Finance

China is beefing up national security measures by expanding its protections of state secrets to include a broad category of “work secrets.”
The new rules, set to take effect May 1, describe how precautions taken for state secrets should also apply to unclassified information known as work secrets.
That article on work secrets “is the most problematic,” said Jeremy Daum, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, noting “there is a risk that individual departments will overzealously identify matters as ‘work secrets.'”

A Chinese flag flutters on top of the Great Hall of the People ahead of the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum (BRF), to mark 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative, in Beijing, China October 18, 2023.
Edgar Su | Reuters

BEIJING — China is beefing up national security measures by expanding its protections of state secrets to include a broad category of “work secrets.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday signed an order to formally adopt revisions to a law on “Guarding State Secrets,” according to state media, which reported that legislators passed the updated law at a meeting earlier that day.

The new rules, set to take effect May 1, describe how precautions taken for state secrets should also apply to unclassified information known as work secrets. The law broadly defines work secrets as information that would result in an “adverse impact” if leaked, and said specific measures would be released separately.
That article on work secrets is “the most problematic,” said Jeremy Daum, a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.
“There is a risk that individual departments will overzealously identify matters as ‘work secrets,'” Daum said. He also founded the website China Law Translate, which published an unofficial English translation of the new rules.
“This limits the public right to know and also exposes people to potential liability.”

For foreign businesses, it’s the lack of clarity that will remain an unquantified risk to doing business in China.

Jeremy Daum
Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center

While China regularly discloses a certain amount of information about government plans and economic data, the country is often considered more opaque relative to many developed countries.

For example, high-level officials in China have disappeared from public view without formal explanation. Policies, even those that support businesses, don’t always come with specific implementation dates.
Last year, new Chinese laws on espionage and foreign policy included catch-all phrases such as “state secrets” that were left open to interpretation by authorities. Separate rules on what kinds of data foreign businesses in China can send out of the country have yet to provide formal clarity on what qualifies as “important data” and thus subject to export restrictions.

“For foreign businesses, it’s the lack of clarity that will remain an unquantified risk to doing business in China,” Daum said.
“The addition of work secrets, and mention of information that becomes secret only after being aggregated with other information, all creates concern that one might accidentally infringe secret information,” he said.
“In practice however, protection of state secrets has previously been stretched to encompass seemingly benign situations, and foreign businesses have still remained.”

Growing national security concerns

The updated state secrets law comes as Beijing and Washington increasingly cite national security risks when announcing new restrictions for business.
“The new law will add to a general sense among the foreign business community that the Chinese leadership’s preoccupation with national security has made the country’s operating environment more difficult,” said Gabriel Wildau, managing director at consulting firm Teneo.
“China’s economic growth outlook remains the key factor influencing foreign investment decisions, but the secrets law adds another disincentive at the margin,” he said.

The rules designate state secrets as information that, if leaked, “might harm” China’s security and interests in politics, economics, national defense, foreign affairs, technology and other fields, according to China Law Translate.
The law also retained restrictions for overseas travel by people currently or recently working with state secrets.
“I don’t know that their coverage will be meaningfully expanded by the revisions, but the holistic view of national security, a theme running through this law and other recent security laws, has generally placed some barriers on travel,” Daum said.
“A document on counter-espionage precautions released a few years back, required a wide range of persons traveling in their professional capacity to have briefings on security prior to departure.”

The final version of “Guarding State Secrets” has been under government discussion for months.
The revised law provides a “strong legal guarantee for better protecting national sovereignty, security and development interests,” Li Zhaozong, director of the Central Security Office and the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets, wrote Wednesday in an article published by People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper. That’s according to a CNBC translation.
Li noted how it’s important to disclose information that should be made public, while ensuring confidentiality as needed. The article did not mention work secrets.
China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee passed the final version of the updated state secrets law after considering a round of revisions in October. The law was initially adopted in 1988.
Daum pointed out that many of the changes in the new rules are “updates for new technology and style changes.”
“The law offers clarity in a few areas, limiting liability of leadership in some instances, and providing compensation for persons whose rights have been limited due to secrecy requirements,” he added.
The National People’s Congress is set to kick off its annual meeting next week, during which the country’s top leadership will release its economic plans and outlook, as well as outline key policies. More

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Watch out, Ivies, there’s a new endowment performer in town.
Baylor University’s $2 billion endowment — a fraction of those in the Ivy League — generated a 6.4% return for the fiscal year that ended June 30, outperforming the entire conference. Harvard’s endowment, the largest at $50.7 billion, returned 2.9%.

