The department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics will “promptly resume” work on September’s consumer price index data, a White House official said. The report will come out at 8:30 a.m. ET on Oct. 24, nine days after it was originally scheduled, according to the BLS.
The department had originally paused work on the CPI report – which tracks a broad basket of goods and services for price changes over time — because of its shutdown plan, the official said. But the Social Security Administration needs third-quarter CPI data for calculating and publishing annual cost-of-living adjustments before Nov. 1.
Other BLS data releases including the nonfarm payroll report haven’t been published as originally intended since the federal government shutdown due to a lapse in funding. The Senate on Thursday failed to pass funding bills for the seventh time that would have ended the closure, which began last week.
Bloomberg News first reported that the BLS was calling employees back to work on the CPI data.
— CNBC’s Steve Liesman contributed to this report.
Correction: The Social Security Administration needs third-quarter CPI data for calculating and publishing annual cost-of-living adjustments before Nov. 1. An earlier version misstated the organization’s name.
Warren Buffett walks the floor ahead of the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 3, 2024.
David A. Grogen | CNBC
Berkshire Hathaway‘s monstrous cash pile topped $300 billion in the third quarter as Warren Buffett continued his stock-selling spree and held back from repurchasing shares.
The Omaha-based conglomerate saw its cash fortress swell to a record $325.2 billion by the end of September, up from $276.9 billion in the second quarter, according to its earnings report released Saturday morning.
The mountain of cash kept growing as the Oracle of Omaha sold significant portions of his biggest equity holdings, namely Apple and Bank of America. Berkshire dumped about a quarter of its gigantic Apple stake in the third quarter, making the fourth consecutive quarter that it has downsized this bet. Meanwhile, since mid-July, Berkshire has reaped more than $10 billion from offloading its longtime Bank of America investment.
Overall, the 94-year-old investor continued to be in a selling mood as Berkshire shed $36.1 billion worth of stock in the third quarter.
No buybacks
Berkshire didn’t repurchase any company shares during the period amid the selling spree. Repurchase activity had already slowed down earlier in the year as Berkshire shares outperformed the broader market to hit record highs.
The conglomerate had bought back just $345 million worth of its own stock in the second quarter, significantly lower than the $2 billion repurchased in each of the prior two quarters. The company states that it will buy back stock when Chairman Buffett “believes that the repurchase price is below Berkshire’s intrinsic value, conservatively determined.”
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Berkshire Hathaway
Class A shares of Berkshire have gained 25% this year, outpacing the S&P 500’s 20.1% year-to-date return. The conglomerate crossed a $1 trillion market cap milestone in the third quarter when it hit an all-time high.
For the third quarter, Berkshire’s operating earnings, which encompass profits from the conglomerate’s fully-owned businesses, totaled $10.1 billion, down about 6% from a year prior due to weak insurance underwriting. The figure was a bit less than analysts estimated, according to the FactSet consensus.
Buffett’s conservative posture comes as the stock market has roared higher this year on expectations for a smooth landing for the economy as inflation comes down and the Federal Reserve keeps cutting interest rates. Interest rates have not quite complied lately, however, with the 10-year Treasury yield climbing back above 4% last month.
Notable investors such as Paul Tudor Jones have become worried about the ballooning fiscal deficit and that neither of the two presidential candidates squaring off next week in the election will cut spending to address it. Buffett has hinted this year he was selling some stock holdings on the notion that tax rates on capital gains would have to be raised at some point to plug the growing deficit.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, speaks at the 2022 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 4, 2022.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse has been skeptical of crypto regulation in the U.S., but he is feeling highly optimistic about the post-election environment around the corner.
“This is the most important election we’ve had, but I also believe no matter what happens, we’re going to have a more pro-crypto, more pro-innovation Congress than we’ve ever had,” he said in a Wednesday conversation with CNBC at DC Fintech Week.
Ripple, a veteran company in crypto known in part for its close association with the XRP token, operates a global payments business with banks and financial institutions as its main customers. About 95% of its business takes place outside of the U.S., which Garlinghouse said is partly a reflection of the contentious environment in Washington.
In 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple, but last year the company scored a big victory for the industry when a judge determined that XRP is not a security when sold to retail investors on exchanges.
On Wednesday, Garlinghouse offered a piece of advice to fintech startups in this changing time: “Incorporate outside the United States.”
Nevertheless, he was upbeat about where the industry is heading in the long term.
“Anybody who doesn’t believe that no matter what, we’re going to end up in a better place, is not paying attention … and [if in] 10 years we look back on how the U.S. got it wrong for years and years … It’s going to be a speed bump, and this industry is going to continue to thrive.”
Ripple has donated at least $45 million to the Fairshake pro-crypto political action committee. Co-founder Chris Larsen recently donated $11 million to Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. Garlinghouse pointed out he was intentionally wearing a purple tie on Wednesday.
“Obviously, Trump came out early and very aggressively in a pro crypto [way] and said he’s the crypto president,” Garlinghouse said. “Team Harris have been more nuanced. This week, they had some of the most constructive things they have said publicly.”
“Kamala Harris is from Silicon Valley, she has generally been pro technology over the years,” he added. “She has been relatively quiet on the topic, but I think no matter what happens, we’re going to see a reset.”
Because of that contrast, sentiment in the crypto industry has grown increasingly partisan — even as it has previously applauded growing bipartisan support for crypto issues in Congress. Many pro-crypto voters fear that the Harris campaign would continue the “attack” on crypto, as Garlinghouse called it.
Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC PRO:
“No matter what happens, we’re going to leave behind a failed approach from the Biden administration,” he said. “It has been an attack, and it isn’t just the SEC. The [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] is hostile towards crypto; the Treasury is hostile towards crypto.”
He highlighted banks becoming unwilling to work with crypto businesses in what many in the industry have referred to as “Operation Chokepoint 2.0.” The term refers to an Obama-era project known as “Operation Choke Point,” which discouraged banks from serving risky but legal enterprises, such as payday lenders and online gambling businesses.
“That is a hostile administration, and no matter what happens in this next election, we will have a reset,” Garlinghouse said. “We can debate the magnitude of that reset, and there’s lots of disagreement about that … We’re going to see forward progress, and I certainly am looking forward to that.”
Though Garlinghouse hasn’t publicly backed any of the presidential candidates, he said that this week he endorsed John Deaton, an attorney seeking to unseat Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass). Warren has been critical of the crypto industry, seeking additional oversight of the space.
Garlinghouse will discuss that lawsuit, along with Ripple’s role in informing U.S. crypto regulation more broadly. He will also speak about the upcoming presidential election and his donations to the Fairshake pro-crypto political action committee.
The CEO will also talk about why his company is entering the burgeoning stablecoin space this year with the launch of Ripple USD (RLUSD).
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Rostin Behnam, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is speaking at DC Fintech Week in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday morning.
The agency is in a critical period: The CFTC sought to block financial exchange Kalshi from offering contracts that allow people to bet on the outcomes of U.S. elections. The agency lost that suit in September, and an appeals court lifted a temporary injunction that barred Kalshi from offering contracts bidding on elections.
“The position of the commission has actually been pretty consistent for the better part of a decade, that we don’t believe listing event contracts on political elections is legal,” Behnam said in a Bloomberg Television interview Tuesday. “But while we have this ongoing legal challenge, we’ll allow them and we’re going to do what we can to protect the integrity of the markets.”
The CFTC has also been grappling with the rapid evolution of digital assets and the need for Congress to take the first steps toward establishing a regulatory framework to ensure consumer protections.
“What has concerned me most throughout the expansion of this digital asset class is that while everyday Americans fall victim to one digital asset scam after another, there remains no completed legislative response,” he said July in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.
“Federal legislation is urgently needed to create a pathway for a regulatory framework that will protect American investors and possibly the financial system from future risk,” he added.
Morgan Stanley is expanding the use of OpenAI-powered, generative artificial intelligence tools to its vaunted investment banking and trading division, CNBC has learned.
