Raphael Stevens

The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a rule that exempts all U.S. companies and U.S. owners from filing reports about “beneficial ownership information.”
Lawmakers sought such information to help curb criminal activity and illicit finance conducted through opaque shell companies. It came with financial penalties for noncompliance.
The move is part of a broader deregulatory push by the Trump administration.

Kent Nishimura | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Treasury is scrapping a requirement for U.S. small businesses to report information about their owners to the federal government. It’s the latest twist in an on-again-off-again saga for the fledgling rule.
The Corporate Transparency Act, passed in 2021, required millions of businesses to report basic information on their “beneficial owners.” By identifying who owned certain entities, lawmakers sought to curb criminal activity and illicit finance conducted through opaque shell companies.

The rule was set to take effect on March 21, following months of delays in court. It carried financial penalties, potentially thousands of dollars, for noncompliance.
However, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network — also known as FinCEN, which is part of the Treasury — issued an interim final rule on March 21 exempting all U.S. citizens and U.S. companies from the reporting requirement.
The rule is open to public comment and set to be finalized later this year.

‘This absolutely waters down the rule’

If it stands, the FinCEN rule would be a significant departure from the purpose of the Corporate Transparency Act and would offer loopholes for criminals to continue laundering money through U.S. entities, according to legal experts.
“This absolutely waters down the rule,” said Erin Bryan, partner and co-chair of the consumer financial services group at Dorsey & Whitney. “Plenty of shell companies are going to be exempt from reporting now,” she added.

Some foreign companies that do business in the U.S. will still be required to file reports, FinCEN said.
FinCEN estimates that this revised reporting requirement will apply to about 20,000 entities in the first year — greatly reduced from the 32.6 million entities, including certain corporations, limited liability companies and others previously estimated to be subject to the reporting requirement in year one.
Most of the Western world already has such requirements in place, Bryan said.
FinCEN declined to comment for this story.

A deregulatory push

The policy change is consistent with President Donald Trump’s deregulatory directive, FinCEN director Andrea Gacki, who assumed her position in 2023, wrote in the interim final rule.
The Trump administration had already suspended enforcement of the requirement earlier this month. Civil penalties could have amounted to as much as $591 a day, in addition to up to $10,000 in criminal fines and up to two years in prison.
More from Personal Finance:How investors can ready portfolios for a recessionSenators press Trump Social Security nominee on privatizationEqual Pay Day highlights stalled pay gap progress
The Treasury “reassessed the balance between the usefulness of collecting [beneficial ownership information] and the regulatory burdens imposed by the scope of the Reporting Rule,” Gacki wrote.
Officials took illicit finance risks, alternative sources of information, the “burdens” of data collection and the public interest into account, she wrote.

Potential loopholes

Reporting requirements remain in effect for certain foreign companies that were formed in another country and are registered to do business in the U.S., Bryan said.
However, if such entities had a U.S.-based beneficial owner, they are no longer obligated to report information on that person, Bryan added,
“In the world of potential shell companies, this is a small subset that we’re dealing with” who still have to provide reports on beneficial owners, she said.

Some observers believe the interim rule would easily allow criminals to skirt detection.
“From this day forward, criminals can evade this national security law by simply starting and running those front companies inside the United States,” Scott Greytak, director of advocacy for Transparency International U.S., a coalition against corruption, said in a statement. More

