For the past year, Amazon employees have been test driving Amazon Go, an experimental convenience store in downtown Seattle. The idea is to let consumers walk in, pick up items and then pay for them without ever standing in line at a cashier.
Intrigued by how blockchain was changing finance, an ex-banker at Wells Fargo & Co. and a former executive at Nasdaq Inc. began looking for other opportunities. They looked at applying the technology to insurance, law, even music. Then they hit on farming.
Questions about the effects of Amazon.com Inc. on a company's earnings are now inevitable on quarterly earnings calls - regardless of the industry under discussion.
Chinese President Xi Jinping emerged from last week's Communist Party Congress radiating more power than a supernova. He also may have shifted the corporate terrain by presenting a new economic vision in which rising living standards take primacy over high-speed growth.
Europe's air-safety regulator recommended that companies using material from Kobe Steel Ltd. review their supply chains and - if alternative suppliers are available - suspend purchases from the Japanese company that admitted to faking data about product strength.
Traders, prepare to adapt. Wall Street is entering a new era. The fraternity of bond jockeys, derivatives mavens and stock pickers who've long personified the industry are giving way to algorithms, and soon, artificial intelligence.