The Federal Reserve's favored inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures price index, rose 0.3% from the prior month in March and was up 2.7% from a year earlier, according to the Commerce Department. Core PCE, which excludes food and energy prices, was up 2.8% from the prior year, slightly above the Dow Jones consensus estimate.

US consumer sentiment declined in April as inflation expectations worsened. Solid wage growth was not enough to overcome price pressures and higher borrowing costs, with the University of Michigan's final April sentiment index falling to 77.2 from 79.4 a month earlier. Consumers anticipate a 3.2% increase in prices over the next year, the highest since November, and 3% over the next five to 10 years, a five-month high.

Despite initial predictions of a major logistics logjam in the Port of Baltimore after an errant cargo ship struck and subsequently collapsed the Francis Scott Key Bridge proved to be unfounded as market actors rejigged their operations to minimize the impact of the incident. "Container shipping is resilient and supply chains are going to find a way to keep working and to keep those goods moving," says Emily Stausboll, an analyst at Xeneta.

AI and machine learning are expected to transform the business-to-business digital ecosystem, but the transformation manufacturers and distributors will need to go through to use these tools requires long-term vision to understand its value to organizations, says Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and market research at Digital Commerce 360. "AI is not some mystical magical technology that's going to come in and revolutionize everything technology-wise around the company," Brohan says, adding that its adoption will revolve around which problems it can solve.

According to a report from Cleo, 97% of companies invested in supply chain technology last year, with 80% of companies reporting increases in revenue in the same year as investing. Tushar Patel, chief marketing officer at Cleo, said companies "need to consistently invest in their supply chain technology, otherwise they stand to take a hit to their relationships -- impacting their bottom line."

UPS and FedEx are encountering hurdles in deploying electric delivery vans, with a battery shortage limiting supply and raising prices and some startups making the vans face uncertain prospects. "You need the demand to have the supply and you need the supply to have the demand," said Sam Fiorani, a vice president at AutoForecast Solutions, adding, "Getting both of them to work at the same time is the problem."

Aytekin Tank, founder and CEO of Jotform, writes that ChatGPT can help salespeople by analyzing data, identifying target markets, clarifying sales goals, reviewing brand voice and helping with training sessions. "Sales teams can integrate tools like ChatGPT into their workflows to tackle busywork, spark creativity, and experiment with potential uses as AI capabilities continue to expand," Tank writes.

Developing a system of self-reflection can help leaders handle their emotions, identify self-defeating patterns and find ways to change them to improve their decision-making skills and self-awareness, writes Ben Bryant, a professor of leadership and organization at IMD in Lausanne. Bryant outlines five steps necessary to identify feelings, experience them, explain them, see limiting patterns and intentionally change them.

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