Investments

A 351 exchange lets you move a concentrated, highly appreciated stock portfolio into an ETF without triggering capital gains tax at the transfer. Here is how these conversions work, who they fit, how they compare to direct indexing, and why regulators are now watching them.

Dallas Federal Reserve published new research on the “breakeven rate” of payroll employment. The breakeven rate measures how many jobs need to be created each month to keep the unemployment rate stable given population growth. The number has collapsed to just 34,000 jobs per month, according to the Dallas Fed’s latest estimate. A year ago, the figure was closer to 200,000. Population growth has slowed sharply. Immigration has declined, and domestic pool is aging.

A few firms set the tempo for AI. Nvidia manufactures the scarce compute. OpenAI converts compute into frontier models. Microsoft, Oracle, CoreWeave, and others rent capacity, bundle software, and finance the cycle.

From pandemic chaos to the AI boom, the Mag 7—Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Tesla, and Nvidia—turned crisis into dominance. Over five years, they redefined markets, compounded innovation, and became the backbone of modern capitalism’s digital era.