Good morning, CFOs. Companies are moving quickly to refinance debt and get ahead of potential market volatility; Goldman Sachs aims to boost efficiency with artificial intelligence; and President Trump calls off promised tariffs on Europe over Greenland.

Many companies are jumping on lower interest rates to refinance their debt sooner than later, choosing not to wait for the possibility of further declines as the economy and markets only become more difficult to read.

The Federal Reserve has been cutting interest rates, which encourages corporate borrowing, amid signs of a slowing jobs growth. But fear of volatility—which could send rates spiking—and President Trump’s mercurial initiatives have prompted companies to plan more defensively.

Companies are weighing their financing strategies amid fiscal policy uncertainty, inflation, a fight over the Fed’s independence, and geopolitical strife in places like Venezuela, Iran and Greenland.

U.S. corporate-debt refinancings totaled roughly $425 billion in 2025, up 5% from the previous year and the highest level since 2020, according to Dealogic.

WSJ Leadership Institute reporters Mark Maurer and Jennifer Williams spoke with CFOs from Savers Value Village, Elanco Animal Health and Hovnanian Enterprises about their recent efforts to refinance.

What they said: All three companies pointed to expected financial benefits such as lower interest costs and longer maturities. But they also expressed a sense of unease about economic and political affairs, and the prospect of greater debt-market volatility.

Key quote: “You know what the market is right now. And if you waited, who knows what the world could look like?” said Amol Dhargalkar, managing partner and chairman at Chatham Financial.

📆 Earnings 

• Abbott Laboratories
• Alcoa
• Capital One Financial
• CSX
• Freeport-McMoRan
• GE Aerospace
• Huntington Bancshares
• Intel
• Intuitive Surgical
• McCormick
• Northern Trust
• Procter & Gamble

📈 Economic Indicators

• The Bureau of Economic Analysis releases the personal consumption expenditures price index for October and November.
• The BEA releases its final estimate of third-quarter gross-domestic-product growth.

Goldman Sachs last week reported major gains in profit and revenue on the strength of the dealmaking and lending businesses. At the same time, the bank is focused on a new program called One GS 3.0 aimed at leveraging artificial intelligence to boost efficiency throughout the firm.

I met with Chief Financial Officer Denis Coleman at Goldman’s headquarters following earnings to discuss that strategy. Edited excerpts follow.

Goldman booked a 12% jump in profit in the fourth quarter and record annual revenue in the investment banking and markets division last year. Meanwhile, you’re making an efficiency push. Why?

Coleman: We are frequently asked why we would undertake this type of activity, given the performance of the firm, but we feel that it's an especially important time to remain focused on creating incremental capacity for us to grow the firm and support clients. And this is one of the ways that we think we can create that capacity.

What operational changes are you making?

Coleman: We think of One GS 3.0 as a new operating model for the firm. We say it's propelled by AI, but it's more important that we think about this as an operating model for the firm rather than just AI. AI is an important contributing technological factor that we believe, when combined with our people, processes and workflows, can actually unlock a differentiated or more accelerated form of efficiency that we may have otherwise been able to do without the accelerant of AI. But a lot of the progress that we see inside the firm and expect to continue to see is actually derived from a focus on more fundamentally rethinking how our people interact with our platforms and what processes we have to govern all of that.

Goldman laid off workers last fall, in part a move to cut lower performers. How do you think about job cuts as part of these broader efficiency moves?

Coleman: We have a large population of people set out all over the world, spread across  principally our two big businesses, dedicated to serving clients. We manage our population dynamically through each and every year, making sure that we have the right number and the right mix and the right seniority of people as best we can determine to deliver on the objectives we have in serving our clients.

—Mark Maurer

When President Trump arrived in the snow-covered Swiss Alps on Wednesday afternoon, European leaders were panicking that his efforts to acquire Greenland would trigger a trans-Atlantic conflagration. By the time the sun set, Trump had backed down.

The about-face followed days of back-channel conversations between Trump, his advisers and European leaders, including NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, according to people close to the talks.

After a meeting with Rutte on Wednesday, Trump called off promised tariffs on European nations, contending that he had “formed the framework of a future deal” with respect to the largest island in the world.

• EU Lawmakers Put Trade Deal With U.S. on Ice After Trump’s Greenland Threats

📰 Other headlines

• Volkswagen Forms New Management Structure to Oversee Group’s Core Brands
• Volkswagen Shares Jump on Cash Flow Beat, Trump’s Tariff Retreat
• Private-Credit Investors Are Cashing Out in Droves
• The Best and Worst Airlines of 2025
• Supreme Court Balks at Trump’s Push to Control the Fed
• Schwab’s Profit Jumps on Surge in Brokerage Activity
• Procter & Gamble Revenue Ticks Up, Helped by Higher Prices
• GE Aerospace Revenue Rises on Surge in Orders
• Daimler Truck’s Japan Unit, Foxconn to Set Up Electric Bus Maker

The Wall Street Journal helps your employees connect what’s happening in the world to your company goals. The Journal’s award-winning journalists interpret news and data to tell unbiased stories to help your employees stay informed and make confident decisions.

Join us on Jan. 29 for a deep dive into the challenges that CFOs and other top executives are working to overcome, including the impact of tariffs and geopolitical conflicts on corporate finance and private equity.

Register here.

Join us this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for insights CFOs and other executives will need to lead through 2026. Alan Murray, president of the WSJ Leadership Institute, will be on the ground all week from Davos, interviewing corporate leaders on topics ranging from managing AI investments to geopolitical risk and how C-suite leaders are navigating market conditions.

🎥 For the full slate of interviews, click here. Watch selected video highlights of their conversations below:

This March 23–24, financial leaders will gather in Palo Alto for The WSJ CFO Council Summit to examine how CFOs are navigating market volatility, evolving trade and regulatory policy and the growing impact of AI on the future of the enterprise. Join the CFO Council and be part of the conversations shaping the future of finance and corporate leadership.

Request Invitation.

Apogee Enterprises, a Minneapolis-based building supplies and services company, named Mark Augdahl as chief financial officer, effective immediately. Augdahl has been the company's interim CFO since Jan. 7. He replaces Matthew Osberg, who left to pursue another professional opportunity.

The Wall Street Journal's CFO Journal offers corporate leaders and professionals CFO analysis, advice and commentary to make informed decisions. We cover topics including corporate tax, accounting, regulation, capital markets, management and strategy.

Follow us on X @WSJCFO. The WSJ CFO Journal Team comprises reporters Kristin Broughton, Mark Maurer and Jennifer Williams, and Bureau Chief Walden Siew.

You can reach us by replying to any newsletter, or email Walden at walden.siew@wsj.com.