What’s more, Baylor’s annualized return of 10.9% over the past five years outperformed all Ivy League colleges except for Brown University, which recorded a return of 13.3% during that same period, according to the Wall Street Journal. Brown’s endowment in fiscal 2023 was more than three times higher than Baylor’s at $6.6 billion.
The key to Baylor’s endowment success, according to Chief Investment Officer David Morehead, is taking advantage of dislocations in the market.
“It’s really driven by the managers, and then if we, on the edges, are seeing … a dislocation, we could allocate more money into high yield, allocate more money into [emerging markets] — something like that,” the former trader told CNBC’s “Halftime Report” last week. “We’re really allocators.”
Morehead joined the university in 2011, and since fiscal 2012, Baylor’s endowment has more than doubled.

This increase comes as endowment returns have rebounded nationally. Endowment returns were up 7.7% in fiscal 2023, per the latest study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and Commonfund. By contrast, returns fell 8% in fiscal 2022.

The latest gain, however, still comes up short of the returns seen in fiscal 2021, which was 30.6%. That’s the second-highest average return ever recorded since the NACUBO study began in 1974. The study’s highest return to date occurred in fiscal 1983 at 41.3%.
Morehead said that he and his investment team of four others focus on their portfolio’s liquidity as part of their strategy. Assessing those needs in advance, he explains, is what allows the team to take advantage of market dislocations as they happen.
In a statement to CNBC, Morehead noted that initial allocations into or away from a segment of the market are triggered by a move of 20% or more in either direction.
“We don’t care at all if the market is up or down 1-2% in a day — we’re long-term investors,” he said in the statement.
He also revealed to CNBC that his team is betting on helium, along with biotech and small caps, for the medium term.
The commodity, which is used for chip manufacturing and rocket launches, has faced supply shortages in recent years. With the semiconductor industry’s growth and the number of rocket launches at an all-time high, Morehead predicts demand will continue to rise and send helium prices higher.
“Our broader expectation is that the major tech companies will start to develop their own chips so as not to be beholden to Nvidia going forward,” he added.

