresearchllc/ X: https://x.com/blackbookpolls Download gratis 2025 Black Book Reports at https://blackbookmarketresearch.com/ Media Contact: research@blackbookmarketresearch.com 800.863.7590
Chris Putro, 55, has been looking for a job for a job for the last nine years. Chris Putro
Chris Putro, 55, has been struggling to find a job for the last nine years.
He has a master’s and over a decade of experience but says this hasn’t helped him get interviews.
He said he’s on track to run out of savings in a few years.
In 2013, Chris Putro got fired from his financial analyst job at a tech company. More than a decade later, he’s still looking for work.
Despite having a bachelor’s and master’s degree in chemistry — and sending out countless applications — Putro said he’s had little luck in the job market.
“I’ve gotten a total of four phone interviews,” the 55-year-old, who’s based in Los Angeles, told Business Insider via email. Three of these employers ended up “ghosting” him, while the other one ended the interview call early after deciding he was overqualified for the job.
When Putro lost his job, he was in his 16th year working for the same employer. After taking stock of his finances, he estimated that he had enough savings to get by for a little over a decade if necessary.
“I made enough in those 16 years to survive for another 11,” he said.
We want to hear from you. Are you struggling to find a job and would be comfortable sharing your story with a reporter? Please fill out this form.
Based on his initial forecast, he would have run out of money sometime this year. However, Putro said his stock market investments have performed better than he expected, which he thinks could buy him a “few more years.”
Putro said it’s been helpful financially that he has no student debt or children. However, he said the only source of income over the last decade has been the $50 a week he gets for producing a standup comedy show in the Los Angeles area. He considers this to be effectively “volunteer work” that helps him stay busy, but as things stand, it’s not doing much to slow the steady decline of his savings.
“Thinking about when I might run out of money and lose all my possessions is a very difficult thought process for me,” he said.
Putro is among the Americans who are having a hard time finding work. In large part, it’s because businesses across the US have significantly pulled back on hiring. The ratio of job openings to unemployed people — an indicator of job availability — has declined considerably over the past two years.
To be sure, both the unemployment rate and layoff rate remain low compared to historical levels. However, the hiring slowdown means that many of the people who are looking for work — whether it be because they were laid off, have just graduated from college, or are returning to the workforce — are having a much harder time than the job seekers of a few years ago.
Putro shared his job search strategies — and why he’s unsure whether his age is helping or hurting him on his job hunt.
Application burnout can make it harder to find a job
In the early 1990s, Putro earned a bachelor’s in chemistry from La Salle University and a master’s in chemistry from UCLA. He worked at a pharmacy for a couple of years until 1998, when he landed a customer service job at a tech company. In 2006, he began working as a financial analyst for the same employer — a position he held until he was fired.
After losing his job, Putro didn’t immediately start applying for jobs. He said he took about two years to think about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Then, about nine years ago, his job hunt officially began.
Over the past decade, Putro said he’s applied “irregularly” for jobs — anywhere between zero and 40 applications in a given month.
“I get burned out and wait a bit and hope that there’s turnover in a company’s HR, he said.
Putro said he generally looks for roles through Indeed, LinkedIn, and the websites of major local employers like CBS and NBCUniversal. Given his prior work experience, job platforms tend to nudge him to apply for financial analyst roles.
“I apply for jobs I’m qualified for,” he said. “People have told me to apply for minimum-wage jobs, but I don’t know how to find them.”
Despite his efforts, Putro hasn’t had much luck. He said he’s not sure whether being 55 years old is helping or hurting him in the job market.
“I keep reading that employers will absolutely not hire anyone my age because of false assumptions, but also that they prefer people my age because millennials and younger have a poor work ethic,” he said.
Going forward, Putro plans to continue sending out applications. He said October is typically the month when he begins applying more aggressively.
“I applied to two jobs this week that I was a great match for on paper, but no reply as usual,” he said.
David Kelly, chief global strategist, JPMorgan Asset ManagementJPMorgan Asset Management
The Fed has caught some heat for its role in the latest stock market sell-off.
