Finance

Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf said Wednesday that while corporations and higher-income consumers are thriving, lower income Americans are struggling to stay afloat.
The bank’s data shows that while “companies are in really great shape” and spending among all income levels has been steady, there are signs of stress among lower earners, Scharf said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
“The low end is spending the money that they have, so their balances are below … pre-pandemic levels; they are living on the edge,” he said.

Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf said Wednesday that while corporations and higher-income consumers are thriving, lower income Americans are struggling to stay afloat.
The bank’s data shows that “companies are in really great shape” and spending and debt repayment rates among all income levels has been steady, but there are signs of stress among lower earners, Scharf said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

“There is this big dichotomy between higher-income and lower-income consumers which continues and is a real issue,” Scharf said.
“The low end is spending the money that they have, so their balances are below … pre-pandemic levels; they are living on the edge,” he said.
Scharf was responding to questions about the U.S. economy the day after JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that a Labor Department report showed the economy is weakening. Hiring has slowed to a near halt in recent months, and the department’s latest revision on Tuesday lowered job creation by 911,000 positions for the year through March.
“When you look at just the overall data in terms of jobs, it’s undeniable,” Scharf said.
“So yeah, things actually feel very good today, certainly relative to what you think they could be,” he said. “But it’s not equal across wealth spectrums, and there’s probably more downside than upside.”

Executives and investors are grappling with mixed signals about the U.S. economy in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term. Stock indexes are near all-time high levels amid persistent concerns over price inflation and mounting worries over job creation.
In his dealings with middle market companies across the U.S., Scharf said that many CEOs support Trump’s efforts to address the country’s trade imbalances with his tariff policies. Even so, the duties are a likely driver of tepid job creation, he said.
“They’re willing to deal with the uncertainty, but they need to react to that,” Scharf said. “So part of that is just being very prudent in how they’re hiring….That certainly seems to be dampening the increase in jobs.” More

Uber Eats is partnering with fintech firm Pipe to use the company’s technology to deliver customized, pre-approved loans for small businesses on the app.
The process is designed to lower barriers to entry, so it does not require credit checks or personal guarantees.
Pipe CEO Luke Voiles told CNBC that the company has seen businesses able to grow 12% month over month from the capital.

Uber Eats courier is seen in Krakow, Poland, on Oct. 1, 2024.
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Fintech company Pipe is partnering with Uber in a new effort to help small businesses acquire loans with fewer barriers to access, CNBC has learned.
Pipe is teaming up with Uber Eats to add its embedded technology to the company’s restaurant manager app. Eligible restaurants will see pre-approved capital offers from Pipe that are customized based on the businesses’ revenue and cash flow.

The new partnership will start rolling out widely this week on Uber Eats, according to Pipe.
The Uber Eats Manager app for restaurants, which houses thousands of restaurants in the U.S., functions as a one-stop shop for restaurants to monitor and manage their businesses. With the Pipe partnership, restaurants can work with the fintech company on loans directly in the app.
“I think it’s an alignment of wanting to help these small businesses succeed, building the thing that just works to do that and making it so seamless and embedded that the customers don’t even realize somebody else is involved,” Pipe CEO Luke Voiles told CNBC.
The capital process notably does not involve credit checks, FICO scores, personal guarantees or any of the standard procedures used by big banks, according to the fintech firm.
“The No. 1 pain point for small business is access to capital, and in the restaurant space, it’s even more acute,” Voiles said.

Pipe, which has a $2 billion valuation, uses artificial intelligence to determine loan amounts based on six months of anonymous credit card transaction history shared by Uber. Then, within the Uber Eats Manager app, restaurants can choose to share their data with Pipe, submit their application and move forward with the capital.
Pipe has access only to anonymous historical performance data from restaurants on Uber Eats, so offers are based only on those performance metrics, Karl Hebert, Uber’s vice president of global commerce and financial services, told CNBC.
Hebert said the company chose Pipe specifically for its process that is designed for small businesses.
“Uber is focused on helping restaurant partners be successful on Uber Eats,” he said. “This is an opportunity to meet restaurant partners where they are — particularly those who use the Uber Eats Manager dashboard — and we’re eager to see how it’s received.”
Voiles said 98% of the Pipe loans are approved, and the money usually hits accounts within 24 hours. With loans that have fewer barriers to access, he added, the company has seen businesses growing 12% month over month.
“It’s just a way to actually help the restaurant owner that may be an immigrant with no FICO score get access to capital for the very first time, open a second location and double their business,” Voiles said.
Pipe is also setting itself apart from term loans that have fixed monthly payments. Instead, Pipe’s loans for small businesses are flexible with the business’ revenue flow, Voiles said, so even if a restaurant’s revenue decreases, restaurant owners can take their time to pay back the loans.
It’s not the first time Uber has worked toward providing capital to its restaurants. In 2022, the company partnered with Visa to provide $1 million in grants to small businesses on the Uber Eats platform that were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, natural disasters and other unexpected events.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO More

