The largest North American and European banks posted double-digit gains as higher-for-longer inflation looms.
All the biggest North American and European banks expect full-year 2026 profits to meet or exceed projections, as AI spending and a surge in market and investment banking activity fueled second-quarter profits.
With drama surrounding AI disruption in the tech sector and gyrations in the commodities markets tied to the war in the Middle East, trading volumes have been robust all year, including the first month of the third quarter.
Christopher Marinac, a banking analyst at Brean Capital, said a steepening Treasury yield curve is allowing banks to improve spreads on loans and securities.
“The way banks are pricing loans is just stable to slightly better, and that is bullish for net [income],” Marinac told Global Finance. “That is the sort of positive undertone.”
The earnings underscored that optimism. Industry leader JPMorgan Chase reported a 41% increase in second-quarter net income, while investment banking giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley posted gains of 84% and 57.7%, respectively. Bank of America’s profit rose 27%, Citigroup’s 45%, and Wells Fargo’s 16.6%. Canadian giant Royal Bank of Canada rose 25%. European banks also delivered strong results, led by UBS with a huge 134% increase; Santander jumped 17%; Barclays added 15.3%; and Deutsche Bank gained 10%.
Inflation remains a threat to growth, and investor jitters about shifts in tech spending away from more traditional software names have fed stock market volatility, along with the latest Fed moves.
But for now, banks are doing extremely well, with mega IPOs such as Anthropic and OpenAI potentially on deck, following the record $75 billion SpaceX IPO and an $85 billion capital raise for Alphabet, which boosted investment-banking fees in the second quarter.
The regulatory environment remains relatively friendly, and larger M&A deals continue to occur, including the $10 billion acquisition of Crinetics Pharmaceuticals by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, announced on July 10.
The performance so far bodes well for 2026 bonuses, given a strong first half of the year.
During second-quarter calls with Wall Street analysts, JPMorgan Chase raised its net interest income outlook for the year, while Deutsche Bank said it will meet or exceed its net interest income outlook, and Bank of America projected 2026 net income growth at the upper end of its 6% to 8% range.
Barclays raised its 2026 profit forecast to £31.5 billion ($42 billion) from £31 billion and said it still expects to meet its full-year performance goals.
UBS Group CFO Todd Tuckner said he’s “confident” the bank will exceed its 2026 targets, with a formal update expected later this year. He added that the bank is “well-positioned” to outperform its exit-rate return target despite market uncertainty around inflation and interest rates.
Santander, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Royal Bank of Canada kept their guidance unchanged but signaled stronger earnings ahead.
“Not everybody is giving the increase of guidance, but I think there’s higher conviction in the existing guidance for those who did comment,” Brean Capital’s Marinac said.
Looking ahead, the big banks are still optimistic about AI, both to improve internal efficiency and deal-making.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said AI investments are feeding capital needs for infrastructure, energy and data centers — not just core technology.
“This is creating significant opportunities for Goldman Sachs to provide structuring, financing, risk management, and capital markets execution across both public and private markets,” Solomon said.
Deutsche Bank Group Treasurer Richard Stewart said private pension reforms are creating a positive opportunity for Germany’s largest bank, alongside AI, “which is evolving even faster than we expected.”
Banking analyst Marinac said he expects European banks to benefit from the need to increase military and domestic spending.
“As everybody looks a little bit more inward, that’s probably good for business from a bank’s standpoint,” he said.
Along with favorable conditions in the bond market, another earnings tailwind for banks has come from headcount reductions and productivity gains.
Citigroup cut 5,000 jobs in the second quarter, bringing its total headcount down to 219,000. Wells Fargo reduced its headcount by 3,500 to 197,000, and UBS eliminated 2,500 positions, bringing its total headcount to under 100,000.
Analysts asked banks such as Wells Fargo how AI is shaping the job picture as technology advances.
Wells Fargo CFO Mike Santomassimo said the bank has “a lot of room to grow” to improve efficiency. But it also continues to hire branch bankers, investment advisors, commercial banking relationship managers, investment bankers, and traders.
“Certainly, technology and AI help us get at aspects of that in a different way or faster than maybe in the past,” Santomassimo said. “We expect that we’ll continue to see more efficiency from here.”
One key metric for banks’ future performance is employment levels, which have been robust in the U.S. As long as people keep working and paying their bills and business activity keeps up, credit quality will remain healthy, and the big banks will prosper as the year plays out, market observers said.
Steve Gelsi is a contributing writer based in the U.S.
Earnings Call Insights: Graphic Packaging Holding Company (GPK) Q2 2026
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Earnings Call Insights: Gartner (IT) Q2 2026
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Wayfair sees growth accelerating in specialty and luxury segments; shares rally at open — update
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You can’t keep a beloved news team down, even after more than a decade since being yanked off the air in a move that stunned fans and local TV newsrooms.
For almost 20 years, KTTV Fox 11’s “Good Day L.A.” was hosted by Steve Edwards, Dorothy Lucey and Jillian Barberie, becoming a dominant fixture in the fiercely competitive morning show arena. The show’s popularity for a time outdistanced network morning shows and crosstown rivals “The KTLA Morning News.”
The trio’s freewheeling banter spiced with humorous mayhem and mischief enchanted legions of viewers while bringing freshness to the familiar formula of news, weather and sports. The distinct personalities meshed effortlessly — veteran newsman Edwards, relentlessly upbeat co-host Lucey and fiery weather reporter Barberie, who injected the proceedings with outrageous, at times crass comments along with declarations that “my breasts are real.”
An undercurrent of friction brought an edge to the breezy vibe, with Edwards often acting as the awkward buffer between Lucey and Barberie, who did little to disguise their dislike of each other. Barberie would go on to bash Lucey on Howard Stern’s radio show, calling her “very Christian and Bible-thumpy.” Lucey was frequently distraught by Barberie’s “mean.”
But that winning combination was broken up starting in May 2012, when Lucey was fired as part of a show revamp. Barberie was let go four months later after declining a demotion. And after continuing with other co-hosts, Edwards vanished from the show in December 2017 after allegations of sexual harassment, but there was never an official explanation from him or management about the reason for his departure. The exits sparked a wave of protests from viewers and celebrities, including Suzanne Somers, Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell of “American Idol.”