Kelly says the Fed needs to broadcast its confidence in the economy to soothe jittery markets.
JPMorgan’s David Kelly told Business Insider he sees a possibility for even deeper losses following the big rout.
Stocks are up on Tuesday, but investors are still rattled from a historic three-day global sell-off sparked by a confluence of weak US data and a surprise rate hike in Japan.
In the US, the bloody market rout should be the Federal Reserve’s cue that it needs to do more to help investors feel confident about the economy as they weather this period of extreme volatility.
That’s according to David Kelly, chief global strategist of JPMorgan Asset Management, who told Business Insider in an interview during Monday’s tumuly that the Fed should broadcast a strong message to markets that the situation is in hand.
“I think what they should say is, we’ve expected the economy is going to see a slowdown. That’s what we’re seeing here. We do stand ready to cut rates as appropriate but we don’t think there’s a very urgent situation here,” Kelly said.
Some commentators have called for emergency rate cuts after the massive sell-off. However, Kelly says he doesn’t think such a move would be constructive because cutting rates so quickly reduces interest income, which causes investors to lose out on the current high yields on the $6 trillion sitting in money market funds.
More importantly, cutting rates abruptly would potentially instill more fear about the economy among investors, Kelly said.
On Monday, US stock indexes tanked, with the Dow Jones falling over 1,000 points and the Nasdaq Composite tumbling more than 3%. In global markets, Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 12.4% in its biggest single-day decline since the 1987 Black Monday crash, while European markets also dropped.
The selloff prompted some investors to break out the recession playbook, investing in defensive stocks, dividend-paying shares, and government bonds while selling high-flying growth stocks tied to popular trades like AI.
Kelly said one of the big problems is that the Fed should have never kept rates so high for as long as it did.
“The Federal Reserve should always, I think, aim to get back to neutral and stay there. They shouldn’t try and overshoot into a tightening policy, or even an easing policy to try and stimulate the economy.”
In short, by waiting too long to cut rates, the Fed allowed the job market to weaken, which partly caused the panic that set off the multi-day market plunge.
But even cutting rates at the last policy meeting would not have been a quick fix that would have prevented the surge in volatility, and rate cuts, similar to rate hikes, have a lagged effect on the economy.
“I think people just don’t get that. And I don’t think the Federal Reserve tells people that, or maybe they don’t appreciate it themselves,” Kelly said, adding, “It’s a drag before it’s a stimulus.”
Kelly thinks that the economy will most likely continue to slow, and a recession is possible, as is a steeper stock correction.
“A 10% correction, or a 20% drop with the bear market, is absolutely possible,” he said. “If you’re an investor, the problem is this you don’t know when it starts.”
The FIRE movement has helped Chrissy and her husband, Ryan, grow their combined net worth to $800,000. Chrissy
Chrissy and her husband, Ryan, didn’t grow up wealthy. To get ahead financially, they’ve long known that a combination of “hard work and frugality” would be necessary, Chrissy told Business Insider via email.
So when the couple learned about the FIRE movement in their mid-20s, it was music to their ears.
To learn more about the FIRE movement, in particular strategies for maximizing savings and reaching financial independence, the couple sought out FIRE-related YouTube videos, Facebook groups, newsletters, and podcasts. They then tried to apply some of that information to their financial strategies.
Their efforts have paid off.
Over the past several years, the couple has grown their combined net worth to more than $800,000, according to documents viewed by BI. Chrissy said their goal is to grow their investments to roughly $2.5 million over the next 10 to 15 years — which she hopes will allow them to retire before she turns 50. Both she and Ryan are in their early 30s.
“Retiring at 65-plus years old just doesn’t sound appealing,” said Chrissy, who works as a marketing director and is based in Colorado. “I’m sure we’ll still be active and healthy at that age, but there’s a lot more that we can enjoy when we’re in our 40s and 50s.” The couple’s last names were withheld for privacy reasons.