Enhanced subsidies for Affordable Care Act insurance premiums are set to expire at the end of 2025 if Congress doesn’t intervene.
The enhanced subsidies, or enhanced premium tax credits, have been in place since 2021.
The average premium would rise by 75% in 2026, according to KFF. That would amount to roughly $700 more per year.

Morsa Images | Digitalvision | Getty Images

Affordable Care Act insurance premiums are set to rise sharply next year if Congress doesn’t intervene.
That’s because enhanced subsidies that have reduced costs for millions of enrollees in health plans purchased through the ACA marketplace in recent years are set to expire after 2025. (The ACA is also referred to as Obamacare.)

The disappearance of these enhanced premium tax credits — a so-called “subsidy cliff” — would cause average premiums to rise by about 75%, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group. That would amount to more than $700 in additional premium payments per year, on average, KFF found.
The vast majority — about 22 million — of the total 24 million people with a health plan via the ACA marketplace received a premium tax credit in 2025, according to KFF.
“For those 22 million people, it would be a huge premium shock on New Year’s Day if these tax credits expire,” said Larry Levitt, the group’s executive vice president for health policy.
ACA insurance plans are generally for those who don’t have access to a workplace plan, such as students, younger retirees, contractors, the self-employed and unemployed, among others.

The enhanced credits are largely responsible for driving down uninsured rates in recent years as lower health costs attracted households, Levitt said.

About 7.9% of the U.S. population was uninsured in 2023, the lowest share in history, compared to 9.2% in 2019, he said, citing federal data.
More than 4 million Americans would become uninsured over the next decade if the enhanced credits lapse, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office earlier this year.

Push to continue enhanced ACA subsidies

Democrats offered the enhanced subsidies in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan Act pandemic-relief law. Lawmakers extended them in the Inflation Reduction Act, which former President Joe Biden signed in 2022.
It’s unclear whether the Republican-controlled Congress will extend them again.
The GOP didn’t include an extension as part of the so-called “big beautiful bill,” a tax and spending package estimated to cost some $4 trillion over a decade. That law would also cause another 11 million Americans to be uninsured over the next decade due to other healthcare policy changes, to Medicaid and the ACA, the Congressional Budget Office estimated.
More from Personal Finance:How to get a better mortgage rate as the 30-year fixed nears 1-year lowHere’s how to handle your student loans after losing a jobGold is on a record run — here’s how to invest
There has been a push by some Republican lawmakers to continue the enhanced ACA subsidies, at least through the midterm elections.
There are 11 legislative days before a potential government shutdown on Oct. 1 — and Democrats are likely to “flex some policy muscle” to try pushing through an extension, Chris Krueger, managing director of TD Cowen’s Washington Research Group, wrote in a note Monday.
“Many Congressional Republicans are also eager to extend these subsidies for fear of health insurance sticker shock in advance of the November 2026 midterms,” Krueger wrote.
Extending them would cost about $25 billion in 2026, Krueger wrote.

It would be a huge premium shock on New Year’s Day if these tax credits expire.

Larry Levitt
executive vice president for health policy at KFF

Some lawmakers don’t seem to support an extension, however.
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., who chairs the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, told NBC News in July that he “absolutely” wants the enhanced credits to end.
“It’ll cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Can’t afford it,” Harris said. “That was a Covid-era policy. Newsflash to America: Covid is over.”
A spokesperson for Rep. Harris didn’t return a request for comment.

How premium tax credits work

Premium tax credits were established under the ACA and were originally available for households with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.
The American Rescue Plan Act temporarily increased the amount of the premium tax credit and expanded eligibility to households with an annual income of more than 400% of the federal poverty limit. (This includes a family of four with income of more than $128,600 in 2025, for example.)
The law also capped the amount a household pays out-of-pocket toward insurance premiums at 8.5% of income.

