Posts by Liam Redmond
South Korean leveraged ETF trading plummets under new curbs
This follows authorities’ roll out of cooling measures after such tools drove a retail trading frenzy in the South Korean stock market Published Tue, Aug 4, 2026 · 02:28 PM [SEOUL] Trading in leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to South Korea’s two chip giants has shrunk sharply, after authorities took steps to slow demand for…
Read MoreSaudi Aramco profit jumps 33% as US-Iran war boosts oil prices
Firm now faces more risks as Yemen’s Houthi group threatens to attack tankers using Red Sea route Published Tue, Aug 4, 2026 · 02:07 PM — Updated Tue, Aug 4, 2026 · 03:26 PM SAUDI Aramco reported a 33 per cent increase in second-quarter profit as it benefited from a war-driven surge in oil prices,…
Read MoreToyota unveils US$6.3 billion buyback, raises profit outlook
Its 1.1 trillion yen (US$7 billion) profit for the quarter ended June marks five straight months of year-on-year declines Published Tue, Aug 4, 2026 · 01:58 PM [TOKYO] Toyota Motor unveiled a 1 trillion yen (US$6.3 billion) buyback and raised its profit outlook on solid sales in the US and Japan, which were boosted by…
Read MoreHSBC beats estimates with US$10.1 billion quarterly profit, announces fresh US$1 billion stock buyback
The lender will consider hiking its bonus pool if performance keeps up, says CEO Georges Elhedery Published Tue, Aug 4, 2026 · 12:27 PM — Updated Tue, Aug 4, 2026 · 03:38 PM HSBC Holdings announced a fresh stock buyback and raised its cost-cutting target as it reported second-quarter earnings that beat estimates despite China’s…
Read MoreThermal Battery Maker Antora Raises $550M as AI Strains Power
Antora Energy has raised $550 million in Series C funding to scale its thermal battery systems, which store electricity as heat and release it as clean power on demand. G2 Venture Partners and Eclipse Ventures led the round on July 30, with Breakthrough Energy and other climate investors joining. If your energy bill has crept…
Read MorePreventive Health Startup Function Draws a Major Growth Round
Preventive health company Function just closed $450 million in growth financing from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund, the Austin startup announced in late July. The company, valued at $2.5 billion in an oversubscribed round last fall, wants to prove that catching problems early costs less than treating them late. For founders, the check is interesting,…
Read MoreVenture Capital Funding Hits a Record High as AI Dominates
Global venture capital funding reached a record $510 billion in the first half of 2026, according to Crunchbase data published in early July. That single half-year total already tops the $440 billion investors deployed across all of 2025. So the money is clearly back. Still, the headline hides a harder truth for most founders, because…
Read MoreNew Business Applications Hit a Record Pace in 2026
The latest Census figures tell a story every founder should hear: new business applications are running at a record pace in 2026. Americans filed roughly 524,000 applications in June alone, and about 3.08 million so far this year. That total is up nearly 17 percent from the same stretch last year. So more people are…
Read MoreStartup Operations: 5 Decision Rules Founders Set Early
The founders drawing attention this summer are not the loudest ones, according to a July roundup of startup trends. They are the ones with disciplined startup operations, built on rules they wrote before the pressure arrived. Here is why that matters for your company. Decisions made in a panic tend to be expensive. When cash…
Read MoreAI for Small Business: Pie Raises to Grow Main Street
New funding for ai for small business keeps arriving, and Pie just added a fresh round to expand its growth platform for Main Street. The startup raised $19.5 million in a Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, which brings its total funding to $23.7 million. If you run a local shop or service, the…
Read MoreAI Coding Tools Are Reshaping Who Builds Software
New ai coding tools are reshaping who writes software and how fast, with GitHub now reporting roughly 180 million developers and about one new sign-up every second. Its latest Octoverse report ties much of that surge to AI, which has helped push TypeScript to the top of the language charts. If you run a small…
Read MoreSmall Business Marketing in 2026: Why Posting Isn’t Winning
The 2026 marketing story is not that founders stopped posting, as this month’s social media marketing trends make clear. It is that posting stopped working on its own. Small business marketing now rewards teams that turn attention into conversations, not teams that simply fill a content calendar. Here is why that matters for your business…
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