The firm, which launched an AI assistant based on OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology to its wealth management advisors in early 2023, began rolling out another version called AskResearchGPT this summer in its institutional securities group, said Katy Huberty, Morgan Stanley’s global director of research.
The tool lets users extract answers from across the universe of Morgan Stanley’s research — including on stocks, commodities, industry trends and regions — collapsing what could otherwise be the cumbersome task of gleaning insights from the more than 70,000 reports produced annually by the bank.
“We see it as a game changer from a productivity standpoint, both for our research analysts and our colleagues across institutional securities,” Huberty said in an interview. The tool helps staff “access the highest quality, most insightful information as efficiently as possible.”
Since its arrival as a viral consumer app in late 2022, OpenAI’s generative AI technology has been swiftly adopted by Wall Street’s largest players.
Morgan Stanley says that close to half of its 80,000 employees are using generative AI tools created with OpenAI, while at rival JPMorgan Chase, about 60% of the firm’s 316,043 employees have access to a platform using OpenAI’s models, said a person with knowledge of the matter who wasn’t authorized to disclose the figure publicly. The San Francisco-based startup recently raised money at a $157 billion valuation.
OpenAI already has network advantages in financial services because of its ample funding and early focus on use cases for banks, said Pierre Buhler, a banking consultant with SSA & Co.
“They are ahead of everyone else in terms of market penetration,” Buhler said.”But it is an emerging market, and we are still at the very beginning.” It’s likely that competitors to OpenAI such as Anthropic will gain use over time, he added.
At Morgan Stanley, a leader in global investment banking and trading along with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, employees have gravitated toward AskResearchGPT, using it instead of getting on the phone or lobbing an email to the research department, Huberty said.
Employees are asking the tool three times the number of questions as compared with a previous tool based on traditional AI that’s been in use since 2017, according to the bank.
It’s most in-demand among salespeople and other client-facing staff who often field questions from hedge funds or other institutional investors, said Huberty.
“We found that it takes a salesperson one-tenth of the time to respond to the average client inquiry” using AskResearchGPT, she said.
In a recent demonstration, the GPT-4 based chatbot was able to summarize Morgan Stanley’s position on matters from copper to Nvidia to the finer points of standing up a data center, understanding industry-specific jargon and providing charts and links to source material.
The bank wants to push adoption further in light of the productivity gains it’s seeing, Huberty said. The tool is embedded within workers’ browsers as well as Microsoft Teams and Outlook programs to make it readily available.
Understandably, Huberty says she is often asked if AI could ultimately replace the analysts who are creating the reams of research published under Morgan Stanley’s banner.
“I don’t see in the near future a path to just having the machine write the research report to generate the idea,” she said. “I really think that it’s humans who make the call and own the relationship, which is a really important part of the analyst job, or sales and trading job, or corporate banker job.”
When a real estateagent works with a prospective homebuyer, they’re required to point out physical or material defects in the property.
A death on the property? It depends on the state where the house is located. In most states, death doesn’t count as a material defect requiring disclosure.
Some homes are considered “stigmatized properties,” or dwellings that have been “psychologically impacted by a past or suspected event on the property, but has no physical impact of any kind,” according to the National Association of Realtors.
Listing agents will have different requirements state-by-state on what to disclose to a buyer. Most states don’t have any death disclosure requirements.
Among those that do, rules can be straightforward and explicitly require prior death to be disclosed to homebuyers. Even those rules may only apply to recent deaths or more stigmatizing events such as murder.
In California, for example, a seller must disclose if someone died in the house within the last three years.
Meanwhile, in Alaska, the listing agent must communicate if any known murders or suicides happened in the last year. South Dakota requires sellers to disclose deaths within the last 12 months.
Regulations will depend on the stigma in question. In New York, a seller doesn’t need to disclose if the house was the site of death or crime. But if a seller has made claims of paranormal activity in the home, they have to inform the buyer of supposed ghosts in the property, experts say.
Often, it falls on the homebuyers to directly ask the agent about the property’s history. States such as Georgia do not require real estate agents or sellers to disclose upfront if the home was the site of a death. But they have to be truthful if a prospective buyer inquires.
Outside of what the disclosure laws are in a specific state, listing agents have a fiduciary responsibility to the sellers, said Harrison Beacher, a real estate agent and managing partner at Coalition Properties Group in Washington, D.C.
“If somebody asks me about it, I can point them towards empirical resources to get answers, but I’m not under any requirements to go into detail,” said Beacher.
Here’s what homebuyers should know about properties that have been stigmatized by murder, suicide, alleged hauntings or notorious prior owners, and how to find more detail about the home’s history.
Stigmatized homes can be a “turnoff” for homebuyers who believe in ghosts or spirits, said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, an online real estate brokerage firm.
“Some people are spooked away,” said Fairweather, while others might “seek out those homes.”
Nearly three-quarters, 72%, of potential homebuyers said they would buy a “haunted” house for a lower price, according to a new report by Real Estate Witch, a data site owned by Clever Real Estate. The site polled 1,000 U.S. adults in September to discover their views on buying and selling supposedly haunted houses.
Some buyers don’t care what happens in a stigmatized property “if it can get them a discount on price,” Beacher said.
About 43% of polled Americans said they would offer at least $50,000 below market value on a haunted house, according to the Real Estate Witch report.
In 2021, the LaBianca mansion, the home where Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were murdered by Charles Manson’s followers in 1969, sold for $1.875 million. The previous owner, Zak Bagans, a paranormal activity investigator, originally put the house on the market for $2.2 million, but later cut the price to $1.9 million.
“Different people interact with stigmatized properties in different ways,” Beacher said.
In 2023, about 67% of would-be buyers said they would buy a supposedly haunted house if it met their wants, like having appealing features, the right location or a more affordable price, according to Zillow.
But buyers should know that “every property has a history,” said Connie Vavra, managing broker of RE/MAX, a real estate brokerage franchise, at Elgin, Illinois.
“We can’t erase the history that’s been done there … That doesn’t mean that you can’t have good energy in there and have [a] good experience living in that home.”
If you have questions or concerns about a property’s history, the first thing you should do is ask the real estate agent. In some states, real estate agents need to provide truthful information upon a buyer’s request, or at the very least, point you toward the right direction to find out.
Here are two ways to check, experts say:
1. Talk to neighbors and officials
Keep an eye out for the property’s neighbors, experts say. Besides the real estate agent, neighbors can give you first-hand experience of the area, as well as information about the previous homeowners.
You can also call the county manager where the property is located, said Theresa Payton, a former White House chief information officer who is now the CEO of cybersecurity firm Fortalice Solution.
Ask the county manager’s office about the property you’re considering and if there are any crime records associated with it, she said.
2. Follow the paper trail
An internet search can turn up details. If police responded to any activity at the house, the event will likely be reported in the newspaper and it would be public record, Payton said.
You can do an advanced search online through newspaper headlines and police reports, as “all that information is free,” she said.
Morgan Stanley on Wednesday topped analysts’ estimates for third-quarter profit as each of its three main divisions generated more revenue than expected.
Here’s what the company reported:
Earnings:$1.88 a share vs $1.58 LSEG estimate
Revenue: $15.38 billion vs. $14.41 billion estimate
The bank said profit rose 32% to $3.2 billion, or $1.88 per share, and revenue jumped 16% to $15.38 billion.
Morgan Stanley had several tail winds in its favor, starting with buoyant markets that helped its massive wealth management business, a rebound in investment banking after a dismal 2023, and strong trading activity. The Federal Reserve began taking down rates in the quarter, which should encourage more of the financing and merger activity that Wall Street firms capitalize on.
“The firm reported a strong third quarter in a constructive environment across our global footprint,” Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick said in the release.
Shares of the bank rose 7.5% in early trading.
The bank’s wealth management division saw revenue jump 14% from a year earlier to $7.27 billion, exceeding the StreetAccount estimate by nearly $400 million.