If the enhanced subsidies were to expire, households with income at or up to 150% of the federal poverty line would see their average premiums rise from $0 to $387 a year (about $32 a month), for example, according to an analysis published in December by the Urban Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
In 2025, a family of four would fall in this range if their income was between $32,150 and $48,225.

Those earning 150% to 200% of the poverty line (up to $64,300 for a family of four) would see their premiums rise by more than 400%, to $905 a year from $180, according to the report.
People with incomes above 400% of poverty wouldn’t be eligible for any ACA subsidies. They’d owe $6,490 a year in premiums, up from $3,576, the report found.

Premiums already rising

Open enrollment for ACA marketplace plans starts Nov. 1.
If Congress opts not to extend the enhanced subsidies before that date, households would see a big spike in their premiums when they go to sign up for their insurance plan, Levitt said.
Already, some insurers seem set to raise premiums more than usual in anticipation of the enhanced credits lapsing and other policy uncertainty.
The typical insurer proposed a premium increase of 18% for 2026, about 11 percentage points higher than last year and the largest rate change requested since 2018, according to an August brief from KFF and The Peterson Center on Healthcare. More

The Morningstar PitchBook US Modern Market 100 Index, or the Modern Market 100, is the first to combine public and private equity exposure in one index.
The benchmark is meant to capture the performance of 100 of the largest U.S. companies, broken down to 90 public firms and 10 venture-backed companies, the firm said.

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., August 14, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters

With the desire to have private market exposure alongside publicly traded stocks gaining traction among investors, Morningstar has developed a benchmark to reflect the trend.
The Morningstar PitchBook US Modern Market 100 Index, or the Modern Market 100, is the first to combine public and private equity exposure in one index, the investment research company announced Wednesday. The benchmark is meant to capture the performance of 100 of the largest U.S. companies, broken down to 90 public firms and 10 venture-backed companies, the firm said.

The 90/10 skew is designed to reflect what Morningstar considers the modern asset universe, which is one where opportunities are expanding in the private markets and companies such as OpenAI and Stripe are able to stay private for longer.
“Companies don’t feel the urge to go public because they can raise a lot of capital,” Sanjay Arya, head of innovation, index products, at Morningstar. “So, to ignore them, I think you’re missing out on some of the fastest, most dynamic companies out there.”

Retail investors’ growing access to private markets in Europe could be a double-edged sword

The private equity universe is dwarfed by the value of publicly held companies. The U.S. public stock market is worth roughly $60 trillion, while the U.S. private equity universe is roughly $8 trillion, Arya said. However, private companies may reflect where the economy is heading.
“The indexes are supposed to give you an indication about what the economy is, or the market sentiment is, or where people investors should be looking for opportunities,” Arya said. “And you can’t do that on public markets alone if a big chunk of it is outside public markets.” 
The trend may become even more pronounced. Alternative asset managers notched a big win this summer after President Donald Trump in August signed an executive order clearing the path for alternative assets to be added into 401(k)s. 

Yet exposure to private assets has been growing for years. According to Morningstar, since 2021, crossover investors including sovereign wealth funds, private equity buyout firms, and hedge funds have been involved in roughly 5,000 private market transactions totaling $450 billion. Arya is hoping the Modern Market 100 will give investors a framework to benchmark performance across both asset classes.
It isn’t without its challenges, however. The work started roughly four years ago, Arya said, explaining that the firm needed to develop a rules-based process for a public-private benchmark, given the challenge in pricing securities for private assets. He said his team relied on secondary trading platforms such as Caplight and Zanbato to aggregate pricing transaction data. The index also applies liquidity screens, quarterly rebalances and daily calculations.

