Raphael Stevens

The Food and Drug Administration outlined new regulatory guidance for future Covid-19 vaccine boosters, setting stricter approval standards for healthy Americans. 
The FDA recommended different standards of evidence for approval based on patients’ risk of getting severely sick from Covid.
The agency said it wants to see new clinical trials showing Covid shots are still safe and effective before approving them for healthy adults and children, a costly new requirement for pharmaceutical companies that could potentially limit who gets new jabs each year.

Brandon Guerrero, of Compton, California, is given both a flu and Covid vaccine at CVS in Huntington Park, California, Aug. 28, 2024.
Christina House | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday outlined new regulatory guidance for future Covid-19 vaccine boosters, setting stricter approval standards for healthy Americans. 
The agency said it wants to see new clinical trials showing Covid shots are still safe and effective before approving them for healthy adults and children, a costly new requirement for pharmaceutical companies that could limit who gets new jabs each year. Previously, the FDA typically approved updated Covid shots for all Americans each year based on simple tests that show they trigger a strong enough antibody response.

“The truth is that for most of that, for many Americans, we simply do not know the answer to whether or not they should be getting the seven or eight or nine or ten, as the current policy would have us” do, said Vinay Prasad, an outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical industry who was appointed to lead the agency’s division that oversees vaccines, during a town hall on Tuesday.
The FDA recommended different standards of evidence for approval based on patients’ risk of getting severely sick from Covid, according to a paper published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The paper’s authors are FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Prasad.
“The FDA’s new Covid-19 philosophy represents a balance of regulatory flexibility and a commitment to gold-standard science,” the agency said in the paper. “The FDA will approve vaccines for high-risk persons and, at the same time, demand robust, gold-standard data on persons at low risk.
Covid vaccine makers such as Pfizer, its partner BioNTech and Moderna may see slightly lower revenue if the new guidelines are implemented broadly, BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman said in a note on Tuesday. But overall, Seigerman said he views the guidelines as “fair and considerate” of the benefits and risks healthy people may gain from additional vaccinations.
“We appreciate new appointees do not appear to be overreaching in their generalizations on Covid-19 vaccine efficacy,” he said.

Jefferies analyst Michael Yee, who covers Moderna, said the new regulatory guidelines “seem OK for now.” The framework is “generally expected” and in line with commentary from advisors to the Centers Disease Control and Prevention leaning toward risk-based vaccine recommendations rather than a universal one.
“So in the big picture this actually eases some investor concern for 2025 guidance to some extent,” Yee said.
But Yee said it’s unclear if the clinical trials requirement will apply for next-generation Covid shots or combination vaccines targeting Covid and other viruses, such as the flu.
The new guidance comes as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent vaccine skeptic, overhauls the nation’s health agencies and U.S. immunization policy.
For adults 65 and older, and for people as young as 6 months who have certain underlying health conditions, the FDA said it will accept immunogenicity data — which shows a vaccine generates a strong immune response — as enough to determine that a shot’s benefits outweigh its risks. The FDA estimates that 100 to 200 million Americans have conditions that put them at high risk of severe illness, including obesity and mental health conditions such as depression.
“There will be a quick regulatory path for such products to come to market” for that age group, Prasad said during the town hall.
But for healthy people between 6 months and 64 years old who don’t have risk factors, the FDA plans to require stronger evidence for vaccines from randomized, placebo-controlled trials. That means some people would receive the actual shot while others get an inactive substance like a saline shot, to compare results.
The main goal of the trials should be showing that the shots help prevent symptomatic Covid, with data showing at least 30% effectiveness, according to the paper. People who’ve had Covid in the past should still be included in the trial to better reflect the general population, the paper said.
Drugmakers will need to track participants for at least six months “to ensure that early booster gains persist,” they added.
“Our policy also balances the need for evidence,” Makary and Prasad wrote in the paper. “We simply don’t know whether a healthy 52-year-old woman with a normal BMI who has had Covid-19 three times and has received six previous doses of a Covid-19 vaccine will benefit from the seventh dose.”
The FDA said that when it approves a Covid vaccine for high-risk people, it will encourage manufacturers to conduct randomized, controlled clinical trials in healthy adults as part of their post-marketing commitment for the shot.
During the town hall, Prasad suggested annual updates to Covid vaccinations may not be necessary, saying that the virus is “mutating at a slower rate” than the influenza. He said he expects the FDA to require randomized clinical trials for Covid boosters every few years or “however long that may be” rather than studies every year.
“The virus doesn’t have a calendar,” he said, adding, “Why don’t we let the science tell us when we should change” shots to adapt to a major shift in the virus.