Dorothy Lucey, left, Steve Edwards and Jillian Barberie in 2001 on the set of Fox 11’s “Good Day L.A.”
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
But good days have returned for the former “Good Day L.A.” hosts. More than a decade after being let go, Edwards, Lucey and Barberie are fired up about their new venture.
The trio has reunited for “So Unanchored,” a weekly podcast fueled by spontaneous riffs on their years together, pop culture and their deep friendship. As they did on “Good Day L.A.,” they consistently interrupt one another and the chatter careens from one topic to the next without a breath. Complete sentences are rare.
“We have not missed a beat,” Edwards said as he, Lucey and Barberie relaxed in an office lounge after a recent taping. “It’s the most effortless thing. It makes us very happy when we get together. There’s an endorphin thing going on.”
“And we like each other more,” added Lucey.
They will tape a special live episode Wednesday at 11 a.m.. New episodes usually appear on Fridays.
The shattering of the “Good Day L.A.” team was particularly traumatic for Barberie, the breakout star of the trio. In addition to getting divorced after the Fox 11 job, she was later sideswiped by financial woes and a devastating health scare.
“I lost my job, got divorced and got cancer all at the same time,” said Barberie, her voice cracking as she sat near Edwards and Lucey in the lounge. “The fact that these two were a constant in my life during those 12 years when I was going through all those things is everything. I’m so grateful.”
Of course, there are major differences from their previous collaboration. While “Good Day L.A.” was broadcast at Fox 11’s massive West Los Angeles studio, “So Unanchored” is a no-frills affair staged at a Canoga Park office park.
The hosts sit in a small office, backed by nondescript office furniture and a framed poster of the vintage “Please Stand By” image broadcast by stations when there were technical difficulties.
Lucey, left, Edwards and Barberie in the Canoga Park office where they tape their podcast, “So Unanchored.”
(Annie Noelker/For The Times)
On their initial podcast, Barberie made it clear that there is no love lost when it comes to her former employer.
“I don’t want anything associated with that show,” she said. “Let’s start fresh, man. They used us and they treated us like s— at the end. Who needs them? Goodbye!”
The other major shift is the relationship between Lucey and Barberie.
“Dorothy and I love each other now,” Barberie said on one episode.
Lucey: “We do. Because the last time you saw us, we really didn’t like each other.”
Barberie: “And Steve has never been happier.”
Edwards: “You two are like sisters. You used to be like brothers — Cain and Abel.”
Barberie: “And then something happened between the three of us that got her and I close, and then I got cancer. She took me to all of my surgeries and took care of me. I’m telling you, it’s a beautiful thing.”
Lucey: “We still hate Steve, though.”
Barberie: “We have that in common.”
The burying of the hatchet is a great relief for Edwards, who was troubled by the tension between his colleagues during their time on “Good Day L.A.”
Barberie pressed Edwards on their first podcast: “Be honest, Steve. Did you like it when we didn’t get along?”
Edwards: “Sometimes it would get ugly and my stomach would turn.”
On “So Unanchored,” Barberie has revived her loose cannon role in their dynamic, raw and unfiltered. She will tear up, and moments later throw her head back with an explosive laugh that bounces off the studio walls.
She detailed her wild lifestyle during her TV days: “From 34 to 40, I was single, had five TV jobs, partied like a rock star, dated anyone I wanted and made a s—load of money.”
Though she eventually landed a talk show on KABC-AM 790 after leaving Fox 11, hard times hit in 2019 as she tried to make ends meet while raising two children as a divorced mom battling cancer.
“When I lost everything, I literally collapsed on my money manager’s table. I was bald and I started crying,” she said.
She listed her ranch-style Tarzana home, which was featured in “MTV Cribs,” for $2.5 million in 2021. She currently rents “a beautiful little apartment way out in Thousand Oaks. I love it and my life is quieter.”
Barberie was more explicit on the podcast: “I haven’t dated in 10 years. I have no tinglies down there. I’m dead from the waist down. I don’t want to date. I don’t want a man, an ape beside me at night if I’m having a hot flash. I have no nipples. I have no desire to cook, sit and talk with you. I don’t care.”
Edwards: “So you’re saying there’s a chance.”
Since leaving “Good Day L.A.,” Barberie, left, and Lucey have developed a close friendship. Edwards, standing center, said, “You two are like sisters. You used to be like brothers — Cain and Abel.”
(Annie Noelker / For The Times)
Scott Sternberg, whose production company produces “So Unanchored,” said “Good Day L.A.” was a clear standout on the morning show spectrum.
“There was something different about ‘Good Day L.A.’ from the other shows,” Sternberg said in a phone interview. “Their personalities were all different, but they could finish each other’s sentences and were not afraid to say what they wanted to say. I felt if I could bring them back together, there would be a huge audience who remembered them fondly.”
Asked to define the magic of their chemistry, Edwards said it was not instantaneous.
“At the time, there were five morning shows, including the network,” he said. “It took years for our thing to happen, but when it did, it happened big. We could do no wrong for 10 years. The ratings were crazy good. There was a run for many years when we were No. 1. We made them a lot of money.”
He continued: “Success is based on the relationship between the people on the show and the audience. Once that is established, it doesn’t matter if the show is good or bad that day. I was going through a lot with these two [Lucey and Barberie], and the audience was doing it with us. But the suits don’t care about that.”
The first indication that the show was in trouble came in 2017, when a new management team initiated a revamp of the morning show.
Lucey wrote at the time in her blog “God and Gossip” that her new boss told her that her voice, which has a trace of raspiness, “made his eyes bleed. Not the crusty yucky pink eye. New guy was saying when I spoke I made his eyes bleed. I have read that can happen after you vomit. Now I could almost see my husband saying something like that to me … But from a new boss…”
But station executives did not express regrets about dismissing Lucey, saying in a statement after her ouster: “The revitalization of ‘Good Day L.A.’ has been refreshing.”
