Finance

President Joe Biden said Friday he will nominate Philip Jefferson to serve as the central bank’s vice chairman.
He also intends to nominate Adriana Kugler for a vacant governor’s seat and Lisa Cook for another term as governor

Dr. Philip Nathan Jefferson, of North Carolina, nominated to be a Member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 3, 2022.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters

Federal Reserve Governor Philip Jefferson will be nominated by President Joe Biden to be vice chairman of the central bank’s board, the White House announced Friday.
Though one of the newest members of the Board of Governors, Jefferson would take over a key policymaking position at a time when the Fed is trying to tamp down inflation without causing a harmful recession.

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Biden also said he will nominate Adriana Kugler for a vacant governor’s seat and Lisa Cook for another term as governor. Kugler is currently the U.S. representative to the World Bank and would be the first Latina on the board, while Cook has been on the board since May 2022.
“These nominees understand that this job is not a partisan one, but one that plays a critical role in pursuing maximum employment, maintaining price stability, and supervising many of our nation’s financial institutions,” Biden said in a statement. “I am confident these nominees will help build upon the historically strong economic recovery we have had under my Administration.”
The moves, which will need Senate confirmation, come as the Fed also is navigating its way through a banking crisis that has seen multiple regional institutions shuttered over the past two months.
The Senate confirmed Jefferson to the board in May 2022, four months after he was nominated by Biden.
Since taking his seat, Jefferson has been relatively quiet on the policy front. In recent remarks, he argued against raising the Fed’s 2% inflation target and said he wasn’t especially worried about the pace at which the economy is slowing. He has voted for each of the interest rate increases approved since he took his seat.

As vice chair, he takes a position last occupied by Lael Brainard, who is now Biden’s director of the National Economic Council. Known as one of the more progressive members of the board, Brainard argued against loosening regulations for regional banks and had been an advocate for the study of whether the Fed should adopt a central bank digital currency.
Before coming to the Fed, Jefferson was a professor of economics as well as vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Davidson College. He also has worked as a professor at Columbia University and Swarthmore College as well as a research economist for the Fed.
The nomination was not unexpected; multiple media outlets had reported that Jefferson was Biden’s likely choice as vice chair.
If confirmed, Jefferson would be the second Black person to hold the vice chair position. Cook is the first Black woman to serve on the board.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown applauded the nominations.
The nominees “reflect the vibrant diversity of our country, and the people who make it work,” Brown said in a statement.
— With reporting by CNBC’s Kayla Tausche. More

Goldman Sachs, known more for its Wall Street bankers than its technology, has spun out the first startup from its internal incubator.
The company, a networking platform for employees called Louisa, was funded and owned by the New York-based investment bank until a few weeks ago, when it became independent.
Now founder Rohan Doctor is hustling to grow his client base beyond the confines of Goldman, whose employees have used Louisa for the past two and a half years.

Rohan Doctor, CEO and founder of Louisa
Source: Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs, known more for its Wall Street bankers than its technology, has just spun out the first startup from its internal incubator.
The company, a networking platform for employees called Louisa, was funded and owned by the New York-based investment bank until a few weeks ago, when it became independent, according to founder-CEO Rohan Doctor.

Now Doctor is hustling to grow his client base beyond the confines of Goldman, whose employees have used Louisa for the past two and a half years. The software automatically creates user profiles from an employer’s databases and pulls in newsfeeds to proactively connect people who might benefit from knowing each other, he said.
“Think of Louisa as an A.I.-powered LinkedIn on steroids,” Doctor, 42, said this week in an interview. “We have smart profiles and a smart network, and Louisa reads millions of articles a week from 250 providers and begins connecting people” based on possible deals gleaned from news, he said.
Under CEO David Solomon, Goldman has sought to speed up its digital makeover by hiring Google and Amazon executives and asking employees to pitch leaders on startup ideas. Louisa was part of the inaugural class of Goldman’s incubator program, which encourages employees with startup ideas to develop them in-house.

