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Here Comes the Fun

What's next in franchising? These seven newer brands (who didn't make our ranking this year) are introducing bold, fresh ideas to the world.

How To Be A Wealthy Franchisee

Some franchisees are slaves to their businesses. Others make great money and still have time to enjoy their lives. What's the difference? Mindset and execution.

SHOULD YOU BUY A FRANCHISE DURING A BAD ECONOMY?

The answer is yes, so long as you buy wisely. That's why today's potential franchisees are asking tougher questions before signing on.

Another round of coinbase job cuts, 20% of workforce let go

Cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase is cutting approximately 20% of its workforce, or about 950 jobs, in a second round of layoffs in less than a year.

Are You Ready for Some Big Data?

When the National Football League began seriously studying concussions six years ago, its focus initially was head trauma. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags were placed in helmets, shoulder pads and even mouthpieces to gather metrics about each player’s speed, distance, orientation and the direction his head moved. (The tags are placed on every player for all games and practices.)

Why You'll Want to Extend Your Stay at Extended-Stay Hotels

Traditionally, residence hotels have targeted either the jet-setter—take the $8,000-a-night Hyde Park suite at Mandarin Oriental London—or, as with the $95-a-night Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham in Sterling, Virginia, the budget-conscious business traveler.

Pursuits – A Bold Epoque for Art in Paris

Paris was crowned Europe’s preeminent contemporary art capital in October, when the international jet set descended for the inaugural edition of the inelegantly named Paris+ par Art Basel fair.

Your Home Will Become a Power Plant

A home can be many things—a refuge, an investment, a money pit. So why not a power plant? In 2023 more US homes equipped with solar panels and batteries will start generating surplus electricity they can sell to their local utility.

Private Credit Prepares for Its Big Test

War, inflation and recession fears proved to be devastating for financial markets in 2022. Yet in private credit-one of the most opaque corners of Wall Street, where small groups of institutions and financiers make loans directly to companies—the picture has never looked brighter.

The Reeducation of Young Bankers

Life on Wall Street has been so smooth for Drew Pettit’s generation that the 33-year-old Citigroup Inc. strategist decided to study financial pain. He started reading “the most bearish, miserable set of books I could potentially find.”

R.I.P. Cheap Money (2008-22)

Cheap money-an incredibly popular and influential feature of finance that led to a surge of wealth, speculative trading and booms in ridiculous investments such as meme stocks and digital images of cartoon monkeys died suddenly in 2022. It was 14 years old. Cheap money is survived by its estranged relative, expensive money.

Supreme Court Weighs In On Social Media

A set of US Supreme Court cases could transform the legal landscape for social media companies by the end of the court’s term in late June, with potentially wide-reaching implications for political discourse and the 2024 elections.

The Biden Agenda for 2023

For Joe Biden, 2022 was a turnaround year. He entered it bruised and stumbling as inflation soared, Covid-19 raged and Russia invaded. By the end, he and fellow Democrats had secured a series of victories in Congress, staved off the customary midterm election massacre and beat back skeptics within the party, helped by a resilient job market and receding inflation. It’s left Biden in a buoyant mood heading into 2023, emboldened and all but certain, at age 80, to announce a reelection bid soon.

Hot Seat: Bank of Japan

Haruhiko Kuroda, the longest- serving Bank of Japan governor, is set to step down in April. Over the past decade, Kuroda oversaw one of the world’s most radical experiments in monetary policy, including yield curve control, in which a central bank commits to buying government bonds in order to keep yields at a target interest rate.

Anybody Worried?

The pillars of prosperity have crumbled, and it's not clear they can be rebuilt

Carbon Capture GOLD RUSH

Past efforts to capture carbon dioxide so it doesn’t worsen climate change have been small-scale and littered with expensive failures. But supporters say the new tax incentives in the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are transformative enough that, combined with the lessons of the past 20 years, the technology is finally ready to take off.

STARBUCKS COULD REALLY USE SOME CAFFEINE THIS YEAR

The prospect of union drives at its thousands of US coffee shops may be the most visible challenge facing Laxman Narasimhan when he takes over the world’s largest coffee chain on April 1, but it’s hardly the only one.

CLIMATE SCIENCE Leaves the Lab

A chemist at Stockholm University first scrawled out equations describing the greenhouse effect in 1896. Since then climate science has steadily advanced largely at research institutions and government agencies. They were the only places with the expertise, interest and budgets to fund research into geophysics and, later, computer models that simulated climatic changes.

Here Comes the US Battery BOOM

If President Joe Biden gets his way, this year will kick off a bonanza of battery manufacturing across the US.

China Needs to Fire Up Its Consumers

China’s U-turn on Covid Zero is a big deal. But Beijing needs do more if it wants to push economic growth anywhere near the pre-pandemic rate of 6% a year.

Brazil Has Investors on Edge

New presidents usually start by trimming spending before loosening the purse strings toward the end of their term. But Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is kicking off his government with a fiscal blast and asking investors to trust he’ll balance the budget later.

HOLLYWOOD HOPES FOR A RETURN TO THE OLD NORMAL

In 2021, as the pandemic raged, the talk of Hollywood was Project Popcorn: an initiative from WarnerMedia (then owned by AT&T Inc.) to simultaneously release all its films in theaters and on its HBO Max streaming service.

XI'S LONG GAME ON CHIPS

China’s government is protecting some of its chipmakers by spending lavishly to shore them up, just as weak demand is making it hard for chip manufacturers across the globe.

Upcycled Flour Is Rising To Meet the moment

About 50 miles north of London, Cambridge Science Park has earned the nickname “Silicon Fen.” The Fenlands region office hub is the UK home to Amgen Inc., AstraZeneca Plc and other biotech companies.

Five Ways Wine Will Change in 2023

Wine news in 2022 was both concerning and upbeat. Once again, scorching heat, record-breaking drought, spring frosts, hail storms and wildfires reminded vintners of the dire threat and cost of climate change, which will cause more eco-anxiety in 2023. On the positive side, vintners and drinkers are taking sustainability ever more seriously, and more innovations and adaptations are coming.

HOT SEAT DAVID ZASLAV

Stop, drop and roll, David Zaslav.

The Year of the Corporate Bond, Finally

Investors found few places to hide from last year’s demolition derby, which hit corporate bonds harder than it did stocks on a global basis. But if Wall Street’s credit managers and prognosticators are right, 2023 will be the year that corporate bonds boom.

VEHICLE DEFLATION IS PUTTING THE BRAKES ON THE USED-CAR MARKET

Right before the global financial crisis, former Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Chuck Prince famously said that as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. In the pandemic-era car-buying frenzy, no business spent more time on the dance floor than the global auto industry, which had never before enjoyed so much pricing power.

Return of the Jumbos!

As global air travel comes roaring back from its pandemic-induced slump, airlines are racing to provide enough capacity, particularly for premium tickets on the long-haul flights enjoying a stronger-than-expected rebound.

Green Shoots Amid Europe's ENERGY WOES

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, European governments vowed to slash their dependence on imported natural gas and speed the shift to clean energy.