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Harris’ rise in polls sparks wave of wealth transfers to kids

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A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.

The tightening presidential race has touched off a wave of tax planning by ultra-wealthy investors, especially given fears of a higher estate tax, according to advisors and tax attorneys.

The scheduled “sunset” of a generous provision in the estate tax next year has taken on new urgency as the odds of a divided government or Democratic president have increased, tax experts say. Under current law, individuals can transfer up to $13.61 million (and couples can send up to $27.22 million) to family members or beneficiaries without owing estate or gift taxes.

The benefit is scheduled to expire at the end of 2025 along with the other individual provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. If it expires, the estate and gift tax exemption will fall by about half. Individuals will only be able to gift about $6 million to $7 million, and that rises to $12 million to $14 million for couples. Any assets transferred above those amounts will be subject to the 40% transfer tax.

Wealth advisors and tax attorneys said expectations of a Republican sweep in the first half of the year led many wealthy Americans to take a wait-and-see approach, since former President Donald Trump wants to extend the 2017 tax cuts for individuals.

Vice President Kamala Harris has advocated higher taxes for those those making more than $400,000.

With Harris and Trump essentially tied in the polls, the odds have increased that the estate tax benefits will expire — either through gridlock or tax hikes.

“There is a little increased urgency now,” said Pam Lucina, chief fiduciary officer for Northern Trust and head of its trust and advisory practice. “Some people have been holding off until now.”

The sunset of the exemption, and the response by the wealthy, has broad ripple effects on inheritances and the trillions of dollars set to pass from older to younger generations in the coming years. More than $84 trillion is expected to be transferred to younger generations in the coming decades, and the estate tax “cliff” is set to accelerate many of those gifts this year and next.

The biggest question facing wealthy families is how much to give, and when, in advance of any estate tax change. If they do nothing, and the estate exemption drops, they risk owing taxes on estates over $14 million if they die. On the other hand, if they give away the maximum now, and the estate tax provisions are extended, they may wind up with “givers’ remorse” — which comes when donors gave away money unnecessarily due to fears of tax changes that never happened.

“With givers’ remorse, we want to make sure clients look at the different scenarios,” Lucina said. “Will they need a lifestyle change? If it’s an irrevocable gift, can they afford it?”

Advisors say clients should make sure their gift decisions are driven as much by family dynamics and personalities as they are by taxes. While giving the maximum of $27.22 million may make sense today from a tax perspective, it may not always make sense from a family perspective.

“The first thing we do is separate out those individuals who were going to make the gift anyway from those who have never done it and are only motivated to do it now because of the sunset,” said Mark Parthemer, chief wealth strategist and regional director of Florida for Glenmede. “While it may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as it relates to the exemption, it’s not the only thing. We want individuals to have peace of mind regardless of how it plays out.”

Parthemer said today’s wealthy parents and grandparents need to make sure they are psychologically comfortable making large gifts.

“They’re asking ‘What if I live so long I outlive my money,'” Parthemer said. “We can do the math and figure out what makes sense. But there is also a psychological component to that. As people age, a lot of us become more concerned about our financial independence, regardless of whether the math tells us we’re independent or not.”

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Some families may also fear their kids aren’t ready for such large amounts. Wealthy families who planned to make big gifts years from now are feeling pressure from the tax change to go ahead with it now.

“Especially with families with younger children, a primary concern is having donors’ remorse,” said Ann Bjerke, head of the advanced planning group at UBS.

Advisors say families can structure their gifts to be flexible — gifting to a spouse first, for instance, before it goes to the kids. Or setting up trusts that trickle out the money over time and reduce the changes of “sudden wealth syndrome” for kids.

For families that plan to take advantage of the estate tax window, however, the time is now. It can take months to draft and file transfers. During a similar tax cliff in 2010, so many families rushed to process gifts and set up trusts that attorneys became overwhelmed and many clients were left stranded. Advisors say today’s gifters face the same risk if they wait until after the election.

“We’re already seeing some attorneys start to turn away new clients,” Lucina said.

Another risk with rushing is trouble with the IRS. Parthemer said the IRS recently unwound a strategy used by one couple, where the husband used his exemption to gift his kids money and gave his wife funds to regift using her own exemption.

“Both gifts were attributed to the wealthy spouse, triggering a gift tax,” he said. “You need to have time to measure twice and cut once, as they say.”