As many Americans struggle to save for retirement— and many retirees feel they don’t have enough to stop working — the FIRE movement has offered a potential blueprint for people who desire financial security. While some people have found success with FIRE, it hasn’t been a good fit for everyone, in part because it can require significant savings goals that might not always be realistic. However, FIRE proponents live a wide range of lifestyles. And experts say some principles of FIRE — like the benefits of saving and investing at a young age to take advantage of compounded investment returns — are applicable to a wide audience.
Chrissy shared her and Ryan’s top strategies for growing their savings — and the one change to their lifestyle that could make an early retirement a bit more difficult.
How to live a FIRE lifestyle
The couple has utilized a variety of strategies to reduce their expenses and boost their incomes. Chrissy
Chrissy summed up the couple’s financial strategy as “spend less, make more, and invest more.”
To spend less, she said they’ve reduced how much they dine out at restaurants, bought in bulk from Costco, planned their own vacations rather than using travel agents, avoided gym memberships by working out at home, and limited alcohol consumption.
They’ve also postponed certain expenses to save some extra cash.
“I went many years with a broken phone screen and really didn’t mind,” she said.
To make more money, Chrissy said they’ve “aggressively pushed for additional income.” For her, this has taken on the form of “climbing the corporate ladder” — she said she landed a six-figure salary at age 26. She also started a side hustle working as a registered dietician, something she focuses on during evenings and weekends.
Ryan works full-time as a human resources professional. In his spare time, Chrissy said he focuses on managing the couple’s three investment properties which provide them with passive income. The couple’s combined taxable income was roughly $250,000 in 2023, according to a document viewed by BI.
When their strategies generate extra money, the couple invests as much as possible in their 401(k) plans and low-cost index funds.
In case of emergencies, the couple keeps about six months of funds in savings.
Chrissy said saving money was easier when she and Ryan lived in Indiana. The couple relocated to Colorado during the pandemic, a few years into their FIRE savings journey.
One of the biggest differences between the two states has been the housing costs, Chrissy said. The couple is based in Monument, Colorado, where the average home value is about $743,000, per Zillow. In Fishers, Indiana, where they used to live, the average home value is $426,000.
In the years ahead, one lifestyle change could put some additional pressure on the couple’s finances: They’re expecting their first child, which they know will come with many new monthly expenses.
However, Chrissy said she thinks her financial goals are still achievable, in part because she and Ryan have been planning for life with a newborn. They’ve even planned how to finance their child’s potential college education.
“We’ve started to save up for his 529 plan so that they can attend college,” she said, referring to the investment account that offers tax-free withdrawals when the money is used for certain education expenses.
Are you part of the FIRE movement or living by some of its principles? Reach out to this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield is hovering below levels that caused a massive crash last fall.
Yet, persistent inflation and weak Treasury auctions could boost yields past the 5% mark.
Once this threshold is crossed, investors could be in for a sharp correction in stocks.
Treasury bonds might not be the most high-octane trade, but yields rising not that far from current levels could eventually make things all but boring.
While this year’s equity momentum has kept Wall Street distracted, the benchmark 10-year rate has crept up as much as 83 basis points since 2023.
That’s taken it as high as 4.7% in April, not far from the threshold level that broke markets last fall: 5%. When this 16-year high was breached in October, it triggered one of history’s worst market crashes. While Treasurys fell on Friday after a so-so jobs report, markets are still warily eyeing further moves upward amid sticky inflation and broad economic strength.
Could a rerun of 5% yields happen? For analysts, it all hinges on fiscal policy and inflation.
Where yields are headed
“Bond king” Bill Gross is among those touting caution, telling investors that high federal borrowing will push yields to 5% levels within the next 12 months.
Yields move inversely to bond prices, meaning that lackluster demand sends rates up. That’s why Treasury auctions have become attention-grabbers for markets, as investors watch to see if there are enough willing buyers.
“Sloppy” auctions are what caused the bond rout last fall, market veteran Ed Yardeni told Business Insider. Many buyers have been turned off by America’s exploding debt, and with few efforts to clamp it down, more disappointing auctions could be in store, he said.
