Insider Fusion

                                                                  photocredit: Igor Omilaev Artificial intelligence spending has stopped looking like a trend and started looking like an entire economy unto itself. Global AI-related spending reached roughly $2.6 trillion in 2026, a 47% jump from the year before, while the four biggest hyperscalers — Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta — are guiding toward a combined $725 billion in capital expenditures this year alone, up 77% from 2025. Goldman Sachs projects the industry could pour $7.6 trillion into compute, data centers, and power between 2026 and 2031. Those are not the numbers of a niche technology bet. They are the numbers of an industrial buildout on the scale of the railroads, the electrical grid, or the interstate highway system. And that is precisely why 2026 ha...

Best AI Stocks to Watch in 2026 (Beyond Nvidia) Nvidia has been the face of the AI trade for so long that it's easy to forget it's just one company in a sprawling, trillion-dollar buildout. Nvidia's data center revenue alone reached roughly $215.9 billion in 2025, up 65% year over year, and the company continues to dominate headlines with each new chip architecture launch. But the AI boom isn't a single-stock story anymore. It's a multi-layered economic shift touching chipmakers, cloud infrastructure providers, networking companies, cooling and power specialists, and enterprise software firms that are all racing to capture a piece of the same wave. If your portfolio's only AI exposure is Nvidia, you're missing most of the picture — and arguably taking on more concentration risk than you realize. This guide walks through the other companies powering the AI economy in 2026, organized by where they sit in the AI "stack," along with the numbers beh...

Updated for 2026. This guide walks through building a financial model from the ground up, using a standard three-statement structure that applies to startups, small businesses, and larger operating companies alike. What Is a Financial Model, and Why Build One From Scratch? A financial model is a structured, formula-driven representation of a company's historical and projected financial performance. In practice, it is usually an Excel or Google Sheets workbook that connects a company's income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement, then uses that structure to forecast future performance under different assumptions. Financial models are used for a wide range of purposes: raising capital from investors, valuing a business for a sale or acquisition, planning annual budgets, testing the impact of a new product line, or simply understanding how sensitive a business is to changes in pricing, costs, or growth rates. There is no shortage of free templates online, an...

Fed Rate Cuts in 2026: What Actually Happened to Your Rates At the start of 2026, almost every financial headline promised the same thing: the Federal Reserve was going to keep cutting interest rates, and relief was on the way for anyone carrying a credit card balance or shopping for a mortgage. That story has changed. Heading into the second half of the year, the Fed has instead held its benchmark rate steady for months, and policymakers are now openly discussing whether the next move could be a hike instead of a cut. If you've been waiting for cheaper borrowing costs, this reversal matters. Here's exactly where things stand, why the "rate cuts" narrative fell apart, and what it actually means for your credit card, your mortgage, and your savings account right now. Where the Fed's Rate Actually Stands in 2026 The Federal Reserve has kept its federal funds rate in a target range of 3.50% to 3.75% since December 2025, following three back-to-back quarter-p...