While advisors and tax attorneys said their wealthy clients are also calling them about other tax proposals in the campaign — from higher capital gains and corporate taxes to taxing unrealized gains — the estate tax sunset is far and away the most pressing and likely change.

“In the past month, inquiries have accelerated over the [estate exemption],” Bjerke said. “A lot of people were sitting on the sidelines waiting to implement their wealth-planning strategies. Now, more people are executing.”

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Apple iPhone assembly in India won’t cushion China tariffs: Moffett

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Street's biggest Apple bear says a production move to India is unrealistic

Leading analyst Craig Moffett suggests any plans to move U.S. iPhone assembly to India is unrealistic.

Moffett, ranked as a top analyst multiple times by Institutional Investor, sent a memo to clients on Friday after the Financial Times reported Apple was aiming to shift production toward India from China by the end of next year.

He’s questioning how a move could bring down costs tied to tariffs because the iPhone components would still be made in China.

“You have a tremendous menu of problems created by tariffs, and moving to India doesn’t solve all the problems. Now granted, it helps to some degree,” the MoffettNathanson partner and senior managing director told CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Friday. “I would question how that’s going to work.”

Moffett contends it’s not so easy to diversify to India — telling clients Apple’s supply chain would still be anchored in China and would likely face resistance.

“The bottom line is a global trade war is a two-front battle, impacting costs and sales. Moving assembly to India might (and we emphasize might) help with the former. The latter may ultimately be the bigger issue,” he wrote to clients.

Moffett cut his Apple price target on Monday to $141 from $184 a share. It implies a 33% drop from Friday’s close. The price target is also the Street low, according to FactSet.

“I don’t think of myself as the biggest Apple bear,” he said. “I think quite highly of Apple. My concern about Apple has been the valuation more than the company.”

Moffett has had a “sell” rating on Apple since Jan. 7. Since then, the company’s shares are down about 14%.

“None of this is because Apple is a bad company. They still have a great balance sheet [and] a great consumer franchise,” he said. “It’s just the reality of there are no good answers when you are a product company, and your products are going to be significantly tariffed, and you’re heading into a market that is likely to have at least some deceleration in consumer demand because of the macro economy.”

Moffett notes Apple also isn’t getting help from its carriers to cushion the blow of tariffs.

“You also have the demand destruction that’s created by potentially higher prices. Remember, you had AT&T, Verizon and T. Mobile all this week come out and say we’re not going to underwrite the additional cost of tariff [on] handsets,” he added. “The consumer is going to have to pay for that. So, you’re going to have some demand destruction that’s going to show up in even longer holding periods and slower upgrade rates — all of which probably trims estimates next year’s consensus.”

According to Moffett, the backlash against Apple in China over U.S. tariffs will also hurt iPhone sales.

“It’s a very real problem,” Moffett said. “Volumes are really going to the Huaweis and the Vivos and the local competitors in China rather than to Apple.”

Apple stock is coming off a winning week — up more than 6%. It comes ahead of the iPhone maker’s quarterly earnings report due next Thursday after the market close.

To get more personalized investment strategies, join us for our next “Fast Money” Live event on Thursday, June 5, at the Nasdaq in Times Square.

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Warren Buffett’s top stock picks come with 15% income bonus in new ETF

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Invest like Buffett: VistaShares CEO on new ETF that follows the investor

In a year that hasn’t been kind to many big-name stocks, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is standing near the top. Berkshire shares have posted a 17% return year-to-date, while the S&P 500 index is down 6%.

That performance places Berkshire among the top 10% of the U.S. market’s large-cap leaders, and the run has been getting Buffett more attention ahead of next weekend’s annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s also good timing for the recently launched VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF (OMAH), which holds the top 20 most heavily weighted stocks in Berkshire Hathaway, as well as shares of Berkshire Hathaway. 

Berkshire is currently the biggest holding in the ETF, at 10.6% of the fund. Other top holdings in the ETF from among the ranks of Berkshire’s biggest bets include Apple, American Express, Kroger, VeriSign, Bank of America, Citigroup, Visa and of course Coca-Cola, a long time favorite of the man known as the Oracle of Omaha.

“It’s a really well-balanced portfolio chosen by the most successful investor the world has ever seen,” Adam Patti, CEO of VistaShares, said in an appearance this week on CNBC’s “ETF Edge.”

Berkshire’s outperformance of the S&P 500 isn’t limited to 2025. Buffett’s stock has tripled the performance of the market over the past year, and its 185% return over the past five years is more than double the performance of the S&P 500.

