Every year since the 1930s, more people have arrived in America than have left. Every year, that is, until quite possibly 2025. Net immigration was over 2.5m a year at the end of Joe Biden’s presidency; this year that figure may fall to zero, or even turn negative (see chart 1). More
The deal values Polymarket at approximately $8 billion, both companies said in a release.
“There are opportunities across markets which ICE together with Polymarket can uniquely serve and we are excited about where this investment can take us,” Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeffrey Sprecher said.
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Shares of New York Stock Exchange parent, Intercontinental Exchange, rose more than 3% in the premarket after the company announced it took a $2 billion stake in prediction markets platform Polymarket.
The deal values Polymarket at approximately $8 billion, both companies said in a release.
“There are opportunities across markets which ICE together with Polymarket can uniquely serve and we are excited about where this investment can take us,” Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeffrey Sprecher said in a statement.
The deal comes as prediction markets become more mainstream, with Polymarket rival Kalshi enjoying sharp trading volume increases thanks to the implementation of sports-related contracts. Prediction markets industry revenue may climb to $8 billion by 2030 as it takes market share from the sports gambling industry, according to analysis by Piper Sandler.
Polymarket, earlier this year, also secured an investment from 1789 Capital, which is backed by Donald Trump Jr. The company was also greenlit last month to launch in the U.S.
Polymarket founder and CEO Shayne Coplan wrote that,” by combining ICE’s institutional scale and credibility with Polymarket’s consumer savvy, we will be able to deliver world-class products for the modern investor.”
The deal was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
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The World Bank predicts China’s economy will grow by 4.8% this year.
It had forecast 4% growth in April, when the U.S. briefly ramped up tariffs on Chinese imports to more than 100%.
The bank projects China’s GDP growth to ease to 4.2% in 2026, partly due to a slowdown in exports growth.
Tourists visit the Huangguoshu Waterfall of “Monkey King” fame in China’s Guizhou province on Oct. 5, 2025, during a week-long public holiday.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
BEIJING — The World Bank on Tuesday raised its 2025 growth forecast for China as part of an overall boost in projections for East Asia and the Pacific, after a summer that saw U.S. tariff-led uncertainty rock the global economy.
The World Bank now projects China’s economy to expand by 4.8%, compared with 4% predicted in April. The new forecast is closer to China’s official target of around 5% growth in gross domestic product in 2025.
The economists did not provide a specific reason for the change in forecast from April, but noted that China’s economy has benefited from government support that could fade next year.
Trade tensions between China and the U.S. escalated in April, temporarily sending U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports to well over 100% before the two countries reached a trade truce — now in effect until mid-November. For now, U.S. tariffs on China are 57.6%, more than double where they were at the start of the year.
China ramped up stimulus in late 2024 and has maintained targeted consumer trade-in programs this year to support retail sales. The country’s exports, a major driver of its growth, have continued to rise so far this year, as shipments to Southeast Asia and Europe have offset a sharp decline in exports to the U.S. Businesses ramping up orders ahead of higher tariffs have also helped support China’s exports.
Growth in exports helped China offset drags on domestic growth such as the ongoing real estate slump and tepid consumer spending. But that momentum is expected to slow.
The World Bank projects China’s GDP growth to ease to 4.2% in 2026, partly due to slower exports growth. Economists also anticipate that Beijing will tone down stimulus to keep public debt levels from rising too quickly, while China’s overall economic growth slows compared with its rapid expansion in past years.
China’s retail sales rose just 3.4% in August from a year ago, missing analysts’ expectations. Investment in real estate fell further, down by 12.9% for the first eight months of the year, versus a 12% drop for the first seven months.
Preliminary figures for the eight-day “Golden Week” holiday that wraps up Wednesday also pointed to sluggish consumer spending.
While average daily domestic passenger trips rose 5.4% year-on-year to 296 million for the Oct. 1 to 5 period, that growth was much slower than the 7.9% seen during the May 1 to 5 public holiday, Nomura’s Chief China Economist Ting Lu said in a report Monday, citing official data.
“Actual consumption growth could be even weaker than the data suggest,” Lu said, noting that due to the agrarian calendar, this year’s Golden Week combined what have typically been two public holidays.
