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    Goolsbee says Fed now has to wait longer before moving rates because of trade policy uncertainty

    Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said Friday that President Donald Trump’s latest tariff moves have complicated policy and likely put off changes to interest rates.
    “Everything’s always on the table. But I feel like the bar for me is a little higher for action in any direction while we’re waiting to get some clarity,” Goolsbee said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

    Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said Friday that President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threats have complicated policy and likely put off changes to interest rates.
    In a CNBC interview, the central bank official indicated that while he still sees the direction of rates being lower, the Fed likely will be on hold as it evaluates the ever-changing trade policy and how it affects inflation and employment.

    “Everything’s always on the table. But I feel like the bar for me is a little higher for action in any direction while we’re waiting to get some clarity,” Goolsbee said on “Squawk Box” when asked about Trump’s new actions Friday morning. “Over the longer run, if they’re putting in place tariffs that have a stagflationary impact … then that’s the central bank’s worst situation.”
    “So I think we’ll have to see how big the impacts on prices are,” he added. “I know people hate inflation.”
    Goolsbee spoke as Trump jolted markets again with a call for 50% tariffs on products from the European Union starting June 1, while indicating Apple will have to pay a 25% tariff on iPhones not made in the U.S. Apple mostly makes its coveted smartphones in China, though there is some production in India as well.
    While the impact of a costlier iPhone likely wouldn’t mean much from a larger economic perspective, the saber-rattling underscores the volatility of trade policy and provides another flash point for a market already unnerved by worries about fiscal policy that have sent bond yields sharply higher.
    Central bankers are generally careful not to wade into issues of fiscal and trade policy, but are left to analyze their repercussions.

    Goolsbee said he is still optimistic that the longer-run trajectory is toward solid economic growth before Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement that rattled markets.
    “I’m still underneath hopeful that we can get back to that environment, and 10 to 16 months from now, rates could be a fair bit below where they are today,” he said.
    Goolsbee is a voting member this year on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, which next meets June 17-18. At the meeting, officials will get a chance to update their economic and interest rate projections. The last update, in March, saw the committee indicating two rate cuts this year.
    Markets expect the Fed will cut twice this year, with the next move not happening until September. Goolsbee did not commit to a course of action from here amid the uncertainty.
    “I don’t like even mildly tying our hands at the next meeting, much less over six, eight, 10 meetings from now,” he said. “That said, as we went into April 2, I believe that we’re at pretty stable full employment, that inflation was on a path back to 2% and if we could do those, I thought that over the next 12 to 18 months, rates could come down a fair amount.”
    The Fed’s benchmark overnight borrowing rate is targeted between 4.25% and 4.50%, where it has been since December. The actual rate most recently traded at 4.33%.

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    Personal finance app Monarch raises $75 million despite ‘nuclear winter’ for fintech startups

    The personal finance startup Monarch has raised $75 million to accelerate subscriber growth that took off last year when budgeting tool Mint was shut down, CNBC has learned.
    The fundraising is among the largest for an American consumer fintech startup this year and values the San Francisco-based company at $850 million, according to co-founder Val Agostino.
    The field was once dominated by Mint, a pioneer in online personal finance that was acquired by Intuit in 2009. After the service languished for years, Intuit closed it in early 2024.

    Monarch co-founders (left to right) Ozzie Osman, Jon Sutherland, Val Agostino.
    Courtesy: Monarch

    The personal finance startup Monarch has raised $75 million to accelerate subscriber growth that took off last year when budgeting tool Mint was shut down, CNBC has learned.
    The fundraising is among the largest for an American consumer fintech startup this year and values the San Francisco-based company at $850 million, according to co-founder Val Agostino. The Series B round was led by Forerunner Ventures and FPV Ventures.

    Monarch aims to provide an all-in-one mobile app for tracking spending, investments and money goals. The field was once dominated by Mint, a pioneer in online personal finance that Intuit acquired in 2009. After the service languished for years, Intuit closed it in early 2024.
    “Managing your money is one of the big unsolved problems in consumer technology,” Agostino said in a recent Zoom interview. “How American families manage their money is still basically the same as it was in the late 90s, except today we do it on our phones instead of walking into a bank.”
    Monarch, founded in 2018, saw its subscriber base surge by 20 times in the year after Intuit announced it was closing Mint as users sought alternatives, according to Agostino.
    Unlike Mint, which was free, Monarch relies on paying subscribers so that the company doesn’t need to focus on advertising from credit-card issuers or sell users’ data, said Agostino, who was an early product manager at Mint.