Months later, Barberie was approached about taking a reduced role as a field reporter. She turned it down. Edwards’ departure caused a bigger stir because it was so abrupt. KTTV would say only that he was no longer employed by the station.
“Fox never issued a statement, and I never issued a statement,” Edwards said. “Obviously there was not agreement on what happened.”
As they prepared to leave the lounge, the three hugged each other warmly and said they were looking forward to getting together the following week.
“There is one word for us being back together,” Barberie said. “Home.”
Photo of the Guri Hydroelectric Plant posted by the US Embassy on August 3
In the last few days, a sight that had become unusual in Venezuela for years took place in multiple parts of the country: street protests over electricity. The blackouts are increasing in frequency and duration without any warning, along with several strong brownouts. This recent uptick has even reached the capital, which the chavista government usually tries to protect from the chronic power deficit, at the expense of the rest of the nation.
In Carabobo state, people in Valencia and its surrounding cities reported both prolonged cuts and swift interruptions, which have taken their toll on their daily routine. Local authorities say that the full recovery of the thermoelectric plant Termocarabobo (directly affected by the earthquakes just like Planta Centro, close to the epicenter of the first quake) will help alleviate the problem.
Next door, in Aragua state, things are not much better. People in Maracay report daily double cuts of four to five hours, hitting the city’s commercial sector despite the use of power plants. In the smaller towns of Villa de Cura and San Mateo, citizens held peaceful protests to complain as governor Joana Sánchez blamed current electricity woes on the June 24 earthquakes.
The increase in power outages has reached both the east and west of Venezuela. In the western Lara state, an unannounced blackout right after midnight on July 31 left large parts of the state in the dark, in addition to the lengthy daily rationing that reaches up to five hours. Local NGO Activos por la Luz, which monitors the effects of the electric crisis in the region, released in response a very scathing statement on social media:
Protests spanning affluent Lechería and impoverished El Callao spell bad news for Delcy Rodríguez’s promise of economic recovery.
“This has stopped being just an electrical problem. This is a systematic destruction of our mental health, our emotional stability, of our dignity and of our hope as people. It’s not normal to live under constant stress, without knowing when the power goes out, how long the blackout will last or how you will go to sleep, work or just survive the heat and the burnout. We have been pushed to a permanent state of anxiety, frustration and impotence…”
Meanwhile in the eastern cities of Maturín and Anaco, people made their voices heard in front of the offices of State-owned electricity Corpoelec without incident. Sadly, that wasn’t the case in Guayana, as a public gathering in the road to enter the town of Guasipati on July 28th was dissolved by a group of unidentified men using firearms. The following day, the nearby town of El Callao witnessed a civic strike protesting six-to-seven hour power cuts and the collapse of other public services caused by increasing mining activity in the area and the growing population influx.
Such is the level of exasperation that the mayor of Lechería, Manuel Ferreira, publicly called Corpoelec to establish a proper scheduling of the electrical cuts. “Without schedules, without timetables and without respect: that’s how our neighbors have been treated. We understand the climate variables or the structural system failures, but if the rationing is unavoidable, the least we demand is respect and dignity. People have the right to know when the service is taken off so they can prepare.”
To better understand the relevance of this: both Guasipati and El Callao belong to the region covered by the Mining Arc, where there is a documented presence of gangs (hence the recent killing of Tren de Aragua’s leader in nearby Kilometro 88), and the military is currently deploying intense control over the population. The gold industry in the region is vital for the regime’s interests and has recently fallen under the eye of the Trump administration and the international mining companies the White House aspires to attract to Venezuela. Lechería remains an enclave for the privileged, the ones who built or preserved a comfortable life during the worst years of the country’s economic decline. The fact that both regions are witnessing protests of this scale is more bad news for Delcy Rodríguez’s promise of economic recovery.
Back in May, as the national power grid was stretching thin because of high temperatures and rising demand, the Electricity Minister Ronald Alcalá and the US Chief of Mission John Barrett met to discuss plans to rebuild the country’s power grid.
In the early days of June, the National Assembly apparently advanced in the drafting of a partial reform to the Electric System and Service Organic Law, allowing the private sector to participate in the electricity service but still keeping the State mostly in control of it. Some have criticized the changes as insufficient.
After that, the interim government signed two memorandums of understanding in June. The first one with Argentinian company IMPSA, which involves two hydroelectric plants in Guayana: repairing the Macagua Dam and finishing the long-delayed and unfinished Tocoma Dam.
IMPSA was formerly a State-owned company which won the contracts in 2008 when Cristina Kirchner was in charge but stalled around 2013-14 as the Maduro government stopped paying.
With the arrival of Javier Millei to La Casa Rosada, IMPSA was privatized and later sold to US consortium Industrial Acquisitions Fund (IAF), which decided to pick up the pending projects in Venezuela again right after the events of January 3rd, with Washington’s help.
The second MoU was with GE Vernova, a major US energy company which was once part of the famous conglomerate General Electric until its breakup in 2024. In the agreement, GE Vernova would assist with improving Venezuelan energy supply to one gigawatt in the first 24 months and more than five gigawatts over the course of four years. The company also committed to properly train personnel and transfer technology to modernize the infrastructure.
The second reading and final passing of the electricity reform is now on hold as the Rodríguez-controlled National Assembly says it is focused on more urgent, disaster-related matters.
Days after those preliminary agreements were announced and signed, the earthquakes occurred and some of the set priorities took a backseat. For example, the grid was heavily hit in places like La Guaira and power had to be restored in parts of Falcón. As mentioned earlier, Carabobo’s generation plants were also affected.
As those short-term fixes are on the top of the list, some of those positive developments from June have gone down on the to-do list, as the CEO of GE Vernova Scott Strazik admitted to Bloomberg: “Practically speaking, if not for the earthquake that had taken place that took us off track, we could be very close to a contract today…” The company is optimistic to start working this year.