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Donald Trump and Joe Biden do not agree on much, but they are of a similar mind when it comes to America’s trade relations with China. They believe that the world’s largest economy is simply too reliant on its second-largest. Thus American officials travel the world touting the benefits of “friendshoring”—or shifting production out of China and into less risky markets. Business leaders make positive noises, and are sincerely worried by China’s weak economic growth, not to mention its volatile politics. The number of comments in earnings calls referring to “reshoring” has exploded.Yet how much of this is anything more than talk? Last year The Economist argued that lots of the supposed decoupling between America and China is in fact illusory. Look closer, we wrote, and the two countries’ economic relationship is holding strong, even if this fact is masked by tricks on both sides. Since then a growing body of evidence confirms, and strengthens, our original findings. The economies of America and China are not coming apart. Indeed, some changes to supply chains may be binding the two countries even closer together.Of TikTok and solar panelsA complete picture of Chinese-American trade would cover trade in services, including America’s use of Chinese apps and China’s love of American films. But these flows are difficult to track, meaning that economists have focused their attention on trade in goods, which customs officials measure reasonably accurately. Here, the headline figures will cheer Messrs Biden and Trump. Last year Mexico overtook China as America’s largest source of imports. Since 2017 the share of America’s imports coming from China has fallen by a third to around 14%, according to American figures. A chunk of that decline came after Mr Trump implemented high tariffs in 2018. Another chunk reflects growing worries about China’s territorial ambitions: if China invades Taiwan, many Asian supply chains will become unworkable.image: The EconomistThe headline figures do not tell the whole story, however. To understand why, start with Mr Trump’s tariffs, which Mr Biden has largely kept in place. Before their introduction in 2018, American statistics suggested that America received many more imports from China than did Chinese statistics. Now the opposite is true. China reports that its exports to America rose by $30bn between 2020 and 2023, whereas America says its Chinese imports fell by $100bn. If China’s data are correct, the country’s share of American imports has still declined, but by much less.What accounts for the gap between the measures? Adam Wolfe of Absolute Strategy Research, an advisory firm, suggests that the switch reflects the fact that American importers have an incentive to underreport how much they are buying from China in categories covered by tariffs. Mr Wolfe estimates that, as a consequence, America now understates its imports from China by 20-25%. At the same time, in recent years the Chinese government has cut taxes on exporters, reducing the incentive for domestic businesses to undercount goods leaving the country.Other data provide additional reason for scepticism about decoupling. “Input-output” tables, as published by the Asian Development Bank, show the share of a country’s economic activity that can be traced back to other ones. Examining 35 industries, we calculate that in 2017 the Chinese private sector contributed on average 0.41% of American firms’ inputs. That may not sound like much, but it beat the 0.38% that came from Germany and the 0.24% from Japan. By 2022 China’s share had more than doubled to 1.06%, a larger proportional increase than for either Germany or Japan. It is hard to know exactly what is behind this trend. America’s attempts to build clean-energy infrastructure could be one factor, making imports of Chinese electrical equipment much more important. American service-sector firms also appear to be increasingly reliant upon intellectual property owned in China. Whatever the cause, the figures are hard to square with supposed decoupling.Developments on the Chinese side also push against decoupling. China’s leaders have no intention of relinquishing their country’s role in global supply chains, even as its biggest trading partner is half-heartedly trying to cut it off. In December the Central Economic Work Conference, China’s agenda-setting economic council, made expanding trade in intermediate products (those used to make finished goods) a priority. State banks are redirecting credit from property to manufacturing, raising the prospect of a glut of Chinese exports. And many of the new titans of Chinese industry, like Contemporary Amperex Technology, a battery firm; BOE Technology Group, a producer of organic light-emitting-diode displays; and LONGi Green Energy Technology, which makes components for solar panels, are well placed to benefit from this strategy.Green with envyIndeed, the growth of these sorts of companies is already having an impact. We estimate that since 2019 China’s global exports of intermediate goods have risen by 32%, compared with a rise in other sorts of exports, such as finished goods, of only 2%. The surge is driven by exports to countries such as India and Vietnam, which are two of the American government’s preferred trading partners. American trade with these countries is, in turn, increasing—from 4.1% of its goods imports in 2017 to 6.4% today. In combination, these trends imply that the two countries often act as something akin to packaging hubs for goods made with Chinese input that are destined for America’s shores.Across the world, many such arrangements are emerging. Take the case of India, where the government is trying to build up its manufacturing base. Following the introduction of subsidies, mobile-phone exports have soared, suggesting that India is eating China’s lunch. However, in a recent paper Rahul Chauhan, Rohit Lamba and Raghuram Rajan, three economists, point out that the import of mobile-phone parts, such as batteries, displays and semiconductors, has also jumped. India appears to be more of a mobile-phone go-between than it does a smartphone powerhouse.image: The EconomistVietnam’s trade with America is booming. But its production remains deeply intertwined with Chinese supply chains, meaning that much of the increase may be accounted for by products with little Vietnamese content. In the most extreme cases, Vietnamese exports are essentially re-routed from China, as America’s Department of Commerce occasionally gripes. The correlation between Vietnam’s exports to America and its imports from China is now significantly higher than it was before Mr Trump’s tariffs were put in place. This suggests that that the South-East Asian manufacturing high-flyer increasingly plays a role as a go-between, matching Chinese production to American demand.In Mexico the situation is more complicated. Standards established by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement require a higher “regional-value content”, meaning that exports are scrutinised to ensure that production was conducted in North America. In some industries where Mexican exports to America are booming, like the production of cars, the growth is difficult to attribute to decoupling, since China has never exported large quantities of vehicles and parts to America: in 2018 it was the source of just 6% of American imports of such goods. All the same, Mexico’s imports of Chinese industrial supplies have surged, rising by about 40% since 2019. Even in America’s backyard, decoupling is not going to plan.The overall picture is therefore clear: Chinese supply chains may be less visible, but they remain extremely important to the American economy. Will they retain their pivotal role? Mr Trump has threatened enormous tariffs on all Chinese products should he become president in November. Such levies may be enough to encourage some companies to move out of China for good. Aggression from Xi Jinping—whether in Taiwan or elsewhere—could have a similar impact. Over decades, some countries that currently act as a final step in production lines may develop more impressive industrial capabilities, and challenge China’s position.In the absence of drastic shifts in American or Chinese policy, do not expect much to change any time soon. Many countries are more than happy to play both sides—receiving Chinese investment and intermediate goods, and exporting finished products to America. Economic efficiency, provided by China’s huge scale and manufacturing expertise, is a powerful force in favour of the status quo. Decoupling may be strong rhetoric, but that is not quite the same thing. ■ More

