Smith Brain Trust

Smith School experts bring you their fantasy M&A league — a list of potential tie-ups and explanations about what makes each one interesting. Imagine CVS teaming with 23andMe, or Daimler with Tesla, or Hilton with Airbnb.

For those who listen closely to what Warren Buffett says, the announcement that Berkshire Hathaway was hooking up with Amazon.com and JPMorgan Chase to create an independent healthcare company didn't come as a big surprise.

Protectionism breeds high prices and diminishing choices for consumers, the Smith School's Gary Cohen says in a recent appearance on Sirius XM POTUS — part of a string of recent interviews on trade policy.

This week, the eyes of the world are on the tiny Alpine town of Davos, Switzerland, where government and industry leaders, including the Smith School's Anil K. Gupta, are converged for the World Economic Forum's annual gathering.

Are these the end of days for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Lawmakers are considering whether to close the chapter on conservatorship for the two government-sponsored enterprises, a move that could bring big changes to housing finance in the United States.

When CVS announced it would ban heavily retouched photographs from its marketing campaigns, suggesting those images set unrealistic beauty standards for the millions of women who shop in its stores, it wasn't just a good deed. It was also good business.

The Supreme Court is poised to take up an issue that states have wrestled with since before the earliest days of online retail sales. It's the issue of whether states may collect sales tax from out-of-state retailers. Sam Handwerger explains why it's a bigger deal than ever.

Can cryptocurrency save the struggling Eastman Kodak? "Kodak is clearly trying to ride this wave," the Smith School's Brent Goldfarb says. "But I am at a loss as to the problem this solves." He thinks the effort will slowly disappear.

What happens when the two key pieces of economic data suggest different paths for U.S. interest rates? That's the situation playing out now as the Federal Reserve maps its course. The Smith School's Robert J. Windle explains. 

2017 was a pretty happy year for stock investors, and the Smith School's David Kass says he expects 2018 to be rosy as well. He shares his top five picks: Berkshire Hathaway, Apple, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Kraft Heinz.