‘Dumb luck’

Doctor, a 17-year Goldman veteran who had stints in Hong Kong and London as head of bank solutions, got the idea for Louisa after landing a massive deal in 2018.
The elation of securing the transaction, a complex risk transfer between a bank and an insurer worth tens of millions of dollars, was followed by nagging questions: How did Doctor pull it off, and was it repeatable?

“The real answer was serendipity, happenstance,” he said. “It was dumb luck that me and another guy got thirsty at the same time, go to a [bar] in London and start exchanging information.”
There has to be a better way, thought Doctor. Professional services firms like Goldman rely on the expertise and contacts of their employees, but there’s a limit to how many colleagues anyone can know.
“This is costing companies billions of dollars in terms of missed opportunities, disconnected colleagues and fractured client experiences,” he said.
So he moved to New York from Hong Kong and began hiring programmers for his nascent effort.
The company’s name originally referred to Louisa Goldman Sachs, the youngest daughter of Marcus Goldman and wife of Samuel Sachs. But, seeing as how Doctor has to cater to competitors of Goldman, the startup’s name now refers more generally to a “renowned warrior,” he said.

Client #1

Louisa has more than 20,000 monthly active users, according to Goldman, which declined to say how much it spent launching the company.
Doctor has begun signing up clients besides Goldman, including a commercial bank and a venture capital fund with nearly $100 billion in assets, he said. They will focus initially on a small subset of five or six professional services clients before broadening their efforts, he said.
He believes two factors make his startup especially timely.
The arrival of generative A.I. technology like OpenAI’s ChatGPT has created excitement in an otherwise subdued environment for technology firms, he said.
“What OpenAI has done is just phenomenal,” he said. “We can use it to sort of map out what’s in people’s minds and how they want to describe themselves in seconds.”
Further, remote and hybrid work has disrupted the way employees interact, creating the need for a networking platform like Louisa, Doctor said.
“The way it used to be done if you had a question, you’d lean back on a crowded trading floor and ask around,” he said. “Hybrid is here to stay, even at places that don’t want it, and asking around no longer works.” More

JD.com has become the latest Chinese tech giant to announced plans for a ChatGPT-style product, joining the hype around the chatbot technology.
Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Check out the companies making headlines in premarket trading.
News Corporation — Shares gained 4% after the media company reported an earnings and revenue beat. News Corp posted 9 cents earnings per share and $2.45 billion in revenue for the third fiscal quarter. Analysts polled by StreetAccount had estimated earnings of 5 cents per share and $2.38 billion in revenue. The company announced cost-cutting measures, which include laying off 5% of its workforce, are expected to result in $160 million in annualized savings by the end of 2023. 

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Tesla — Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company gained 2.3% in premarket trading. Musk said Thursday he has pegged a new chief executive for Twitter set to start in about six weeks. Musk has received criticism in the past from Tesla investors who think that simultaneously serving as chief executive at two companies is a distraction away from the EV giant.
JD.com — The Chinese e-commerce company’s U.S.-listed shares lost 1.4% Friday during premarket trading. The company’s earnings and revenue came above analysts’ estimates, according to Refinitv data. Meanwhile, it announced its current CEO Xu Lei, who has been the leader of the company for about one year, would step down in June. 
Fox —The media stock dipped 2.4% after Wells Fargo downgraded shares to equal weight from overweight, citing challenges related to demand for linear TV and the costs for sports rights. On Tuesday, the company reported a net loss for the third fiscal quarter due to costs related to Fox News’ settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. 
PacWest — Shares gained 2.4% in the premarket after tumbling 22.7% in the previous session on deposit outflows. Other regional banks followed suit, with Western Alliance up about 2% and Comerica up 1%.
Barclays — The British bank’s stock rose 0.5% following an upgrade from RBC Capital Markets. RBC said Barclays is currently trading at a “good entry point,” creating a promising opportunity for investors. U.S.-listed shares of the bank have shed about 1.5% in 2023. 