Equity trading revenue rose 21% to $3.05 billion, compared with the $2.77 billion estimate, while fixed income revenue edged 3% higher to $2 billion, also higher than the $1.85 billion estimate.
Investment banking revenue surged 56% from a year earlier to $1.46 billion, exceeding the $1.36 billion estimate.
Investment management, the firm’s smallest division, also exceeded expectations, posting a 9% increase in revenue to $1.46 billion, modestly higher than the $1.42 billion estimate.
Morgan Stanley’s Wall Street rivals also posted better-than-expected Wall Street revenue. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup topped estimates on strong revenue from trading and investment banking.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
David Solomon, Chairman & CEO Goldman Sachs, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 17th, 2024.
Adam Galici | CNBC
Goldman Sachs is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings before the opening bell Tuesday.
Here’s what Wall Street expects:
Earnings: $6.89 per share, according to LSEG
Revenue: $11.8 billion, according to LSEG
Trading Revenue: Fixed Income of $2.91 billion, Equities of $2.96 billion, per StreetAccount
Investing Banking Revenue: $1.62 billion, per StreetAccount
Asset & Wealth Management: $3.58 billion, per StreetAccount
How much will falling interest rates help Goldman Sachs?
Over the past two years, the Federal Reserve’s tightening campaign has made for a less-than-ideal environment for investment banks like Goldman.
Now that the Fed is easing rates, that positions Goldman to benefit as corporations that have waited on the sidelines to acquire competitors or raise funds begin to take action.
Goldman’s asset and wealth management division is also positioned to benefit from rising asset values across markets as rates decline.
Last week, rival JPMorgan Chase set expectations high with better-than-anticipated results from trading and investment banking, factors that helped the bank top earnings estimates.
Wells Fargo also exceeded estimates on Friday on the back of its investment banking division.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris face off in the ABC presidential debate on Sept. 10, 2024.
Getty Images
With the U.S. election less than a month away, the country and its corporations are staring down two drastically different options.
For airlines, banks, electric vehicle makers, health-care companies, media firms, restaurants and tech giants, the outcome of the presidential contest could result in stark differences in the rules they’ll face, the mergers they’ll be allowed to pursue, and the taxes they’ll pay.
During his last time in power, former President Donald Trump slashed the corporate tax rate, imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, and sought to cut regulation and red tape and discourage immigration, ideas he’s expected to push again if he wins a second term.
In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris has endorsed hiking the tax rate on corporations to 28% from the 21% rate enacted under Trump, a move that would require congressional approval. Most business executives expect Harris to broadly continue President Joe Biden‘s policies, including his war on so-called junk fees across industries.
Personnel is policy, as the saying goes, so the ramifications of the presidential race won’t become clear until the winner begins appointments for as many as a dozen key bodies, including the Treasury, Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
CNBC examined the stakes of the 2024 presidential election for some of corporate America’s biggest sectors. Here’s what a Harris or Trump administration could mean for business:
The result of the presidential election could affect everything from what airlines owe consumers for flight disruptions to how much it costs to build an aircraft in the United States.
The Biden Department of Transportation, led by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, has taken a hard line on filling what it considers to be holes in air traveler protections. It has established or proposed new rules on issues including refunds for cancellations, family seating and service fee disclosures, a measure airlines have challenged in court.
“Who’s in that DOT seat matters,” said Jonathan Kletzel, who heads the travel, transportation and logistics practice at PwC.
The current Democratic administration has also fought industry consolidation, winning two antitrust lawsuits that blocked a partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue Airways in the Northeast and JetBlue’s now-scuttled plan to buy budget carrier Spirit Airlines.
The previous Trump administration didn’t pursue those types of consumer protections. Industry members say that under Trump, they would expect a more favorable environment for mergers, though four airlines already control more than three-quarters of the U.S. market.
On the aerospace side, Boeing and the hundreds of suppliers that support it are seeking stability more than anything else.
Trump has said on the campaign trail that he supports additional tariffs of 10% or 20% and higher duties on goods from China. That could drive up the cost of producing aircraft and other components for aerospace companies, just as a labor and skills shortage after the pandemic drives up expenses.
Tariffs could also challenge the industry, if they spark retaliatory taxes or trade barriers to China and other countries, which are major buyers of aircraft from Boeing, a top U.S. exporter.
Big banks such as JPMorgan Chase faced an onslaught of new rules this year as Biden appointees pursued the most significant slate of regulations since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
Those efforts threaten tens of billions of dollars in industry revenue by slashing fees that banks impose on credit cards and overdrafts and radically revising the capital and risk framework they operate in. The fate of all of those measures is at risk if Trump is elected.
Trump is expected to nominate appointees for key financial regulators, including the CFPB, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that could result in a weakening or killing off completely of the myriad rules in play.
“The Biden administration’s regulatory agenda across sectors has been very ambitious, especially in finance, and large swaths of it stand to be rolled back by Trump appointees if he wins,” said Tobin Marcus, head of U.S. policy at Wolfe Research.
Bank CEOs and consultants say it would be a relief if aspects of the Biden era — an aggressive CFPB, regulators who discouraged most mergers and elongated times for deal approvals — were dialed back.
“It certainly helps if the president is Republican, and the odds tilt more favorably for the industry if it’s a Republican sweep” in Congress, said the CEO of a bank with nearly $100 billion in assets who declined to be identified speaking about regulators.
Still, some observers point out that Trump 2.0 might not be as friendly to the industry as his first time in office.
Trump’s vice presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance, of Ohio, has often criticized Wall Street banks, and Trump last month began pushing an idea to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, a move that if enacted would have seismic implications for the industry.
Bankers also say that Harris won’t necessarily cater to traditional Democratic Party ideas that have made life tougher for banks. Unless Democrats seize both chambers of Congress as well as the presidency, it may be difficult to get agency heads approved if they’re considered partisan picks, experts note.
“I would not write off the vice president as someone who’s automatically going to go more progressive,” said Lindsey Johnson, head of the Consumer Bankers Association, a trade group for big U.S. retail banks.
Electric vehicles have become a polarizing issue between Democrats and Republicans, especially in swing states such as Michigan that rely on the auto industry. There could be major changes in regulations and incentives for EVs if Trump regains power, a fact that’s placed the industry in a temporary limbo.
“Depending on the election in the U.S., we may have mandates; we may not,” Volkswagen Group of America CEO Pablo Di Si said Sept. 24 during an Automotive News conference. “Am I going to make any decisions on future investments right now? Obviously not. We’re waiting to see.”
Republicans, led by Trump, have largely condemned EVs, claiming they are being forced upon consumers and that they will ruin the U.S. automotive industry. Trump has vowed to roll back or eliminate many vehicle emissions standards under the Environmental Protection Agency and incentives to promote production and adoption of the vehicles.
If elected, he’s also expected to renew a battle with California and other states who set their own vehicle emissions standards.
“In a Republican win … We see higher variance and more potential for change,” UBS analyst Joseph Spak said in a Sept. 18 investor note.
In contrast, Democrats, including Harris, have historically supported EVs and incentives such as those under the Biden administration’s signature Inflation Reduction Act.
Harris hasn’t been as vocal a supporter of EVs lately amid slower-than-expected consumer adoption of the vehicles and consumer pushback. She has said she does not support an EV mandate such as the Zero-Emission Vehicles Act of 2019, which she cosponsored during her time as a senator, that would have required automakers to sell only electrified vehicles by 2040. Still, auto industry executives and officials expect a Harris presidency would be largely a continuation, though not a copy, of the past four years of Biden’s EV policy.
They expect some potential leniency on federal fuel economy regulations but minimal changes to the billions of dollars in incentives under the IRA.
Both Harris and Trump have called for sweeping changes to the costly, complicated and entrenched U.S. health-care system of doctors, insurers, drug manufacturers and middlemen, which costs the nation more than $4 trillion a year.
