Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading: Colgate-Palmolive — Shares slipped 4% after the household products company reported fourth-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ expectations and forecast weak 2025 sales given negative effects from foreign exchange rates. KLA Corporation — The stock climbed 2% after the semiconductor company posted a top- and bottom-line beat in the fiscal second quarter. KLA reported adjusted earnings of $8.20 per share on revenue of $3.08 billion. This came above the $7.75 per share and $2.94 billion in revenue that analysts expected, per LSEG. Vertex Pharmaceuticals — The biotech stock jumped 7% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ non-opioid painkiller pill. Vertex is the first drugmaker in decades to get U.S. approval for a new type of pain medicine. Vertex’s new pill is a new alternative for pain relief that comes without the risk of addiction. Deckers Outdoor — The Ugg and Hoka parent tumbled about 17%. Deckers raised its full-year revenue guidance to $4.9 billion, but it fell short of the $4.93 billion expected by analysts polled by LSEG. Fiscal third-quarter results surpassed Wall Street’s estimates on the top and bottom lines, however. AbbVie — Shares of the pharmaceutical company soared 6% after AbbVie beat expectations on the top and bottom lines in the fourth quarter. The company reported adjusted earnings of $2.16 per share, while analysts surveyed by FactSet called for earnings of $2.12 per share. The company also reaffirmed a high single-digit compound annual revenue growth rate through 2029. Atlassian — Shares surged about 16%, hitting a new 52-week high , after the software company posted better-than-expected fiscal second-quarter results. For the period, Atlassian posted adjusted earnings of 96 cents per share on revenue of $1.29 billion. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had anticipated earnings of 76 cents per share and $1.24 billion in revenue. Walgreens Boots Alliance — The struggling pharmacy chain saw shares plunge more than 7% after the company announced it will suspend its quarterly cash dividend. Walgreens said in a press release that it is in the middle of “long-term turnaround efforts” and is aiming to fortify its balance sheet by reducing debt and improving free cash flow. Chevron — The oil giant shed 3.8% after it missed on earnings in the fourth quarter. Chevron reported adjusted earnings of $2.06 per share, while analysts had forecast $2.11 per share, according to LSEG. The weakness was attributed to its refining business, which posted its first loss in four years. Meanwhile, revenue came in at $52.23 billion, topping the consensus call for $46.75 billion. Beazer Homes — Shares lost 16% after Beazer Homes posted fiscal first-quarter earnings that were below consensus expectations. Beazer’s earnings of 10 cents per share missed the 31 cents expected by analysts, per FactSet. Its revenue of $468.9 million exceeded the $464.4 million consensus estimate, however. Eastman Chemical — Shares added 9% after the chemicals company exceeded fourth-quarter estimates, reporting adjusted earnings of $1.87 per share, while analysts polled by FactSet were looking for $1.57 per share. The top end of Eastman’s full-year earnings outlook also surpassed consensus expectations. Palantir Technologies — Shares of the defense tech company popped 4% to reach a new 52-week high. Palantir is slated to report its quarterly results on Monday. Shares are up more than 420% over the past 12 months. — CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Michelle Fox Theobald and Hakyung Kim contributed reporting.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, leaves the U.S. Capitol after a meeting with Republican members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on the issue of debanking on Thursday, February 13, 2025.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
For years, American financial companies have fought the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — the chief U.S. consumer finance watchdog — in the courts and media, portraying the agency as illegitimate and as unfairly targeting industry players.
Now, with the CFPB on life support after the Trump administration issued a stop-work order and shuttered its headquarters, the agency finds itself with an unlikely ally: the same banks that reliably complained about its rules and enforcement actions under former director Rohit Chopra.
That’s because if the Trump administration succeeds in reducing the CFPB to a shell of its former self, banks would find themselves competing directly with non-bank financial players, from big tech and fintech firms to mortgage, auto and payday lenders, that enjoy far less federal scrutiny than FDIC-backed institutions.
“The CFPB is the only federal agency that supervises non-depository institutions, so that would go away,” said David Silberman, a veteran banking attorney who lectures at Yale Law School. “Payment apps like PayPal, Stripe, Cash App, those sorts of things, they would get close to a free ride at the federal level.”
The shift could wind the clock back to a pre-2008 environment, where it was largely left to state officials to prevent consumers from being ripped off by non-bank providers. The CFPB was created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis that was caused by irresponsible lending.
But since then, digital players have made significant inroads by offering banking services via mobile phone apps. Fintechs led by PayPal and Chime had roughly as many new accounts last year as all large and regional banks combined, according to data from Cornerstone Advisors.
