Finance

Chinese humanoid startup X Square Robot announced Monday it has secured around $100 million in a funding round led by Alibaba Cloud.
HongShan, formerly Sequoia Capital China, also participated in the latest funding round.
Chief Operating Officer Yang Qian said the startup has been generating some revenue from sales to schools, hotels and retirement homes.

Robots are on display at the Robot Mall, world’s first embodied intelligence robot 4S store, on August 6, 2025 in Beijing, China.
Beijing Youth Daily | Visual China Group | Getty Images

BEIJING — As the race for household robots heats up, Chinese humanoid startup X Square Robot announced Monday it had secured around $100 million in a funding round led by Alibaba Cloud.
It’s the Shenzhen-based startup’s eighth round of financing since the company launched less than two years ago in December 2023, according to Chief Operating Officer Yang Qian. She told CNBC the latest deal brings total investment in X Square Robot to around 2 billion yuan ($280 million).

HongShan, formerly Sequoia Capital China, also participated in the latest funding round, along with Meituan, Legend Star, Legend Capital and INCE Capital. The startup declined to comment on its valuation.
Venture capitalists have rushed to pour money into humanoid robots on expectations that their integration with generative artificial intelligence will transform how machines interact with human beings.
“Right now we need robots to operate and complete complex tasks autonomously,” Yang said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. She pointed out that after decades of trying to develop robots that have largely been able to perform limited tasks such as grasping objects, the industry has realized that AI is required to enable these machines to expand their capabilities.

X Square Robot on Monday also released what it calls an “open-source foundation model for embodied AI,” named Wall-OSS. Open source means that developers and the general public can access the underlying code and use it for free. Embodied AI refers to use cases of the tech that are integrated with hardware, such as robots or self-driving vehicles.
The startup said it was the first to open source an AI model of its kind dedicated to robotics — and expects “robotic butlers” to become reality within five years. CNBC was unable to verify that claim.

Yang acknowledged that AI for robots still lags behind advancements in generative AI for chatting or code generation, and said she expects tech for robots won’t achieve ChatGPT 3.5-type capabilities for at least 12 months. Yang also pointed out that “embodied AI” doesn’t yet have very clear benchmarks that can define relative progress.
While the startup uses Nvidia chips for computing, other functions only require less powerful automotive chips that can be sourced domestically, Yang said.

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ChatGPT 3.5 was U.S.-based OpenAI’s breakthrough chatbot model launched in November 2022 that transformed business expectations for AI’s potential. Chinese companies did not create a viable competitor until the release of DeepSeek’s R1 open source model earlier this year. Analysts suggest that China is on the path to gain a global edge in AI applications, including robots.
In addition to open-source software, X Square Robot on Monday also launched its Quanta X2 robot, which the startup said can attach mop heads for 360-degree cleaning, and comes with hands capable of perceiving subtle pressure changes in a step toward more human-like functionality.
X Square Robot said that it currently doesn’t have a product for mass market delivery, and that specific prices are determined by robot use case. The price of the humanoid robot as per research firm Humanoid Guide is $80,000. Currently rival Unitree sells a humanoid for $16,000, although it’s unclear how advanced its functions are.
Yang said the robot company plans to start preparing for an initial public offering next year, but said the startup had not yet settled on where the listing would be. She said that X Square Robot was already generating revenue from sales to schools, hotels and retirement homes, and expects to grow that next year.
She added that the startup was already speaking with customers in Japan and Singapore. But for robots to really enter the consumer market, their price needs to come down to around $10,000 — largely through cuts in hardware costs — an achievement she expects is possible in three to five years. More

Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, the value of America’s stockmarket has risen by $21trn. Just ten firms—including Amazon, Broadcom, Meta and Nvidia—account for 55% of the rise. All are riding high on enthusiasm for artificial intelligence, and they are not the only ones. In the first half of the year an IT investment boom accounted for all America’s GDP growth; in the year to date a third of the West’s venture-capital dollars have gone to AI firms. More