Despite spending more on health care than any other wealthy country, the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy at birth, the highest rate of people with multiple chronic diseases and the highest maternal and infant death rates, according to the Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group.
Meanwhile, roughly half of American adults say it is difficult to afford health-care costs, which can drive some into debt or lead them to put off necessary care, according to a May poll conducted by health policy research organization KFF.
Both Harris and Trump have taken aim at the pharmaceutical industry and proposed efforts to lower prescription drug prices in the U.S., which are nearly three times higher than those seen in other countries.
But many of Trump’s efforts to lower costs have been temporary or not immediately effective, health policy experts said. Meanwhile, Harris, if elected, can build on existing efforts of the Biden administration to deliver savings to more patients, they said.
Harris specifically plans to expand certain provisions of the IRA, part of which aims to lower health-care costs for seniors enrolled in Medicare. Harris cast the tie-breaking Senate vote to pass the law in 2022.
Her campaign says she plans to extend two provisions to all Americans, not just seniors: a $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket drug spending and a $35 limit on monthly insulin costs.
Harris also intends to accelerate and expand a provision allowing Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices with manufacturers for the first time. Drugmakers fiercely oppose those price talks, with some challenging the effort’s constitutionality in court.
Trump hasn’t publicly indicated what he intends to do about IRA provisions.
Some of Trump’s prior efforts to lower drug prices “didn’t really come into fruition” during his presidency, according to Dr. Mariana Socal, a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
For example, he planned to use executive action to have Medicare pay no more than the lowest price that select other developed countries pay for drugs, a proposal that was blocked by court action and later rescinded.
Trump also led multiple efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, including its expansion of Medicaid to low-income adults. In a campaign video in April, Trump said he was not running on terminating the ACA and would rather make it “much, much better and far less money,” though he has provided no specific plans.
He reiterated his belief that the ACA was “lousy health care” during his Sept. 10 debate with Harris. But when asked he did not offer a replacement proposal, saying only that he has “concepts of a plan.”
Top of mind for media executives is mergers and the path, or lack thereof, to push them through.
The media industry’s state of turmoil — shrinking audiences for traditional pay TV, the slowdown in advertising, and the rise of streaming and challenges in making it profitable — means its companies are often mentioned in discussions of acquisitions and consolidation.
While a merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media is set to move forward, with plans to close in the first half of 2025, many in media have said the Biden administration has broadly chilled deal-making.
“We just need an opportunity for deregulation, so companies can consolidate and do what we need to do even better,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said in July at Allen & Co.’s annual Sun Valley conference.
Media mogul John Malone recently told MoffettNathanson analysts that some deals are a nonstarter with this current Justice Department, including mergers between companies in the telecommunications and cable broadband space.
Still, it’s unclear how the regulatory environment could or would change depending on which party is in office. Disney was allowed to acquire Fox Corp.’s assets when Trump was in office, but his administration sued to block AT&T’s merger with Time Warner. Meanwhile, under Biden’s presidency, a federal judge blocked the sale of Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House, but Amazon’s acquisition of MGM was approved.
“My sense is, regardless of the election outcome, we are likely to remain in a similar tighter regulatory environment when looking at media industry dealmaking,” said Marc DeBevoise, CEO and board director of Brightcove, a streaming technology company.
When major media, and even tech, assets change hands, it could also mean increased scrutiny on those in control and whether it creates bias on the platforms.
“Overall, the government and FCC have always been most concerned with having a diversity of voices,” said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Integrated Media, which specializes in digital media investment. “But then [Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter] happened, and it’s clearly showing you can skew a platform to not just what the business needs, but to maybe your personal approach and whims,” he said.
Since Musk acquired the social media platform in 2022, changing its name to X, he has implemented sweeping changes including cutting staff and giving “amnesty” to previously suspended accounts, including Trump’s, which had been suspended following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Musk has also faced widespread criticism from civil rights groups for the amplification of bigotry on the platform.
Musk has publicly endorsed Trump, and was recently on the campaign trail with the former president. “As you can see, I’m not just MAGA, I’m Dark MAGA,” Musk said at a recent event. The billionaire has raised funds for Republican causes, and Trump has suggested Musk could eventually play a role in his administration if the Republican candidate were to be reelected.
During his first term, Trump took a particularly hard stance against journalists, and pursued investigations into leaks from his administration to news organizations. Under Biden, the White House has been notably more amenable to journalists.
Also top of mind for media executives — and government officials — is TikTok.
Lawmakers have argued that TikTok’s Chinese ownership could be a national security risk.
Earlier this year, Biden signed legislation that gives Chinese parent ByteDance until January to find a new owner for the platform or face a U.S. ban. TikTok has said the bill, the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed with bipartisan support, violates the First Amendment. The platform has sued the government to stop a potential ban.
While Trump was in office, he attempted to ban TikTok through an executive order, but the effort failed. However, he has more recently switched to supporting the platform, arguing that without it there’s less competition against Meta’s Facebook and other social media.
Both Trump and Harris have endorsed plans to end taxes on restaurant workers’ tips, although how they would do so is likely to differ.
The food service and restaurant industry is the nation’s second-largest private-sector employer, with 15.5 million jobs, according to the National Restaurant Association. Roughly 2.2 million of those employees are tipped servers and bartenders, who could end up with more money in their pockets if their tips are no longer taxed.
Trump’s campaign hasn’t given much detail on how his administration would eliminate taxes on tips, but tax experts have warned that it could turn into a loophole for high earners. Claims from the Trump campaign that the Republican candidate is pro-labor have clashed with his record of appointing leaders to the National Labor Relations Board who have rolled back worker protections.
Meanwhile, Harris has said she’d only exempt workers who make $75,000 or less from paying income tax on their tips, but the money would still be subject to taxes toward Social Security and Medicare, the Washington Post previously reported.
In keeping with the campaign’s more labor-friendly approach, Harris is also pledging to eliminate the tip credit: In 37 states, employers only have to pay tipped workers the minimum wage as long as that hourly wage and tips add up to the area’s pay floor. Since 1991, the federal pay floor for tipped wages has been stuck at $2.13.
“In the short term, if [restaurants] have to pay higher wages to their waiters, they’re going to have to raise menu prices, which is going to lower demand,” said Michael Lynn, a tipping expert and Cornell University professor.
Whichever candidate comes out ahead in November will have to grapple with the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence sector.
Generative AI is the biggest story in tech since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022. It presents a conundrum for regulators, because it allows consumers to easily create text and images from simple queries, creating privacy and safety concerns.
Harris has said she and Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.” Last year, the White House issued an executive order that led to the formation of the Commerce Department’s U.S. AI Safety Institute, which is evaluating AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Trump has committed to repealing the executive order.
A second Trump administration might also attempt to challenge a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that requires companies to disclose cybersecurity incidents. The White House said in January that more transparency “will incentivize corporate executives to invest in cybersecurity and cyber risk management.”
Trump’s running mate, Vance, co-sponsored a bill designed to end the rule. Andrew Garbarino, the House Republican who introduced an identical bill, has said the SEC rule increases cybersecurity risk and overlaps with existing law on incident reporting.
Also at stake in the election is the fate of dealmaking for tech investors and executives.
With Lina Khan helming the FTC, the top tech companies have been largely thwarted from making big acquisitions, though the Justice Department and European regulators have also created hurdles.
Tech transaction volume peaked at $1.5 trillion in 2021, then plummeted to $544 billion last year and $465 billion in 2024 as of September, according to Dealogic.
Many in the tech industry are critical of Khan and want her to be replaced should Harris win in November. Meanwhile, Vance, who worked in venture capital before entering politics, said as recently as February — before he was chosen as Trump’s running mate — that Khan was “doing a pretty good job.”
Khan, whom Biden nominated in 2021, has challenged Amazon and Meta on antitrust grounds and has said the FTC will investigate AI investments at Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft.