FDA rejects ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach

The paper argued that the nation’s “one-size-fits-all” Covid vaccine policy approach, which recommends annual shots for all Americans above six months old, is outdated and no longer in line with other countries. All other high-income nations limit vaccine recommendations to older adults or those at high risk for severe illness due to Covid, the paper said. 
The paper said the benefit of repeat vaccinations is “uncertain,” particularly among low-risk patients who have developed some immune protection through previous shots, infections or both. The paper said many Americans and health-care providers “remain unconvinced” of that benefit, pointing to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on falling vaccination rates in the U.S. for annual Covid boosters. 
The paper cited CDC data that indicates that for the past two seasons, fewer than 25% of Americans have received a Covid-19 shot, including fewer than 10% of kids and fewer than 50% of adults over the age of 75. Less than one-third of health-care workers received updated Covid boosters in the 2023 to 2024 season, the paper said, citing CDC data.
The paper also suggested that broad Covid vaccine recommendations each year have contributed to declining trust in vaccination, including in the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Still, the paper called MMR vaccines “clearly established as safe and highly effective.” More

Walmart’s announcement on Thursday that it will hike some prices due to tariffs came at a risk — and led to a critical social media post by President Donald Trump.
The big-box retailer’s thinner margins, price-sensitive customers and desire to influence policymakers’ decisions may have factored into its decision to speak out, according to retail analysts.
More companies have been speaking out about U.S. tariffs since April 9, according to Gravity Research, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that helps corporations navigate reputational risk.

A Walmart store is shown in Oceanside, California, U.S., May 15, 2025.
Mike Blake | Reuters

Last month, Walmart downplayed how much President Donald Trump’s tariffs would affect its business in front of a large audience of investors. CEO Doug McMillon pointed to other challenging times that the company had weathered — like the aftermath of 9/11 — and the CEO of its international business didn’t even bring up trade during a panel with global corporate leaders.
The largest U.S. retailer struck a much different tone Thursday. On its earnings call and in CNBC interviews about its quarterly results, the company warned that higher duties on imports would soon mean higher prices for its shoppers.

“We’re pleased with the progress that’s been made by the [Trump] administration on tariffs from the levels that were announced in early April, but they’re still too high,” CFO John David Rainey told CNBC in an interview.
He added that Walmart is “wired for everyday low prices, but the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb.”
The discounter’s remarks came with a risk considering Trump’s history of publicly attacking other companies or people perceived to oppose his agenda. Sure enough, he lashed out at Walmart in a weekend social media post, telling the company to “EAT THE TARIFFS.”
Walmart’s shift in tone about the impact of tariffs — and the back-and-forth with the White House — is the latest illustration of the delicate dance of business leaders trying to appease customers, shareholders and a notoriously transactional White House as Trump’s ever-changing trade policy roils their businesses. But the discounter’s more outspoken response also highlights an area where corporate leaders have grown more willing to publicly criticize Trump’s policy positions.
“Tariffs are really the only topic that has broken through a really silent stretch of corporate engagement,” said Joanna Piacenza, vice president of thought leadership at Gravity Research, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that helps corporations navigate reputational risk and counts Fortune 500 companies as its clients. “It is an issue that corporations, that CEOs feel comfortable speaking out on because they’re tying it to a business issue. That can’t necessarily be said about other polarizing issues that are dominating the zeitgeist right now.”

Walmart responded to Trump with its own statement, echoing its commitment to maintain low prices.
“We have always worked to keep our prices as low as possible and we won’t stop,” Walmart said. “We’ll keep prices as low as we can for as long as we can given the reality of small retail margins.”
Walmart declined to comment beyond its statement. A source close to the company said Walmart’s decision to warn of higher prices was motivated by a sense of obligation to explain to customers and investors why prices would increase.

While Walmart’s prices are closely watched due to its massive reach, it hasn’t been alone: other companies including Microsoft and Subaru have warned of price increases related to tariffs. But on Tuesday, Home Depot broke with that pattern, as its CFO, Richard McPhail, said the company plans to “generally maintain our current pricing levels across our portfolio.”
Consumers and investors will get a clearer read on how companies will handle pricing in the coming days, as Target and Lowe’s, among others, will post first-quarter results.