In a similar vein, the second reading and final passing of the electricity reform law is now on hold as the Rodríguez-controlled National Assembly says it is focused on more urgent disaster-related matters. But the earthquakes deepened the many issues the national grid had been carrying for long, as this Runrun.es report indicates:
Letters of intent that the government signed with international consortiums to recover turbines in the Caroni (River) or to rehabilitate trunk transmission do not accelerate engineering times. Therefore, specialists insist that stabilizing the system is a complex process that’ll take years.
Until those projects materialize, the interior of the country will keep paying the cost of the system that works to its limits. The seismic doublet of June not only shaken distribution lines of those who usually don’t lose the light; for the rest of Venezuela, the true earthquake is day-by-day in the darkness of a structural crisis that is not solved with speeches.
The official response from Delcy Rodriguez is to simply throw the ball back and ask them to keep carrying that weight as she just announced a brand new plan to save electricity and water. The pretext: the effects of El Niño are being felt around the world and the solar radiation phenomenon that caused the original declaration of electric emergency in March is returning later in August.
For the record, there have been previous precedents of planned power rationing timetables like in 2016, when there was a situation similar to the current one. However, a rationing plan like the one announced for the summer of 2026 is the first in years. Corpoelec chose instead to send SMS messages of questionable accuracy.
In the meantime, she can at least count on the Trump administration giving her a little help-out, thanks to the visit of John Barrett to Guri, along with experts from the US Energy Department.
Published on
In addition to earnings reports this week, investors were also still weighing the impact from last week’s joint US-Japan currency intervention, analysts said.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.3% to 63,585.58, as the US dollar inched up to 157.51 Japanese yen from 157.18 yen. The euro cost $1.1511, little changed from $1.1514. The dollar was trading at 160-yen levels before regulators stepped in to boost the yen’s value after it fell to nearly 40-year lows.
Some analysts said the effectiveness of such an intervention remains uncertain as it doesn’t address the fundamental economic reasons behind the currency fluctuations, including inflation, interest rates and the relative strengths of the economies.
“A US-backed operation carries far more signaling weight than Tokyo acting alone, and the pledge of further action will give speculators pause. But any US contribution will probably be constrained by size,” a report by BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions, said.
Matthew Ryan, head of market strategy at global financial services firm Ebury, noted the latest effort could have some impact because it appears to signal a real change in monetary policy rather than just a one-time defensive move.
“This is an historic and meaningful development for the yen, which materially improves confidence in our mildly bullish call for the currency,” he said.
South Korea’s Kospi sank 1.3% to 6,174.72. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 1.2% to 9,129.00. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.5% to 25,881.99, while the Shanghai Composite gained 0.2% to 3,802.61.
Markets remain unsettled by swings for stocks of companies that make computer chips. They’ve been veering up and down for weeks on worries about whether their surging revenues because of the artificial-intelligence boom are sustainable.
On Wall Street, share prices rallied Monday after easing oil prices helped calm worries over inflation. The S&P 500 jumped 1.5% and is just 0.1% below its record set earlier this summer.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which measures a narrower slice of the US stock market, climbed 693 points or 1.3% to an all-time high, while the Nasdaq composite leaped 2.1%.
In energy trading in Asia early Tuesday, benchmark US crude gained 84 cents to $81.18 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, jumped $1.15 to $84.92 a barrel.
A day earlier, oil prices dropped more than 5% after US President Donald Trump said over the weekend that he had decided to hold off on new strikes against Iran at the urging of allies in the region.
Brent’s price careened between $72 and $102 last month as worries rose and fell over the war in Iran and when oil tankers would be allowed to freely exit the Persian Gulf again to deliver crude to customers worldwide.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.68% from 4.75% late Friday. It remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war with Iran.
Additional sources • AP
Holcim CFO Steffen Kindler on executing a regional spinoff, AI value creation, and team leadership.
This article appears in the July/August issue of Global Finance Magazine.
Steffen Kindler has served as Holcim’s CFO since 2023. He brings with him two decades of finance leadership experience from his time at Nestlé. He now guides the financial strategy of the Swiss multinational building materials giant, which generated CHF15.7 billion (approximately $19.7 billion) in net sales last year.
Holcim, listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange, commands a global footprint with more than 45,000 employees. It operates across 43 markets in Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
Global Finance: What do you consider your main achievements since joining Holcim?
Steffen Kindler: A major achievement was helping drive the decision to split Holcim into a North American company and a rest-of-the-world company, and then successfully executing the spinoff. We completed a financial carve-out, established the new company’s finance organization, and listed the North American entity on the New York Stock Exchange. Since then, both companies have operated smoothly and separately.
Another major achievement was defining a standalone company strategy and equity story. We identified where we want to grow, how we want to allocate capital, the financial KPIs we want to be measured against, and our people plan. The strategy was very well received by the financial markets, reflected in strong share price appreciation throughout 2025.
Since then, the focus has been on executing that strategy quarter after quarter, demonstrating progress on both the strategy and our financial results, and earning the confidence and support of shareholders and stakeholders.
GF: Why did you split off the North American entity?
Kindler: The logic was sustainability and different market environments. In Europe, decarbonizing the product portfolio and production process was a key driver of our strategy and financial success. In the U.S., customers were more focused on volume growth, and the sustainability strategy was not as relevant. We felt the regions were hindering each other more than helping.
GF: Holcim expects AI to generate CHF200 million in recurring EBIT by 2028. How so?
Kindler: We began exploring AI more than three years ago and felt we were leading in that area. Technology has now matured to the point that we can reliably say it is creating value. Rather than focusing on savings or restructuring, we see AI as a value-creation tool.
Key applications include predictive maintenance, where AI anticipates machine breakdowns, and commercial sales where AI analyzes large amounts of data to optimize our offers to customers for all types of building projects. We are already seeing tangible benefits of roughly CHF30 million this year, even before scaling these programs further.
GF: Can you provide details on how you expect to achieve that EBIT goal?
Kindler: Holcim said that roughly half of the CHF200 million AI benefit will come from additional profit and the other half from cost avoidance. Predictive maintenance helps avoid losses by reducing breakdowns, while AI supporting the commercial teams creates additional value by giving them better insights, faster project proposals, and the ability to participate in more projects. It gives commercial teams insights into how the different inputs of an offer were determined and reduces the manual work involved in bidding. By automating data analysis and proposals, teams can evaluate more projects and focus on judgment and decision-making rather than information gathering.