Mobile homes surrounded by flood water after Hurricane Milton made landfall, in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S. October 10, 2024.
Octavio Jones | Reuters
If your home is temporarily uninhabitable after a natural disaster, a provision in your homeowners or renters insurance policy may help you with new lodging and other living expenses.
Insured wind and flood damage from Hurricane Helene is estimated to be up to $17.5 billion, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data site. Insured losses from Hurricane Milton could range from $30 billion to $60 billion, per Morningstar DBRS.
Homeowners and renters affected by a natural disaster can ask about so-called “loss of use” or “additional living expenses” coverage from their insurance providers, experts say.
The provision is meant to help cover reasonable living expenses if your home is not suitable to live in as a result of a covered peril such as a hurricane, fire or burst pipe.
“I don’t know of any homeowners policy that doesn’t have it already there,” said Karl Susman, president and principal insurance agent of Susman Insurance Services, Inc. in Los Angeles.
As you file a claim, it will be important to ask your insurance company about the loss of use coverage and how quickly it can kick in, said Shannon Martin, a licensed insurance agent and analyst at Bankrate.com.
“If you call your carrier, they might be able to expedite the loss of use claim filing for you and issue a check early so that you’re not stuck trying to figure out how to pay for separate housing,” she said.
Here’s what the coverage is and what to consider before you use it, according to experts.
Loss of use coverage is a provision that is typically included in your homeowners insurance policy. It’s usually about 20% of the dwelling coverage and is paid out in the event that the home becomes uninhabitable and a policyholder needs funds for living expenses while the home is repaired or rebuilt, experts say. Eligible expenses might include a hotel or rental home, food, pet boarding or storage fees, among others.
For example, if you’re ensuring a house for $100,000, and that’s what it costs to rebuild the house, that is considered the dwelling coverage, Susman said.
“Then the policy would automatically come with $20,000 in coverage for loss of use,” he said.
“That way you and your family can pay for your hotel and pay for food, because you might be separated from your home for an extended period of time,” Martin said.
Renters insurance typically has a similar provision, as would condominium policies, Susman said.
For renters and condo insurance, the primary coverage is not dwelling because you’re insuring personal property rather than the building, he said. You’ll typically get 20% of the personal property coverage for loss of use, he said.
Ask your insurer about any policy restrictions. There may be expense-specific dollar caps or time limits to claim loss of use coverage.
Loss of use coverage can help homeowners cover living expenses after a natural disaster. However, the money is meant to be a short-term fix, experts say.
“It’s generally not intended to be a long-term solution,” said Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications research at First Street Foundation, an organization focused on climate risk financial modeling in New York City. “It’s generally not enough money to carry people through an extended period of time.”
That can be a problem because what it would cost to move out would be very different after a major disaster than during more typical times, Susman said, as there’s often less housing available and hotels may raise their prices amid demand.
While the coverage is meant to be temporary, repairs and broader financial recovery take a long time after major disasters, experts say.
“It takes a long time to recoup and recover,” said Loretta Worters, a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute.
You might be able to use funds from the government to help you stay in a hotel for a month, then get a place closer to your home and use your loss of use coverage to pay for the difference, Martin said.
JPMorgan Chase CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon speaks during the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee oversight hearing on Wall Street firms, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 6, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sees risks climbing around the world amid widening conflicts in the Middle East and with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showing no signs of abating.
“We have been closely monitoring the geopolitical situation for some time, and recent events show that conditions are treacherous and getting worse,” Dimon said Friday in the bank’s third-quarter earnings release.
“There is significant human suffering, and the outcome of these situations could have far-reaching effects on both short-term economic outcomes and more importantly on the course of history,” he said.
Dimon went deeper into his concerns last month during a fireside chat held at Georgetown University.
The international order in place since the end of World War II was unraveling with conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, rising U.S.-China tensions and the risk of “nuclear blackmail” from Iran, North Korea and Russia, Dimon said.
“It’s ratcheting up, folks, and it takes really strong American leadership and western world leaders to do something about that,” Dimon said. “That’s my number one concern, and it dwarves any I’ve had since I’ve been working.”
Dimon also said that he remained wary about the future of the economy, despite signs that the Federal Reserve has engineered a soft landing.
“While inflation is slowing and the U.S. economy remains resilient, several critical issues remain, including large fiscal deficits, infrastructure needs, restructuring of trade and remilitarization of the world,” Dimon said. “While we hope for the best, these events and the prevailing uncertainty demonstrate why we must be prepared for any environment.”
CEO of Chase Jamie Dimon looks on as he attends the seventh “Choose France Summit”, aiming to attract foreign investors to the country, at the Chateau de Versailles, outside Paris, on May 13, 2024.
Lucovic Marin | Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings before the opening bell Friday.
Here’s what Wall Street expects:
Earnings: $4.01 a share, according to LSEG
Revenue: $41.63 billion, according to LSEG
Net interest income: $22.73 billion, according to StreetAccount
Trading Revenue: Fixed income of $4.38 billion, Equities of $2.41 billion, according to StreetAccount
JPMorgan will be watched closely for clues on how banks are faring at the start of the Federal Reserve’s easing cycle.
The biggest American bank has thrived in a rising rate environment, posting record net income figures since the Fed started hiking rates in 2022.
Now, with the Fed cutting rates, there are questions as to how JPMorgan will navigate the change. Like other big banks, it’s margins may be squeezed as yields on interest-generating assets like loans fall faster than its funding costs.
Last month, JPMorgan dialed back expectations for 2025 net interest income and expenses, and analysts will want more details on those projections.
Analysts will also want to hear JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s thoughts about the upcoming U.S. election and the industry’s efforts to push back against an array of regulatory moves to rein in fees and force banks to hold more capital.
Shares of JPMorgan have jumped 25% this year, exceeding the 20% gain of the KBW Bank Index.
Home repairs and renovations are expensive. To lower costs, 1 in 3 homeowners are willing to hire a contractor with holes in their resume.
About 33% of surveyed homeowners say they’d consider hiring a contractor with a questionable reputation to save money, according to a new report by Clever Real Estate, a housing data site.
Generally, homeowners say reputation is the most important factor when hiring a contractor (25%), followed by experience (23%), cost (19%), personal recommendations (13%), availability (11%) and estimated project timeline (10%). Clever polled 1,000 U.S. homeowners mid-August regarding their choices when it comes to renovations.
That contractor trade-off might end up being more expensive in the long run, experts say. A questionable contractor is “someone who isn’t exactly honest with the price, may be overestimating their skills, doesn’t do high quality work, or simply doesn’t show up for the project,” said Jamie Dunaway-Seale, author of the Clever report.
“That’s someone that you want to potentially avoid,” said Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angi, an online contractor marketplace. “I would rather take someone newer to the industry than someone that has a questionable reputation.”
The risk of contractor fraud also increases in the aftermath of a natural disaster, said Loretta Worters, a spokeswoman of the Insurance Information Institute.
“A lot of times, these people swoop in, claim they’re going to do something for you, and they take your money and leave,” Worters said.
The Justice Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a warning to consumers on Wednesday about potential fraud, price gouging and collusive schemes after natural disasters.
“You don’t want to turn a bad situation worse,” Hicks said.
Analysts anticipate that Hurricane Milton could be a “once-in-a-century” storm with the potential to generate record-breaking damage as it makes landfall along Florida’s west coast on Wednesday or early Thursday.
As homeowners juggle insurance claims and recovery efforts from back-to-back storm aftermaths, one thing to keep in mind is who to hire as a contractor.
You “really need to be careful” about contractor fraud, as you could be “victimized twice by the storm and by the fraudulent person,” Worters said.
Roofing is one of the more common trades that you would have to hire for after a hurricane, Hicks said.
“A roof is something that’s going to last for 20 plus years,” Hicks said. “You want to make sure that you are working with a reputable local company who’s going to stand behind a warranty on that work as well.”