First Solar — Shares of the clean energy company climbed 5% in premarket trading after First Solar announced an acquisition of Evolar AB for up to $80 million. Evolar is a European company that develops thin film used in solar panels.
Pearson — Shares of the education company rose 1.1% Friday before the bell. Morgan Stanley upgraded Pearson shares to overweight from equal weight, citing potential value-creation from generative AI. Shares have declined 10.2% year to date.
— CNBC’s Yun Li, Alexander Harring, Jesse Pound, Brian Evans and Michelle Fox contributed reporting More

Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy built his White House bid around urging companies to stay out of politics.
What he doesn’t tell voters is the asset management firm he co-founded has engaged more with GOP officials behind the scenes than was previously known, according to private email correspondence reviewed by CNBC.

Republican presidential candidate businessman Vivek Ramaswamy speaks to guests at the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition Spring Kick-Off on April 22, 2023 in Clive, Iowa.
Scott Olson | Getty Images

Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy built his White House bid around urging companies to stay out of politics.
What he doesn’t tell voters is the asset management firm he co-founded has engaged more with Republican Party officials behind the scenes than was previously known, according to private email correspondence reviewed by CNBC.

The emails show how the firm, Strive Asset Management, became a lead organizer and voice against environmental, social and governance, or ESG, investing, both before and since Ramaswamy entered the presidential race in February.
Ramaswamy told CNBC in an interview Thursday that he stepped away from his role as executive chairman of the firm and is no longer on its board while he runs for president.
When he launched his company last year, Ramaswamy told CNBC that businesses should “focus on excellence over politics.” He slammed ESG-style investing by BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard, and accused the firms of using “their clients’ capital to advocate for viewpoints in the boardrooms of corporate America that most of their own clients disagree with.”
Ramaswamy and his firm have since jumped into the political clash over ESG investing platforms, according to the emails, which were obtained by watchdog Documented and provided to CNBC. The messages show Ramaswamy’s firm actively engaged with GOP state leaders who have defended the fossil fuel industry and criticized environmentally conscious investment standards.
Ramaswamy on Thursday defended the firm’s engagement with GOP officials, saying bigger firms BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street have conducted similar practices with state officials across the country.

“The biggest asset allocators into the asset management systems are state pension funds and BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, Invesco and others, are regularly engaged,” Ramaswamy told CNBC. “It’s just a hard fact that these institutions have for decades been educating, discussing with states and pension fund systems, the merits of ESG based investment framework. Strive is bringing an alternative perspective to bear across the market.”
Since he began his campaign, Ramaswamy has deferred questions about Strive’s business strategy to the firm.

Strive CEO Matt Cole echoed Ramaswamy’s remarks in an interview with CNBC.
“We’re just copying the playbook of BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard,” Cole said Thursday. When asked about the emails showing how the firm has become a leading organizer against ESG investing, Cole said: “I think Strive is the leading voice in America pushing in favor of shareholder capitalism.”
Strive has become one of the more vocal opponents of ESG investing and has gained enough notoriety to challenge the likes of fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil. Ramaswamy, as Strive’s executive chairman, sent a letter to Exxon in November saying the company’s board “reflects an overrepresentation of directors whose principal focus appears to be on Exxon’s climate change strategy.”
Ramaswamy later secured a meeting with Exxon CEO Darren Woods. Strive said in a December press release that the oil and gas executive “pushed back on certain points in Strive’s letter but committed to exploring suitable directors for Exxon’s board with relevant industry expertise.” A month after the meeting, Exxon announced it would add Lawrence Kellner, a former CEO of Continental Airlines, and John Harris II, a former CEO of Raytheon International, to its board.
Ramaswamy’s firm at the same time focused its investment strategy on fossil fuels. Strive launched an ETF in 2022 called Strive U.S. Energy, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange as DRLL. The fund’s fact sheet lists Exxon, Chevron and ConocoPhillips as its top three holdings. It has net assets of over $300 million.
Ramaswamy told CNBC on the day the ETF launched that Strive “is delivering a new mandate.”
“What I call the post ESG mandate to the U.S. energy sector to drill for more oil,” he said at the time. “To frack for more natural gas. To do whatever allows them to be most successful over the long run without regard to political, social, cultural or environmental agendas.”
The firm’s overall assets under management total over $520 million, according to a regulatory filing signed in February and submitted by Strive to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The form was signed a week after Ramaswamy announced he was running for president, and shows that at that time his ownership stake in Strive was at least 50%. Ramaswamy did not dispute in the CNBC interview that he still owns at least 50% of the company.
Cole confirmed that the ownership structure listed on the filing has not changed since Ramaswamy announced his run for president. He added that Strive, as of Wednesday, had about $680 million in assets under management.