    Personal finance app Monarch, which has raised a $75 million series B investment.
    Courtesy: Monarch

    The startup aimed to make onboarding accounts and expense tracking easier than rival tools, some of which are free or embedded within banking apps, according to FPV co-founder Wesley Chan.

    Chan said that Monarch reminds him of previous bets that he has made, including his stake in graphic design platform Canva, in that Agostino is tackling a difficult market with a fresh approach.
    “What Val is doing, it’s the successor to anything that’s been done in financial planning,” Chan said. “It’s frictionless, it’s easy to use and it’s easy to share, which is something that never existed before. That’s why he’s growing so quickly, and why the engagement numbers are so high.”
    The company’s round comes amid a period of muted interest for most U.S. fintechs that cater directly to consumers. Monarch is one of the few firms to raise a sizeable Series B; other recent examples include Felix, a money remittance service for Latino immigrants.
    Fintech firms raised $1.9 billion in venture funding in the first quarter, a 38% decline from the fourth quarter that “signals deepening investor caution toward B2C models,” according to a recent PitchBook report. Roughly three-quarters of all the venture capital raised in the quarter went to companies in the enterprise fintech space, PitchBook said.
    “The sector is still in nuclear winter” as it faces a hangover from 2021-era startups that “raised way too much money and had zero progress and wrecked it for everybody else,” Chan said. “That’s fine with me, I love nuclear-winter sectors.” More

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    House Republican tax bill favors the rich — how much they stand to gain, and why

    A tax and spending package passed Thursday by House Republicans funnels the bulk of its financial benefits to wealthy households, according to economists and tax experts.
    The rich benefit via a slew of tax cuts tied to businesses, the SALT deduction, the estate tax, income tax rates and opportunity zones.
    Lower earners would be worse off, on average, due to cuts to programs like Medicaid and SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), analyses show.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to the media after the House narrowly passed a budget bill forwarding President Donald Trump’s agenda at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, May 22, 2025.
    Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

    There’s a stark contrast between high-earners and low-income households in a sprawling legislative package House Republicans passed on Thursday.
    The bulk of the financial benefits in the legislation — called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” — would flow to the wealthiest Americans, courtesy of tax-cutting measures like those for business owners, investors and homeowners in high-tax areas, experts said.

    However, low earners would be worse off, they said. That’s largely because Republicans partially offset those tax cuts — estimated to cost about $4 trillion or more — with reductions to social safety net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
    The tax and spending package now heads to the Senate, where it may face further changes.

    ‘It skews pretty heavily toward the wealthy’

    The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan federal scorekeeper, estimates income for the bottom tenth of households would fall by 2% in 2027 and by 4% in 2033 as a result of the bill’s changes.
    By contrast, those in the top 10% would get an income boost from the legislation: 4% in 2027 and 2% in 2033, CBO found.

    A Yale Budget Lab analysis found a similar dynamic.

    The bottom fifth of households — who make less than $14,000 a year — would see their annual incomes fall about $800 in 2027, on average, Yale estimates.
    The top 20% — who earn over $128,000 a year — would see theirs grow by $9,700, on average. The top 1% would gain $63,000.
    The Yale and CBO analyses don’t account for last-minute changes to the House legislation, including stricter work requirements for Medicaid.
    “It skews pretty heavily toward the wealthy,” said Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Yale Budget Lab and former chief economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Biden administration.
    The legislation compounds the regressive nature of the Trump administration’s recent tariff policies, economists said.
    “If you incorporated the [Trump administration’s] hike in tariffs, this would be even more skewed against lower- and working-class families,” Tedeschi said.

    Most bill tax cuts go to top-earning households

    There are several reasons the House bill skews toward the wealthiest Americans, experts said.
    Among them are more valuable tax breaks tied to business income, state and local taxes and the estate tax, experts said.
    These tax breaks disproportionately flow to high earners, experts said. For example, the bottom 80% of earners would see no benefit from the House proposal to raise the SALT cap to $40,000 from the current $10,000, according to the Tax Foundation.
    More from Personal Finance:Tax bill includes $1,000 baby bonus in ‘Trump Accounts’House bill boosts maximum child tax credit to $2,500Food stamps face ‘biggest cut in the program’s history’
    The bill also preserves a lower top tax rate, at 37%, set by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which would have expired at the end of the year.
    It kept a tax break intact that allows investors to shield their capital gains from tax by funneling money into “opportunity zones.”
    Trump’s 2017 tax law created that tax break, aiming to incentivize investment in lower-income areas designated by state governors. Taxpayers with capital gains are “highly concentrated” among the wealthy, according to the Tax Policy Center.
    All told, 60% of the bill’s tax cuts would go to the top 20% of households and more than a third would go to those making $460,000 or more, according to the Tax Policy Center.
    “The variation among income groups is striking,” the analysis said.