Oct. 1 is China’s National Day, while a traditional Mid-Autumn Festival fell on Oct. 6 this year, versus Sept. 17 last year. As a result, China’s Golden Week ran from Oct. 1 to 8 this year, versus Oct. 1 to 7 last year.
The economists pointed out that one out of every seven young people in China is unemployed, while the country faces challenges from technological disruption and an aging population. The World Bank also noted that startups in China only increase employment fourfold, versus sevenfold in the U.S., highlighting that a differentiating factor was the presence of state-owned enterprises in China versus North America.
A decline in China’s GDP by 1 percentage point lowers growth in the rest of developing East Asia and Pacific by 0.3 percentage points, according to World Bank estimates. With the China GDP upgrade, the region is expected to expand by 4.8% this year, versus 4% forecast earlier this year, according to the World Bank.
In June, the World Bank cut its global economic growth forecast for 2025 to 2.3%, largely due to trade uncertainty, noting it would be the slowest expansion since 2008, excluding global recessions. More
Paul Tudor Jones said today’s market is reminiscent of the setup leading up to the burst of the dotcom bubble in late 1999.
The difference between now and 1999 is the U.S. fiscal and monetary policy, Jones noted.
He believes the bull market still has room to run before it reaches its final phase.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones believes the conditions are set for a powerful surge in stock prices before the bull market tops out.
“My guess is that I think all the ingredients are in place for some kind of a blow off,” Jones said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Monday. “History rhymes a lot, so I would think some version of it is going to happen again. If anything, now is so much more potentially explosive than 1999.”
The founder and chief investment officer of Tudor Investment said today’s market is reminiscent of the setup leading up to the burst of the dotcom bubble in late 1999, with dramatic rallies in technology shares and heightened speculative behavior. Jones said the circular deals or vendor financing happening in the artificial intelligence space today also made him “nervous.”
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has bounced 117% from its April bottom to consecutive record highs. The rally has been driven by mega-cap tech giants, which have invested billions in AI and are being valued richly on the potential of this emerging era.
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Nasdaq Composite year to date
The difference between now and 1999 is the U.S. fiscal and monetary policy, Jones noted. The Federal Reserve had just begun a new easing cycle, whereas rate hikes were on the way before the market top in 2000. The U.S. is now running a 6% budget deficit, while in 1999, there was a budget surplus in $99,000, Jones said.
“That fiscal monetary combination is a brew that we haven’t seen since, I guess, the postwar period, early 50s,” he said.
The longtime investor highlighted the tension at the heart of every late-stage bull market — the eager to capture outsized gains and the inevitability of a painful correction.
“You have to get on and off the train pretty quick. If you just think about bull markets, the greatest price appreciations always [occurs] the 12 months preceding the top,” Jones said. “It kind of doubles whatever the annual averages, and before then, if you don’t play it, you’re missing out on the juice; if you do play it, you have to have really happy feet, because there will be a really, really bad end to it.”
To be sure, Jones isn’t predicting an immediate downturn. He believes the bull market still has room to run before it reaches its final phase.
“It will take a speculative frenzy for us to elevate those prices. It will take more retail buying. It’ll take more recruitment from a variety of others from long short hedge funds, from real money, etc.,” he said.
He said he would own a combination of gold, cryptocurrencies and Nasdaq tech stocks between now and the end of the year to take advantage of the rally fueled by the fear of missing out.
Jones shot to fame after he predicted and profited from the 1987 stock market crash. He is also the chairman of nonprofit Just Capital, which ranks public U.S. companies based on social and environmental metrics. More
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Galaxy Digital shares jumped about 10% in early trading Monday after the digital assets investment firm led by CEO Mike Novogratz unveiled a Robinhood-like trading platform, GalaxyOne.
The platform and mobile application, launched Monday, hosts commission-free buying and selling of more than 2,000 stocks and exchange-traded funds in addition to cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether, Galaxy Digital said in a statement.
GalaxyOne also offers several yield-bearing accounts, including a 4% annual percentage yield on cash deposits and an 8% yield investment note for accredited investors who put up a minimum of $25,000.
Galaxy shares have more than doubled this year as federal regulators have softened their oversight of digital assets.