Shifting winds

As Trump prepared to take office, the corporate world welcomed him by contributing to a record $239 million haul for his inauguration committee. Those funds included donations from the National Retail Federation, the industry’s lobbying arm, and big-box giant Target, which contributed to the inauguration committee for the first time in at least a decade. The NRF gave $250,000 to the fund, while Target wrote a check for $1 million.
Walmart also contributed $150,000 to the inaugural committee for Trump, consistent with the Arkansas-based retailer’s donations for the past three presidential inaugurations — including former President Joe Biden’s in 2021 and Trump’s first in 2017.
Walmart, Target and a range of other corporations also followed Trump’s lead in rolling back or scrapping major diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Businesses, buoyed by hopes that Trump would cut their taxes, stayed mostly quiet about the president’s policies for the first two months of his administration.
But then the tariffs came. More companies spoke out about the U.S. duties after April 9 than in the immediate wake of Trump’s April 2 announcement that he would impose steep trade barriers on dozens of countries, according to data from Gravity Research. April 9 was the day Trump temporarily reduced those steep levies but hiked tariffs on Chinese imports to an astronomical 145%.
There were 139 corporate responses to tariffs on channels including press releases, earnings calls, social media, media interviews and employee memos from April 10 to April 25, up from 79 between April 2 and April 9, Gravity Research found. Nearly half of those tracked statements by corporations since the temporary tariff reprieve came from earnings calls where CEOs delivered prepared remarks and answered analysts’ questions.

U.S. President Donald Trump holds a law enforcement event in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., May 19, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

The backlash to tariffs picked up steam from some top executives who had lauded Trump’s policies as a boon for business only months earlier. The chief executive officers of Delta Air Lines and JPMorgan Chase, companies that each gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, both spoke out about how tariffs were hurting U.S. consumer spending.
Hours before the president suspended some duties that day, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon went on Fox Business’ “Mornings With Maria” show — which Trump is known to watch — and said he saw Trump’s tariffs leading to a U.S. recession. It marked a sharp turnabout from his remarks in January, when he said tariffs were positive for national security and people needed to “get over it.”
Delta CEO Ed Bastian also told CNBC in an interview shortly before the trade conflict reprieve that economic uncertainty caused by the levies were causing airfare bookings to slow and described Trump’s rapidly changing trade policies as “the wrong approach.” In January, Bastian said 2025 was set to be the carrier’s “best financial year in our history.” But on April 9, Delta cut its growth plans and pulled its full-year guidance.
On the same day Delta withdrew its full-year guidance, however, Walmart mostly focused on its long-term business strategy at an investor day — sometimes taking pains to dance around addressing tariffs.
McMillon struck a light tone when kicking off an investor question-and-answer session, joking about how many times tariffs would come up.
“In case any of you want to place an online wager, the current over/under on tariff-related questions sits at six,” he said at the time.

Walmart as a bellwether

While Walmart didn’t publicly speak out about tariffs for weeks after that, McMillon was one of the retail leaders who met with Trump in late April at the White House about his trade policies. The CEOs of Home Depot and Target also attended.
After the meeting ended, all three companies issues nearly identical statements describing the meeting as “productive,” or “informative and constructive.”
By Thursday, Walmart clearly spelled out how it believed tariffs would affect its business and customers. Along with the price warning, the big-box retailer stuck by its full-year forecast, but did not provide guidance for fiscal second-quarter earnings per share or operating income growth because of fluctuating U.S. tariff policy.

Shopping carts are lined up inside a Walmart store in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, January 28, 2025. 
Carlos Osorio | Reuters

