Apple Will Need to Leave Its M&A Comfort Zone to Succeed in AI

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Apple will need to make the biggest acquisition in its history to put an end to its artificial intelligence debacle. Also: Meta rolls out new Oakley smart glasses; Honor prepares a new ultrathin foldable phone; and Apple's annual back-to-school deal gets underway.
Last week in Power On: Apple's upgrades to CarPlay, the iPad and Vision Pro outshine its new Liquid Glass interface.

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Yahoo

36 minutes ago

• Yahoo

Oklahoma City (OK) Mayor David Holt Elected New President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Policy Agenda Adopted for the Year Ahead, as Annual Meeting Concludes

San Diego (CA) Mayor Todd Gloria and Lincoln (NE) Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird Elected First and Second Vice Presidents TAMPA, Fla., June 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) voted to elect a new leadership team and approved a slate of policy resolutions that will serve as the official platform of the organization and guide its advocacy agenda for the year ahead. The business meeting marked the close of USCM's 93rd Annual Meeting, which convened more than 170 mayors from across the country in Tampa, Florida. Oklahoma City (OK) Mayor David Holt was elected by his fellow mayors to serve as the next President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He will serve a one-year term. "There is no more important place in human existence than the city, and there is no higher office than the Mayor," said President Holt. "The Conference of Mayors sits at the epicenter of America's future. If that future is to be as bright or brighter than the past, it will be because of the work that happens right here." "This Conference is fortunate to lean on the leadership of Mayor Holt in this time of opportunity and need for America's cities," said Tom Cochran, USCM CEO and Executive Director. "He champions the value of local leadership, and he embraces the power this Conference has to unite so many voices to improve the lives of the people of America's cities. I know his colleagues are grateful to have him steering the ship." In addition to elevating Mayor Holt to USCM president, mayors elected San Diego (CA) Mayor Todd Gloria as First Vice President and Lincoln (NE) Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird as Second Vice President. The Conference also named new Trustees and Advisory Board Members. New USCM Trustees are as follows: Scranton (PA) Mayor Paige Cognetti Albuquerque (NM) Mayor Tim Keller Columbia (SC) Mayor Daniel Rickenmann These mayors, in addition to the current elected top leaders and past presidents, make up the USCM Executive Committee. New USCM Advisory Board Members are as follows: Redmond (WA) Mayor Angela Birney Carmel (IN) Mayor Sue Finkam Chicago (IL) Mayor Brandon Johnson Tucson (AZ) Mayor Regina Romero Mount Vernon (NY) Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard A major component of today's meeting was also the consideration and adoption of policy resolutions. Throughout the Annual Meeting, the standing committees of the Conference met to propose and advance resolutions on a wide range of priorities for American mayors. Of particular emphasis today, the full Conference adopted a policy that calls for recalibrating federal immigration enforcement, protecting local control in public safety and with federal resources, preserving economic growth, and continuing to improve cities' affordability and quality of life. Other policies were adopted on issues including energy, housing, the environment, transportation, and the economy. The resolutions adopted today now make up the official policy of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and can be found here. Next year's Annual Meeting will be in Long Beach, California. About the United States Conference of Mayors – The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are more than 1,400 such cities in the country today, and each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. Follow our work on X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, and Medium. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE U.S. Conference of Mayors Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Forbes

38 minutes ago

• Forbes

Wall Street Is Steadily Investing In Energy As An Inflation Hedge

CULVER CITY, CA (Photo by) At the end of last week, fund managers had built up the largest net long position in crude oil futures in nine months, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It is serving as a necessary inflation hedge given a growing conflict in the Middle East, and declining drilling at home. The biggest risk to equity returns remains inflation and funds need to protect themselves. Inflation also risks prolonging the current period of high rates, which is already taking its toll on several asset classes, including housing. Oil and energy equities broadly are increasingly appealing as a result of these dynamics. Funds flow into energy is expected to continue and the recent involvement of the U.S. in Iran will only accelerate this move. In the latest Bank of America fund manager survey, energy and materials still remained unloved, with managers net underweight. This is even after the recent increase, as allocations were near record lows just earlier this year. Yield and an inverse correlation to bonds has been another benefit of the trade. The yield on XLE, the energy sector ETF, is also almost three times that of the broader market, providing income that closer tracks inflation. It has also been performing as a hedge when bonds, the historical hedge in the 60/40 portfolio, have been failing. Periods of increased inflation expectations, as seen with the initial tariff announcements, now see both bonds and equities dropping in parallel. This is because inflation would force rates to remain high right as the U.S. refinances a sizable chunk of government debt this summer. The already large deficit means that higher rates become a self-fulfilling problem as more and more of future bond raises goes towards paying interest, which investors demand a higher rate for, creating a growing deficit spiral in an inflationary environment. The above strategy has played out in actual returns. US equities are up only slightly this year, a little over 1%, while emerging markets and commodities have outperformed, with gold up over 25%, oil up over 5%, silver up over 20%, emerging markets up over 10%, and bonds returning a little less than 1%. Several other dynamics make continued energy outperformance, and increased fund exposure likely, and these are outside of the increasing conflict in the middle east. The first is that escalating equipment costs, due to a combination of climbing labour costs and changing supply chains, benefits incumbent energy names. The second is that power demand shows no signs of slowing down with natural gas being the winner in AI data centers that require both scale and reliability. This is also during a period that the US wants to continue to grow natural gas exports, creating multiple demand levers at a time when storage availability remains flat. That creates an asymmetry where prices can spike to the upside. The third is that oil rigs have dropped by 9% in the U.S. as producers pulled back capital amidst economic uncertainty. This reduces the chance that supply will overwhelm demand and helps alleviate some of the downside risks to the trade. While energy investing always has a risk, an allocation as a hedge, especially given the broader macro tailwinds, is increasingly appealing for funds. This continues to show up in recent funds flow and is expected to only increase this coming week with both energy equities and oil prices likely to spike on the news of U.S. strikes.