Both the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve have made liquidity adjustments this week to take pressure off buyers, but it’s to be seen whether these efforts are enough.
In the case 5% is ever breached for this reason, the Yardeni Research president said it could go differently: “This time, you know, we may find that 5% lingers and then we’ll all be wondering whether the next move is towards six, or back to four.”
Investment firm SEI had similar concerns in April, and added that this year’s stubborn inflation data only compounds the problem in the near term. With consumer prices remaining elevated, interest rates have stayed put, halting a rush to buy fixed-income:
“We would not be surprised to see the 10-year Treasury yield retest the 5% level even with the prospect of rate cuts on the horizon,” it wrote in a note.
But to Eric Sterner of Apollon Wealth Management, more pessimism would have to hit markets to justify a move past 5%. Only if inflation pushes the Fed to hike interest rates would that be a concern, but that doesn’t seem likely.
Still, yields aren’t coming down any time soon while inflation stays sticky, he told BI:
“If we can get that one rate cut in, potentially we can get closer down to 4%,” he said. “But I don’t think we’re getting below 4%.”
The dangers of 5%
When 10-year yields broke through the 5% mark last fall, traders panicked and the S&P 500 nosedived nearly 6% from October’s peak-to-trough.
Some of that is on account of how quickly the yield moved up, Yardeni said, which is not the case this time around.
“It’s been a more stealth kind of move, happening at a more slow pace; it hasn’t gotten anybody’s attention in the stock market,” he said. “Even the growth stocks have done well, even though they’re not supposed to do well when bond yields are going up.”
But moving past 5% could change that. According to a Goldman Sachs note, highs beyond 5% have historically triggered negativity for stocks. In 1994, even strong earnings had difficulty pushing equities up against higher yields.
Even Sterner agreed that it’s a risk, though only in the short term: “Hypothetically speaking, if we do cross 5%, I think that could trigger a market correction or a sell off of 10% or more.”
A 30% correction to stocks wouldn’t be surprising, according to investing legend Robert Prechter.OsakaWayne Studios/Getty Images
The stock market could be in for a decade of next-to-nothing returns, one top fund manager warned.
That’s because inflation and interest rates could remain stubbornly high.
Stocks could see near-term losses on par with the dot-com bust and the 2008 crash, he said.
Investors cheering the rally in stocks this year should be prepared for the good times to end, and the S&P 500 risks seeing dismal returns for the next 10-15 years.
That’s according to Bill Smead, a top 2% fund manager who remains one of Wall Street’s biggest bears, even in the face of the market’s 8% rally in 2024. That’s because stocks look to be in the midst of a speculative bubble, he’s warned previously, and it could set investors up for a “dead ball” era of performance, the Smead Capital Management founder said in a recent note to clients.
That “dead ball” period will last for at least the next decade, Smead said, and it will only end once all the enthusiasm for the market’s most expensive stocks has bled out. The process could lead to losses on par with the dot-com bubble and the Great Financial Crisis, he said, when stocks suffered double-digit drops.
“It will be more like the ’00-’03 bear market, or more like ’07-’09,” Smead said in an interview with Business Insider. “We’ll probably get two full-blown bear markets in a 10-year time period that will basically negate making any money in the S&P 500 index. You won’t want to buy the S&P 500 index until it becomes kind of a swear word.”
Smead thinks the losses could be fueled by stubbornly high inflation. The consumer price index has come in hotter-than-expected for the last three months, with prices accelerating 3.8% year-over-year in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest CPI report on Wednesday.
That’s making the economic landscape look precariously similar to the 1970s, Smead said, right before inflation spiraled out of control and led stocks to struggle.
Stubborn inflation raises the risk the Fed will keep interest rates higher for longer, and some experts, like JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon, have warned interest rates could end up rising as high as 8%.