Retail analyst Michael Baker of D.A. Davidson said company leaders’ language was “plainer and more specific” than it was last month — something that happened by choice, not by accident.
“Walmart does everything with a purpose and understands that there’s a lot of focus on what they say,” Baker said. “They’re trying to signal the idea that prices will go up and brace the consumer and the U.S. population for that idea, and also, in a way, send a message to policymakers that it’s impractical to think that the entirety of the tariffs will be absorbed by the retailer or the manufacturer.”
That warning led to the social media post by Trump. He and key economic advisors have insisted shoppers will not bear the cost of tariffs, even as most economists say otherwise.
“Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,” Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social. “Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected. Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, ‘EAT THE TARIFFS,’ and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!”
Trump’s criticism of Walmart’s annual profits echoes a common refrain from many Democratic lawmakers, but is rare from a Republican — especially one who presided over a large corporate tax cut in his first presidential term.
Walmart’s thinner profit margins compared with other retailers and businesses may also explain why it felt the need to speak up and explain higher prices, said Steven Shemesh, a retail analyst for RBC Capital Markets. The company’s operating margin typically runs at roughly 4% to 5%, which is similar to other grocery retailers but tends to be lower than some retailers that sell more discretionary goods.
For example, Lululemon’s operating margin was nearly 29% in its most recent quarter.
With its comments on Thursday, Walmart appeared to seek “the middle ground” by thanking the Trump administration for progress in talks with China that led to the U.S. temporarily slashing duties on Chinese imports to 30% from 145%, but saying it would like to see that rate fall even more, Shemesh said.
He said Walmart may have decided to be transparent with its shoppers about the financial realities of tariffs for its business, especially since its customer base tends to be price sensitive.
“Margins are thin, costs are going up, they’re going to eat as much as they can, but at some point the math doesn’t check out,” he said.
Walmart, with its low-price reputation and vast U.S. footprint, is better positioned to withstand blowback from Trump than many other companies are, D.A. Davidson’s Baker said. The discounter often refers to a statistic that illustrates its huge reach and explains, in part, why it’s the nation’s top grocer: About 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart store.
“It’s never good for a retailer to be on the opposite side of an issue with the U.S. government and particularly with the bully pulpit that Trump tends to use. So it’s not great,” Baker said.
But Walmart has successfully conveyed to customers that it will work to keep prices low, especially for key groceries like milk and eggs.
“If prices do need to go up, customers do understand that Walmart is still going to be a good value relative to others,” he said.
Over the next two weeks, other major retailers including Target and Best Buy will share their own updates on their sales outlook — and whether tariffs will mean price hikes.
Gravity Research’s Piacenza said brands are closely watching one another.
“No one wants to be the tallest blade of grass,” she said. “They want to do what their peers are doing.”
But, she added, companies’ efforts to warn customers about higher prices and explain the reasons for them could help brands get ahead of the blame game.
“It comes back to this question: When it comes to the court of public opinion, will consumers point to the White House or corporations for the higher prices they’re seeing?” she said.

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell appeared at CNBC’s CEO Council Summit this week.
He said the league could play up to 16 international games per season in the coming years.
He also reflected on the league opening its doors to private equity, saying he expects to add an additional firm to the pool of eligible PE investors in the near future.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said this week the league is going to lean into international competition and could play as many as 16 games per season abroad in the next 5 years.
Goodell appeared at the CNBC CEO Council Summit alongside Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano and spoke to a variety of topics that also included private equity, franchise valuations and the economy.

Here are the highlights:

Growing the NFL footprint

The NFL currently has seven international games on its 2025 schedule, the most in its history, hosting matchups in Brazil, England, Germany, Ireland and Spain. But Goodell said Monday that’s just the start.
“I do see 16 regular season games, and I do think that will happen in the very near future,” Goodell told CNBC’s Scott Wapner. “Within 5 years probably.”
The league has more than 200 million fans in the U.S., making international a big opportunity.
“International is an open market for us,” said Goodell. “We are excited about our potential.”

Marriott’s Capuano added sports travel is a huge revenue driver, with sports-related travel representing more than $50 billion annually and 10% of global tourism.
Marriott has a long-standing partnership with the NFL as the official hotel partner of the league.

Private equity in the NFL

Goodell also reflected on the rise of private equity in the NFL.
In August, the league became the last of the major U.S. professional sports leagues to allow private equity investment, greenlighting certain PE firms to take up to a 10% stake in teams.
Investment was limited to a small group of firms: Ares Management, Sixth Street Partners, Arctos Partners and a consortium nicknamed “The Avengers” that includes Dynasty Equity, Blackstone, Carlyle Group, CVC Capital Partners and Ludis, a platform founded by investor and former NFL running back Curtis Martin.
Goodell said this week the league is close to allowing an additional private equity firm to join the ranks.
“There’s enough demand for it that we think it’s the right step,” Goodell said.
The commissioner added teams have found the private equity money helpful in providing liquidity.

Valuations on the rise

Goodell said he was surprised by how quickly team valuations have risen, but said it’s not something league officials focus on.
According to CNBC’s Official NFL valuations, the average club is worth $6.49 billion. The NFL is the most valuable sports league in the U.S. and in 2024, the league generated a record $23 billion in revenue.
The San Francisco 49ers have reached an agreement with a set of buyers to sell a 6.2% stake in the team at a record valuation of above $8.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to address nonpublic dealings.
“It’s a statement about the business model itself and the popularity of it,” Goodell said Monday. “I think a lot of people are valuing our franchises because of the future, and that’s what we want to see, and that’s what we need.”