Miami Herald

an hour ago

• Miami Herald

OpenAI makes shocking move amid fierce competition, Microsoft problems

A blind man once told me, "I wish I knew what a beautiful woman looks like". He started losing his sight from birth and lost it completely while he was still just a child. What do the engineers trying to make artificial intelligence know about intelligence? To me, they look like a bunch of blind men, trying to build a "living" statue of a beautiful person. The worst part is, they don't even know they are blind. Do you remember the scandal when an engineer from Google claimed that the company's AI is sentient? When I saw the headlines, I didn't even open the articles, but my conclusion was that either Google made a terrible mistake in hiring him or it was an elaborate PR stunt. I thought Google was famous for having a high hiring bar, so I was leaning toward a PR stunt-I was wrong. Related: Apple WWDC underwhelms fans in a crucial upgrade What is amazing about that story is that roughly six months later, ChatGPT came out and put Google's AI department into panic mode. They were far behind ChatGPT, which was not even close to being sentient. Engineers from OpenAI, were the ones to start a new era, the era in which investors are presented with a statue that sort of has a human face, and has a speaker inside playing recordings of human speech, expecting that the "blind" men working on it, will soon make it become alive and beautiful. Of course, investors are also ignorant of the fact that engineers are "blind". OpenAI is now faced with many rivals, and the developing situation is starting to look like a bunch of bullies trying to out-bully each other instead of offering a superior product. Meta's recent investment of $15 billion in Scale AI seems to have hit OpenAI quite hard. OpenAI will phase out work with Scale AI, said the company spokesperson for Bloomberg on June 18th. According to the same source, Scale AI accounted for a small fraction of OpenAI's overall data needs. It looks like Meta's latest move angered OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman. In a podcast hosted by his brother, he revealed that Meta Platforms dangled $100 million signing bonuses to lure OpenAI staff, only to fail. "None of our best people have decided to take them up on that," he said, writes Moz Farooque for TheStreet. Related: Popular AI stock inks 5G network deal Unless Altman shows some evidence, this can also be a way to mislead Meta's engineers into believing they aren't compensated fairly. Not that Zuckerberg wouldn't do such a thing, but only the people involved know the truth. As if OpenAI's competition is closing in, buying partner companies and trying to poach its staff by offering ridiculous bonuses aren't enough, the company has even more problems. It is bleeding money, and has issues with a big stakeholder. More AI Stocks: Veteran fund manager raises eyebrows with latest Meta Platforms moveGoogle plans major AI shift after Meta's surprising $14 billion moveAnalysts revamp forecast for Nvidia-backed AI stock OpenAI lost about $5 billion in 2024. There are no estimates on how much the company will lose this year, but according to Bloomberg News, the company does not expect to become cash flow positive until 2029. Latest developments will likely push that date farther into the future. Microsoft has invested about $14 billion in OpenAI; however, the relationship has turned sour since then. OpenAI has considered accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior in their deal, reported the Wall Street Journal on June 16th. On June 19th The Financial Times reported that Microsoft is prepared to abandon its negotiations with OpenAI if the two sides cannot agree on critical issues. Meanwhile, OpenAI has started shockingly discounting enterprise subscriptions to ChatGPT. This had angered salespeople at Microsoft, which sells competing apps at higher prices, reported The Information. Related: Amazon's latest big bet may flop "In my experience, products are only discounted when they are not selling because customers do not perceive value at the higher price. If someone loses copious amounts of money at the higher price, how will the economics work at a lower price?" wrote veteran hedge fund manager Doug Kass in his diary on TheStreet Pro." OpenAI's price cuts could kick off a price war, with a race to the bottom even as OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, and Google continue plowing tens of billions into developing it. "My suspicion, although those guys might be good (in theory) at technology, they are not good at business. I think they will find much less in the way of elasticity than they hope, because the problem is the quality of the output more than it is the price," said Kass. What will happen to OpenAI's cash flow positive plan after 2029? I doubt it is reachable with the now slashed prices. Will the company even live to see 2029? I think that is a better question. Related: Elon Musk's DOGE made huge mistakes with veterans' programs The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.