Strive moves to organize ESG forum

Ramaswamy has cast himself for years as a leading culture warrior against major corporations and extended his fight to the campaign trail. He co-founded the anti-ESG firm in 2022, a year after he published a book called “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” which takes on the concept of stakeholder capitalism.
His declared and potential rivals, including former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have often attacked ESG investing standards and corporations that support social causes — an increasingly common refrain within the GOP.
The opposition to businesses expressing political views has helped to propel Ramaswamy to the top tier of the Republican primary, according to early polls. One recent Morning Consult survey found him, in a hypothetical GOP primary field, tied with former Vice President Mike Pence for third place with 5% of support. He trailed only Trump at 60% and DeSantis at 19%.
Trump has raved about Ramaswamy, saying his positive comments about the Trump administration are “the reason he is doing so well.”
The emails suggest that both before and after Ramaswamy explicitly jumped into politics, his firm had entered the fray by establishing ties to anti-ESG Republican officials.
In March, one month after Ramaswamy announced his run for president, Strive organized a call featuring what the email labeled as the “Pro-Fiduciary Investors Taskforce.”
The more than 30 people invited to participate included at least half a dozen Republican state financial officers who have either vehemently opposed ESG investment standards, or in some cases, have used their power to directly take on Wall Street firms that follow the practice, the email shows. Ramaswamy was not on the invite list.

Matthew Kopko, a senior vice president at Strive, said in one of the obtained emails that the “kick-off call” would focus, in part, on a Biden administration rule that allows employers to select ESG funds for their company 401(k) plans. In March, days before the meeting took place, President Joe Biden vetoed a bill that would have rolled back the Labor Department standard.
Cole confirmed to CNBC that the veto came up on the call.
“I think the vast majority of people [at the meeting] thought the bill should not have been vetoed,” he said. Cole added that “it was pretty interesting I think from our perspective that the first veto of Biden’s presidency was a bipartisan bill that was focused on maximizing value, or forcing asset managers to focus on maximizing value.”
An emailed invite to the Zoom call also shows that Strive executives were planning to organize a central forum to discuss ESG-related issues.
“As discussed with many of you across the nation, there is strong interest among state financial leaders to have a forum to share and learn information related to emerging developments in ESG, corporate governance, proxy voting, stewardship and other fiduciary matters,” Kopko said in another email to those invited.
The officials invited included Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s GOP chief financial officer, who in December said the state treasury would pull out $2 billion in assets previously managed by BlackRock. West Virginia state Treasurer Riley Moore was also invited to take part in the call. He announced in 2022 that the state will no longer use a BlackRock investment fund as part of its banking transactions. Representatives for Moore and Patronis said the two did not participate in the call.
Marlo Oaks, the Utah state treasurer who labeled ESG part of “Satan’s plan” and moved about $100 million in state money previously managed by BlackRock to different asset managers, is also listed as invited to the call. A representative for Oaks did not respond to a request for comment.
Derek Kreifels, the CEO of the conservative-leaning State Financial Officers Foundation, which has organized conferences bashing ESG investing, was also invited to take part in the call. Ramaswamy was a keynote speaker at one of the foundation’s meetings last year and the state chief financial officers invited to take part on the Strive call are publicly listed SFOF members. A representative for Kreifels said the nonprofit CEO did not participate in the call.
Kopko sent a follow-up email in May for what he described as the “next task force call.” The email shows that the next event was set to take place May 3. While there’s no document showing who was invited to that Zoom gathering, the itinerary for the call notes that ESG critic and Yale law school professor Jed Rubenfeld was expected to give a “presentation on state pension fiduciary duties.”
Cole said Rubenfeld’s presentation on that call was about “best practices for pensions.” He explained there were about 30 people on the call and most of the people at the meeting were “pension-related employees,” along with some state attorneys general.
Cole said he didn’t know all of the state AGs who took part in the call and which political party they were affiliated with. But he also said that “typically Republican AGs have been more interested in trying to pushback against asset managers pursuing non financial interests but the invite wasn’t to any particular political party.”