    Why many low earners are worse off

    That said, more than eight in 10 households overall would get a tax cut in 2026 if the bill is enacted, the Tax Policy Center found.
    Lower earners get various tax benefits from a higher standard deduction and temporarily enhanced child tax credit, and tax breaks tied to tip income and car loan interest, for example, experts said.
    However, some of those benefits may not be as valuable as at first glance, experts said. For example, roughly one-third of tipped workers don’t pay federal income tax, Tedeschi said. They wouldn’t benefit from the proposed tax break on tips — it’s structured as a tax deduction, which doesn’t benefit households without tax liability, he said.

    Meanwhile, lower-income households, which rely more on federal safety net programs, would see cuts to Medicaid, SNAP (formerly known as food stamps), and benefits linked to student loans and Affordable Care Act premiums, said Kent Smetters, an economist and faculty director at the Penn Wharton Budget Model.
    The House bill would, for example, impose work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP beneficiaries. Total federal spending on those programs would fall by about $700 billion and $267 billion, respectively, through 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office analysis.
    That said, “if you are low income and don’t get SNAP, Medicaid or ACA premium support, you will be slightly better off,” Smetters said.

    Some high earners would pay more in tax

    In a sense, it may not be surprising most tax benefits accrue to the wealthy.
    The U.S. has among the most progressive tax systems in the developed world, Smetters said.
    The top 10% of households pay about 70% of all federal taxes, he said. Such households would get about 65% of the total value of the legislation, according to a Penn Wharton analysis published Monday.

    A subset of high earners — 17% of the top 1% of households, who earn at least $1.1 million a year — would actually pay more in tax, according to the Tax Policy Center.
    “In part this is due to limits on the ability of some pass-through businesses to fully deduct their state and local taxes and a limit on all deductions for top-bracket households,” wrote Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. More

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    Insurers brace for impact as NOAA predicts above-average hurricane season

    NOAA announced an above-average hurricane season, with 13 to 19 named storms, of which six to 10 will become hurricanes and three to five will be major ones.
    Insurers have already seen claims costs soar in 2025 from California wildfire damage and severe storms across the Midwest.
    Government scientists and the insurance industry are encouraging more mitigation efforts and resiliency plans across state and local communities and on the part of individual homeowners and businesses.

    John Cangialosi, Senior Hurricane Specialist at the National Hurricane Center, inspects a satellite image of Hurricane Beryl, the first hurricane of the 2024 season, at the National Hurricane Center on July 1, 2024 in Miami, Florida.
    Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images

    Government scientists on Thursday released a forecast for the 2025 hurricane season, predicting a 60% chance it will be an above-average season.
    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, predicts this season will bring 13 to 19 named storms with winds 39 miles per hour or higher. It predicts six to 10 of the forecasted storms will grow to hurricane status, and three to five will become major hurricanes.

    Laura Grimm, the acting administrator of the NOAA and a marine scientist, sidestepped specific questions about how budget cuts aimed at climate science would affect the organization’s work and highlighted the vital work of the agency to help communities prepare and save lives.
    “Weather prediction, modeling and protecting human lives and property is our top priority. So we are fully staffed at the hurricane center, and we definitely are ready to go,” Grimm said in a news conference held in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, to commemorate 20 years since Hurricane Katrina.
    Grimm also pointed out, thanks to improvements in the science and technology over the last 20 years, that NOAA’s hurricane prediction was spot-on last year.
    Hurricanes Helene and Milton caused more than $37 billion in insured losses in 2024, according to a report from Aon.

    Arrows pointing outwards

    Despite those losses, the U.S. property casualty insurance industry saw its best underwriting performance since 2013, according to a report from the Insurance Information Institute and Milliman.