How much would Capital One’s stock be worth if it completes its blockbuster merger of Discover Financial Services ? The answer, according to one Wall Street firm, is a whole lot more. The news In a Tuesday note, BTIG analysts said they believe shares of Capital One would be worth $427 apiece if the Discover deal is completed — implying eye-popping upside of more than 137% from Monday’s close. The analysts upgraded the stock to a buy rating from hold in the same note. “We see significant earnings power as Capital One fully utilizes Discover’s network to take market share in the prime transactor credit card space,” the analysts wrote. “It has long been a [Discover] investor bull case that Discover has an unpolished diamond in its payments network,” and Capital One’s technology capabilities could help the network better compete against rival operators Visa and Mastercard, the analysts argued. BTIG is upbeat on Capital One’s stock even if the merger, which is awaiting approval from a pair of financial regulators, does not go through. The firm’s price target of $208 a share values the company on a standalone basis and implies about 15% upside from Monday’s close. The primary reason that BTIG still likes Capital One, even on its own, is all the excess capital that the firm has built up since the $35 billion acquisition was announced in February 2024. That could enable Capital One to repurchase $25 billion in stock over the next three years instead, equivalent to 12% of the company, analysts predicted, providing a major lift to earnings per share. Analysts also said that while Capital One is not totally immune to a weakening consumer, its decision to tighten underwriting standards a few years ago was smart and improves its competitive positioning against the likes of American Express and Ally Financial . Shares of Capital One are up nearly 1% Tuesday. COF YTD mountain Capital One Financial (COF) year-to-date performance Big picture BTIG’s optimistic call arrives roughly a week after Capital One’s stock fell in response to an unconfirmed report about the Justice Department’s thinking on the Capital One-Discover merger. The report specifically said the DOJ is concerned about the combined entity’s concentration in the subprime credit cart market. In response, a Capital One spokesperson told CNBC that the deal remains “well-positioned to gain approval” and meets all legal requirements. Citi, KBW and Jefferies all came to the stock’s defense last week, with analysts at each firm still expecting the deal to be completed. Capital One shares have rebounded from that initial sell-off on March 17 and traded above $182 apiece Tuesday — up nearly 6% since March 14, outperforming both the S & P 500 overall and the financial sector in that stretch. The antirust discussion also comes against the backdrop of a legal battle between Capital One and President Donald Trump’s family business. The Trump Organization filed a lawsuit against the credit card lender on March 7, alleging that Capital One violated consumer protections laws by closing its accounts in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Capital One has said it does not close customer accounts for political reasons. Bottom line We’re quite bullish on Capital One — even if we haven’t thrown out an estimate of what the stock would be worth post-Discover like BTIG has with its $427 figure. Our current price target of $210 a share is pretty close to the firm’s standalone target. The pending Discover deal is a major reason why we first initiated a position in Capital One earlier this month. If completed, Capital One will be able to shift some of its transactions onto Discover’s payments network, reducing what it has to pay out in fees to Mastercard and Visa . “We tell people to hold on with this one,” Jim Cramer said during Tuesday’s Morning Meeting . While it’s encouraging to see BTIG’s positivity on Capital One even as a standalone player, our belief remains that the Discover acquisition will go through. Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank will do whatever it takes to appease regulators if there are, in fact, antitrust concerns. One compromise could include a possible sale of Discover’s subprime portfolio. “They could sell a piece of that business, and because the deal is still so accretive, it just makes sense to do what you can to get the deal to go through,” said Jeff Marks, the Investing Club’s director of portfolio analysis. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long COF. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

Screens display the logos and trading information for Capital One Financial and Discover Financial as traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on Feb. 20, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters More

U.S. merchants who use JPMorgan to handle payments can now add Affirm to their checkout pages, according to a release.
Consumers will have access to loans ranging from 30 days to 60 months, according to Affirm.
The deal follows a similar announcement from rival Klarna last month, in which the Swedish fintech said it would be available to JPMorgan’s merchants.

Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and Affirm
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Fintech lender Affirm said Tuesday that it’s reached an agreement with JPMorgan Chase to offer its buy now, pay later loan services to merchants on the bank’s payments network.
U.S. merchants who use JPMorgan to handle payments can now add Affirm to their checkout pages, according to a release. Consumers will have access to loans ranging from 30 days to 60 months, according to Affirm.

The deal follows a similar announcement from rival Klarna last month, in which the Swedish fintech said it would be available to JPMorgan’s merchants. Affirm and Klarna are increasingly going head to head as the buy now, pay later field matures in the U.S.; Affirm is publicly traded and seeking to reliably grow profits, while Klarna recently filed for a U.S. IPO.
“The demand for diverse payment options, flexibility, and seamless transactions from both merchants and their customers is at an all-time high,” Michael Lozanoff, global head of merchant services at J.P. Morgan Payments, said in the release.
“By incorporating Affirm as a payment method into our Commerce Platform, we are empowering businesses to deliver the services they need and the experiences that customers increasingly expect as part of their retail journey,” he said.
Affirm said the deal was an expansion of existing banking and processing relationships with JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets. More