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Galaxy Digital in 2025 More
Investors may want to boost their exposure overseas.
“Home bias is about as bad as it’s ever been in the United States. The average investor has far too much of their money sitting in the United States,” ETF.com’s Dave Nadig told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.
Nadig, the firm’s president and director of research, delivered his concerns during a record week on Wall Street. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained another one percent this week. Meanwhile, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF gained almost 3%. As of Friday’s close, the ETF closed at a 52-week high.
According to Nadig, going abroad may offer a better value.
“Getting out of the US. somehow, whether it’s in a very specific fund or a very specific country, or just broad international exposure, is something I’m hearing more and more investors and advisors talk about,” he added. “It’s hard to bet against China in the long term.”
EMQQ Global Founder and CIO Kevin Carter also sees benefits from putting money to work abroad. His firm is behind the Emerging Markets Internet and the India Internet ETFs. Both funds are designed to provide investors with exposure to internet and e-commerce companies in emerging markets.
The Emerging Markets Internet ETF is up 35% so far this year, while the India Internet ETF is down 3%. However, Carter is still particularly bullish on the country.
India’s NSE Nifty 50 has been underperforming the U.S. markets so far this year — up 5%. But over the last five years, it has surged 118%.
“You now have the largest population, you have the best demographics, you have the fastest growth in the world, and that’s driving consumption,” said Carter. “That’s the same thing we saw in China over the last 20 years.”
India’s GDP is expected to grow by 6.2% in 2025, making it one of the fastest-growing major economies, according to IMF data. This year, India surpassed Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy.
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The allure of the world’s second-largest consumer market is forcing Western companies to adapt in the face of growing competition from Chinese brands.
In the last two years, adapting to the local social media ecosystem of Xiaohongshu and Douyin has become a path to quick success, according to Stephy Liu, founder of a local marketing agency.
Another important factor in many companies’ strategies is access to hordes of data on what consumers in China are buying.
Pictured here is Louis Vuitton’s new cruise ship-shaped store in Shanghai, China, on June 28, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
BEIJING — China’s economic slowdown isn’t discouraging U.S. and European brands from revamping their strategies to reach Chinese shoppers.
Instead, the allure of the world’s second-largest consumer market is forcing companies to adapt in the face of growing competition from local brands.
In the case of Kraft Heinz, getting more people in China to buy ketchup this year also meant hiring a local agency to help create catchy campaigns — decorating subway station columns to mimic ketchup bottles and promoting the condiment as a fresh twist on a popular dish: stir-fried eggs and tomatoes.
It’s a hard market to tackle, even for Shanghai-based marketing firm Good Idea Growth Network (GGN). The agency has witnessed at least five different waves of consumer trends in its 14-year history, founder Stephy Liu, said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. “The gameplay keeps on changing.”
But GGN has succeeded even after rejecting an acquisition offer from British advertising giant WPP, Liu said, noting that about half of her clients are foreign brands.
While Kraft Heinz isn’t done with its China ketchup campaign yet, the company reported second-quarter net sales in emerging markets climbed by 4.2% from a year ago, helping offset declines in North America.
WPP explored a potential acquisition of GGN but did not end up going far in the process, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
Kraft Heinz did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Localized social media
From Starbucks’ struggles to Lululemon’s successes in China, it’s become clear that the right mix of localization is essential.
“Among international brands in China, the winners are often dedicating more than 40% of revenue to marketing, especially content and platform-first marketing, while also iterating products locally based on market data,” said Jacob Cooke, co-founder and CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, which helps foreign brands sell in China.
This year, Cooke said that Under Armour has created products under 100 yuan ($14) in order to attract a mass of buyers online, while using livestreams with dedicated users to then build fitness communities and sell more premium products offline.
ByteDance-owned Douyin has become an e-commerce force in the last few years since celebrities and companies started using the app for livestreaming sales during the pandemic. And by the numbers, there’s little question that jumping into the Xiaohongshu and Douyin world is worthwhile for businesses.
Adapting to that new social commerce ecosystem has become the biggest challenge for brands in the last two years, GGN’s Liu said. “Foreign brands will think, ‘Isn’t this just TikTok?'”