    But the report concludes that January’s devastating wildfires in California and economic challenges related to tariffs could dampen the industry’s results in 2025.
    Insurers and reinsurers are collectively facing more than $50 billion in losses from the Los Angeles wildfires.
    The Midwest has also suffered outbreaks of severe thunderstorms with damaging hail, wind and tornadoes this spring. The Storm Prediction Center had tallied 883 local tornado reports this year as of Monday, 35% higher than average for this time of year.
    Aon said the severe convective storms have caused an estimated $10 billion in insured losses in the first quarter. A storm over three days in May added another estimated $7 billion to insurers’ tally.
    The last 10 years have averaged more than $33 billion annually in insured losses, a 90% increase from the previous decade.
    It’s an existential threat to the insurance industry and its ability to provide affordable insurance to homeowners, according to Bill Clark CEO of Demex, a reinsurance analytics group. And the problem is getting worse, not better.
    “Reinsurance (insurance for insurance) costs for severe convective storm losses are at a 20-year high and, coupled with limited availability, it is leaving insurers hamstrung and unable to transfer most of their mounting losses, ” Clark said in an email to CNBC.

    Arrows pointing outwards

    Whether hurricanes, wildfires or severe storms. Aon blames the skyrocketing losses on growing exposure, meaning more people are living where climate risks are higher and the cost of their homes, cars and all the stuff inside is more expensive.
    The insurance industry is working to push state and local efforts to build resiliency and improve mitigation efforts — meaning better building codes, public works projects that protect homes and properties, and tough standards on defensible spaces around buildings, for instance.
    The president of Jefferson County Parish, Cynthia Lee Sheng, pointed to all the efforts made in the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, killing 1,392 people in 2005. The government overhauled levees, flood walls, and pumping stations.
    “It’s estimated that $13 is saved for every $1 spent on mitigation efforts,” Sheng said. “Hurricane Katrina also changed the face of disaster recovery. Key agencies have learned to work together to provide assistance, coordinate efforts and ensure efficient response.”
    — CNBC’s Dawn Giel contributed to this report. More

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    American Airlines CFO says some travelers are avoiding Newark airport

    American Airlines CFO said some travelers are favoring other airports over Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, but cautioned the impact is “modest.”
    The FAA this week ordered airlines to temporarily cut Newark flights there to alleviate congestion.
    Air traffic controller shortages, equipment outages and runway construction, along with bad weather have disrupted flights at the airport this spring.

    The FAA Air Traffic Control tower at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey on May 7, 2025.
    Kena Betancur | AFP | Getty Images

    American Airlines chief financial officer said Thursday that some travelers are avoiding Newark Liberty International Airport for other options in the area after a spate of recent disruptions, but cautioned that the impact is “modest.”
    “There probably is some amount of book-away from Newark flights over into LaGuardia, JFK, maybe Philadelphia to a lesser extent,” CFO Devon May said at the Wolfe Research conference.

    The Federal Aviation Administration this week ordered airlines to temporarily cut flights at Newark to relieve congestion there as carriers grapple with a shortage of air traffic controllers, equipment outages and runway construction at the New Jersey airport. Bad weather has also added to disruptions in recent weeks.

    American has a roughly 4% market share at Newark, according to the most recent data from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport along with LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport, both in Queens, New York.
    “There’s something happening there, but I think it’s relatively modest when you think of the broader network,” American’s May said.
    United Airlines dwarfs all other airlines at Newark with its nearly 70% share. That carrier had proactively announced cuts of 35 flights a day earlier this month to put more slack in the system.

    Read more CNBC airline news

    Earlier this month, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the U.S. will spend billions to overhaul the aging U.S. air traffic control system.
    President Donald Trump’s tax bill, which passed the House early Thursday includes $12.5 billion for air traffic control modernization and staffing. 

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    Ray Dalio says to fear the bond market as deficit becomes critical

    Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates LP, speaks during the Greenwich Economic Forum in Greenwich, Connecticut, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023.
    Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Billionaire investor Ray Dalio on Thursday sounded another alarm on soaring U.S. debt and deficits, saying it should make investors fearful of the government bond market.
    “I think we should be afraid of the bond market,” Dalio said at an event for the Paley Media Council in New York. “It’s like … I’m a doctor, and I’m looking at the patient, and I’ve said, you’re having this accumulation, and I can tell you that this is very, very serious, and I can’t tell you the exact time. I would say that if we’re really looking over the next three years, to give or take a year or two, that we’re in that type of a critical, critical situation.”