“It just reeks of inflation,” Smead said of the economy. “We are entering an inflationary era, and that’s going to cause a complete shift in what we like to call the investment zeitgeist … the stock market itself cannot do well when that zeitgeist is changing, because all the money is in [there].”
Investors have been eager to put their cash in AI stocks and mega-cap leaders like those in the Magnificent Seven, but Smead has repeatedly warned to stay away from overvalued areas of the market. He previously predicting that the most expensive stocks could plunge as much as 70% in value.
“Nobody ever talks about the massive percentage of growth stocks that carried euphoric prices, do poorly and get slaughtered,” he said in a note last week.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be an opportunity to make money, even during a dead ball period for the market. Smead’s firm remains bullish on “out of favor” investments that typically benefit from inflation, such as oil and gas, real estate, and gold.
“In the dead ball era, we really found places to get hits and score runs,” he said, pointing to the outperformance of those sectors during the 70s. “We’re in that same situation.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Business Insider’s top executive and parent company said Sunday they were satisfied with the fairness and accuracy of stories that made plagiarism accusations against a former MIT professor who is married to a prominent critic of former Harvard President Claudine Gay.
“We stand by Business Insider and its newsroom,” said a spokesman for Axel Springer, the German media company that owns the publication.
The company had said it would look into the stories about Neri Oxman, a prominent designer, following complaints by her husband, Bill Ackman, a Harvard graduate and CEO of the Pershing Square investment firm. He publicly campaigned against Gay, who resigned earlier this month following criticism of her answers at a congressional hearing on antisemitism and charges that her academic writing contained examples of improperly credited work.
With its stories, Business Insider raised both the idea of hypocrisy and the possibility that academic dishonesty is widespread, even among the nation’s most prominent scholars.
Ackman’s response, and the pressure that a well-connected person placed on the corporate owners of a journalism outlet, raised questions about the outlet’s independence.
Business Insider and Axel Springer’s “liability just goes up and up and up,” Ackman said Sunday in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “This is what they consider fair, accurate and well-documented reporting with appropriate timing. Incredible.”
Business Insider’s first article, on Jan. 4, noted that Ackman had seized on revelations about Gay’s work to back his efforts against her — but that the organization’s journalists “found a similar pattern of plagiarism” by Oxman. A second piece, published the next day, said Oxman had stolen sentences and paragraphs from Wikipedia, fellow scholars and technical documents in a 2010 doctoral dissertation at M.I.T.
Ackman complained that it was a low blow to attack someone’s family in such a manner and said Business Insider reporters gave him less than two hours to respond to the accusations. He suggested an editor there was an anti-Zionist. Oxman was born in Israel.
The business leader reached out in protest to board members at both Business Insider and Axel Springer. That led to Axel Springer telling The New York Times that questions had been raised about the motivation behind the articles and the reporting process, and the company promised to conduct a review.
On Sunday, Business Insider CEO Barbara Peng issued a statement saying “there was no unfair bias or personal, political and/or religious motivation in pursuit of the story.”
Peng said the stories were newsworthy and that Oxman, with a public profile as a prominent intellectual, was fair game as a subject. The stories were “accurate and the facts well-documented,” Peng said.
“Business Insider supports and empowers our journalists to share newsworthy, factual stories with our readers, and we do so with editorial independence,” Peng wrote.
Business Insider would not say who conducted the review of its work.
Ackman said his wife admitted to four missing quotation marks and one missed footnote in a 330-page dissertation. He said the articles could have “literally killed” his wife if not for the support of her family and friends.
“She has suffered severe emotional harm,” he wrote on X, “and as an introvert, it has been very, very difficult for her to make it through each day.”
For her part, Gay wrote in the Times that those who campaigned to have her ousted “often trafficked in lies and ad hominem insults, not reasoned arguments.” Harvard’s first Black president said she was the subject of death threats and had “been called the N-word more times than I care to count.”
There was no immediate comment Sunday from Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider’s global editor in chief. In a memo to his staff last weekend that was reported by The Washington Post, Carlson said he made the call to publish both of the stories and that he knew the process of preparing them was sound.