She warned that success requires a complex strategy that can involve changing everything from how a team is structured to the kinds of products sold. But the payoff is significant.
“In half a year, it can help you sell more than you sold on [Alibaba’s] Tmall in two years,” Liu said.
Data is power
In addition to social media, a critical factor in many companies’ strategies is access to hordes of data on what consumers in China are buying.
Chinese e-commerce platforms, including Alibaba’s Tmall, share far more data on what’s popular than Amazon.com does, WPIC’s Cooke said. In China, “people generally know what their competitors are selling and what they’re selling for.”
With that granular data, Chinese makeup brand Perfect Diary was able to succeed by identifying a market pain point and creating a lipstick targeted at that lower price segment, Cooke said. He noted that’s pressured foreign brands to create China-specific products as well, a big shift over the last five years.
E-commerce platforms in China also often show rough figures on how many orders were placed per product, while third-party companies such as Syntun offer significant amounts of product rankings and other online sales data for free.
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In the case of Apple’s iPhone 17 launch on Sept. 19, it was Chinese e-commerce company JD.com that released sales data for mainland China. The electronics-focused platform announced that the first minute of iPhone 17 series preorders surpassed the first-day preorder volume of last year’s iPhone 16 series.
Apple’s story also underscores how it’s possible to reignite local interest despite losing market share to domestic competition. Some customers in Beijing told CNBC that they liked the iPhone’s new cosmic orange color, and that more locals intended to buy their first iPhone this year since they’d heard about new attractive features such as larger internal storage.
China’s factories were quick to jump on the trend, releasing iPhone cases with a similar orange hue even before the 17 model was out.
“Winning brands are those that have established local R&D centers and on-the-ground product teams,” said Ashley Dudarenok, founder of ChoZan, a China marketing consultancy. “This allows them to spot trends early, develop products tailored to local needs, and launch them in months, not years. This is a significant departure from the past, where global products were often simply rolled out in the Chinese market.”
Cultural connection
Even with the right data and social media platforms, cultural integration is becoming increasingly important, especially as Chinese brands find success in tapping the country’s own history of artisanal craftsmanship.
“Brands are moving beyond superficial nods to Chinese culture,” Dudarenok said. She pointed out that Loewe partnered with jade carving masters, while Burberry teamed up with bamboo-weaving artists.
And despite declining sales in China’s luxury market, LVMH this summer opened an eye-catching ship-shaped store in Shanghai — immediately generating much local buzz.
In contrast to LVMH’s luggage-shaped store in Manhattan, the Shanghai location taps into the Chinese city’s history as a port of entry for international travelers to Asia roughly a century ago.
The new store also captures the European brand’s roots in hand-crafted travel trunks — which contrasts with Chinese brands’ inability to offer the same emotional appeal, Joe Ngai, chairman of greater China at McKinsey, pointed out in a LinkedIn post.
“As Chinese customers grow in their confidence and desire for local elements,” he said, “creating more crossovers between West and East is one of the unique opportunities for multinationals in China.”
— CNBC’s Eunice Yoon contributed to this report. More
Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said Friday he’s leery of cutting interest rates too quickly as threats increase both inflation and employment.
“I’m a little wary about front-loading too many rate cuts and just counting on the inflation going away,” he said.
Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said Friday he’s leery of cutting interest rates too quickly as threats increase both to inflation and employment.
In a “Squawk Box” interview on CNBC, the central banker indicated that pressure is coming to both sides of the Fed’s so-called dual mandate of stable prices and low unemployment.
“This uptick of inflation that we’ve been seeing, coupled with the payroll jobs numbers deteriorating, have put the central bank in a bit of a sticky spot where you’re getting deterioration of both sides of the mandate at the same time,” Goolsbee said. “I’m a little wary about front-loading too many rate cuts and just counting on the inflation going away.”
The Federal Open Market Committee voted in September to lower its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point. Participants at the meeting indicated that two more cuts could be on the way before the end of the year.
Goolsbee is a voting member this year on the FOMC.
Though he expressed some concern about both inflation and the jobs picture, he added that data “continues to point to a pretty stable labor market.”
“I believe that the underlying economy can afford rates to come down over time, in a gradual basis, a fair amount from where they are now,” Goolsbee said. More