Tariffs and the economy

As many companies around the country grapple with waning consumer sentiment, stubborn inflation and broad import tariffs, Goodell said he doesn’t think the current climate will impact the NFL tremendously.
He said while the data shows consumer are pausing spending or not investing so far into the future, he thinks live sports are in a different category than general entertainment spending.
“There’s still great demand in our content,” Goodell said.
— CNBC’s Alex Sherman and Michael Ozanian contributed to this report. More

Cadillac’s expanding all-electric vehicle lineup is attracting a notable number of new buyers to the American luxury brand, including an increase this year of Tesla owners trading in their EVs.
The GM brand reports nearly 8 out of every 10 customers purchasing a Cadillac EV are new to Cadillac, with around 10% of those customers trading in a Tesla.
The increase comes as Tesla has faced boycotts this year amid CEO Elon Musk’s support of President Donald Trump and actions as part of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

A Cadillac all-electric 2025 Escalade IQ luxury SUV is displayed during press day of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, September 14, 2023.
Rebecca Cook | Reuters

DETROIT — Cadillac’s expanding all-electric vehicle lineup is attracting a notable number of new buyers to the American luxury brand, including an increase this year of Tesla owners trading in their EVs.
The General Motors brand reports nearly 8 out of every 10 customers purchasing a Cadillac EV are new to Cadillac, with around 10% of those customers trading in a Tesla. That includes roughly 25% of customers trading in a Tesla this year for a Cadillac Lyriq SUV, up from prior levels of about 10% to 15%.

“We see the opportunity to increase the conquest rate for Tesla, absolutely,” Brad Franz, Cadillac director of global marketing, told CNBC during an event for the Vistiq three-row SUV — the brand’s latest EV to hit U.S. showrooms.
That increase in customer conquesting, as the industry refers to it, comes as Cadillac offers a relatively full lineup of EVs and as Tesla faces declining sales and boycotts this year amid CEO Elon Musk’s support of President Donald Trump and his actions as part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Cadillac declined to speculate on if Musk’s politics played into Tesla owners’ thinking, saying the carmaker is “building great Cadillacs that are conquesting customers from other brands on the merits of the products.”
Cadillac’s current EV lineup includes an entry-level crossover called the Optiq, the midsize Lyriq SUV, the Vistiq, the Escalade IQ full-size SUV and soon a $300,000-plus bespoke Celestiq car. It also offers a performance variant of the Lyriq and a larger version of the Escalade IQ.

The 2026 Cadillac Vistiq EV.

“The portfolio is the key,” Franz said. “We’ve always had good interaction with Tesla customers, but in the past, that’s been in that 10% to 15% range [for Lyriq]. So, certainly, we’re seeing a good jump in conquest rate.”

While Cadillac has had some luck luring Tesla owners, there’s still room for improvement.
No Tesla vehicle is in the top 10 of any cross-shopped Cadillac EV over the past six months, according to Edmunds.com, meaning the majority of those customers aren’t searching for Teslas against a Cadillac. The consumer vehicle research and data firm reports the top cross-shopped vehicles on its website for Cadillacs are largely other Cadillac EVs, as well as other domestic nameplates.
A potential reason for that could be that Tesla owners are not actually cross-shopping against their vehicle, just trying to find a new one, according to Joseph Yoon, Edmunds’ consumer insights analyst.
“People leaving Tesla cars now, they’re, in my opinion, making a very deliberate choice to get out of that car,” he said. “If your priority is to get out of the Tesla ASAP, then they’re not, technically, cross-shopping Tesla for their next car.”
Yoon said it’s common for vehicles from the same brands to be highly cross-shopped, adding the data is from its website and not representative of dealer trade-ins.

Edmunds reports the top cross-shopped vehicles for the Cadillac Lyriq — the brand’s EV sales leader — are the Cadillac Optiq, Acura ZDX, Ford Mustang Mach-E and BMW 1X. They are followed by the Kia EV9 and the Chevrolet Blazer and Equinox EVs.
For Tesla models, Edmunds reports other Tesla models top consumers’ cross-shopping searches, as well as many Honda, Hyundai and Kia vehicles. The Chevrolet Equinox EV, GMC Hummer EV and Ford Mustang Mach-E are in the mix as well, depending on the model.
Yoon also noted that although Tesla and Cadillac may offer vehicles in similar price points, Tesla’s top-selling models — the Model 3 and Model Y — are more mainstream cars than luxury.
Cadillac’s target this year is to be the bestselling luxury EV brand, which does not include Tesla, although there is a valid argument that the more pricey Model S and Model X are luxury vehicles.
“Cadillac is leading the way with our EV lineup,” Franz said during the Vistiq event. “We’re really poised for success. We’re going to take this portfolio, now that Vistiq is rounding out the SUV portfolio, and become the No. 1, tier-one EV luxury brand.”

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Home Depot stuck by its full-year guidance, even though it missed Wall Street’s first-quarter earnings estimates.
CFO Richard McPhail said the home improvement retailer has diversified where it sources its merchandise and doesn’t plan to raise prices because of higher tariffs.
As higher interest rates slow the housing market, the retailer has attracted more business from home professionals and acquired SRS Distribution, which sells supplies to roofing, pool and landscaping professionals.