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Arif Qazi/InsiderMore companies are finding success with the four-day workweek. A recent trial of 33 companies had overwhelmingly successful results.
The results are in: It’s time for your company to stop working on Fridays (or Mondays).
The latest, perhaps most convincing evidence yet for the shift to a four-day workweek comes from a six-month trial which began in February 2022 in which 33 companies with employees in six countries decreased their employees’ workload to four days, or 32 hours, a week. Organized by 4 Day Week Global, the real-world experiment sought to see whether the employees could be just as productive in 80% of the time — all for the same pay. The results were overwhelmingly positive: Companies in the program reported increased revenue and improved employee health and well-being, and had a positive impact on the environment. And after the success, a hundred more companies that together employ thousands of people are considering or are already implementing the same approach.
So if you’ve ever tried to persuade your boss to shift to a four-day workweek, this is the best evidence yet that it can work. The results of the new report were unequivocal: The four-day workweek was better for everyone.
‘It probably sounds crazy, but it works’
At the outset of the trial, employees at Soothing Solutions, a Dundalk, Ireland-based company that makes cough lozenges for children, were skeptical that a four-day working week would be feasible, let alone profitable. But the founders Sinéad Crowther and Denise Lauaki had high hopes. When the company was founded in 2017, the duo wanted to establish a people-focused culture, so when Crowther learned about 4 Day Week’s program in 2021, she saw it as a way to attract and retain talent.
Since Soothing Solutions hired its first employees last year, no staff members have left the company, and Crowther told me the anecdotal feedback about the four-day week had been so glowing that it almost moved her to tears. “One of our employees has an elderly parent who was terminally ill, and she got to spend three, four days a week with them,” she told me. “She said nothing can give her that time back. She wouldn’t have got to do that in any other job.” Another worker has been able to pursue her passion for photography in her time off, Crowther said, adding that “it turns out, she’s a fantastic photographer!”
Because Soothing Solutions started operations using the four-day week, the founders don’t have anything to compare their business growth to, but Crowther isn’t worried about any negative impact a four-day week might have on business, even as the company grows. When we spoke, Soothing Solutions had just launched on Amazon and had its first UK sale. Its products are available in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and Scotland, with plans to expand further. “We have absolutely no concerns,” she said. “It probably sounds crazy, but it works.”
4 Day Week Global is a nonprofit community platform that promotes the four-day workweek by helping companies implement it and by funding research into the future of work. The organization was established after the success of a landmark trial program at its cofounder Andrew Barnes’ New Zealand company Perpetual Guardian. To conduct trials at companies and analyze their results, the group has partnered with academics at Harvard Business School, Oxford University, and the University of Pennsylvania.
The four-day-week movement has been gaining momentum on the heels of the Great Resignation and the push from employees to rethink the way we work. The tech startup Bolt became the first unicorn to trial it in 2021, finding it so successful that it implemented it after three months. Other trials of shorter weeks have found success as well: A 2021 trial in Iceland found positive results, and a 2019 research paper by Henley Business School found that two-thirds of businesses operating on a four-day week saw employee productivity increase.
There is some pushback, though. A shorter week could mean employees’ workload increases each day, causing more stress rather than less. For companies that experience significantly busier periods around holidays or during the summer, it may not be possible to extend the program across the whole year. And many companies, such as banks or insurance companies that require around-the-clock customer service or news organizations that follow a 24-hour news cycle, aren’t able to shutter for even one day each week. But in those cases, companies could approach the four-day week the way they already handle weekends: Simply arrange teams’ schedules so there are always people working.
No downsides
The ongoing push for a four-day workweek isn’t the first time there’s been a movement to upend the traditional model of work. Until 1926, the standard US workweek lasted six days. Then, Henry Ford reduced the workweek at his namesake company down to five days. He believed an extra day off would increase workers’ productivity and give workers more leisure time to spend more money — hopefully on Ford cars. The trend caught on, and, after organizing by workers in favor of the shift, the Fair Labor Standards Act set the standard for the workweek at 44 hours; an amendment in 1940 set the now-standard 40-hour week. Fast forward to today, and our norms appear ripe for a shake-up once again.