    The founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, has warned about the ballooning U.S. deficit for years. Recently, investors have begun demanding lower prices to buy the bonds that cover the government’s massive budget deficits, pushing up yields on the debt. Rising worries about the fiscal situation last week triggered a high-profile credit rating downgrade from Moody’s.
    The yield on the 30-year Treasury yield on Thursday traded at levels not seen since 2023, around 5.14%.
    Rising financing costs along with continued spending growth and declining tax receipts have combined to send deficits spiraling, pushing the national debt past the $36 trillion mark. In 2024, the government spent more on interest payments than any other outlay other than Social Security, defense and health care.
    “We will have a deficit of about 6.5% of GDP — that that is more than the market can bear,” Dalio said.
    Dalio said he’s not hopeful politicians would be able to reconcile their differences and lessen the country’s debt load. In a party-line vote early Thursday, House members approved legislation that lowers taxes and adds military spending. The bill — which now goes to the Senate — could increase the U.S. government’s debt by trillions and widen the deficit at a time when fears of a flare-up in inflation due higher tariffs are already weighing on bond prices and boosting yields.
    “I’m not optimistic. I have to be realistic,” Dalio said. “I think it’s the essence of the challenge of our country that anything related to bipartisanship and getting over political hurdles … essentially means ‘give me more,’ which leads to these deficits.”

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    Dealmaking rebounds after Trump’s tariffs cut off a budding M&A boom

    Optimism on dealmaking appears to be back now that President Donald Trump has suspended his highest tariffs and market jitters take a backseat.
    U.S. deal activity plunged by 66% to $9 billion during the first week of April, according to Mergermarket data, after Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement.
    Activity is rebounding this month and larger deals are taking place.

    People walk by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on June 18, 2024 in New York City. 
    Spencer Platt | Getty Images

    Hopes for an active year of mergers and acquisitions could be back on track after being briefly derailed by the Trump administration’s sweeping tariff policies last month.
    Dealmaking in the U.S. was off to a strong start this year before President Donald Trump announced tariff policies that led to extremely volatile market conditions that put a chill on activity. In a pre-tariffs world, dealmakers were encouraged by the Trump administration’s pro-business flavor and deregulatory agenda, as well as previously easing concerns about inflation. Those trends were expected to fuel an even stronger M&A comeback in 2025, after last year’s moderate recovery from a slow 2023.

    This year’s appetite for dealmaking came back quickly after Trump suspended his highest tariffs and market jitters took a backseat. If borrowing costs remain in check, many expect activity could be brisk.
    “More clarity on trade policy and rebounding equities markets have set the stage for continued M&A, even in sectors hit especially hard by tariffs,” Kevin Ketcham, a mergers and acquisitions analyst at Mergermarket, told CNBC.
    The total value of U.S. deals jumped to more than $227 billion in March, which saw 586 deals, before suddenly slowing down in April to roughly 650 deals worth about $134 billion, according to data compiled by Mergermarket.
    So far this month, activity is rebounding and the average deal has been larger. More than 300 deals collectively valued at more than $125 billion have been struck this month as of May 20, Mergermarket said.
    That’s encouraging. After Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement, U.S. deal activity plunged by 66% to $9 billion during the first week of April from the prior week, while global M&A activity dropped by 14% week over week to $37.8 billion, according to the data.

    Charles Corpening, chief investment officer of private equity firm West Lane Partners, anticipates M&A activity to pick up after the summer.
    “The trade war has indeed caused a slowdown in the anticipated M&A boom earlier this year, particularly in the second quarter,” Corpening said.
    Higher bond yields are also hurting activity in the U.S. given that higher rates translate into greater financing costs, which reduces asset prices, he said.
    Corpening expects greater interest towards special situations M&A, or deals that involve a motivated seller and tend to be flexible with their structure and terms, as well as smaller transactions, which are easier to finance and generally face less regulatory scrutiny.
    “We’re beginning to see signs of recovery and we’re getting some clarity on the types of deals that are likely to get into the pipeline soonest,” Corpening said. “We anticipate that these earlier transactions will lean toward special situations as the better-performing businesses will wait for more market stability in order to maximize sale price.”