“If you’re the big banks, you certainly don’t want a world in which the non-banks have much greater degrees of freedom and much less regulatory oversight than the banks do,” Silberman said.
Keep the exams
The CFPB and its employees are in limbo after acting Director Russell Vought took over last month, issuing a flurry of directives to the agency’s then 1,700 staffers. Working with operatives from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Vought quickly laid off about 200 workers, reportedly took steps to end the agency’s building lease and canceled reams of contracts required for legally-mandated duties.
In internal emails released Friday, CFPB Chief Operating Officer Adam Martinez detailed plans to remove roughly 800 supervision and enforcement workers.
Senior executives at the CFPB shared plans for more layoffs that would leave the agency with just five employees, CNBC has reported. That would kneecap the agency’s ability to carry out its supervision and enforcement duties.
That appears to go beyond what even the Consumer Bankers Association, a frequent CFPB critic, would want. The CBA, which represents the country’s biggest retail banks, has sued the CFPB in the past year to scuttle rules limiting overdraft and credit card late fees. More recently, it noted the CFPB’s role in keeping a level playing field among market participants.
“We believe that new leadership understands the need for examinations for large banks to continue, given the intersections with prudential regulatory examinations,” said Lindsey Johnson, president of the CBA, in a statement provided to CNBC. “Importantly, the CFPB is the sole examiner of non-bank financial institutions.”
Vought’s plans to hobble the agency were halted by a federal judge, who is now considering the merits of a lawsuit brought by a CFPB union asking for a preliminary injunction.
A hearing where Martinez is scheduled to testify is set for Monday.
‘Good luck’
In the meantime, bank executives have gone from antagonists of the CFPB to among those concerned it will disappear.
At a late October bankers convention in New York, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon encouraged his peers to “fight back” against regulators. A few months before that, the bank said that it could sue the CFPB over its investigation into peer-to-peer payments network Zelle.
“We are suing our regulators over and over and over because things are becoming unfair and unjust, and they are hurting companies, a lot of these rules are hurting lower-paid individuals,” Dimon said at the convention.
Now, there’s growing consensus that an initial push to “delete” the CFPB is a mistake. Besides increasing the threat posed from non-banks, current rules from the CFPB would still be on the books, but nobody would be around to update them as the industry evolves.
Small banks and credit unions would be even more disadvantaged than their larger peers if the CFPB were to go away, industry advocates say, since they were never regulated by the agency and would face the same regulatory scrutiny as before.
“The conventional wisdom is not right that banks just want the CFPB to go away, or that banks want regulator consolidation,” said an executive at a major U.S. bank who declined to be identified speaking about the Trump administration. “They want thoughtful policies that will support economic growth and maintain safety and soundness.”
A senior CFPB lawyer who lost his position in recent weeks said that the industry’s alignment with Republicans may have backfired.
“They’re about to live in a world in which the entire non-bank financial services industry is unregulated every day, while they are overseen by the Federal Reserve, FDIC and OCC,” the lawyer said. “It’s a world where Apple, PayPal, Cash App and X run wild for four years. Good luck.”
Check out the companies making headlines in premarket trading. Bank stocks — Shares of major banks were under pressure Monday as worries over a possible U.S. economic slowdown weighed on them. JPMorgan Chase dropped more than 1% along with Citigroup , Wells Fargo , Bank of America , Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs . DoorDash , Coinbase — DoorDash added 3% on news that the food delivery company will join the S & P 500 effective March 24. Coinbase, meanwhile, shed 5% after being snubbed for inclusion in the index. Samsara — The software stock added 1.6% following an upgrade to overweight from Piper Sandler . Analyst James Fish forecast that recent selling pressure on the stock is largely overdone. Redfin — The real estate brokerage skyrocketed more than 75% in the premarket after announcing plans to be acquired by Rocket Companies in a $1.75 billion all-stock deal. The deal is expected to close in the second or third quarter of this year. Nvidia — Shares of the chipmaker pulled back 2% before the bell. That adds to recent woes for the megacap tech stock, with shares down more than 9% just last week and around 16% this year. Cracker Barrel — The restaurant brand ticked up 1.2% after Truist upgraded Cracker Barrel to buy, with the firm citing the company’s turnaround plans yielding results over the last two quarters. Tesla — The electric vehicle company slipped 2%, continuing its recent slide. Tesla is now in the cusp of erasing its post-election gains. Oracle – Shares of the database software company fell nearly 2% ahead of its earnings results due out after the bell on Monday. The stock has shed nearly 7% this year and more than 13% in the past month. Novo Nordisk — The Danish pharmaceutical company slipped more than 6% after trial results for its weight-loss drug CagriSema showed the treatment yielded a smaller impact for patients than previous tests. Palantir Technologies — The stock dropped 4%, adding to its recent struggles as the broader market sells off. Over the past month, Palantir shares have tumbled more than 27%. — CNBC’s Alex Harring, Sean Conlon and Michelle Fox contributed reporting