GF: How important is it to have a strong finance team?
Kindler: I cannot do a job of this scale on my own: the team is everything. I spend about a third of my time on people-related topics, including succession planning, coaching, and career development. We have a structured process for discussing talent, open jobs, strengths and weaknesses, and career paths with regional CFOs and direct reports. It is also important to keep people motivated by giving them interesting roles, exposure, and support through an open-door approach.
Tiziana Barghini is a contributing writer based in New York.
Palantir enables customers to control their data, logic, AI models, and operational learnings, facilitating the ability to swap models and benchmark against customer-specific standards and avoid dependency on a single provider, addressing enterprise concerns over control, model lock-in, and data security.
Trump calls out Exxon and Chevron for 'making too much money'
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Ameresco (AMRC) up 26.7% post-market Monday after reporting in-line Q2 adjusted earnings but easily exceeding expectations for revenue, which gained 9% Y/Y to $515M, and said its total project backlog rose 32% Y/Y to $6.73B, citing strong demand for
Treasury teams are adapting to ongoing market volatility by treating uncertainty as the norm.
This article appears in the July/August issue of Global Finance Magazine.
Treasury teams now navigate sustained market volatility by treating uncertainty as a core factor in everyday
decision-making, rather than an exception. That’s among the central findings of the latest Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Corporate Treasury Report, whose survey of finance and treasury professionals found 72% now treat volatility as “business as usual,” up from 41% in 2025.
Strikingly, this finding emerged even before the Middle East conflict threw global markets into turmoil. Follow-up interviews conducted since (between February and March 2026) reflect the impact of the early days of the crisis. Just 8% (down from 17% in 2025) reported a material negative impact from macroeconomic and geopolitical events, while 3% reported a material positive outlook (up slightly from 2% in 2025). As of May 2026, energy prices and U.S. tariff uncertainty—in particular the Supreme Court’s Learning Resources v. Trump ruling — were the chief concerns.
The survey, conducted with the Association of Corporate Treasurers, reveals that 45% of corporates are looking to diversify their debt while 55% are not—reflecting both tighter credit conditions and a search for flexibility. The report’s authors suggest the findings point to the economy being at or near a cyclical trough.
Survey respondents said they expected to increase expenditure in 2026 on debt repayment, returns to shareholders and share buybacks, and to reduce spending on acquisitions and capex — suggesting a consolidation, rather than expansion, mindset.
There was also a notable decline in respondents prioritizing cash management, to 71% in 2026 from 91% in 2025. The focus was instead on managing interest rate volatility, derivatives, supply chain and technology risks.
Stacey Pang, of counsel at HSF Kramer, told Global Finance that cash management is, and always will be, a central focus: “The data may simply show that some treasurers have successfully implemented cash management programs in the last year, and therefore have time to prioritize other projects.”
Looking ahead, Pang anticipates the “promise of AI” and its more meaningful deployment will be a key priority over the next 12 to 24 months — with the caveat that AI “cannot and should not replace the ultimate decision-making role of treasury professionals.”
Deborah Ritchie is a contributing writer based in London.
Aug. 3 (UPI) — Capital One attorneys said in court documents that the bank closed the Trump Organization’s accounts over concerns about money laundering.
Attorneys for the bank have asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump over it closing hundreds of Trump Organization accounts in 2021. The motion filed by Capital One on Friday clarifies that money laundering concerns were the reason the accounts were closed.
“The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One’s [anti-money-laundering] team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance,” the court files read.
Trump argues that banks have “debanked” him and other conservatives for their political views. This followed the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. He has also filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase for the same allegations and sought $5 billion in damages.
Capital One argues that the Trump Organization’s accounts were closed in a lawful manner.
“Instead, Plaintiffs attempt to keep their misguided allegations of political discrimination alive by speculating that Capital One’s anti-money laundering concerns were pretextual and claiming that Plaintiffs were somehow ‘misled’ by the contractually permitted closure decision,” the court filings read.
The bank adds that its contracts with clients give it the discretion to close any account “at any time, for any reason or no reason and without notice.”
About 385 accounts with ties to the Trump Organization, Executive Vice President Eric Trump and other affiliated businesses were closed in total.
In March, U.S. District Judge Roy Altman granted a previous motion by Capital One to dismiss the initial lawsuit that allowed Trump a limited window to refile. Trump and plaintiffs since filed an amended complaint that Capital One says suffer from “the same fundamental flaws as their prior two pleadings.”
If Capital One’s latest motion for dismissal is granted, the Trump Organization will be barred from filing another lawsuit.
For these CFOs, summer is where the year is won or lost.
This article appears in the July/August issue of Global Finance Magazine.
Every spring, airlines, cruise lines, travel booking platforms, golf tour operators, race promoters and other seasonal businesses begin trying to answer the question that will define much of their year: How is summer shaping up? For their CFOs, a few months of peak demand often determine whether the entire year meets expectations.
This year, the early signals have been broadly encouraging. Despite conflict in the Middle East that rattled European and Asian bookings, travel advisories in Mexico, and lingering concerns about consumer sentiment, many travel companies reported strong demand. Europe’s TUI Group reported its best-ever first half, with 7.9 million summer bookings already in place, while Expedia posted its highest first-quarter EBITDA margin in 15 years.
But the stakes remain unusually high because many of these businesses generate a disproportionate share of their annual revenue in a relatively short window. Whether they operate airlines, racetracks, or golf tours, their finance chiefs spend months forecasting demand, managing labor and capital, and preparing for risks—from weather disruptions to geopolitical shocks—that could derail the season.
Today, by contrast, consumers want to travel, and the booking window is holding steady. That signal is especially important to the CFOs at companies whose fortunes depend on summer travel.
Max Mertz is CFO and co-owner of Alaska Seaplanes, which operates a fleet of 20 aircraft based in Juneau and serves communities throughout southeast Alaska. Summer brings millions of visitors to the state, many seeking flights over glaciers, bear safaris, and trips to remote fishing lodges.