Getting access

Ramaswamy’s firm gained more access to anti-ESG Republican politicians before he launched a presidential bid than was previously known, according to the emails.
His firm’s leaders privately turned to anti-ESG Republican state officials in both Texas and West Virginia to help gain access to government officials to discuss Strive’s business ventures, either through in-person or Zoom meetings, according to emails from September through March.
Cole said they’ve met with leaders from more than 20 states and have also engaged with large wealth managers about their company. “To me these are just two meetings that we have on our calendar every day,” he said.
Strive President Anson Frericks, in a September email to Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar, discussed a lunch he had in August with Hegar and one of his top donors, oil and gas developer Ben “Bud” Brigham. Frericks in the email requested a “warm introduction” to a state-based contact for an “emerging managers fund for new firms like Strive.”
“At lunch with Bud Brigham, you mentioned that TX has an emerging managers fund for new firms like Strive. Are you able to provide us with a contact for that fund (I cc’d our Head of Institutional Investing, Rob Melton)? Or make a warm introduction?” Frericks asked Hegar in the email.
Hegar had argued in letters to money managers in 2022 that firms such as BlackRock, HSBC and UBS are boycotting the energy industry, saying in a statement that he believes “environmental crusaders” have created a “false narrative” that the economy can transition away from fossil fuels.
Hours after Frericks sent his September email, Hegar replied in an email that he obliged the request for an introduction and forwarded Frericks’ email to Mike Reissig, the CEO of the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company. That entity was created by the Texas Legislature “as a special purpose entity to efficiently and economically manage, invest and safeguard funds for its clients: the state and various subdivisions,” according to its website.
Hegar is the chair of the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company.
That introduction led to a March meeting being scheduled in Austin between Reissig, Frericks and Kopko to discuss Strive’s proxy voting services, according to the emails.
Representatives for Hegar and Reissig did not respond to requests for comment.
Federal Election Commission records show that Brigham, the same oil and gas executive who had lunch with Frericks in August, donated $6,600 in March to Ramaswamy’s campaign for president. That amount represents the most an individual donor can give directly to a campaign in the 2024 election cycle. More

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Thursday that markets will be gripped by panic as the U.S. approaches a possible default on its sovereign debt.
“The closer you get to it, you will have panic” in the form of stock market volatility and upheaval in Treasurys, he said.
Such an event would ripple through the financial world, impacting “contracts, collateral, clearing houses,” Dimon said.

JPMorgan Chase and Company President and CEO Jamie Dimon testifies before a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing on “Annual Oversight of the Nation’s Largest Banks”, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 22, 2022. 
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Thursday that markets will be gripped by panic as the U.S. approaches a possible default on its sovereign debt.
An actual default would be “potentially catastrophic” for the country, Dimon told Bloomberg in a televised interview. Dimon said he expects that worst-case scenario will be avoided, however, because lawmakers will be forced to respond to growing concern.

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“The closer you get to it, you will have panic” in the form of stock market volatility and upheaval in Treasurys, he said.
Dimon joined a host of business figures and administration officials making dire predictions about the consequences of failing to raise or suspend the U.S. debt limit and allowing the world’s largest economy to default on its bonds. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the idea that the country could default should be “unthinkable” and would lead to economic disaster.
“If it gets to that panic point, people have to react, we’ve seen that before,” Dimon said.
But “it’s a really bad idea, because panic becomes something that is not good,” he added. “It could affect other markets around the world.”

War room

JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank with about $3.7 trillion in assets, has been preparing for the risk of an American default, Dimon said.

Such an event would ripple through the financial world, impacting “contracts, collateral, clearing houses, and affect clients definitely around the world,” he said.
The bank’s so-called war room has been gathering once weekly, a rate that will shift to daily meetings around May 21 and then three meetings daily after that, he said.
He exhorted politicians from both major U.S. parties to compromise and avoid a ruinous outcome.
“Please negotiate a deal,” Dimon said.