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Berkshire Hathaway is one of 2025’s top performing stocks.

In addition to this long-term track record of success in the market, Berkshire Hathaway is getting a lot of attention right now for the record amount of cash Buffett is holding as he trimmed stakes in big stocks including Apple, which has proven to be a great strategy. The S&P 500 has experienced extreme short-term volatility since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Even after a recent recovery, the S&P is still down 8% since the start of Trump’s second term.

“The market has been momentum driven for many years, the switch has flipped and we’re looking at quality in terms of exposure, and Berkshire Hathaway has performed incredibly well this year, handily outperforming the S&P 500,” said Patti.

Berkshire Hathaway famously doesn’t pay a dividend, with Buffett holding firm over many decades in the belief that he can re-invest cash to create more value for shareholders. In a letter to shareholders in February, Buffett wrote that Berkshire shareholders “can rest assured that we will forever deploy a substantial majority of their money in equities — mostly American equities.”

The lack of a dividend payment has been an issue over the years for some shareholders at Berkshire who do want income from the market, according to Patti, who added that his firm conducted research among investors in designing the ETF. “Who doesn’t want to invest like Buffett, but with income?” he said.

So, in addition to being tied to the performance of Berkshire and the stock picks of Buffett, the VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF is designed to produce income of 15% annually through a strategy of selling call options and distributing monthly payments of 1.25% to shareholders. This income strategy has become more popular in the ETF space, with more asset managers launching funds to capture income opportunities and more investors adopting the approach amid market volatility.

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More Americans buy groceries with buy now, pay later loans

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People shop for produce at a Walmart in Rosemead, California, on April 11, 2025. 

Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty Images

A growing number of Americans are using buy now, pay later loans to buy groceries, and more people are paying those bills late, according to new Lending Tree data released Friday

The figures are the latest indicator that some consumers are cracking under the pressure of an uncertain economy and are having trouble affording essentials such as groceries as they contend with persistent inflation, high interest rates and concerns around tariffs

In a survey conducted April 2-3 of 2,000 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 79, around half reported having used buy now, pay later services. Of those consumers, 25% of respondents said they were using BNPL loans to buy groceries, up from 14% in 2024 and 21% in 2023, the firm said.

Meanwhile, 41% of respondents said they made a late payment on a BNPL loan in the past year, up from 34% in the year prior, the survey found.

Lending Tree’s chief consumer finance analyst, Matt Schulz, said that of those respondents who said they paid a BNPL bill late, most said it was by no more than a week or so.

“A lot of people are struggling and looking for ways to extend their budget,” Schulz said. “Inflation is still a problem. Interest rates are still really high. There’s a lot of uncertainty around tariffs and other economic issues, and it’s all going to add up to a lot of people looking for ways to extend their budget however they can.”

“For an awful lot of people, that’s going to mean leaning on buy now, pay later loans, for better or for worse,” he said. 

He stopped short of calling the results a recession indicator but said conditions are expected to decline further before they get better.  

“I do think it’s going to get worse, at least in the short term,” said Schulz. “I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of reason to expect these numbers to get better in the near term.”

The loans, which allow consumers to split up purchases into several smaller payments, are a popular alternative to credit cards because they often don’t charge interest. But consumers can see high fees if they pay late, and they can run into problems if they stack up multiple loans. In Lending Tree’s survey, 60% of BNPL users said they’ve had multiple loans at once, with nearly a fourth saying they have held three or more at once. 

“It’s just really important for people to be cautious when they use these things, because even though they can be a really good interest-free tool to help you kind of make it from one paycheck to the next, there’s also a lot of risk in mismanaging it,” said Schulz. “So people should tread lightly.” 

Lending Tree’s findings come after Billboard revealed that about 60% of general admission Coachella attendees funded their concert tickets with buy now, pay later loans, sparking a debate on the state of the economy and how consumers are using debt to keep up their lifestyles. A recent announcement from DoorDash that it would begin accepting BNPL financing from Klarna for food deliveries led to widespread mockery and jokes that Americans were struggling so much that they were now being forced to finance cheeseburgers and burritos.

Over the last few years, consumers have held up relatively well, even in the face of persistent inflation and high interest rates, because the job market was strong and wage growth had kept up with inflation — at least for some workers. 

Earlier this year, however, large companies including Walmart and Delta Airlines began warning that the dynamic had begun to shift and they were seeing cracks in demand, which was leading to worse-than-expected sales forecasts. 

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