“June, July, August, and then, if you add the shoulder season, which starts around mid-May and lasts until about a week after Labor Day, account for two-thirds of our revenue. It’s critical, honestly,” Mertz says.
Bookings at his company’s tourism subsidiary arrive months in advance, enabling year-over-year comparisons. Fishing lodges commit capacity based on their own guest projections. Strong retail sales and corporate bonus cycles in the Lower 48 states translate into lodge demand. Construction projects and gold and silver mines in remote communities create predictable demand for cargo and charters.
The seasonal concentration is all about costs.
“Aviation is a high fixed-cost industry,” Mertz says. “On a per-flight, per-unit basis, obviously the higher your volume, the more you cover fixed costs, so you’re making a good chunk of your bottom line as well.”
What makes Alaska Seaplanes unusual — even among seasonal businesses — is the extent to which weather inserts an uncontrollable financial variable. Anyone who has flown in Alaska knows how its dense cloud layer and mist can quickly form, grounding aircraft for days. Mertz has invested in reliability. Alaska Seaplanes has spent multiple seven-figure sums on specialized navigation systems that increase aircraft safety and reliability.
Weather also matters to Mike Morrisey. As CFO of Green Savoree Racing Promotions for the past 31 seasons, he oversees four motorsports race properties: Mid-Ohio; a newly built circuit in Markham, Ontario; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Portland, Oregon. “The summer is where you make your revenue,” he says.
Often, a big race weekend is a single 72-hour window when gate revenue, hospitality, suites, sponsorships, and concessions converge. There is no making it up later.
“When the checkered flag drops, we have crews out there tearing it all down” at the temporary street racing circuits, Morrisey says.
The leading indicators he watches for signs of summer success are ticket renewals and suite sales. The next forecasting cycle begins almost immediately after the prior season ends.
“We typically launch ticket renewals in the fall for the following year,” Morrisey says. “St. Pete tickets go on sale in mid-September, and Mid-Ohio in mid- to late October.” Suite customers are approached for renewal while the race is still being torn down.
The logistics of motorsports racing would likely surprise CFOs in other industries. Green Savoree owns roughly $4 million in portable grandstands and suite infrastructure. These aluminum structures sit in a St. Petersburg warehouse between events, are loaded onto about 40 trucks after the Florida race, and are shipped to Canada for use in Markham. The company operates with fewer than 50 full-time employees year-round, a number that swells to about 270 during the peak summer season.
Gordon Dalgleish co-founded Perry Golf in 1984 and remains president of the luxury golf travel company he and his brother built around the British Isles. The company is now majority-owned by private equity investors. His seasonal challenge is stark: He sells access to some of the world’s most coveted golf inventory in a region that is closed for business for roughly half the year.
“It is very seasonal, and it doesn’t matter what you do,” says Dalgleish. “You cannot sell golf trips for November. It gets dark and rainy.”
The business operates at near-full capacity during the peak season and near-zero outside it; the peak season runs from late April to early October. St. Andrews, which Dalgleish calls the engine that “drives the bus” for the entire Scottish golf hospitality industry, closes for three weeks in September and early October for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club’s autumn meeting and the Dunhill Links Championship. When St. Andrews closes, the broader market goes quiet.
Booking lead time has changed dramatically, reshaping Perry Golf’s forecasting model.
Pre-Covid, Dalgleish saw a fairly predictable 12-month booking cycle. Inquiries would begin in July for the following summer, slow through the holidays, and ramp back up in January and February, giving him a clear picture of the season by late February. Today, he sees inquiries for July 2028 arriving in spring 2026. By this Christmas, he expects to have 40% to 50% of next summer’s bookings in hand.
One possible driver of this shift is affluent Americans, a key customer segment, who have reoriented their spending toward experiences rather than assets and who plan farther in advance to secure exactly what they want. However, the supply of premium Scottish golf inventory has barely grown.
“There are 25 courses that are on everyone’s must-play list in Scotland,” Dalgleish notes. Demand is running ahead of last year’s pace, and father-son trips are booking at high volumes. “There’s an affluence slushing around in golf just now.”
Josh Greear models a different kind of seasonal pressure. As CFO of Maryland-based Authority Brands, which derives over 90% of its revenue and more than $2 billion in annual system sales from 15 home services franchise brands, he manages seasonal concentration across a portfolio of businesses, each facing different summer inflection points.
“Summer’s always been important to Authority Brands,” Greear says. Its America’s Swimming Pools franchise business faces heavy warm-weather demand. Consumers tend to seek the services of its Mosquito Squad brand as critters emerge in warm weather. One Hour Heating & Air is driven by heat waves, not the calendar. Figuring out when to hire is tricky.
“The hardest time to manage labor is on the shoulder of the seasons, when you’re seeing the largest change,” Greear observes. In a business like One Hour Heating and Air, if temperatures spike sharply and you’re not prepared, you miss the demand and usually have no easy way to make it up. Conversely, if you’ve overstaffed in anticipation of early summer, profitability erodes.
To better manage risk, Greear says Authority Brands has invested in large-language-model-driven forecasting that integrates local weather trends, historical demand patterns, and brand-specific variables at the ZIP code level. The business now uses multivariate models that ingest large datasets and distill them into actionable insights for specific locations. For summer 2026, Greear flagged a milder-than-typical start to the season in many parts of the US, which will affect the timing of demand for weather-sensitive brands.
Greear measures success by revenue, share gains, and franchisee health: “If we’re taking share, our customers are happy, and, most importantly, our franchise owners are healthy, then our business is in a very stable, long-term strong position.”
Another way to manage seasonal risk, however, is to diversify: in this case, by owning businesses that operate year-round, collectively if not individually.
California-based Youth Enrichment Brands traces its roots to summer camp and has spread that model across 12 months; its portfolio now includes US Sports Camps, i9 Sports, and School of Rock, which together smooth the seasonal curve.