Other banks

In the wide-ranging interview, Dimon said he speaks daily to regional bank executives amid concerns sparked by the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in March. Last week, JPMorgan emerged as the winner in the government-brokered auction for First Republic.
Regional banks are “quite strong” and will have good financial results, but managers are worried because of the bank runs that have taken down three firms, he said.
“I think we have to assume there’ll be a little bit more” to the regional banking crisis, he said. More

A man walks in front of a Peloton store in Manhattan on May 05, 2021 in New York.
John Smith | Corbis News | Getty Images

Check out the companies making the biggest moves midday:
Peloton — The fitness platform operator saw shares drop 8.9% after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said it’s recalling more than 2 million bikes over concerns about seat breakages and related injuries. Peloton will offer free, updated seat posts to anyone using the recalled model.

Alphabet — Shares added 4.31% a day after Google unveiled new software and gadgets at its developer conference. The tech giant also said it is eliminating the waitlist for its chatbot Bard.
PacWest Bancorp — The regional bank’s stock sank 22.7% after the company said deposits dropped 9.5% for the week ended May 5. Other regional bank shares followed suit, with Western Alliance and First Horizon shedding 7.3% and 3.2%, respectively.
Beyond Meat — Shares tumbled 18.27% after the alternative meat manufacturer said it plans to sell up to $200 million of its common stock. The company said it intends to use the proceeds for general corporate and working capital purposes. The announcement came after Beyond Meat reported a first-quarter earnings-per-share loss that was less than expected.
Disney — Disney shares tumbled 8.73% after the media company reported a drop in streaming subscribers. The entertainment giant also reported revenue and earnings in line with Wall Street’s estimates, according to Refinitiv.
Icahn Enterprises — Shares of Carl Icahn’s conglomerate slid another 1.77% after notable short seller Hindenburg Research doubled down on its short-selling campaign against the company following its quarterly report. Icahn Enterprises reported a net loss of $270 million in the first quarter, with its hedge fund losing 4.1% during the period. It declared a $2 per share quarterly dividend.

AppLovin — Shares popped 23.53% following the company’s first-quarter revenue beat. Revenue was $715.4 million, compared to the $694.8 million expected, per StreetAccount. AppLovin’s second-quarter guidance also topped expectations.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber — The tire manufacturer’s stock soared 21.42% after Elliott Investment Management sent a letter and presentation to the company. Elliott, which has about a 10% stake in Goodyear, said the purpose was to “outline the right path forward to create value at Goodyear and realize its full potential.”
Unity Software — Shares rallied about 12.94% after the video game software developer reported its first-quarter results. Unity Software’s revenue of $500 million beat the $480 million expected from analysts polled by Refinitiv. The company also raised its full-year revenue outlook.
Tapestry — Shares of the Coach parent jumped 8.27% after the company reported stronger-than-expected earnings and revenue for its latest quarter. It also issued upbeat guidance for the year that topped estimates.
Robinhood — The stock added 6.39% after the brokerage reported better-than-expected revenue for the first quarter. Its first-quarter revenue came in at $441 million, versus analyst estimates of $425 million, according to Refinitiv. Robinhood also showed growth of monthly users, which hit 11.8 million.
Sonos — Shares plunged 23.69% on the back of disappointing quarterly results. The company reported an adjusted loss of 24 cents per share, while analysts polled by Refinitiv expected a loss of 18 cents per share. The home sound systems manufacturer also reduced its guidance for the second half of the 2023 fiscal year amid weakening consumer demand and channel partner inventory tightening.
JD.com — The U.S.-listed shares of JD.com advanced 7.21% after the Chinese tech firm beat analysts’ first-quarter expectations on the top and bottom lines. JD.com reported earnings of CNY4.76 per share, exceeding consensus estimates of CNY3.53. Revenue came in at CNY242.96 billion, higher than expectations of CNY240.81 billion. Separately, JD.com said that Sandy Ran Xu, who is the company’s current CFO, has been appointed to succeed Lei Xu as CEO and executive director.
Axon Enterprise — Axon Enterprise gained 6.16% after JPMorgan said the pullback in the stock following its first-quarter results on Tuesday is a buying opportunity. The Taser maker slid 15% on Wednesday after reporting some disappointing total gross margin figures, even as it otherwise beat analysts’ expectations.
Albemarle — The chemical manufacturing stock added 2.06% after being upgraded by Keybanc to overweight from sector weight, citing improving trends in China’s lithium market.
— CNBC’s Tanaya Macheel, Hakyung Kim, Yun Li, Alex Harring, Samantha Subin and Sarah Min contributed reporting. More