Home Depot on Tuesday stuck by its full-year sales forecast as a top executive told CNBC the retailer doesn’t plan to hike prices because of tariffs.
“Because of our scale, the great partnerships we have with our suppliers and productivity that we continue to drive in our business, we intend to generally maintain our current pricing levels across our portfolio,” Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail told CNBC in an interview.

More than half of what the company sells comes from the U.S., he said. McPhail added that Home Depot and its suppliers have worked to diversify the source of the company’s imports over the past several years, including by decreasing the share of purchases that come from China. By this time next year, no single country outside of the U.S. will represent more than 10% of the company’s purchases, he said.
Home Depot’s pricing strategy is at odds with Walmart, which said last week that it would have to raise prices as soon as late May to cover higher costs from tariffs.
McPhail’s comments came as Home Depot posted results for the fiscal first quarter, after weeks in which a range of corporations have either revised or withdrawn their financial guidance due to President Donald Trump’s rapidly changing tariffs. The home improvement retailer missed Wall Street’s first-quarter earnings expectations for the first time since May 2020, but beat sales estimates.
For the full year, Home Depot said it expects total sales to grow by 2.8% and comparable sales, which take out the impact of one-time factors like store openings and calendar differences, to rise about 1%. Its forecast is based on the continuation of a U.S. agreement to temporarily lower tariffs to 30% on imports from China and to 10% for many other countries.
Here’s what Home Depot reported for the fiscal first quarter compared with Wall Street’s estimates, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $3.56, adjusted vs $3.60 expected 
Revenue: $39.86 billion vs. $39.31 billion expected

Shares of the company rose about 2% in premarket trading.
In the three-month period that ended May 4, Home Depot’s net income was $3.43 billion, or $3.45 per share, compared with $3.60 billion, or $3.63 per share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings per share exclude some costs, including the impact of depreciation from acquired intangible assets.
Spring is Home Depot’s peak sales season — the Christmas of the home improvement world — as homeowners and contractors typically tackle more projects because of warmer and dryer weather. Yet even with that seasonal boost, the backdrop for Home Depot remains tough as more U.S. consumers put off home purchases or major renovation projects because of higher mortgage rates and costs of borrowing.
Sales growth has been muted. In the fiscal first quarter, comparable sales dropped 0.3% across the company. In the U.S., comparable sales increased 0.2% year over year.
That trend has been persistent, with the exception of the previous quarter. Home Depot snapped eight consecutive quarters of falling comparable sales in the fourth quarter. In that quarter, comparable sales increased 0.8% across the company.
Sales patterns improved as the quarter went on, McPhail said. Comparable sales declined 3.3% year over year in February, increased 1.3% from the prior-year period in March and rose 1.8% year over year in April, he said. 
He attributed negative sales results in February to poor weather. 
“We clawed our way back through the remainder of the quarter and had a great April, and we’ve seen the level of customer engagement that we saw in April continue into the first few weeks of May,” he said.

As Home Depot stares down a more challenging housing backdrop, the company has chased more business from home professionals. It acquired SRS Distribution, a Texas-based company that sells supplies to roofing, pool and landscaping professionals, last year in a $18.25 billion deal.
Sales for Home Depot – including SRS – grew roughly 9% year over year in the first quarter from $36.42 billion in the year-ago quarter. About $2.6 billion of that year-over-year gain came from SRS’ business, and a portion of sales growth came from new stores, McPhail told CNBC.
In the fiscal first quarter, customer transactions across Home Depot’s website and stores rose 2.1% year over year. Average ticket, which measures the amount of spending on those store or website visits, was $90.71, just a few cents above the average in the year-ago quarter. 
Compared with other retailers, Home Depot caters to a more affluent U.S. consumer who tends to be employed and to have benefited from the sharp increase of property values since 2019, McPhail said. About 80% of its customers are homeowners, he said, and the home professionals who buy from Home Depot cater to homeowners who hire them to tackle projects from roofing and electrical work to a kitchen remodel.
“Our customer is healthy, and we think that’s what has supported their level of engagement in home improvement,” he said.
Even so, McPhail said that do-it-yourself customers are tending to defer bigger projects and engaging in smaller and spring-related projects. 
Home Depot saw a positive response to its spring Black Friday event and strong sales in the appliance, garden, plumbing and electrical departments, McPhail said. But he added sales have been softer in areas including kitchen countertops and bath – categories that tend to be purchased as part of pricier projects like renovations and remodels.
As of Monday’s close, Home Depot’s shares are down about 2% so far this year. That trails behind the S&P 500’s gains of approximately 1% during the same period. Its shares closed at $379.38 on Monday, bringing its market value to about $377 billion.
— CNBC’s Robert Hum contributed to this report.
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The top summer reading list for the wealthy this year includes books on happiness, resilience, artificial intelligence and the future of the U.S. dollar.
JPMorgan’s annual summer reading list, which has become the go-to selection of beach books for the wealthy, offers up 16 titles this year.
It was compiled from more than 1,000 suggestions from JPMorgan’s client advisors and whittled down by a special review committee.

