Axios

Even as experts worry over the havoc AI could bring to financial markets, quantitative hedge fund strategies actually aren't outsmarting more human-reliant competitors in recent quarters, according to Bloomberg.

Quant fund managers — who feed huge caches of data to sophisticated, proprietary algorithms to find inefficiencies in the market they can exploit for profit — are struggling to keep pace with the broader market, and some funds, like the once-promising R&F Capital, are shuttering their doors altogether.

There will be more store closings in America this year than in 2008, but Las Vegas Strip retailers are actually expanding square footage, the Las Vegas Sun reports.

Purveyors of the strip attract customers with sensory experiences, and profit from impulse buys once shoppers are in the store. It's no surprise that Las Vegas is attracting record crowds, but its traditional retailers are also leveraging that success despite an overall shift toward e-commerce.

Why it matters: Las Vegas is uniquely positioned to attract shoppers looking for something to do, so it's not clear that this model is replicable in every case. That said, mall owners across the country are investing in their properties at the highest rate since 2008 on the logic that they can breathe life into their businesses by making the shopping mall a destination in its own right.

More Americans are dying at younger ages, and one silver lining is that it's reducing pension costs for corporations and the government, Bloomberg reports. The analysis shows that at least 12 large companies like GM and Verizon have said that this trend has reduced their pension obligations a combined $9.7 billion.

• Why it matters: That corporate America is quantifying the effects of this rise in age-adjusted death rates to shareholders underscores just how remarkable this trend is. "Even in previous years, you've seen a slower degree of improvement for the pensioners, but you haven't seen a decline in life expectancy," Aon actuary Eric Keener told Bloomberg.
• Why it's happening: One theory is social disconnection and dysfunction particularly in working-class white communities, as so-called "deaths of despair" from suicide and drug addiction have increased.
• It's not just the U.S. Canada and Britain are also seeing slow improvement in life expectancy.