Connect with us

Finance

Trump says he’s not going to make any stock market predictions in case there’s a ‘dip’

Published

on

President-elect Trump to Jim Cramer: This is going to be a country like no other long term

After ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, President-elect Donald Trump stopped short of telling investors to buy more stock as he gets set to take office.

“I don’t want to get into a situation where they do and we have a dip or something, because that can always happen,” Trump told CNBC’s Jim Cramer during “Squawk on the Street.”

Trump repeatedly used the stock market as a performance barometer during his first term. In that time, the S&P 500 scaled nearly 68% — reaching all-time highs. Part of that was due to corporate tax cuts passed by the administration at the time. The Federal Reserve also maintained interest rates close to historical lows back then as it tried to spur inflation — also boosting stock prices.

President-elect Donald Trump is greeted by traders, as he walks the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in New York.

Alex Brandon | AP

He touted at the exchange on Thursday the possibility of lowering taxes again. “We’re gonna do things that haven’t really been done before. We’re gonna cut taxes still further,” he said. “You pay 21% if you don’t build here. If you do, we’re going to try and get it to 15%, but you have to build your product, make your product in the USA.”

Wall Street CEOs and investors such as Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon and Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman came to the NYSE for Trump’s bell-ringing ceremony. Ackman told CNBC later that “most of the country understands that the more successful businesses are, the more the stock market goes up, the more that their wages rise, the more job growth, the more opportunity, the more businesses who come to this country, it lifts all boats.”

To be sure, while Trump refrained from telling investors to buy stocks now, he maintained a bullish outlook longer term.

“I think long term this is going to be a country like no other. We had the three best years ever until Covid came,” he said after being named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

—With reporting by Yun Li

Continue Reading

Finance

Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says markets are too complacent

Published

on

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 de-banking on Feb. 13, 2025.

Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday that markets and central bankers underappreciate the risks created by record U.S. deficits, tariffs and international tensions.

Dimon, the veteran CEO and chairman of the biggest U.S. bank by assets, explained his worldview during his bank’s annual investor day meeting in New York. He said he believes the risks of higher inflation and even stagflation aren’t properly represented by stock market values, which have staged a comeback from lows in April.

“We have huge deficits; we have what I consider almost complacent central banks,” Dimon said. “You all think they can manage all this. I don’t think” they can, he said.

“My own view is people feel pretty good because you haven’t seen effective tariffs” yet, Dimon said. “The market came down 10%, [it’s] back up 10%; that’s an extraordinary amount of complacency.”

Dimon’s comments follow Moody’s rating agency downgrading the U.S. credit rating on Friday over concerns about the government’s growing debt burden. Markets have been whipsawed the past few months over worries that President Donald Trump‘s trade policies will raise inflation and slow the world’s largest economy.

Dimon said Monday that he believed Wall Street earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies, which have already declined in the first weeks of Trump’s trade policies, will fall further as companies pull or lower guidance amid the uncertainty.

In six months, those projections will fall to 0% earnings growth after starting the year at around 12%, Dimon said. If that were to happen, stocks prices will likely fall.

“I think earnings estimates will come down, which means PE will come down,” Dimon said, referring to the “price to earnings” ratio tracked closely by stock market analysts.

The odds of stagflation, “which is basically a recession with inflation,” are roughly double what the market thinks, Dimon added.

Separately, one of Dimon’s top deputies said that corporate clients are still in “wait-and-see” mode when it comes to acquisitions and other deals.

Investment banking revenue is headed for a “mid-teens” percentage decline in the second quarter compared with the year-earlier period, while trading revenue was trending higher by a “mid-to-high” single digit percentage, said Troy Rohrbaugh, a co-head of the firm’s commercial and investment bank.

On the ever-present question of Dimon’s timeline to hand over the CEO reins to one of his deputies, Dimon said that nothing changed from his guidance last year, when he said he would likely remain for less than five more years.

“If I’m here for four more years, and maybe two more” as executive chairman, Dimon said, “that’s a long time.”

Of all the executive presentations given Monday, consumer banking chief Marianne Lake had the longest speaking time at a full hour. She is considered a top successor candidate, especially after Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Piepszak said she would not be seeking the top job.

Continue Reading

Finance

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: UNH, TSLA, BABA

Published

on

Continue Reading

Finance

Klarna doubles losses in first quarter as IPO remains on hold

Published

on

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, speaking at a fintech event in London on Monday, April 4, 2022.

Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Klarna saw its losses jump in the first quarter as the popular buy now, pay later firm applies the brakes on a hotly anticipated U.S. initial public offering.

The Swedish payments startup said its net loss for the first three months of 2025 totaled $99 million — significantly worse than the $47 million loss it reported a year ago. Klarna said this was due to several one-off costs related to depreciation, share-based payments and restructuring.

Revenues at the firm increased 13% year-over-year to $701 million. Klarna said it now has 100 million active users and 724,00 merchant partners globally.

It comes as Klarna remains in pause mode regarding a highly anticipated U.S. IPO that was at one stage set to value the SoftBank-backed company at over $15 billion.

Klarna put its IPO plans on hold last month due to market turbulence caused by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans. Online ticketing platform StubHub also put its IPO plans on ice.

Prior to the IPO delay, Klarna had been on a marketing blitz touting itself as an artificial intelligence-powered fintech. The company partnered up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI in 2023. A year later, Klarna used OpenAI technology to create an AI customer service assistant.

Last week, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company was able to shrink its headcount by about 40%, in part due to investments in AI.

Watch CNBC's full interview with Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski

Continue Reading

Trending