“As of 2025, less than 20% of our systemwide sales are derived from summer-based activities alone,” says Dustin Bertram, CFO. Winter programs, year-round leagues, and music instruction have broadened the revenue base. “The platforms that win will be those that remain focused on the customer experience, maintain diversified offerings, exercise disciplined cost control, and invest in evolving their programs.”
| Summer by the Numbers |
|---|
| 7.9 Million: Summer bookings already reported by TUI Group for 2026. |
| 66%: Share of Alaska Seaplanes’ annual revenue generated between mid-May and shortly after Labor Day. |
| $4 Million: Value of Green Savoree Racing Promotions’ portable grandstands and hospitality infrastructure. |
| 50 to 270: Growth in Green Savoree’s workforce during peak racing season. |
| 40% to 50%: Portion of Perry Golf’s following summer bookings expected to be secured by Christmas. |
| 20%: Share of Youth Enrichment Brands’ systemwide sales now derived from summer-only activities. |
| $4.5 Trillion: Estimated decline in global travel and tourism GDP during the pandemic. |
| 62 Million: Travel and tourism jobs lost worldwide during Covid-19. |
As October arrives in Juneau, Alaska, rain socks in, cold air takes hold, and days grow short, but hibernation is the last thing on Max Mertz’s mind.
The CFO of Alaska Seaplanes leads a post-mortem of the mid-May to early September season: what worked and what didn’t. He dissects the summer’s financial results and builds budgets for the year ahead. He maps out fleet and capital needs and evaluates staffing levels against forecasts from fishing lodges and gold and silver mines, which are major users of Alaska Seaplanes in the summer.
The planning runs from October until it’s set by March or April. In between planning for the next summer, it’s party season — one for each major unit, always well attended, according to Mertz.
In the fall, Chris Scheer, CFO of KOA, which operates a network of 500 campgrounds across North America, evaluates the compressed summer window, during which he must execute flawlessly on pricing, operations, and the guest experience, because the period accounts for about half of KOA’s total annual revenues. That means during the off-season, he focuses on strategic planning for cash flow, rate setting, staffing, and capital expenditures.
In Indianapolis, Green Savoree Racing Promotions CFO Mike Morrisey spends his autumns calculating costs and securing funding for capital upgrades—such as replacing grandstands and revamping hospitality suites. Ticket renewals go out before Thanksgiving, and Morrisey watches how quickly they come in because the fans who’ll fill those grandstands are also the ones driving his financial projections.
Weld Royal is a contributing writer based in the U.S.
The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil for October delivery lost 5.16% to $83.39 a barrel, while US crude, or WTI, futures for September delivery declined nearly 6% to $79.66 per barrel.
Crude declined after US President Donald Trump said fresh talks with Iran would begin later in the day, easing concerns over potential supply disruptions. Additional downward pressure came after Saudi Arabia, Russia and five other key members of OPEC+ agreed in an online meeting on Sunday to boost oil production by 188,000 barrels a day from September, against a backdrop of disruption caused by the Middle East conflict.
“The seven participating countries decided to implement a production adjustment of 188 thousand barrels per day,” they said in a joint statement.
The increase, decided by the key countries in the enlarged Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was widely expected by analysts.
“OPEC+ has finished unwinding its voluntary cuts. The next challenge is managing the surplus that could emerge as export flows normalise,” Jorge Leon, analyst at Rystad Energy, said.
He warned, however, that the decision “changes little in the near term because (the Strait of) Hormuz remains constrained. The real market impact will come when normal export flows resume.”
The Gulf countries have struggled to increase exports due to the near-paralysis of the Strait of Hormuz orchestrated by Iran during the war in the Middle East – despite a brief upswing in shipping traffic after a US-Iran memorandum of understanding was signed in June.
Many OPEC+ members cannot produce as much oil as their official targets allow due to a “decline in production capacity”, so increasing targets has become less meaningful, Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS, said.
The September increase, agreed by OPEC+ countries Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman, completes the unwinding of the second of the three production-cut packages introduced by organisation.
“Having completed the restoration campaign, OPEC+ has little incentive to rush into further supply changes. Our base case is a fourth-quarter pause while the group prepares for the 2027 quota negotiations,” Rystad Energy’s Leon said.
“For now, geopolitics is masking the scale of the supply increase. That will become much clearer once export flows normalise,” he added.
It remains unclear when the group will actually be able to increase its oil volumes. Some member countries, such as Iraq, have expressed a desire to significantly boost production.
Russia, though, is confronted with repeated Ukrainian drone attacks on its oil infrastructure that have crimped production, currently hovering around nine million barrels per day – compared with a target of 9.8 million barrels per day.
OPEC+ “faces potentially difficult talks over new production quotas” starting next year following the September increase, according to analysts at DNB Carnegie.
Between late 2022 and 2023, OPEC+ became concerned that oil prices were falling, and agreed to cut oil production in three separate rounds, reducing total output by nearly six million barrels per day.
But Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Oman and the United Arab Emirates – before the latter’s exit from the group on May 1 – then changed their strategy by gradually upping production starting in 2025.
“I don’t think cohesion is at risk at this very moment,” Leon said, warning, however, that the UAE’s withdrawal from the group in May has highlighted a weakness in this area.
Top global market stories from this week as earnings drive sentiment
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High-beta momentum (SPMO) is starting to resemble past boom-bust cycles, although BTIG is stopping short of calling the trade a bubble.
In a note titled “The Anatomy of a Bubble,” BTIG technical strategist Jonathan Krinsky said the firm is “not calling High-Beta Momentum
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Emerging-market stocks stumbled in July as renewed geopolitical tensions, volatile AI-related shares and rising interest-rate concerns interrupted what had been a strong rally earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported Sunday.
For investors, the outlook for developing markets is becoming more complicated. While
C-stores 2.0: Dolly Parton enters the age of mega travel stops
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In Boca de Aroa, a village on the coast of Yaracuy state, Yaritza and her husband Fernando await the arrival of tourists who, for the past twelve years, have stopped for breakfast at their food stand “La Bendición de Dios”. This business has been the family’s main source of income. However, after the earthquakes of June 24, almost no vehicles are going through the road to the beaches.