Chinese tech companies raced to launch new products in a week that saw Beijing double down on its calls to support artificial intelligence. An obscure Chinese startup that goes by the name Monica on Wednesday announced an invite-only AI application called Manus that claims to streamline analysis of resumes and financial information using several models from companies such as OpenAI, DeepSeek and Anthropic. “The innovation is probably not as significant as DeepSeek,“ in our view, Nomura China technology analyst Bing Duan and a team wrote Thursday. “However, we believe this product is yet another example of China’s accelerated AI innovation.” “We believe that the AI infrastructure investment upcycle has started in China’s AI value chain, which should benefit from leading suppliers exposed to China’s major Internet/Telecom companies’ capex on cloud and AI infrastructure,” the analysts said. Three of their picks are mainland China-listed printed circuit board companies that have partnerships with China AI tech leaders, according to Nomura: Shennan Circuits, Shengyi Technology and WUS PCB. The firm also likes Shenzhen-listed Accelink for its position as a leading supplier of optical transceivers which can facilitate the high-speed data transmissions needed to develop AI. Nomura rates all four stocks as buys. Tech’s leadership in Chinese stocks As China faces increased tariffs and slowing economic growth, policymakers in the last week announced a rare increase in its deficit — along with plans to ramp up subsidies for consumer trade-ins and financing for tech companies. Several senior officials publicly lauded the rise of DeepSeek AI, and they emphasized how restrictions have only pushed Chinese companies to work harder on tech. The messaging on technology is “encouraging, a strong signal to support both innovation and the private sector,” Nicholas Yeo, head of China equities at abrdn, said in a note. “With valuations of the internet sector cheap relative to U.S. counterparts, alongside the support of the authorities to boost the nation’s AI capabilities, we think this remain a very attractive opportunity for investors,” he said. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index gained 5.6% last week while hitting a three-year high. The CSI 300 fell by about 1.4% for the week. Tech has led most of the recent gains in Chinese stocks, which is reflected in the outperformance of the Hang Seng Index versus mainland Chinese stocks, known as A shares, said Aaron Costello, head of Asia at Cambridge Associates. He pointed out that most major Chinese tech names are traded in Hong Kong. If China’s stimulus starts to see economic results, A shares should see another leg up as gains broaden out, he said. Tencent and AI Helping the Hang Seng Index’s gains was a surge in Alibaba’s Hong Kong-traded shares to a new 52-week high. The e-commerce company revealed a new AI reasoning model that it claims performs just as well as DeepSeek’s R1 model. Tencent , also traded in Hong Kong, a week earlier launched the latest version of its Hunyuan AI model, Turbo S, which claims to beat DeepSeek V3 , OpenAI’s GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Llama 3.1 on certain key metrics such as MMLU, Math and Chinese. Tencent also released a new T1 reasoning model based on the Turbo S. The T1 is currently accessible through the Yuanbao app, which says it also offers DeepSeek access. “We’d argue the last few weeks have presented ample evidence in favor of Tencent’s ability to productionize AI,” Bernstein China Internet analyst Robin Zhu and a team said in a report Wednesday that named Tencent their top China AI play. “Tencent’s recent moves on implementing DeepSeek within its family of apps make it clear that this was one of the times Tencent’s top management decided the troops must be rallied for a common goal,” the analysts said. “The company has moved quickly to implement DeepSeek across its family of digital ecosystems — including WeChat and AI assistant Yuanbao, but also Peacekeeper Elite within the video gaming portfolio.” The Bernstein analysts raised their price target on Tencent to 640 Hong Kong dollars, up from 540 HKD, for upside of 20% from Friday’s close. The firm rates the stock overweight. “Tencent’s AI assistant Yuanbao is now being downloaded at a faster rate than both Bytedance’s Doubao and the DeepSeek app,” the analysts said. “Social advertising is a tried and tested monetisation pathway for AI advancements, and Yuanbao growth potentially sets up a larger search ads business over time.” Tencent is set to release quarterly results on March 19. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
Blog Post1 week ago
Economics1 week ago
Economics1 week ago
Personal Finance1 week ago
Finance1 week ago
Personal Finance1 week ago
Finance1 week ago
Economics4 days ago