Andresr | E+ | Getty Images

The top summer reading list for the wealthy this year includes books on happiness, resilience, artificial intelligence and the future of the U.S. dollar.
JPMorgan’s annual summer reading list, which has become the go-to selection of beach books for the wealthy, offers up 16 titles this year — from Suzy Welch’s career guide and Melinda French Gates’ reflections on her life and philanthropy to Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s predictions for AI and Kenneth Rogoff’s treatise on the dollar.

The list, now in its 26th year, was compiled from more than 1,000 suggestions from JPMorgan’s client advisors and whittled down by a special review committee.
“Our focus was around the power of curiosity for this year’s list,” said Darin Oduyoye, chief communications officer for JPMorgan asset and wealth management, who oversees the list. “You can think of it from a reflection standpoint or transformation standpoint.”

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Oduyoye said JPMorgan also received input from family offices — the private investment arms of wealthy families — and many cited the need to guide the next generation of wealth holders. With more than $100 trillion expected to pass from older generations to spouses and their children, family offices have made educating and teaching the next generation a top priority.
“From our family office survey, what we heard loud and clear was that values are very important to the next generation,” he said. “As they’re thinking about the adult leadership of the next generation for the family operating committee or business, they want to make sure these people are prepared. It’s about how to think about that from a psychological perspective as well, to make sure you’re balancing, not just the prosperity of wealth, but also the things that you can do to make impact both within your community and within your business.”

Courtesy: J.P. Morgan Private Bank

Along with the list of 16 books, and increase from prior lists, which had 10, this year’s summer reading list also includes suggested summer experiences, from the Dataland exhibit at The Grand LA, to the SailGP racing series and the Hill Family Estate in Napa, California.

Here is the full list of books:

“Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life” by Shigehiro Oishi
“Becoming You: The Proven Method for Crafting Your Authentic Life and Career” by Suzy Welch
“Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working” by Dan Heath
“The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward” by Melinda French Gates
“Iron Hope: Lessons Learned from Conquering the Impossible” by James Lawrence
“The Tell: A Memoir” by Amy Griffin
“Coming of Age: How Technology and Entrepreneurship are Changing the Face of MENA” by Noor Sweid
“The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West” by Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska
“Inevitable: Inside the Messy, Unstoppable Transition to Electric Vehicles” by Mike Colias
“Raising AI: An Essential Guide to Parenting Our Future” by De Kai
“MirrorMirror: The Reflective Surface in Contemporary Art” by Michael Petry
“The Fricks Collect: An American Family and the Evolution of Taste in the Gilded Age” by Ian Wardropper
“Mars: Photographs from the NASA Archives” by Nikki Giovanni, James L. Green, Emily Lakdawalla, Rob Manning and Margaret A. Weitekamp
“Living with Flowers” by Aerin Lauder
“The Values Compass: What 101 Countries Teach Us About Purpose, Life, and Leadership” by Mandeep Rai
“Economic Spotlight: Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of the Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead” by Kenneth Rogoff More

Fanatics Fest is adding a skills-based sports competition to its June event in New York City, with more than $2 million in prizes on the line.
Fans will have the opportunity to compete in sports accuracy challenges against top athletes and celebrities.
It’s the second Fanatics Fest event as the sports merchandising company continues to broaden its reach in sports marketing.

Tom Brady attends Fanatics Fest NYC 2024 at Jacob Javits Center in New York City on Aug. 16, 2024.
Dave Kotinsky | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Sports giant Fanatics is pitting fans against greats Tom Brady, Kevin Durant and Alex Rodriguez at an upcoming marketing event.
The company announced Tuesday it is introducing a skills-based competition at Fanatics Fest 2025, taking place June 20-22 in New York City. Fanatics says more than $2 million will be given away in prizes, including a $1 million cash prize for first place, a Ferrari 812 GTS for second place and a Lebron James collectors card worth $250,000 for third place. If no fans finish in the top three, falling short of the celebrity competitors, the highest-scoring fan will receive $100,000.