Fernando says that traffic decreased significantly after the earthquakes. The epicenter of the first quake was very close to them, to the south, and some houses in the area were damaged. “Before the earthquake, the flow of travelers was considerably high, but our sales are now only 25% of what they used to be. Now we live on daily earnings. What we earn each day, we use to buy what we need.”
Fernando and Yaritza are not alone. In Boca de Aroa, as in other coastal communities near Morrocoy National Park, a large part of the economy depends on the constant flow of visitors from different parts of the country. To reach its keys and beaches from Valencia, many travelers take Troncal 3, the road that runs through Boca de Aroa before reaching the most popular beaches. After the earthquakes, the road shows evident damage: several sections remained closed, and traffic had to be diverted along alternative routes, further hindering access to the region. Buses that once arrived full of travelers now carry only a handful of passengers, mostly locals who get off one by one as soon as they recognize their usual stops.
Along this route, tourists sustain an economic chain of restaurants, small businesses, and people who work in the sea. Local fishermen find their main customers in hotels, inns, and restaurants, while others depend directly on tourism, relying on the sale of food, coconut products, fish and shellfish to make a living.
Tulio, owner of La Negra, a family restaurant specializing in seafood supplied by local fishermen, says the drop in tourism has hit both the business and its employees hard. “We couldn’t open the restaurant for three weeks after the earthquake. There’s no tourism, and people aren’t coming to town anymore,” says Tulio, sitting at one of the tables. “My employees keep coming to work because I want to help them financially, but this situation is really difficult.”
There was a reason for the lack of customers. Structural damage to the bridge leading to Punta Brava Beach, within Morrocoy National Park, forced the closure of this land access for weeks. The bridge reopened to light vehicles on July 25, yet the flow of visitors remained far below normal levels. Tourists could still board boats from the Tucacas pier to reach the keys, but the weeks-long closure disrupted the economic chain that sustained Boca de Aroa and Tucacas.
The day before authorities allowed light vehicles to pass again, local beach workers protested on that same road, demanding the lifting of the measures that prevented access to the coast.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warns that small-scale fishing communities are among the most vulnerable to crises and natural disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean, due to their dependence on daily income and their limited capacity to absorb prolonged disruptions to their economic activity.
The Tierra Viva Foundation, a non-governmental organization dedicated to sustainable development, environmental conservation, and the strengthening of local communities, has been working for several years with coastal communities through its Costa Viva project. This sustained presence in the territory has allowed the organization to gain firsthand knowledge of the economic and social conditions that make these populations especially vulnerable to natural disasters. Just two weeks before the emergency, on June 9, the foundation announced a fundraising campaign—which had to be suspended after the earthquakes—to provide residents of the country’s main coastal communities with work tools and vocational training to strengthen their livelihoods. The initiative responded to a situation of vulnerability that these populations already faced before the earthquake.
This is also the conclusion of Alejandro Luy, the organization’s general manager. “Venezuela is going through a complex humanitarian situation, and the earthquake aggravated it by leaving people homeless, and the contraction of tourism in the area generated unemployment,” he says. “To support their activities, we implemented training programs to help improve the services many of them offer during 2025. If tourism decreases in these areas, their livelihoods are affected.”
But the vulnerability of these communities isn’t measured solely in economic figures. It’s also present in the stories of those who saw how the earthquake disrupted a way of life built over generations.
Jesús belongs to a family that has been connected to the sea for decades. For more than 60 years, his family has lived off fishing in Boca de Aroa, a way of life that Jesús continued and that for years allowed him to sell the fish he caught. For his family, this has been the most difficult situation caused by a natural disaster.
“In 2022, the Aroa River rose and overflowed, flooding the entire Cayumar sector and the dock area where we boarded boats to go fishing, but the flooding only lasted a couple of days. But because of the earthquakes, we haven’t sold anything we catch from the sea for several weeks.”
On June 24, Jesús had decided to return home earlier than usual. At 11 a.m., he left the sea and returned to land. Hours later, his father advised him not to go fishing again, just a couple of minutes before the earthquakes.
“I went out to buy a Coca-Cola, and on my way back home, the shaking started. My wife was at home with my parents. They managed to get out when the wall of the garage collapsed,” he recalls.
The destroyed space wasn’t just part of the family home. It was also a workplace. There, his father prepared the fishing nets, and his mother prepared the food she sold to the community members and, on weekends, to the tourists who came to the area.
“We want to rebuild our garage because my dad uses it to prepare the nets.” “My mom sells food to people in the community, but on weekends she sells to tourists,” Jesús explains.
Now he’s trying to turn the loss into an opportunity. While he waits for the debris to be removed from his mother’s porch, he started planting coconuts with the idea of selling them to visitors who return to Boca de Aroa and creating a small commercial area there, but it won’t be until five years from now that he’ll see the fruits of the barely sprouted coconut trees.
His story reflects a reality that is repeated in small-scale fishing communities around the world. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), this sector represents about 40% of the world’s fish catches and supports approximately 90% of fishery workers. However, those who depend on this activity often have limited capacity to absorb prolonged interruptions in their income, due to their reliance on daily work and local markets.
In Boca de Aroa, that phrase sums up the uncertainty of a community that for years lived at the pace of those who arrived seeking the sea. The absence of tourists not only left empty tables in restaurants and fewer customers for the fishermen; it also disrupted an economy built around small commercial exchanges with visitors, which sustained hundreds of families in Falcón state.
The most significant damage in the cluster of coastal towns within the country occurred in Tucacas and Boca de Aroa, unlike other tourist areas. The condition of the roads leading to these towns, along with the preventative closure of the region’s most important national park, were the main causes of the economic slowdown in these villages.
Just a few streets away from where Jesús planted the first coconuts, traces of what happened that June morning remain. Some houses are damaged, and families who lost their homes continue to wait for a solution while living in tents set up near their land.
The recovery of these fishing villages will not depend solely on removing the debris or repairing the access roads. It will also depend on those who live there being able to reconnect with an activity that for generations defined their relationship with the sea: the possibility of working, selling and supporting oneself on a coast where, after the earthquake, many are still waiting for people to return.
