Stock Indexes Rise Further After Sharp Gains; S&P 500 Approaches All-Time High

AIG Stock Drops on News CEO Zaffino Intends to Retire by Mid-Year

29 minutes ago

American International Group (AIG) investors evidently are not pleased CEO Peter Zaffino will be retiring.

AIG shares fell 5.5% in the opening minutes of trading Tuesday after the insurance company announced that Zaffino, also the firm’s Chairman, intends to retire as CEO and become Executive Chair by mid-year.

AIG announced that industry veteran Eric Andersen will join the company as CEO-elect and President, effective Feb. 16. Andersen, who served as President at professional services firm Aon from 2020-2025, “will report to Mr. Zaffino and is expected to assume the role of CEO and join the Board of Directors after June 1, 2026, following an orderly transition period.”

“Eric is an incredibly accomplished and widely respected insurance executive, and we have worked together closely during my tenure at AIG,” Zaffino said. “Eric’s deep understanding of our company and our industry ideally positions him to become AIG’s next CEO as the company continues to drive long-term profitable growth and value for all our stakeholders.”

Including this morning’s sharp declines, AIG shares are up about 8% over the past year.

Rebate Checks Could Help Some Taxpayers Cope With Tariff Costs

1 hr 5 min ago

Tariffs are taking a toll on U.S. families. But President Donald Trump’s proposal to send out $2,000 tariff rebate checks later this year would more than make up for the extra costs, and low-income families would benefit the most, a recent study showed.

Tariff rebate checks could reduce the tax burden for the lowest 40% of income earners by more than $2,300, a Tax Policy Center report found. However, the top fifth of earners are the one income group that wouldn’t see their tax burden decline under the tariff rebate policy.

“The dividend—if approved by Congress—also has the potential to transform the tariffs from a regressive tax to a progressive tax policy,” the report said. “On average, a flat per-person $2,000 dividend could more than cover low-income families’ tariff costs, but not costs incurred by higher-income families.”

Last November, Trump proposed sending a $2,000 per person rebate check from tariff revenues, though he also said that high-income earners wouldn’t receive the dividend. The Tax Policy Center’s study didn’t place limits on who would qualify for the checks, though it said that some restrictions would be essential in order to lower the cost of the program.

Read the full article here.

–Terry Lane

OneStream Stock Soars on Report Buyout Firm Hg Near Deal to Take Financial Software Company Private

2 hr 4 min ago

Financial software maker OneStream reportedly might be acquired soon. Its stock is soaring in response.

Shares of OneStream (OS) surged nearly 30% in premarket trading Tuesday after Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that buyout firm Hg was nearing a deal to take the Birmingham, Mich.-based firm private.

OneStream stock rose nearly 4% yesterday to $18.39, giving it a market capitalization of $4.5 billion.

Still, shares of the company have lost 35% of their value over the past year, and Reuters reported in November that it was “mulling a sale 18 months after its IPO.” The firm priced its IPO at $20 in July 2024 and the stock rose above $35 that November, but has been on a mostly downward path since.

Why Venezuela Struggles to Produce Oil Despite Having the World’s Largest Reserves

2 hr 44 min ago

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves—303 billion barrels, about 17% of the global total and more than Saudi Arabia’s 267 billion. Yet Venezuela produces fewer than 1 million barrels per day, less than 1% of global output. That’s less than a third of what it pumped in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when production topped 3.5 million barrels daily.

So what happened? It’s the result of political decisions, economic sanctions, and the sheer difficulty of extracting Venezuela’s heavy crude.

Read the full article with charts here.

–Peter Gratton

Trump Claims U.S. Will ‘Fix’ Venezuela’s Oil Industry, But Experts Warn of Major Challenges

3 hr 25 min ago

President Donald Trump says the U.S. will revive Venezuela’s ailing oil industry, but experts see towering economic and legal obstacles to a quick turnaround.

President Trump, after announcing the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Saturday morning, said American oil majors would “go in” and “spend billions of dollars” to “fix the badly broken infrastructure” of Venezuela’s oil industry. 

The stocks of U.S. crude oil producers, refiners, and oilfield service providers were all sharply higher on Monday as investors sized up their opportunity to exploit the world’s largest known oil reserves. Chevron (CVX) shares jumped 5% to pace gainers on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which closed at a record high.

Venezuela sits on an estimated 300 billion barrels of oil, or nearly 20% of global supply. But years of economic turmoil, corruption and U.S. sanctions have decimated Venezuela’s oil industry. In 2024, the country produced about 900,000 barrels per day, down from nearly 3.5 million in 1997.

Read the full article here.

–Colin Laidley

Stock Futures Mixed, Little Changed After Dow Sets All-Time High

4 hr 3 min ago

Futures contracts associated with the Dow Jones Industrial Average were 0.2% lower.

S&P 500 futures were down fractionally.

Nasdaq 100 futures ticked 0.1% higher.