More risk

The index is also tracking companies with inherently more risk given their preference for the largest cap companies, which tend to skew toward big tech. The top 10 public constituents in the modern market index include Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, Amazon and Meta Platforms. The top 10 private constituents include SpaceX, OpenAI, xAI and Stripe.
In other words, there’s a preference for growth companies with more inherent risk. That could mean the index is vulnerable to a pullback if the tech sector starts to falter — especially at a moment when many investors fear the megacaps are priced for perfection.
On the other hand, it could mean the benchmark is poised to capture more outperformance. In a white paper, Morningstar showed that the 1-year return for the Modern Market index is 28.2%. Over the same time period, the S&P 500 jumped 20%.
According to Arya, the index allows investors to track a very different opportunity than what is captured in major benchmarks. After all, OpenAI, a company reportedly valued at $500 billion, is bigger than Exxon Mobil, Palantir or Procter & Gamble, and yet it’s a name that most investors have little exposure to in their portfolios.
He noted that benchmarks have evolved over time to better reflect the drivers of economic growth, starting with the railroad companies that defined the Dow Jones Industrial Average at its inception in the late 1800s to the innovation economy of today.
“We have this big component of innovation economy, and not being able to fully capture that, which is mostly right still in the late-stage venture space, I think it just kind of provides a fuller picture.” Arya said.
“That actually helps you understand how these contours are kind of shifting over time,” he continued. “I think, provides great insights for investors.” More

As many as 47% of survey respondents said that they had diverted investments planned for China.
The shift primarily has favored Southeast Asia, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai said Wednesday.
Survey respondents indicated significant improvement in the local regulatory environment.
U.S. companies also said their Chinese competitors were more advanced in adoption of artificial intelligence.

Chinese and U.S. flags flutter near The Bund, before U.S. trade delegation meet their Chinese counterparts for talks in Shanghai, China July 30, 2019.
Aly Song | Reuters

BEIJING — Nearly half of U.S. businesses have redirected planned China investments to other regions over the past year — highest on record — the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai said Wednesday.
The business chamber’s survey of members came shortly after an escalation in U.S.-China trade tensions and a temporary rollback of some tariffs from mid-May. The two countries last month agreed to extend the trade truce by another 90 days, to mid-November.

“For a company, 90 days, that’s just way too short,” Eric Zheng, President of AmCham Shanghai, told reporters, pointing out that the supply chain planning is far longer term.
“At least we don’t need to deal with even higher tariffs [for now], but the issue is not going away, it’s still here,” Zheng said.
As many as 47% of the respondents in the survey, conducted from May 19 to June 20, said that they had diverted investments planned for China primarily to Southeast Asia. That’s the highest share since the survey first featured the question about plans to shift investments away from China in 2017.
The Indian subcontinent, which includes Bangladesh, was the second-most popular destination for redirected investments, while the U.S. and Mexico were tied at the third spot.
U.S. President Donald Trump has sought to encourage businesses to bring manufacturing back to America, with Trump criticizing Apple’s plans to expand production in India. A few companies, especially in advanced technology, have made high-profile announcements to invest in the U.S.

AmCham Shanghai’s members include Apple, Ford, Honeywell, Meta and Tesla. Jeffrey Lehman, the business group’s chair, pointed out that members are affected not just by U.S. tariffs on China, but Beijing’s retaliatory duties, since materials needed to build the product often come from the U.S.

U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods stand at nearly 58%, while China’s levies are around 33%, according to the U.S.-based Peterson Institute for International Economics. Tariff rates can vary by product.
Nearly two-thirds, or 65%, of the respondents said the current tariffs were hurting them significantly, especially those in manufacturing, Zheng said Wednesday on CNBC’s “The China Connection.”
Competition in China’s domestic market is also increasing, while confidence about the five-year local business outlook hit a record low for a fourth-straight year, the AmCham Shanghai study found.
Only 28% of the respondents said that their China operating margins in 2024 were higher than that of their global business, while 33% said their China performance was actually worse.
U.S. companies also said their Chinese competitors were more advanced in six out of eight categories, especially speed to market and adoption of artificial intelligence. About 41% of the respondents said Chinese companies were more advanced in adopting AI, with that share rising to 62% in the retail and consumer industry.
“We see AI as another area that we can compete here in China, but then we need to figure out a way,” Zheng said. “On the one hand we have to be compliant because there are certain export control rules that we have to follow as American companies. At the same time, we need to continue to explore potential opportunities in this country including working with Chinese partners.”
AmCham Shanghai members saw themselves leading their Chinese peers by a good margin only on product quality and development metrics.