    Several major deals have been announced in recent months, with large transactions occurring in tech, telecommunications and utilities so far this year.
    Some of the biggest include:

    According to Ketcham, the Dick’s-Foot Locker deal “likely isn’t an outlier” given that Victoria’s Secret on Tuesday adopted a “poison pill” plan. Such a limited-duration shareholder rights plan suggests the lingerie retailer is concerned about the threat of a potential takeover, he said.
    Ketcham added that some consumer companies are adapting to the new macroeconomic environment instead of pausing dealmaking. He cited packaged food giant Kraft Heinz confirmation on Thursday that it has been evaluating potential transactions over the past several months as an example. Kraft Heinz said it would consider selling off some of its slower growing brands or buying a brands in some of its core categories such as sauces and snacks.
    This kind of trend would lead to smaller deals, which has already been seen this year. For example, PepsiCo scooped up Poppi, a prebiotic soda brand, for $1.95 billion in March.

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    Universal leans into theme parks with multibillion-dollar Epic Universe, even as economic uncertainty looms

    Universal Studios opened its new theme park Epic Universe on Thursday.
    The company hopes the five new worlds will help it take on rival Disney and bring in millions of visitors and bolster theme park revenue.
    Epic Universe is opening at a time of economic uncertainty in the U.S. as consumers are feeling increasingly worried about rising prices.

    The entrance portal to the Epic Universe theme park in Orlando, Florida, US, on Saturday, April 5, 2025.
    Thomas Simonetti | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    ORLANDO, Florida — With the grand opening of Epic Universe on Thursday, Comcast is positioning its Universal Studios Orlando Resort as a destination, not a pit stop.
    For years, Universal’s Florida-based resort has played second fiddle to rival Disney. While it boasted three theme parks — Universal Studios Florida, Universal Islands of Adventure and water park Volcano Bay — and a handful of hotels, it wasn’t viewed as a destination.

    “This fourth gate changes everything,” said Karen Irwin, president of Universal Orlando Resort. “It not only cements us as more than a full-week destination vacation, but it also adds three hotels to the resort.”
    Epic Universe opens at a time of economic uncertainty in the U.S., as President Donald Trump has instituted a wide range of ever-changing tariffs that have stoked fears about a global trade war, sent the stock market on its own roller-coaster ride and has threatened to tip the American economy into a recession.
    The U.S. has already seen a slump in air travel, particularly from international travelers. While those guests are small subset of overall visitors to central Florida, they often spend a longer period of time staying at hotels and visiting theme parks and spend more money on food and merchandise.
    “When there’s consumer uncertainty, the parks tend to feel it,” Jason Armstrong, chief financial officer at Comcast, said during a MoffettNathanson conference last week. “They tend to snap back really quickly, but they do tend to feel that.”

    Guests ride Stardust Racers, a new dueling roller coaster ride in Celestial Park during a preview day for Universal Epic Universe on April 5, 2025. Orlando, Florida’s first new theme park in a generation is set to open to the public on May 22. (Patrick Connolly/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
    Patrick Connolly | Orlando Sentinel | Getty Images

    “On parks, whether it’s current attendance trends or bookings — which, bookings aren’t a perfect window, but they are the window you have — there’s nothing that’s showing up in the bookings trends so far that would indicate any pressure,” he added. “That’s true in Orlando. It’s true internationally.”

    Those who are most budget-conscious may have already been priced out of the theme park market, Craig Moffett, co-founder and senior analyst at MoffettNathanson, told CNBC.
    “There was a time when visiting a theme park was a mass-market vacation,” he said. “It’s arguably too expensive for that to be the case anymore. The tickets alone can run a family a thousand dollars or more for a multiday visit, and that’s before hotels and meals. Perhaps that’s why we’re not seeing as much economic sensitivity as we might have expected.”
    In spite of these economic headwinds, Epic Universe is expected to draw in millions of visitors, bolster theme park revenue for Universal, as well as Disney just down the highway, and bring billions of dollars to the local economy.
    It’s also the start of a new era of theme park development for Universal.

    Creating an epic universe

    It took nearly a decade for Comcast to bring Epic Universe to life. From buying up land its previous administration had sold off, to Covid-related construction delays, this 750-acre development is the first new theme park to open in Orlando in 25 years.
    Epic Universe, first announced in 2019, represents the largest single investment Comcast has ever made in its theme parks business and in Florida overall, CEO Brian Roberts said at the time. That figure is rumored to be around $7 billion, though the exact amount is unclear.
    The park features five themed worlds: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic, Super Nintendo World, How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk, Celestial Park and Dark Universe.