China courted the executives of major U.S. businesses at an annual conference this week — a sign of how Beijing seeks to offset trade pressures, rather than retaliate forcefully.
Chinese attendees weren’t that focused on what can be done to respond to U.S. tariffs, Stephen Roach, senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, told CNBC.
At this week’s conference, China was trying to send a message of “reassurance” — on how it plans to boost consumption and how the country is headed in a “modestly positive direction” relative to what is happening in the United States, said Scott Kennedy, senior advisor and trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Attendees pose for a group photo before the opening ceremony of the China Development Forum 2025 at the Diaoyutai Guesthouse on March 23, 2025, in Beijing.
China News Service | China News Service | Getty Images

BEIJING — China courted the executives of major U.S. businesses at an annual conference this week in a sign of how Beijing seeks to offset trade pressures, rather than retaliate forcefully.
China has long sought to attract foreign investment as a way to bolster growth, while tapping business interests for potential influence on the White House, particularly under U.S. President Donald Trump. The U.S. has twice increased tariffs across all Chinese goods since January, but Beijing has only announced targeted duties and restrictions on a handful of American companies.

Conversation on the sidelines of the state-organized China Development Forum this week in Beijing reinforced a more conciliatory stance than official rhetoric this month about how China is prepared to fight “any type of war” with the United States.
Chinese conference attendees weren’t that focused on what can be done to respond to U.S. tariffs, Stephen Roach, senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, told CNBC.
“The questions I’ve been getting more [are], why is Trump doing this? What is he trying to achieve? What does he think it takes to really make America great?” Roach said. He has attended the event since the early 2000s.

“My answer is this is an unprecedented period for America’s role in the world economy. We’re going back to a tariff regime that history tells us can be extremely destructive,” Roach said, adding he expects more policy uncertainty in the U.S. and around the world “for a long, long time.”
U.S. stocks have swung in recent weeks as investors try to assess the economic impact of Trump’s changing plans for tariffs on major U.S. trading partners. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell last week said tariffs could delay progress on lowering inflation in the U.S.

A message of ‘reassurance’

At this week’s conference, China was trying to send a message of “reassurance” — on how it plans to boost consumption and how the country is headed in a “modestly positive direction” relative to what is happening in the U.S., said Scott Kennedy, senior advisor and trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.
If the U.S. imposes significantly large tariffs in early April, “then you go from managing costs and de-risking to possibly de-coupling,” Kennedy told CNBC. “And then that might mean the game is up. So I think the level of anxiety is pretty high. And that’s why China is trying to provide this message of reassurance.”
The Trump administration has threatened a swath of new tariffs on major trading partners starting early April. China has increased its trade with Southeast Asian countries and the European Union, but the U.S. remains Beijing’s largest trading partner on a single-country basis.
The China Development Forum ran Sunday and Monday. Apple CEO Tim Cook was among the executives who attended, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk was not.
“The increased optimism this year compared to last year at the CDF has been just so heart warming,” Ken Griffin, CEO of hedge fund Citadel, said during an official panel at the forum.
Trump “is committed to American companies having access to a global market,” Griffin said. “And the President is willing to use tariffs to seek to enforce this worldview.”

First step toward Xi-Trump meeting?

Also on Sunday, U.S. Republican Senator Steve Daines met Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing — the first time a U.S. politician has visited China since Trump began his latest term in January.
“This was the first step to an important next step, which will be a meeting between President Xi and President Trump,” Daines told the Wall Street Journal. “When that occurs and where it occurs is to be determined.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Li urged cooperation and said no one can gain from a trade war, according to state media.
FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam, Boeing Senior Vice President Brendan Nelson, Cargill CEO Brian Sikes, Medtronic CEO Geoffrey Martha, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, UL Solutions CEO Jennifer Scanlon and U.S. China Business Council President Sean Stein were also present at Daines’ meeting with Li, according to a foreign media pool report.
China, the world’s second-largest economy, remains a significant source of revenue for many multinational corporations, not to mention a major part of their supply chains.
Despite its efforts to bolster international business ties, the country has warned of countermeasures on U.S. tariffs and taken incremental steps.
Following U.S. sanctions on Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei during Trump’s first term as president, Beijing launched an unreliable entities list that restricts foreign business activity with China.
China added Calvin Klein parent PVH and a few other U.S. companies to the list after this year’s tariff increases. On Monday, China also said it would soon reveal new measures that would give it a legal basis for countering foreign pressure.