While it’s a really difficult time, it’s important to do the due diligence and make sure the person you’re hiring is certified, experts say.
Although most professional contractors are reliable, negative experiences contribute to bad reputations in consumers’ minds, noted Clever in the report.
“A lot of people do have bad experiences, and it makes it harder for the honest ones” in the field, said Dunaway-Seale.
While it can be hard to evaluate contractors, there are a few steps you can take to make sure you’re working with a reputable person, according to experts.
Here are three ways to get started:
1. Ask for reviews and references
“The first thing you want to do is check [the contractor’s] reputation,” said Hicks.
If possible, start with professionals who have good reviews: Ask for recommendations from friends and family who had good experiences with a contractor in the past, Dunaway-Seale said.
From there, look for online reviews and ask for references, experts say. As you start to get estimates, check with references to see how that firm or professional has handled jobs in the past, Hicks said.
Asking a contractor if they’d put you in touch with a prior client can be a litmus test, said Dunaway-Seale.
“If they’re unwilling to do that, that might be a red flag,” she said. “Maybe they don’t think anyone would recommend them positively.”
2. Check their credentials
Check a contractor’s credentials and licensing to understand if they have the necessary experience to tackle the job, said Hicks.
All professional contractors should be insured and able to show their certificate proving so, according to the National Association of Home Builders. While not all states require licensing, contractors located in states that do require a license should provide a copy, NAHB noted.
The FTC and CFPB offer resources for consumers on how to avoid scams, prepare and respond to natural disasters, and how to handle your finances in such events.
“Sometimes the state insurance department will have a list of different contractors on their website as well,” Worters said.
3. Watch for warning signs
Early interactions can give you a sense of how the contractor operates, and help you decide if you feel confident giving them your business.
“Are they giving you estimates in writing? Are they detailed? Are payments outlined?” Hicks said.
It’s really important payments on larger projects are outlined in your estimates and how they will be handled, she said. Typically, upfront payments should not be more than 10 or 20%; you should not be paying a large deposit up front, said Hicks.
It’s also a good idea to get two or three estimates because it can tell you if you’re having outliers in your pricing, Hicks said.
“If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is,” she added.
Meanwhile, analysts anticipate that Hurricane Milton could be a “once-in-a-century” storm with the potential to generate record-breaking damage when it makes landfall along Florida’s west coast on Wednesday.
Once you’re safely out of harm’s way, starting the insurance claim process is an important consideration. The sooner you report a claim, the sooner your insurance company can start the process and you can begin rebuilding, experts say.
“Your adjuster is assigned on a first-come, first-serve basis,” said Shannon Martin, a licensed insurance agent and analyst for Bankrate.com.
The processing arm of your insurance company is going to have a “tremendous amount of paperwork and claims coming through,” said Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications research at First Street Foundation, an organization focused on climate risk financial modeling in New York City.
“The longer you wait, you’re not only delaying the ability to have your claim approved and make its way to you, but you’re lengthening the time in which that claim will sit in the processing pipeline,” Porter said.
Here are three important steps to quickly file an insurance claim after a disaster, according to experts.
Once a disaster has passed, immediately contact your insurance company to let them know that your home has damage from a recent disaster and you’d like to start the claims process, said Porter.
If you evacuated, “you can start the claim from anywhere,” Porter said. “You’ll eventually have to schedule with the insurance company to actually review and inspect the damage.”
But if you decide to wait out the storm in your house, you need to first prevent further damage to the home before calling, said Bankrate.com’s Martin.
A typical home insurance policy has language requiring homeowners to lessen the impact and prevent further damage, she said.
“Then you can call the insurance company, take pictures of the damage and [move] items into safer locations,” Martin said.
During your call, provide your insurance company with some initial details, like if your roof blew off or several windows broke, said Porter.
“But they really won’t make their assessment until they come in and inspect the damage,” he said.
While the insurer will make its own inspection, it’s always important to document your damages, including taking pictures, so that you can align that with the formal inspection record that comes out from the insurance company, Porter said.
This way, you can dispute any claims if you have to later, he said.
In the event of a loss, you have to give prompt notice to your insurer and you have a duty to protect the property, said Daniel Schwarcz, an insurance law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.
You have to protect the property from further damage after the storm, make reasonable repairs and have an accurate record of repair expenses, Schwarcz said.
The receipts that you need to keep on file are for purchased materials used to prevent further damage on the property that’s already been damaged by a covered peril, said Schwarcz — meaning wind and trees, but not generally flooding unless you have a flood insurance policy. The insurer will generally reimburse you for reasonable expenses you incur.
If you don’t take such measures after the storm, and that inaction results in further damage, the insurer is not obligated to cover the loss, he said.
Materials purchased to protect the home before the natural disaster — for example, plywood to cover windows — are oftentimes not covered.
You also want to keep a record of receipts when you start working with contractors to rebuild from the damage, experts say.
One of the reasons why you want to document the damage immediately with your insurer is so that you can attach it to the event itself, increasing the likelihood of the event being covered by your home insurance, said Porter.
“Filing the claim immediately is the number one most important thing to do,” Porter said.
It’s important to keep track of where the damage came from, and having evidence can help avoid problems down the road, he said.
Port offers the hypothetical of of someone whose home sustained wind damage from Hurricane Debbie or Helene, but hasn’t filed a claim before the Milton makes landfall and causes flood damage.
“All of a sudden, you have a problem where the National Flood Insurance Program, which covers flood, and your home insurance company, which covers wind, can potentially start to argue over what actually caused the damage to the property,” Porter said.
You want to make sure you file any claim within three to five days of when the incident occurred, said Martin. As long as you had submitted all of your information in a timely manner for the first incident, if something else arises, you’re able to show the adjuster that it happened from a second event, she said.
Feroze Azeez from Anand Rathi Wealth, discusses the issues barring the financial deployment of household savings in India, as well as some of the long-term challenges that Indian banks could face.
San Diego city officials and activists came together to call on business and government officials to address pay inequities for Latinas in San Diego, CA on Dec. 8, 2022.
Matthew Bowler | KPBS | Sipa USA
Latina women working full time, year-round earn 58 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, according to data collected by the National Women’s Law Center.
Latina Equal Pay Day, which this year falls on Oct. 3, marks the additional days into the new year that Latinas must work to earn as much as the typical annual salary of white, non-Hispanic male workers.
That gap in pay translates to a loss of nearly $1.3 million over a 40-year career. Break that down further and Latinas lose $32,070 in wages per year, or $2,672 every month, compared with the dominant cohort.
While 58 cents per dollar is a penny improvement compared with the previous year, NWLC notes that even though wages have been increasing, so too has the total wage gap over a lifetime — which last year totaled $1,218,000.
“The increase in lifetime losses and widening of the wage gap for all Latina workers, including part-time workers, is likely because white men’s wages are increasing at a faster rate than other demographic groups,” said Ashir Coillberg, NWLC senior research analyst.
Assuming a Latina and her white, non-Hispanic male counterpart both begin work at age 20, NWLC notes, the wage gap means a Latina would have to work until she is 89 years old — eight years beyond her life expectancy — to be paid what a white, non-Hispanic man has been paid by age 60.
Despite the narrow improvement for full-time workers, the gap actually widens for part-time and part-year Latina workers, falling to 51 cents on the dollar compared with 52 cents last year.
The wage gap varies widely for certain Latina communities, and for some in the United States it’s even more extreme.
While full time, year-round Argentinean and Spanish Latina workers remain closest to parity at 84 cents and 81 cents, respectively, wages for Honduran, Guatemalan and Salvadoran women remained the widest at 47 cents, 48 cents and 51 cents, respectively.
“Most other marginalized populations — and women as a whole — saw a slight widening of the wage gap this year, for both full-time, year-round workers as well as when including part-time workers,” Coillberg said.
Guatemalan, Cuban and Spanish women saw the greatest increase in losses over a 40-year career.