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon isn’t worried about the added competition from a bulked-up Capital One if its $35.3 billion takeover of Discover Financial gets approved.
Dimon acknowledged that if regulators approve the Capital One-Discover deal, his bank will be eclipsed as the nation’s biggest credit card lender.
“My view is, let them compete,” Dimon said. “Let them try, and if we think it’s unfair, we’ll complain about that.”

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon isn’t worried about the added competition from a bulked-up Capital One if its $35.3 billion takeover of Discover Financial gets approved.
“My view is, let them compete,” Dimon said. “Let them try, and if we think it’s unfair, we’ll complain about that.”

Dimon, speaking to CNBC’s Leslie Picker at a Miami conference, acknowledged that if regulators approve the Capital One-Discover deal, his bank will be eclipsed as the nation’s biggest credit card lender.
But that didn’t stop him from praising Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank, who he credited with shaking up the card industry in a way that ultimately led Dimon to becoming CEO of a predecessor firm to JPMorgan more than 20 years ago.
“Richard is why I’m here,” Dimon said.
About the transaction, he added, “I’m not worried about it really, but we do track everything he does.”

Last week, Capital One announced the biggest proposed merger of the year, one that could transform the trillion-dollar credit card industry. By acquiring Discover, Fairbank is both bulking up as a lender and boosting the smallest of the payments networks after Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

“The credit card business … they’ll be bigger and [have] more scale,” Dimon said. “They’re very good at it. I have enormous respect for Richard Fairbank and Capital One.”
It’s unclear if Capital One can create a true alternative to the dominant card networks with this deal, Dimon said.
He added that Capital One will have an “unfair advantage versus us” in debit payments, owing to the fact that legislation known as the Durbin Amendment caps debit fees for large banks, but not Discover or American Express.
“Of course, I have a problem with that,” Dimon said. “You know, like why should they be allowed to price debit different than we price debit just because of a law that was passed?”
More broadly, Dimon said he also favored allowing small banks to merge. A wave of industry consolidation has been expected after the tumult of last year’s regional banking crisis, but only a trickle of smaller deals have happened so far as executives are unsure if they can pass regulatory muster.  
The biggest question remaining about the Capital One deal is whether regulators will approve it. More than a dozen Democrat lawmakers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., signed a letter to the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Sunday urging them to block the agreement.
“To protect consumers and financial stability, we urge you to block this merger and strengthen your proposed policy statement to prevent harmful deals in the future,” they wrote.Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO: More

“This is not hype. This is real. When we had the internet bubble the first time around … that was hype. This is not hype. It’s real,” Dimon said.
Dimon called himself a “big optimist” about the emerging technology, mentioning cybersecurity and pharmaceutical research as areas where it can be helpful.
“It may invent cancer cures because it can do things that the human mind simply cannot do,” Dimon said.

The burgeoning artificial intelligence tools from companies such as OpenAI still have their share of skeptics, but don’t count JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon among them.
The Wall Street titan told CNBC’s Leslie Picker on Monday that AI is not just a passing fad and is bigger than just the large language models such as Chat GPT. He compared the current moment favorably to the tech bubble around the start of the 21st century, when investor excitement seemingly got ahead of the actual changes.