Economic factors

For U.S. companies in China, the state of the economic recovery has also been an important factor for local business plans.
Since late September, China has stepped up efforts to support the economy. Top policymakers earlier this month affirmed stimulus plans and a recent effort to encourage private-sector tech entrepreneurs in the wake of DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence breakthroughs.
“This year, you feel a lot of positive momentum beginning in China. So I feel like recovery is underway,” Wendell P. Weeks, CEO of Corning, told CNBC.
However, China’s economy has struggled with deflationary pressure and a real estate slump, weighing on regional growth prospects for international businesses.
Even Beijing’s push to support high-tech manufacturing has so far only added an average 1.1 percentage points to gross domestic product growth in each of the last three years — not enough to offset the 1.7 percentage point drag from real estate during that time, according to Goldman Sachs estimates.
“We will remain optimistic because the role of technology is important, I think more than ever,” Qualcomm’s Amon told CNBC. “I think technology is going to be part of economic growth.” More

Morgan Stanley’s Mike Wilson sees a meaningful rotation back into U.S. stocks, and he sees one beaten-up group as a winner.
“It started out with a low-quality rally, which is what we expect – meaning a short squeeze,” the firm’s chief investment officer told CNBC’s “Fast Money” on Monday. “Then, what we noticed is the revision factors on the Mag Seven are actually starting to stabilize a bit. So, the last couple of days though stocks have acted better, and that can take the index higher. How high? 5,900. So, we’re almost there.”

The major indexes had a notable start to the week. The S&P 500 gained roughly 1.8% and closed at 5,767.57 — about 6% below its all-time high. Meanwhile, the Dow jumped almost 600 points while the Nasdaq Composite surged more than 2%.
The “Magnificent Seven” had a big role in Monday’s rally. Its members include Apple, Nvidia, Meta Platforms, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft and Tesla. The electric vehicle maker registered its best daily performance since November.
But Wilson, who’s also the firm’s chief U.S. equity strategist, suggests a narrow window for gains. He focused his Monday research note on the idea.
“Stronger seasonals, lower rates and oversold momentum indicators support our call for a tradeable rally from ~5500,” he wrote. “A weaker dollar and stabilizing Mag 7 EPS [earnings per share] revisions can drive capital back to the US. Beyond the tactical rally, volatility will likely persist this year.”
And, he won’t rule out new lows for the year.

“Whatever rally we’re getting now, we think probably end up fading into earnings, into May and June,” he added. “Then, we’ll probably make a more durable low later in the year.”
According to Wilson, the market weakness is mostly tied to fundamentals and technicals.

‘Nothing to do with tariffs’

“The reason the markets are lower over the course of the last three or four months has nothing to do with tariffs,” said Wilson. “It’s mostly to do with the fact that earnings revisions have rolled over. The Fed stopped cutting rates. You had stricter enforcement on immigration. You have [Department of Government Efficiency]. All of those things are growth negative.”
Wilson’s S&P 500 year-end target is 6,500, which implies a nearly 13% gain from Monday’s close.
“Could we make a new high in the second half of the year as people look forward to 2026? Yeah,” Wilson said.

Join us for the ultimate, exclusive, in-person, interactive event with Melissa Lee and the traders for “Fast Money” Live at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square on Thursday, June 5th.

Disclaimer More

Cooper Flagg #2 of the Duke Blue Devils moves the ball against the Baylor Bears during the second round of the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament held at Lenovo Center on March 23, 2025 in Raleigh, North Carolina. 
Grant Halverson | NCAA Photos | Getty Images

For the first time in nearly 10 years, a Berkshire Hathaway employee claimed Warren Buffett’s $1 million grand prize for his company’s NCAA bracket contest.
An anonymous employee from aviation training company FlightSafety International, a subsidiary of Buffett’s Berkshire, won the annual internal bracket contest after correctly calling 31 of the 32 games in the first round of the men’s basketball tournament dubbed March Madness, according to a statement.