If a celebrity competitor comes in first, they take home the seven-figure prize.
“I think the thinking was, how do we create even more of an insane environment where fans and athletes and streamers are all running around, in this case, quite literally, having a great time and showcasing all of that,” said Lance Fensterman, CEO of Fanatics Events.
It’s the second Fanatics Fest after the inaugural event last year drew more than 70,000 fans and brought together major sports leagues and hundreds of current and former athletes. The offerings last year included league activations, autograph sessions and a trading cards and collectibles show.
This year, Fanatics is hoping to go even bigger — with a goal of bringing in 100,000 attendees — as the company continues to broaden its reach in sports marketing.
Michael Rubin acquired Fanatics in 2011 after merging it with his company, GSI Commerce. What began as a sports e-commerce platform has evolved in recent years into a diverse sports platform offering trading cards and sports memorabilia, live shopping, betting and gaming, as well as an events business.

Fans trade cards during Fanatics Fest NYC 2024 at Jacob Javits Center in New York City on Aug. 18, 2024.
Rob Kim | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Fifty fans will be selected to compete at Fanatics Fest 2025 against top talent that also includes comedian Kevin Hart, rapper Travis Scott, former New England Patriot Rob Gronkowski, Los Angeles Clippers shooting guard James Harden and Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles.
The competition will include Major League Baseball pitching accuracy, National Hockey League slapshot accuracy, National Football League passing accuracy, a National Basketball Association 3-point shooting competition, a FIFA goal scoring challenge and a golfing simulator. Fans can apply to participate by submitting a short video in the Fanatics app.
While Fanatics’ events business represents just a small fraction of business — last valued at $25 billion, according to a person familiar with the company — Fensterman said Fanatics Fest creates a lot of positive sentiment around the company.
“It’s incredibly impactful in terms of bringing the entire ecosystem together for the sole focus of delighting,” he said. More

Levi Strauss has agreed to sell Dockers to brand management firm Authentic Brands Group for $311 million.
The denim maker said it was considering selling Dockers in October as it looked to focus on its namesake banner and growing direct sales.
Dockers, primarily known for khakis, is hugely popular abroad where Authentic plans to expand its existing businesses.

The Levi’s brand logo on a store. 
Jens Kalaene | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Levi Strauss has agreed to sell Dockers to brand management firm Authentic Brands Group for $311 million, the companies announced Tuesday. 
Under the terms of the deal, Authentic will own Dockers’ intellectual property while Centric Brands will take on operations, handling manufacturing, sourcing and distribution. Under the brand management business model, Levi’s stands to make up to $391 million in future years based on how well Dockers performs under the Authentic umbrella, which also includes Forever 21’s intellectual property and brands like Reebok and Nautica.

“The Dockers transaction further aligns our portfolio with our strategic priorities, focusing on our direct-to-consumer first approach, growing our international presence and investing in opportunities across women’s and denim lifestyle,” Levi’s CEO Michelle Gass said in a statement. “After a robust process, we are confident that we maximized the value of the business and that Authentic is the right organization to usher in the next chapter of growth for the Dockers brand.” 
In October, Levi’s announced it was considering selling Dockers as it looked to focus on growing its namesake line and its athleisure brand, Beyond Yoga. Levi’s created Dockers in 1986 as a hedge against denim and to offer consumers an alternative: khakis. The brand was hugely popular throughout the 1990s and 2000s, but khakis have since fallen out of fashion in the U.S., especially recently as denim makes another comeback. 
To grow Dockers, Levi’s needed to offer more tops and bottoms, but the company is doing the same thing at its namesake banner and there was too much overlap between the two brands. Dockers’ performance was also dragging down Levi’s results and Gass, who took the helm of the company a little over a year ago, has been working to cut off extraneous businesses to fuel growth and focus on direct selling. 
In the three months ended March 2, Levi’s reported $67 million in revenue related to Dockers. The figure isn’t comparable to the year-ago period because Levi’s only recently started breaking out the performance of each individual brand. 
While khakis have fallen out of favor in the U.S., Dockers is still popular abroad, which is what makes a brand management company a strategic fit, according to people who have seen Dockers’ financials and spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details were private. Firms like Authentic are skilled at rapidly licensing and deploying brands internationally.

In a press release, Authentic said it plans to “unlock new opportunities” for Dockers through its global network of 1,700 licensing partners. It said it is in active discussions with regional operators in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia to expand Dockers’ existing businesses across those markets. 
“Few brands own a category the way Dockers does, yet still have so much room to grow,” said Matt Maddox, president at Authentic. “Its legacy in casualwear gives it a strong foundation, but the real opportunity lies in reimagining the brand for a new generation. Through our global platform and deep licensing network, we’re committed to stewarding the brand into its next era of growth and relevance.”

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