“This is not hype. This is real. When we had the internet bubble the first time around … that was hype. This is not hype. It’s real,” Dimon said. “People are deploying it at different speeds, but it will handle a tremendous amount of stuff.”
JPMorgan has done work on the ability to use the new technologies internally, with Dimon saying that AI will eventually “be used in almost every job.” JPMorgan created a new role of chief data and analytics officer last year, in part to handle AI.
Dimon said Monday that there are 200 people at JPMorgan doing research on the large language models that have recently been rolled out by tech companies.
While acknowledging that AI can be used by bad actors, Dimon called himself a “big optimist” about the emerging technology, mentioning cybersecurity and pharmaceutical research as areas where it can be helpful.
“It may invent cancer cures because it can do things that the human mind simply cannot do,” Dimon said.Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO: More

Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue Airways and United Airlines have raised their fees for checked bags in 2024.
Checking bags generally adds an extra $60 or more to the cost of a basic round-trip fare.
Travel experts share ways to reduce or avoid those fees.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images News | Getty Images

A handful of airlines — Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue Airways and United Airlines — have raised their fees for checked bags this year. But if you plan ahead, such fees are easy to reduce or avoid altogether.
On Friday, United raised its fee to $40 for a first checked bag at the airport, and to $35 for those who prepay online at least 24 hours before their flight — both of which are a $5 increase.

American similarly upped its fees earlier last week. JetBlue also recently increased its checked-bag fee to $45, and Alaska to $35.
More from Personal Finance:4 big ways to save on your next tripDon’t let this passport quirk upend your next vacation2024 is the ‘year of globetrotting,’ travel expert says
Such fee changes are “likely to impact families the worst because families tend to travel with checked bags,” said Katy Nastro, travel expert at Going, a platform that helps travelers find airfare deals.

Checked bag fees represent big revenue

A checked bag is one stored in a plane’s cargo hold during a flight. While that service was free in years past, it’s now standard for major airlines to charge for checked bags.
Major U.S. airlines started doing so in 2008, levying around $15 a bag, Nastro said.

By late 2023, it was about double for many carriers: $30 to $35 for one checked bag, Nastro said. That means travelers who checked a bag on each leg of a round-trip itinerary could add an extra $60 to $70 to the total cost of their basic fare.
Recent changes from American and United mean travelers could now incur an additional $80 total if they check one bag at the airport.
Rates generally increase for each additional checked bag.

Passengers paid about $6.8 billion in total baggage fees in 2022, the last full year for which data is available, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. That’s up 17% from roughly $5.8 billion in 2019, even though fewer passengers flew on U.S. carriers in 2022, Bureau of Transportation Statistics data shows.
“Unless baggage is included in a higher-class (premium economy, first, business class, etc.) ticket, passengers should expect to pay a fee,” Eric Napoli, vice president of legal strategy at AirHelp, which helps passengers file claims for airline compensation, said in an email.
Here’s how cost-conscious consumers can reduce those fees, and perhaps avoid them altogether, according to travel experts.

1. Fly with certain airlines

Daniel Garrido | Moment | Getty Images

There are a few airlines that still don’t charge for a checked bag.
Southwest, for example, is the one outlier in the U.S., experts said. The carrier allows two free checked bags.
The “Big Three” Gulf Airlines — Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways and Emirates — still offer free baggage, as does Air India, according to Aiden Higgins, senior editor of The Broke Backpacker website.
These carriers may have certain restrictions, including for luggage size and weight.
Of course, just because they may not charge for bags doesn’t mean their fares are cheaper than others when assessing overall cost. They also may not fly routes that work for travelers’ itineraries.

2. Combine bags

Travel partners may also consider combining suitcases.
A family of four may be able to condense four bags into two, potentially cutting checked-bag fees in half, experts said.

Unless baggage is included in a higher-class (premium economy, first, business class, etc.) ticket, passengers should expect to pay a fee.

Eric Napoli
vice president of legal strategy at AirHelp

Families with small kids may be able to leverage the space within a car seat carrier, “since airlines don’t charge for one car seat per child,” Nastro said. “You can often fit a small soft duffel into that space to keep items contained,” she added.
Passengers need to consider airlines’ weight requirements for bags and whether consolidating suitcases could trigger additional fees.

3. Skip checking a bag

Traveling light — only with a personal item and/or carry-on bag, depending on what your airline and fare class permit for free — is “the only fool-proof way” to avoid paying a checked-bag fee, Napoli said.
Of course, this won’t be possible for everyone.
But passengers “can sneak quite a bit into the cabin” within airline limits, especially with a well-packed backpack — aided by packing cubes — combined with a sling bag and/or a tote bag, Higgins said.
Passengers with softer, duffel-bag-type luggage that’s more pliable may have an easier time meeting carry-on size requirements versus those with a hard case, Nastro said.