Many aspects of travel have been expensive in 2023.
Prices for airfare, hotel rooms and rental cars declined in April, according to the consumer price index, a monthly inflation dataset issued by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But costs may rebound in coming months. Travelers shouldn’t necessarily take a wait-and-see approach for summer trip planning, experts said.

Sunrise at Laguna Torre in Patagonia, Argentina.
© Marco Bottigelli | Moment | Getty Images

Travel in 2023 has been expensive. Indeed, some prices — like those for international flights — have hit record highs.
Americans are unleashing their wanderlust en masse after a few years of pandemic-era trip delays, making for a busy — and likely costly — summer travel season.

“In my 19 years in the industry, this is by far the busiest year I’ve had on record,” Jessica Griscavage, a travel advisor and founder of Runway Travel, recently told CNBC.
Typical trip costs increased by 9% in the first quarter of 2023, according to the NerdWallet Travel Price Index, which includes prices for flights, hotels, car rentals and dining out. When expressed in dollar terms, travelers would have paid an extra $180 per person for a $2,000 trip, NerdWallet found.
But travelers saw a reprieve in April, according to federal data.
Airline ticket prices declined by 2.6% in April relative to March, according to the consumer price index, issued Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. They had risen in February and March.
Hotel and motel prices, as well as those to rent a car or truck, each fell by more than 3% during the month.

“As has been the case ever since the onset of the pandemic, travel prices have been volatile,” said Sally French, a travel expert at NerdWallet.

The reprieve may be temporary — but it’s hard to know

The April reprieve may be temporary in some categories, though.
Round-trip domestic airfare, for example, will jump by 7% in May and another 5% in June, where it will peak at $328 a ticket, according to a forecast by Hopper, a travel app. And travelers are “in for some sticker shock” relative to international airfare, which is around its highest level in five years, Hopper said.

General travel prices “are certainly higher than what they were pre-pandemic and even versus just last year,” French said.
However, while consumer demand has been high, airlines and hotels have at the same time introduced more supply via additional flight routes, hotel staff and vacation rentals — meaning travel costs “might not be as dire this year as some had anticipated,” she said.
More from Personal Finance:How I doubled my money with a ‘black market’ exchange rate in ArgentinaU.S. passport delays may be four months long — and could get worseWhy travel to Europe is no longer a ‘screaming, bargain-basement’ deal
Because the future is uncertain, she recommends booking a trip now rather than trying to wait for a better deal. Some travel providers allow consumers to book now without paying upfront and then rebook at a lower cost later, she added.
Here are some insights and ways to save on your trip, shared during a recent summer-travel conversation with Griscavage, the travel advisor; CNBC airline reporter Leslie Josephs and CNBC associate personal finance editor Ken Kiesnoski.
These tips are an excerpt from “This week, your wallet,” a weekly audio show on Twitter produced by CNBC’s Personal Finance team. Listen to the latest episode here.

1. Be flexible

Anton Petrus | Moment | Getty Images

Staying flexible on when — and even where — you travel can yield big savings.
Traveling midweek as opposed to the weekend is typically a money-saver. Instead of a major city, maybe consider somewhere more off the beaten track.
Not everyone has this luxury, of course. Parents may be beholden to school schedules; others might be locked into rigid schedules, too.
Travelers with some leeway can use tools such as Google Flights and Explore to discover good travel deals during the year, based on factors such as departure city and destination.
It’s a plug-and-play technique that’s “a little art and a little science,” Kiesnoski said.
Airfare is generally the first thing people buy, and accommodations such as hotel rooms often follow from there. Travelers can consult other online portals including Booking.com, Hotels.com, Airbnb, Expedia and Orbitz.