Latinas are more likely to hold low-wage jobs, but NWLC research finds pay disparities at all education levels.
While continued education can be a benefit to earnings potential, NWLC data suggests getting more education does not shield them from the wage gap. Latinas are typically paid less than white, non-Hispanic men with the same educational attainment and are often paid less than white, non-Hispanic men with less educational attainment.
Some of the most educated Latinas have some of the most striking pay gaps compared to their white non-Hispanic men counterparts, according to the NWLC. For example, the center said a Latina with a professional degree stands to lose more than $2.9 million to the wage gap over a 40-year career.
“Unequal pay means Latinas have less money to cover current expenses and forces them to miss key opportunities to build wealth and build economic security throughout their lifetimes,” the NWLC notes in the report.
Instead of prioritizing continued education, pay equity experts are advocating for comprehensive legislative reform.
“A comprehensive approach includes requiring equal pay for equal work, pay transparency policies from lawmakers, eliminating the subminimum tipped wage, protection from caregiver discrimination, safety from harassment and health hazards for all workers, prohibiting salary history to determine future pay, and increased access to higher-paid jobs for women,” said Noreen Farrell, Equal Pay Today chair. “That’s how you actually close the gap.”
“The widening gap underscores the urgency of tackling this issue to ensure equitable economic opportunities for Latinas,” Farrell said. “Latinas do not have one more day to wait for equal pay.”
It’s going to be hard to count on another strong month for stocks after September’s performance. The final month of the third quarter has been surprisingly good for investors. Often regarded as the weakest month of the year for stocks, the major market averages were on track as of Friday to close it out with a robust advance, helped by the Federal Reserve’s big rate cut last week. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S & P 500 have broken out to new highs this month. The 30-stock Dow closed above 42,000 for the first time ever, while the broader index did the same, climbing above 5,700. But investors are on edge heading into October, the most volatile month for stocks, with the S & P 500 posting an average daily move of 1.3%, up or down, according to a CNBC Pro analysis of historical market data going back to 1950. Consequently, traders have to navigate a historically bad month for equities — typically made worse during a U.S. presidential election year — and contrarian sentiment that has many worried about a market pullback, or even a correction. Throw into the mix rising geopolitical risks from conflict in the Middle East and war in Europe, as well as the potential for further cracks in the domestic labor market, and the outlook for U.S. stocks next month appears tenuous at best. “Can SPX sidestep two typically weak months in the election cycle calendar?” BTIG chief market technician Jonathan Krinsky asked this week, referring to the S & P 500. “Unlikely.” Regardless, stocks as of Friday were on track for a winning month and a winning quarter. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S & P 500 were both on course for a 1.5% gain in September, while the Nasdaq Composite had gained 2.7%. On a quarterly basis, the blue-chip Dow was the outperformer, up more than 7%. The S & P 500 had risen more than 5%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was higher by more than 1%. ‘Lopsided’ risk for jobs report Chief among the catalysts that might move prices in October is the September jobs report that’s due in one week. Investors are laser-focused on the strength of the labor market, especially after the latest major inflation reading released Friday again showed the Fed’s fight against pricing pressures may be won. “As simple as it sounds, I think it’s really going to come down to labor market data,” Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial, said of the stock market’s short-term direction. The U.S. economy is expected to have added 150,000 jobs this month, up from 142,000 jobs in August, according to a FactSet estimate. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is forecast to have held steady at 4.2%. Turnquist worries that a soft jobs report that casts doubt on investors’ expectations for a soft landing — where growth slows and inflation eases but the economy skirts a recession — could weigh on stock prices. On the other hand, the impact of a stronger, or as expected, report on equities is likely to be more muted, he said. Seasonal weakness Even with stocks breaking out to new records in late September, and bulls firmly in control , skeptics are waiting for a better spot to start putting more money to work in the market. They’re concerned the market right now is showing signs of exhaustion, given the fewer number of stocks making new highs, or the fact that semiconductors, which have outpaced the broader market this year, have ceded their leadership. LPL Financial’s Turnquist expects a better buying opportunity will come in October, possibly if the S & P 500 retests its September lows at 5,400, and especially if it falls to its 200-day moving average, which was last at around 5,200. For the S & P 500, those levels represent declines of about 6% to 9%, as of Thursday’s close. The broader index itself was last hovering above 5,700. Similarly, Jeff Hirsch, editor of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, expects the S & P 500 could fall 5% to 10% over the next several weeks, but said he’s bullish into year-end. Hirsch wouldn’t be surprised if the broader index notched new all-time highs, with 6,000 a “reasonable” level after some of the uncertainty is removed from invesyors’ minds. “I’m looking to get pretty long pretty soon,” he said. Week ahead calendar All times ET. Monday Sept. 30, 2024 9:45 a.m. Chicago PMI (September) 10:30 a.m. Dallas Fed index (September) Earnings: Carnival Tuesday Oct. 1, 2024 9:45 a.m. S & P PMI Manufacturing final (September) 10 a.m. Construction Spending (August) 10 a.m. ISM Manufacturing (September) 10 a.m. JOLTS Job Openings (August) Earnings: Lamb Weston , Nike , McCormick & Co. Wednesday Oct. 2, 2024 8:15 a.m. ADP Employment Survey (September) Earnings: Conagra Brands Thursday Oct. 3, 2024 8:30 a.m. Continuing Jobless Claims (09/21) 8:30 a.m. Initial Claims (09/28) 9:45 a.m. PMI Composite final (September) 9:45 a.m. S & P PMI Services SA final (September) 10 a.m. Durable Orders (August) 10 a.m. Factory Orders (August) 10 a.m. ISM Services PMI (September) Earnings: Constellation Brands Friday Oct. 4, 2024 8:30 a.m. Hourly Earnings preliminary (September) 8:30 a.m. Average Workweek preliminary (September) 8:30 a.m. Manufacturing Payrolls (September) 8:30 a.m. Nonfarm Payrolls (September) 8:30 a.m. Participation Rate (September) 8:30 a.m. Private Nonfarm Payrolls (September) 8:30 a.m. Unemployment Rate (September) — CNBC’s Nick Wells contributed reporting
JPMorgan Chase CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon gestures as he speaks during the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee oversight hearing on Wall Street firms, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 6, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Buried in a roughly 200-page quarterly filing from JPMorgan Chase last month were eight words that underscore how contentious the bank’s relationship with the government has become.
The lender disclosed that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could punish JPMorgan for its role in Zelle, the giant peer-to-peer digital payments network. The bank is accused of failing to kick criminal accounts off its platform and failing to compensate some scam victims, according to people who declined to be identified speaking about an ongoing investigation.
In response, JPMorgan issued a thinly veiled threat: “The firm is evaluating next steps, including litigation.”
The prospect of a bank suing its regulator would’ve been unheard of in an earlier era, according to policy experts, mostly because corporations used to fear provoking their overseers. That was especially the case for the American banking industry, which needed hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts to survive after irresponsible lending and trading activities caused the 2008 financial crisis, those experts say.
But a combination of factors in the intervening years has created an environment where banks and their regulators have never been farther apart.
Trade groups say that in the aftermath of the financial crisis, banks became easy targets for populist attacks from Democrat-led regulatory agencies. Those on the side of regulators point out that banks and their lobbyists increasingly lean on courts in Republican-dominated districts to fend off reform and protect billions of dollars in fees at the expense of consumers.
“If you go back 15 or 20 years, the view was it’s not particularly smart to antagonize your regulator, that litigating all this stuff is just kicking the hornet’s nest,” said Tobin Marcus, head of U.S. policy at Wolfe Research.
“The disparity between how ambitious [President Joe] Biden’s regulators have been and how conservative the courts are, at least a subset of the courts, is historically wide,” Marcus said. “That’s created so many opportunities for successful industry litigation against regulatory proposals.”