4. Consider a fare upgrade

Jim Vondruska | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Even the major carriers generally charge for carry-ons on basic economy fares, experts said.
A higher-tier ticket for a higher cost might include a baggage allowance, in which case passengers may wind up paying the same total price compared with a lower-cost fare while also getting some additional benefits such as the ability to choose a seat or make flight changes, experts said.
“If you are using an aggregator like Skyscanner, it can sometimes work out cheaper to go with the 2nd or 3rd most expensive flight if the airline is [also] offering baggage,” Higgins said.
Travelers should read the fine print to discern what baggage is included in their ticket, which varies by airline and ticket class, Napoli said.

5. Add bags early

Whether you’re checking a bag or carrying one on for a fee, declaring that early can save you money.
For example, a standard passenger flying Spirit Airlines from New York to Los Angeles for the weekend (March 1-3) would pay $49 for a carry-on, according to the carrier’s price chart. A checked bag is cheaper at $44.
But these prices assume passengers add their bags during the initial online booking process. Those who wait to pay until arriving at the gate, for example, would pay $99 for a checked bag or carry-on, the chart indicates.

For those who know they’ll need to add a bag, “nine times out of 10 it’s always cheaper to do it upon booking” instead of deferring until later, Nastro said.
Relatively high fees for “add ons” such as bags mean a budget carrier may not be the cheapest option when assessing total cost and value, she said.

6. Buy a luggage scale, lightweight bags

Buying and using a luggage scale before traveling can help travelers avoid surprise fees at the airport due to exceeding a weight limit on checked bags.
“At least weigh your suitcase before you even book the flight,” Higgins said. “Once upon a time, airlines might have turned a blind eye” to additional weight, but not anymore, he said.

Travelers can also invest in ultralight luggage, Higgins said.
“You can easily save one or two [kilograms] by buying specially designed ultralight travel gear,” he said. However, such bags can be pricey and may not be as durable as sturdier packs, he said.

7. Get a credit card or join a frequent flier program

“Many credit cards, especially airline-branded cards, offer free checked bags as a perk,” Napoli said.
Of course, travelers shouldn’t necessarily open a credit card account just for this perk, experts said. Some cards might also carry an annual fee, though travelers might come out ahead if their annual benefits (e.g., savings on bag fees) eclipse that expense.
“It varies credit card to credit card and airline to airline,” Nastro said.
Joining an airline’s frequent flier program may also come with perks for travelers such as free or extra baggage, Higgins said.
Correction: Some data came from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. An earlier version misstated the name of the agency.
Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO: More

Warren Buffett tours the grounds at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha Nebraska.
David A. Grogan | CNBC

Berkshire Hathaway shares rose on Monday after Warren Buffett’s conglomerate posted strong earnings for the fourth quarter over the weekend.
Berkshire class B shares jumped 2.3% in premarket trading, set to add to their 17% gain already this year. Berkshire closed on Friday with a $905.5 billion market value, according to FactSet.

Berkshire on Saturday posted fourth-quarter operating earnings of $8.481 billion, about 28% higher than the $6.625 billion from the year-ago period, driven by big gains in its insurance business. Operating earnings refers to profits from businesses across insurance, railroads and utilities.
Meanwhile, Berkshire’s cash levels also swelled to record levels. The conglomerate held $167.6 billion in cash in the fourth quarter, surpassing the $157.2 billion record the conglomerate held in the prior quarter.

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Berkshire Hathaway Class A

Still, one analyst said he expects the stock is fairly valued, saying any upside from the conglomerate’s rosy earnings outlook is already priced into the stock.
“BRK shares have significantly outperformed financial services peers during 2023, supported by a relatively strong earnings outlook. We continue to expect solid earnings from BRK’s diverse group of operating companies,” Edward Jones’ James Shanahan wrote on Saturday. “In our view, however, the current share price reflects these positives.”
Investors shouldn’t expect Buffett’s often frank comments to help it get to $1 trillion any faster either. In fact, the billionaire investor said in his annual letter also released this past weekend that he expects Berkshire will only slightly outperform the average company from here on, especially as the conglomerate reaches a net worth of 6% of the total S&P 500 companies.