Barry Prost, a cofounder of the Irish company Rent a Recruiter, a specialist talent-acquisition service, took part in the six-month 4 Day Week trial with the goal of addressing staff turnover — a problem for many businesses since the coronavirus pandemic. When the pandemic began, Rent a Recruiter was already moving to a permanent remote-work model, and after hearing about the program the company decided to try the four-day week as well. To Prost, it was particularly important to ensure the switch didn’t hurt clients. Despite these reservations, Prost told me that not only had customers been supportive of the modified schedule, but some had even asked about implementing the policy themselves.
Crucially, the new approach has brought huge gains to the small startup, which employs 20 people. Over the six-month trial period, Rent a Recruiter doubled its gross profits and calculated that its staff’s productivity doubled over that time as well. And though it wasn’t the initial motivation, Prost told me the benefits had shown up in more than just the company’s bottom line. “Anecdotally, we have a manager who’s also a psychotherapist — she’s now able to spend more time on her therapy practice,” he said. “We’ve got mums and parents who are able to drop off and pick up their kids on a Friday, which they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.”
While staff well-being and retention are important, the trial also was associated with a revenue boost among the participating companies. Among the 16 companies in the trial that provided revenue data, combined revenue for the companies, weighted by size, increased by 8.14%, which for some companies was nearly 40% higher than revenue growth during the same six-month period of the previous year.
The companies that took part in the trial have reported almost no downsides. None of the 27 companies that filled out a final survey for participants said they had any plans to return to a five-day week. And nearly all of the 495 employees involved in the trial wanted to maintain the four-day working week. According to the post-trial surveys, everyone from CEOs and managers to junior employees noticed far-reaching benefits, and a new UK-wide trial is now underway.
Fewer work hours may also help the environment and gender inequality
While adopters of a four-day workweek might be primarily seeking a business impact — in revenue or employee well-being — there could also be less-obvious benefits.
For one thing, less time working correlates with lower carbon emissions — people are commuting less, and businesses use less energy. The 4 Day Week trial found that participants spent an hour less time commuting than before the trial. And as Orla Kelly, an environmental sociologist at University College Dublin who was the lead researcher for the 4 Day Week trial, told me, the shorter workweek also helps people make more pro-environmental choices. “When people are working longer hours, they tend to be in this kind of work-spend cycle where consumption patterns tend to be quite intensive,” Kelly said. With less free time, people are more likely to buy food in disposable plastic packaging, drive to work instead of walking or taking public transportation, and spend more money on material goods. Kelly tells me that because this is hard to measure, the research is still in its early stages, but she hopes to dive deeper into the idea and provide more concrete evidence of the environmental benefits of a shorter working week.
A four-day week also provides vast improvements in well-being, life satisfaction, and sleep for women. Since women tend to take on more caring responsibilities, the extra day off work was most beneficial for them, allowing the extra load of emotional labor to be spread more evenly. In Ireland, where many of the companies in the trial were based, 70% of part-time workers are women. “Women tend to often be in jobs that pay less, so they tend to be the ones that move to part time, even if they don’t want to,” Kelly told me. In the past few years especially, women have been leaving the workforce in droves, or cutting back hours, over burnout or a lack of childcare options. “This can be problematic for their long-term career trajectory, their pension contributions, and the dynamics of power within the household,” Kelly said. Cutting back working hours for everyone helps women stay in their full-time jobs and not feel as if they’re getting pushed out of the workforce.
It’s unlikely that the world will shift to a four-day week overnight, but the trial produced real benefits and found it’s possible for many different kinds of corporations, as long as they are willing, to make the change. As companies continue to grapple with attracting and retaining staff, the four-day week could be a relatively simple solution. And after the latest trial, there aren’t many excuses not to try it out.
Molly Lipson is a freelance writer and an organizer from the UK.