Those forces collided this year, which started out as one of the most consequential for bank regulation since the post-2008 reforms that curbed Wall Street risk-taking, introduced annual stress tests and created the industry’s lead antagonist, the CFPB.
In the final months of the Biden administration, efforts from a half-dozen government agencies were meant to slash fees on credit card late payments, debit transactions and overdrafts, among other proposals. The industry’s biggest threat was the Basel Endgame, a sweeping plan to force big banks to hold tens of billions of dollars more in capital for activities like trading and lending.
“The industry is facing an onslaught of regulatory and potential legislative change,” Marianne Lake, head of JPMorgan’s consumer bank, warned investors in May.
JPMorgan’s disclosure about the CFPB probe into Zelle comes after years of grilling by Democrat lawmakers over financial crimes on the platform. Zelle was launched in 2017 by a bank-owned firm called Early Warning Services in response to the threat from peer-to-peer networks including PayPal.
The vast majority of Zelle activity is uneventful; of the $806 billion that flowed across the network last year, only $166 million in transactions was disputed as fraud by customers of JPMorgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, the three biggest players on the platform.
But the three banks collectively reimbursed just 38% of those claims, according to a July Senate report that looked at disputed unauthorized transactions.
Banks are typically on the hook to reimburse fraudulent Zelle payments that the customer didn’t give permission for, but usually don’t refund losses if the customer is duped into authorizing the payment by a scammer, according to the Electronic Fund Transfer Act.
A JPMorgan payments executive told lawmakers in July that the bank actually reimburses 100% of unauthorized transactions; the discrepancy in the Senate report’s findings is because bank personnel often determine that customers have authorized the transactions.
Amid the scrutiny, the bank began warning Zelle users on the Chase app to “Stay safe from scams” and added disclosures that customers won’t likely be refunded for bogus transactions.
The company, which has grown to become the largest and most profitable American bank in history under CEO Jamie Dimon, is at the fore of several other skirmishes with regulators.
Thanks to his reputation guiding JPMorgan through the 2008 crisis and last year’s regional banking upheaval, Dimon may be one of few CEOs with the standing to openly criticize regulators. That was highlighted this year when Dimon led a campaign, both public and behind closed doors, to weaken the Basel proposal.
In May, at JPMorgan’s investor day, Dimon’s deputies made the case that Basel and other regulations would end up harming consumers instead of protecting them.
The cumulative effect of pending regulation would boost the cost of mortgages by at least $500 a year and credit card rates by 2%; it would also force banks to charge two-thirds of consumers for checking accounts, according to JPMorgan.
The message: banks won’t just eat the extra costs from regulation, but instead pass them on to consumers.
While all of these battles are ongoing, the financial industry has racked up several victories so far.
Some contend the threat of litigation helped convince the Federal Reserve to offer a new Basel Endgame proposal this month that roughly cuts in half the extra capital that the largest institutions would be forced to hold, among other industry-friendly changes.
It’s not even clear if the watered-down version of the proposal, a long-in-the-making response to the 2008 crisis, will ever be implemented because it won’t be finalized until well after U.S. elections.
If Republican candidate Donald Trump wins, the rules might be further weakened or killed outright, and even under a Kamala Harris administration, the industry could fight the regulation in court.
That’s been banks’ approach to the CFPB credit card rule, which aimed to cap late fees at $8 per incident and was set to go into effect in May.
A last-ditch effort from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and bank trade groups successfully delayed its implementation when Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas sided with the industry, granting a freeze of the rule.
A key playbook for banks has been to file cases in conservative jurisdictions where they are likely to prevail, according to Lori Yue, a Columbia Business School associate professor who has studied the interplay between corporations and the judicial system.
The Northern District of Texas feeds into the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is “well-known for its friendliness to industry lawsuits against regulators,” Yue said.
“Venue-shopping like this has become well-established corporate strategy,” Yue said. “The financial industry has been particularly active this year in suing regulators.”
Since 2017, nearly two-thirds of the lawsuits filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce challenging federal regulations have been in courts under the 5th Circuit, according to an analysis by Accountable US.
Industries dominated by a few large players — from banks to airlines, pharmaceutical companies and energy firms — tend to have well-funded trade organizations that are more likely to resist regulators, Yue added.
The polarized environment, where weakened federal agencies are undermined by conservative courts, ultimately preserves the advantages of the largest corporations, according to Brian Graham, co-founder of bank consulting firm Klaros.
“It’s really bad in the long run, because it locks in place whatever the regulations have been, while the reality is that the world is changing,” Graham said. “It’s what happens when you can’t adopt new regulations because you’re terrified that you’ll get sued.”
— With data visualizations by CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes.
While housing affordability remains a challenge for many buyers in the U.S., conditions are somewhat improving due to lower mortgage rates.
Buyers need to earn $115,000 to afford the typical home in the U.S., according to a new report by Redfin, an online real estate brokerage firm. That’s down 1% from a year ago, and represents the first decline since 2020.
Housing payments posted the biggest decline in four years, Redfin also found. The median mortgage payment was $2,534 during the four weeks ending Sept. 15, down 2.7% from a year ago.
Both declines stem from lower mortgage rates, said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin.
As of Sept. 19, the average 30-year fixed rate mortgage is 6.09%, down from 6.20% a week prior, according to Freddie Mac data via the Fed. Rates peaked this year at 7.22% on May 2.
“The only reason mortgage payments are down is because of the rate effect,” Fairweather said.
Challenges remain: The typical household earns 27% less than what they need to afford a home, about $84,000 a year, per Redfin data. Home prices are still high, too. The median asking price for newly listed homes for sale is $398,475, up 5.4% from a year ago, Redfin found.
While housing overall continues to be unaffordable for most buyers, “this is as good as it gets,” said Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow, as the market is generally seeing lower mortgage rates, more inventory and low buyer competition.
Here’s what buyers can expect in the coming months.
Lower home loan rates provide “a great opportunity for buyers who have been waiting,” Divounguy said.
Just because the Federal Reserve cut interest rates, it doesn’t “necessarily guarantee mortgage rates will continue to fall,” he said.
While mortgage rates are partly influenced by the Fed’s policy, they are also tied to Treasury yields and other economic data.
“Mortgage rates will go by the way of the economy,” said Melissa Cohn, regional vice president of William Raveis Mortgage in New York.
“If the economy shows signs of weakening … rates will come down,” Cohn said. “If we see the opposite, and that the economy is chugging along and employment gets stronger, it’s quite possible that rates will go up.”
On top of lower mortgage rates, a higher inventory of homes for sale makes the housing market more favorable for buyers, said Divounguy.
There were 1,350,000 homes for sale by the end of August, up 0.7% from a month prior, according to the National Association of Realtors. That inventory level was up 22.7% compared with August 2023.
Meanwhile, homebuilder confidence in the market for newly built single family homes improved in September, according to the National Association of Home Builders, or NAHB. Its survey also shows that the share of builders cutting prices in September was 32%, down one point. It’s the first decline since April, according to NAHB.
“That tells me that some builders are probably starting to see some increase in foot traffic,” said Divounguy, and that the market could get competitive again.
Price growth will depend on the level of existing home inventory, said Robert Dietz, chief economist at NAHB.
“Existing home inventory is expected to rise as the mortgage rate lock-in effect diminishes, placing some downward pressure on prices as well,” Dietz said.
The housing market is not going to get generally worse over the next 12 months, said Fairweather. If house hunters are discouraged because they haven’t found a home, they might have a better chance next year when there are more listings, Fairweather said.
But they risk higher competition, she warned.
“You’re trading one difficulty for another difficulty,” Fairweather said.
If mortgage rates further decline next year, the number of homes for sale might grow. Most homeowners are sitting on loans with record-low mortgage rates, creating a so-called “lock-in effect,” or “golden handcuff” effect, where they don’t want to sell and finance a new home at a higher rate.
“We’ll probably see more people who are buying, or selling to buy again,” said Fairweather, because high borrowing costs held them back.