‘With our present mix of businesses, Berkshire should do a bit better than the average American corporation and, more important, should also operate with materially less risk of permanent loss of capital,” Buffett said. “Anything beyond ‘slightly better,’ though, is wishful thinking.”
Buffett added only a handful of businesses are likely to “truly move the needle” for the firm through acquisitions. The last major deal Berkshire made was in 2022, when it bought insurer and conglomerate Alleghany for $11.6 billion.
— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report. More

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is back on track to be a top market player after a period of pressure, co-founder Joe Tsai told CNBC’s Emily Tan in an exclusive interview Friday.
He also expects the penetration of e-commerce in China will exceed 40% in the next five years, up significantly from the current 30% level.
When about the success of China-affiliated e-commerce players Temu, Shein and TikTok in the U.S., Tsai said the companies are “very aggressive” and that Alibaba was watching to see what it should do.

Trader works at the post where Alibaba is traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., March 28, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is back on track to be a top market player after a period of pressure, co-founder Joe Tsai told CNBC’s Emily Tan in an exclusive interview Friday.
Questions about Alibaba’s future have mounted after a series of internal changes, a scrapped cloud computing IPO and competition for its core e-commerce business.

The long-time behemoth in China’s online shopping world has in recent years faced greater competition as cost-conscious consumers turn to lower-priced goods from PDD Holdings, and amid the rise of livestreaming sales on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok that’s owned by ByteDance.
“Now with the restructuring and with the new management in place, we feel a lot more confident in placing as one of the top e-commerce players in China,” Tsai said. “Where we didn’t feel as confident as before, we felt the competitive pressure, but now we’re back.”
He also expects the penetration of e-commerce in China to exceed 40% in the next five years, up significantly from the current 30% level.
Tsai has been part of Alibaba since its founding in 1999. He became chairman of Alibaba in September as part of a leadership reshuffle.

Eddie Wu became CEO of the company at the same time, replacing Daniel Zhang, who had also held the chairman role. In December, Wu took over as head of the Taobao and Tmall e-commerce business from Trudy Dai.

The management shakeup followed an overhaul of Alibaba’s business last year that split the company into six business groups, with an eye to list them publicly starting with the cloud unit.
However, Alibaba in November pulled plans for a cloud IPO, citing U.S. chip export curbs. Zhang was originally supposed to stay on as head of the cloud business but abruptly quit the company in September.
Tsai said a cloud IPO would have made more sense if investor sentiment was higher.
“Markets haven’t been great,” he said. As for an IPO of Alibaba’s Cainiao logistics business, he said the company was waiting for better timing.
Cainiao filed for a public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in September, but has yet to list.
In the last several months, Tsai and fellow co-founder Jack Ma have bought more than $200 million worth of Alibaba shares between them.

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Alibaba’s U.S.-traded shares have barely changed for the year so far, trading at around $76 — a fraction of its stock price of about $300 in November 2020.
That same month, the company’s fintech affiliate Ant Group’s IPO was abruptly suspended by Chinese authorities. Beijing later fined Alibaba for alleged monopolistic behavior.
Since then, the company has faced increased competition amid slower growth in China’s economy. PDD Holdings, which owns Pinduoduo and Temu, temporarily saw its market capitalization surge past Alibaba’s.
When asked about the success of China-affiliated e-commerce players like Temu, Shein and TikTok in the U.S., Tsai said the companies offered “a great consumer proposition” due to “high quality” products and “reasonable prices.”
“They’re very aggressive doing it and we’re going to observe and figure out what we want to do,” he said, noting Alibaba already sells overseas through AliExpress and Trendyol, which focuses on Turkey.
As for U.S.-China tensions, Tsai said the two governments have realized they need to work together in certain areas despite fierce competition, something Alibaba would have to learn how to deal with.
Although Alibaba no longer plans to spin off its cloud business, the company remains intent on building up its artificial intelligence capabilities and making money from cloud computing.
E-commerce, Tsai said, offers “one of the richest use-case scenarios, or brings the most variety, in terms of use cases for using AI applications.” They include the ability to quickly create product catalogs for consumers, as well as virtual dressing rooms for clothes, he added. More