Improving business environment

While trade tensions and worries about China’s economic slowdown weighed on the near-term outlook, the survey respondents indicated significant improvement in the local regulatory environment.
Nearly half, or 48%, said that the regulatory environment was transparent for their industry, a large jump from just 35% in 2024. The share of businesses saying that lack of transparency was hindering operations fell by 12 percentage points to 16%.
The share of respondents indicating that foreign and local companies were treated equally rose by 5 percentage points to 37%.
Beijing in recent years has ramped up its efforts to attract and retain foreign investment, with increased engagement and friendlier policy announcements. Earlier this year, China released an “action plan” that included measures for making it easier for foreign businesses to invest in biotechnology, while clarifying standards for government procurement.
However, the AmCham Shanghai survey found 14% of the respondents reported the environment for foreign businesses in China was worsening, with the tech sector seeing the highest challenges at 31% of industry respondents.

Weekly analysis and insights from Asia’s largest economy in your inboxSubscribe now

— CNBC’s Victoria Yeo contributed to this report. More

Klarna priced its IPO at $40 a share, an offering that values the company at about $15 billion.
The company, which provides buy now, pay later loans, was expecting to price shares at $35 to $37.
Klarna reported a net loss of $53 million in the second quarter, widening from $18 million in the same period a year go.

Klarna is synonymous with the “buy now, pay later” trend of making a purchase and deferring payment until the end of the month or paying over interest-free monthly installments.
Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Online lender Klarna priced its IPO at $40 per share on Tuesday, above its expected range, in a deal that values the Swedish company at about $15 billion.
Klarna, known for its popular buy now, pay later products, said it raised $1.37 billion for the company and existing shareholders, who are looking to exit a portion of their long-held positions. The company will list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “KLAR.”

The public markets have shown an increased appetite for tech IPOs of late, with companies like crypto firm Circle and software vendor Figma soaring in their highly anticipated debuts. Klarna, which competes with Affirm, was initially aiming to go public earlier this year, but put its plans on hold due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s April announcement of reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries.
Widely known for its short-term, interest-free financing products, Klarna has attempted in recent months to rebrand itself as more of a digital retail bank. Its IPO will be a test of Wall Street’s excitement about the direction of its business.
Klarna disclosed a net loss of $53 million in the second quarter, widening from $18 million in the same period a year go. Revenue climbed 20% from a year earlier to $823 million over the stretch.
Klarna makes money by charging merchants that use its online payment tools a small fee on every transaction. It also generates income from interest on longer-term financing products and late fees.
Of the total amount being raised, $1.17 billion is going to shareholders with just $200 million going to the company.
WATCH: Everything you need to know about Klarna’s IPO More

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that a Labor Department report released Tuesday confirmed that the U.S. economy is slowing down.
The department revised lower its nonfarm payrolls data for the year through March 2025 by 911,000 jobs from initial estimates.
 “I think the economy is weakening,” Dimon said. “Whether it’s on the way to recession or just weakening, I don’t know.”

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that a Labor Department report released Tuesday confirmed that the U.S. economy is slowing down.
The department revised lower its nonfarm payrolls data for the year through March 2025 by 911,000 jobs from initial estimates. That was on the high side of Wall Street’s expectations for a downward shift and the biggest revision in more than two decades.

“I think the economy is weakening,” Dimon said. “Whether it’s on the way to recession or just weakening, I don’t know.”

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon speaking with CNBC’s Leslie Picker in Charlotte, N.C. on July 31st, 2025.
David A. Grogan | CNBC

The revision, showing the world’s largest economy produced far fewer jobs than thought, follows a report indicating employment growth had slowed to a near halt in July, adding just 73,000 jobs. President Donald Trump fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner last month hours after the release of that report.
The August figures also showed weakness, as nonfarm payrolls only increased by 22,000 that month.
Investors pay attention to Dimon’s views on the economy, given his long tenure guiding the biggest U.S. bank by assets through periods of turbulence. Still, he has often warned of risks that don’t immediately materialize.
Dimon said that JPMorgan is privy to a spectrum of data around consumers, corporations and global trade. Most consumers still have jobs and are spending money, depending on their income levels, but their confidence may have just taken a hit.

“There’s a lot of different factors in the economy right now,” Dimon said, citing the weakening consumer and still-robust corporate profit. “We just have to wait and see.”
The Federal Reserve will “probably” reduce its benchmark interest rate at its next meeting later this month, though that might not “be consequential to the economy,” Dimon said.

Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO More

Since Donald Trump returned to office, one country has borne the brunt of his fury. “We’ve been ripped off by every country in the world,” he declared in April, “but China is the… ‘chief-ripper-offer’”. On September 6th the president came up with a new label: “deepest, darkest China”. More