The 94-year-old Oracle of Omaha was finally able to give out the big prize after relaxing the rules multiple times since the competition’s inception in 2016. Originally, Buffett, a Creighton basketball fan, set out to award anyone who could perfectly predict the Sweet 16.
Then, in 2024, after the $1 million jackpot remained unclaimed, participants were given the advantage of waiving the results of the eight games among the No.1 and No. 2 seeds. Still, nobody cracked the code.
This year, the rules were changed again so anyone who picks the winners of at least 30 of the tournament’s 32 first-round games would be eligible to win the prize.
In fact, 12 Berkshire employees guessed 31 of the 32 first-round games correctly. The $1 million prize went to the person from that group that picked 29 games consecutively before a loss. That winner went on to pick 44 of the 45 games correctly.
The other 11 contestants are getting $100,000 each.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO More

Wells Fargo shares rose again Monday amid fresh Wall Street research and a broader market gain. It is tempting to take profits on the Club stock, which has mounted a 10% rally since its lowest close of 2025 on March 10. However, Jim Cramer advised investors to hold on for a little longer. The analysts’ moves are not surprising since the stock, while working its way higher, was still roughly 9.5% below its record-high close of $81.42 per share on Feb. 6. The news Shares of Wells Fargo were up nearly 2.5% to start the new week as traders brushed off multiple price target cuts and, instead, focused on signals that the U.S. may avoid starting a full-blown trade war. One of the price target cuts came from Morgan Stanley, which took its Wells Fargo target to $79 per share from $86. That still represents roughly 9% upside to Friday’s close. While citing “higher uncertainty driven by trade policy and a slower economic growth outlook” for the move, the analysts on Monday reiterated their buy-equivalent rating. They pointed to a number of positive drivers for Wells Fargo once the 2018 Federal Reserve-imposed $1.95 trillion asset cap has been removed. “Where does Wells benefit when the asset cap is lifted? (1) Faster deposit growth, (2) faster earnings asset growth, (3) higher markets [net interest income], (4) higher trading revenues, (5) lower expenses, and (6) a halo effect across the whole organization as they will be able to pivot to growth initiatives,” the analysts wrote. WFC YTD mountain Wells Fargo (WFC) year-to-date performance Big picture The Fed asset cap and other regulatory penalties known as consent orders were levied against Wells Fargo due to a series of account scandals and other past misdeeds. Management has cleared five consent orders since the start of 2025. The timing of the cap’s removal remains uncertain, some media reports — albeit unconfirmed by the bank — have suggested that it could happen as early as this year. Dealing with those regulatory challenges comes during a turbulent year for bank stocks and the overall stock market due to President Donald Trump’s near-daily barrage of tariff threats. Fellow portfolio financial names BlackRock , Goldman Sachs , and Capital One have faced similar volatility. This marks a reversal from post-election gains on high hopes that another Trump administration would bring about a more lenient regulatory environment, along with a boost in dealmaking activity. Bottom line We’re glad to see the Monday boost in Wells Fargo stock and the run it has been on during the past couple of weeks. Still, investors shouldn’t jump the gun and make a sale just yet. We believe this financial name has much more upside ahead. Like Morgan Stanley, we see the asset cap removal as a key driver for the stock. This, coupled with a multi-year turnaround plan, were big reasons why we started a position in Wells Fargo to begin with. The cap removal will allow the bank to expand budding parts of its business mix such as investment banking, further diversifying the company’s revenue streams. Currently, Wells Fargo relies heavily on interest-based incomes, which are at the mercy of the Fed’s policy rate decisions. Wells Fargo’s operating losses would likely come down as well with the lifting of the asset cap because the bank has been spending billions on risk and control infrastructure to appease U.S. regulators. Last year, according to Bloomberg, Wells Fargo submitted a third-party review of its risk and control changes for Fed consideration. The report said a decision to remove the cap requires a vote by the full Fed board. Jeff Marks, the Investing Club’s director of portfolio analysis, said he wouldn’t be surprised if the cap were to be lifted in 2025. “They’re getting more and more consent orders closed,” he said during Monday’s Morning Meeting. “There’s a lot of momentum there.” (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long WFC, COF, BLK, GS. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

A pedestrian walks by Wells Fargo headquarters at 420 Montgomery Street on December 04, 2024 in San Francisco, California. 
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images More

VLADIMIR PUTIN is getting ready for an early Christmas. In the hope of a swift normalisation of relations with America, the Kremlin has been asking Russian firms which sanctions they would like Uncle Sam to lift first. America, for its part, seems impatient to deliver the gifts. Last week Steve Witkoff, a White House envoy, said that sanctions relief would come after a ceasefire is agreed in Ukraine—in other words, possibly before a full peace deal is ready. Mr Witkoff expects such a breakthrough within a “couple of weeks”. More