2. Travel in the off season

Orbon Alija | E+ | Getty Images

This is an offshoot of the “flexibility” category.
For many popular destinations — especially those in the Northern Hemisphere — demand peaks in June, July and August. To that point, airline officials have indicated in company earnings reports that they expect a “monster summer,” Josephs said.
But visiting a locale in the fall or winter may yield savings — and perhaps a better experience as crowds dwindle and it gets easier to book must-see attractions.
“I think you’re going to enjoy it a little bit more,” Griscavage said of off-season travel to popular cities.

3. Use your rewards

Many people built up frequent flier miles during the pandemic by using their credit cards that carry travel rewards benefits, Josephs said.
Now is a good time to use — and not hoard — those benefits, especially since it’s expensive to buy a flight in cash.

4. Use credit card benefits

Credit cards — especially those geared toward travel — may carry perks such as travel or rental car insurance. You may qualify for those benefits if you buy part or all of a trip with that card.
What that means: You might not have to buy any supplemental insurance policies, for example.
“Always check with your credit cards and see how good the insurance is,” Griscavage said.
It’s important to ask certain questions, such as whether a card’s benefits cover preexisting medical conditions during a trip, for example. More

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey on Thursday defended an about-turn in the bank’s U.K. growth forecast.
At its policy meeting earlier Thursday, the central bank said it no longer expects the U.K. to enter into recession this year.
“It may be the biggest upgrade we’ve ever done,” Bailey told CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche.

Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England (BOE), during the Monetary Policy Report news conference at the bank’s headquarters in the City of London, UK, on Thursday, May 11, 2023.
Bloomberg | Getty Images

LONDON — Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey on Thursday defended an about-turn in the bank’s U.K. growth forecast, saying its “biggest upgrade” ever reflected the rapidly shifting economic landscape.
At its policy meeting earlier Thursday, the central bank said it no longer expects the U.K. to enter into recession this year.

Months earlier, it had predicted the county would face its longest-ever recession, which it then said would likely be shallower that initially thought.
The bank said Thursday that U.K. GDP was expected to be flat over the first half of this year, growing 0.9% by the middle of 2024 and 0.7% by mid-2025. At its prior meeting in February, it said U.K. GDP was projected to decline by around 0.75% over the second half of 2022.
“It may be the biggest upgrade we’ve ever done,” Bailey told CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche.
Still, he insisted that the overall forecast remained weak.
“The level is still quite low though, let’s be honest,” he added.

The bank has been criticized for failing to provide accurate growth forecasts, which could stymy its efforts to combat still high inflation.
However, Bailey said the forecasts were based on conditional data, which is subject to frequent and significant fluctuations.
“They are conditional on financial market prices, they’re conditional on commodity prices, they’re conditional on government policies. So, as those conditions change, we change our forecasts,” he said.
“We have deal with all these things, which is why our forecasts do change and do evolve,” he said.

The governor also acknowledged that the bank should do a better job at communicating. It follows an earlier faux pas by the BOE’s Chief Economist Huw Pill who said Britons should accept that they are now worse off due to stubbornly high inflation.
“It’s not the right choice of words,” Bailey said of Pill’s comments.
“How people form their expectations about future inflation is so important for us. The wording is critically important, because I want to emphasize, we are very sensitive to the impact this has on people in this country,” he continued.
However, he added that he was optimistic of a “rapid” fall in inflation over the coming months.
Earlier Thursday, the U.K. central bank maintained its commitment to tackling price rises, raising interest rates by 25 basis points and taking the main bank rate to 4.5%.
The headline consumer price index rose by an annual 10.1% in March, driven by persistently high food and energy bills. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food, energy, alcohol and tobacco prices, increased by 5.7% over the 12 months to March, unchanged from February.
— CNBC’s Elliot Smith contributed to this report. More