    Comcast’s investment in Epic Universe is part of a wider push to grow its theme park and experiences business. The company already has plans to open a year-round Hollywood Horror Nights themed experience in Las Vegas later this year, a kid-friendly park in Frisco, Texas, in 2026, and a U.K.-based park in 2031.
    “Comcast is leaning into the theme park segment for a simple reason: It’s working,” Moffett said. “Growth is good and returns on investment are attractive, and the theme parks pay all kinds of strategic dividends by deepening customers’ relationships with their favorite Universal characters.”
    While theme parks are a smaller revenue driver than Comcast’s media division, the division is profitable and has significant potential for growth. In 2024, theme parks accounted for a little less than 20% of Comcast’s overall revenue, but about 44% of its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
    For comparison, Disney’s experiences division, which includes parks, represented 37% of the company’s revenue in fiscal 2024, smaller than its entertainment business, but accounted for nearly 60% of its net income.
    Universal’s theme park investment and expansion come as Disney has pledged to spend $60 billion over a decade to improve, innovate and expand its amusement locations. New developments, whether they be parks, lands or rides, spark healthy competition between the companies to create more compelling and innovative attractions to lure in guests.

    How To Train Your Dragon Isle of Berk is a family-friendly viking paradise full of immersive moments based on the DreamWorks animated movie franchise. (Adrian Ruhi/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
    Adrian Ruhi | Miami Herald | Getty Images

    “This is the first new theme park in Orlando in a quarter century, and those 25 years have seen breathtaking technological advances,” Moffett said. “For that reason alone, it’s a big deal.”
    The company has received 161 patents for its innovations at Epic Universe, including new animated effects, ride designs and robotics. Across the new park, there are trackless ride systems, augmented reality and high-resolution projections. In total, the Universal Destinations and Experience division holds 3,300 patents globally.
    Major innovations can be seen in rides like Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment in the Dark Universe portal and Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry at the newest Wizarding World land that transports guests from 1920s Paris to the 1990s British Ministry of Magic.
    It is also apparent in new entertainment shows like “The Untrainable Dragon” with the How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk portal, where an animatronic Toothless, with a wingspan of nearly 27 feet, soars over the audience.

    Just the beginning

    A statue of Luna, the Roman goddess of the moon, overlooking the Celestial Park area, at the Epic Universe theme park in Orlando, Florida, US, on Saturday, April 5, 2025.
    Thomas Simonetti | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    “This is a truly momentous occasion for us, and just a significant milestone in that continuum of our development,” said Mark Woodbury, CEO of Universal Destinations and Experiences. “The future is super bright. … There’s a lot of room for expansion. We’re already thinking about how that plays out. New attractions coming, new intellectual property coming, all part of our philosophy to grow our business by expanding our existing footprint.”
    Woodbury noted that there is plenty of space on the Epic Universe campus to bring other worlds into the fold.
    The company has plenty of intellectual properties to tap into, including existing theme park brands like Jurassic Park and Minions as well as untapped franchises like “Wicked.”
    Where Universal executives also see strength is with its partner brands. Across its domestic and international theme parks, the company has brought to life lands and attractions based on intellectual property from other studios like Harry Potter, Nintendo and Transformers.
    “There’s no creator out there that wouldn’t like to see their their IP delivered to the world in a way like you see in these parks,” said Mike Cavanagh, president of Comcast. “It actually enhances the IP for further use of the creator.”

    The Darkmoor Village in the Dark Universe area, at the Epic Universe theme park in Orlando, Florida, US, on Saturday, April 5, 2025.
    Thomas Simonetti | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Universal’s theme park expansions also broaden its appeal to more age segments with the How to Train Your Dragon and Super Nintendo worlds.
    “In the past, Disney really had the under 10-years-old segment more or less to themselves,” Moffett said. “Universal catered to tweens. The new Epic Universe park brings whole worlds to life for younger children.”
    More parks, more merchandise, more food options and more guests to cater to open up more opportunities for Universal to generate revenue, not just in Florida, but globally. The company has selected franchise IP that is not only beloved, but evergreen, Comcast executives said. It has also updated characters and stories, like its classic monsters, for a modern age.
    “We’ve soft opened for a while, and that gives you a lens into sort of what people are going to do in the parks,” Armstrong said. “And exit surveys have been great. The reviews of it have been terrific.”
    Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. More