The stock market kicked off the historically tough month of September on a rocky note as Wall Street speculated about the magnitude of the Federal Reserve’s next interest rate decision. Initially, the S & P 500 and Nasdaq hit all-time intraday highs Friday morning as investors digested a slower-than-expected August jobs growth . The weak data bolstered the case for the central bank to cut rates 25 basis points later this month, and as many as two more similar moves before year-end. The 10-year Treasury yield dropped below 4.1% to its lowest level since April. The “bad news is good news trade” was on. Shortly after the open, however, the market reversed lower as those rate cut hopes were overshadowed by concerns about the pace of the slowing labor market. Nonfarm payrolls increased by just 22,000 last month, versus the 75,000 expected, while July was revised up to a still tepid 79,000, and June was revised to show a loss of 13,000. While the S & P 500 and Nasdaq each closed Friday’s session slightly lower, both still managed to post gains of nearly 0.3% and more than 1%, respectively, for the week. .SPX .IXIC 5D mountain S & P 500 and Nasdaq 1 week Jim Cramer was not bothered by the market swings, saying Club name Home Depot is about to go even higher. “That’s what you buy right here, right now,” he said on Friday. Lower borrowing costs should be a catalyst for Home Depot shares because its business is heavily tied to a recovery in the housing sector. Home Depot stock has already been on the upswing since mid-June as rate cut expectations ramped up through the summer. Jim thinks the bond market might actually cooperate this time when the Fed starts cutting rates again — unlike last year, when bond yields, and subsequently mortgage rates, rose after 100 basis points of Fed rate cuts. So far, it looks promising, with the national average on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropping by 16 basis points to 6.29%, its biggest single-day drop in more than a year. It wasn’t just monetary policy on the minds of investors. Corporate earnings were, too, including two of our holdings: Salesforce and Broadcom . The biggest earnings story of the week was Broadcom. Shares of the custom chipmaker gained over 9% on Friday after a blowout quarter the night before. Wall Street celebrated Broadcom’s upbeat guidance, CEO Hock Tan’s revelation about $10 billion in custom AI-related orders from a new customer, which analysts speculated might be OpenAI, and Tan saying he’s staying on as CEO “at least” through 2026. For the week, Broadcom was our biggest gainer, up 12.6%. AVGO YTD mountain Broadcom YTD “Broadcom’s great quarter, solid guide, and the CEO remarks on the call all pointed to sustained strong demand for artificial intelligence semiconductors and networking solutions, housed in the company’s AI solutions segment,” Zev Fima, a portfolio analyst for the Club, wrote in Thursday evening’s earnings analysis. “VMWare, the software giant Broadcom bought for $69 billion nearly two years ago, continues to power the company’s infrastructure software segment.” The Club raised its Broadcom price target to $350 from $290, and reiterated our hold-equivalent 2 rating . On Friday, Zev summed it up : “Taken together, it’s clear that despite all the hoopla about an artificial intelligence spending bubble, we’ve not yet seen the peak in AI demand when it comes to the real-deal players in the space.” Salesforce released a better-than-expected second-quarter report Wednesday evening. Although the company posted a beat on the top and bottom line, worries about a soft third-quarter revenue guide weighed on shares after the release. The stock dropped nearly 5% on Thursday but recovered more than half that on Friday. For the week, it lost just over 2%. CRM YTD mountain Salesforce YTD On earnings night, the Club lowered our price target to $300 from $350 due to the ongoing concerns around Salesforce’s growth trajectory. We did, however, maintain our 2 rating on the stock. After all, Salesforce’s suite of AI tools, dubbed Agentforce, could still boost topline performance, and management’s cost discipline could help margins over time. “However, the results here aren’t enough to silence the bears who believe the traditional seat-based software-as-a-service business model has peaked and is being disrupted by advancements in AI. It’s disappointing to continue to wait, but we’re not ready to jump ship on this small position just yet with the stock trading at 22 times forward earnings.” Jeff Marks, director of portfolio analysis for the Club, wrote in Wednesday evening’s earnings analysis. Also, in tech news, Apple investors received great news this week, which pushed the Club stock up more than 3%. That’s all because of a favorable ruling in Alphabet’s landmark Google Search antitrust case. Shares of the iPhone maker were on a tear after a federal judge ruled late Tuesday that Alphabet can keep making payments to preload Google Search onto Apple’s flagship devices. AAPL YTD mountain Apple YTD Jim thinks the ruling could unlock billions of additional revenue for Apple. Not only can Apple keep receiving the once estimated $20 billion each year in payments for its Google agreement, but it also opens the door for the tech behemoth to consider similar deals with large language model providers. As in, Apple could get paid for driving traffic to various AI chatbots within its ecosystem. This would be a sizable boost to Apple’s high-margin Services unit, which includes the App Store, Apple TV+, Apple Music, iCloud, and more. “That bot company will have to pay Apple because it’s legal,” Jim said during CNBC’s “Mad Money” on Tuesday. “What a turn of events. Maybe it’s another $20 billion headed Apple’s way. Maybe [it’s] more.” Jim also reiterated his long-held “own, don’t trade” thesis on Apple stock. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. More

The private market assets platform Yieldstreet struck a deal to recoup some of its legal expenses for an ill-fated series of marine loans — but its customers are less fortunate.
Yieldstreet is getting $5 million in a settlement with the borrowers who defaulted on the marine loans, the startup told customers last week in letters obtained by CNBC.
But since the company’s recovery cost “well exceeds the entire settlement amount,” it’s unlikely investors will see any repayment, Yieldstreet said.
The deals are being closed and financial statements showing losses will be filed by February, the company said.

Cargo containers stacked aboard a ship at the Jakarta International Container Terminal in Tanjung Priok Port on Aug. 7, 2025.
Str | Afp | Getty Images

The private market assets platform Yieldstreet struck a deal to recoup some of its legal expenses for an ill-fated series of marine loans — but its customers are less fortunate.
Yieldstreet is getting $5 million in a settlement with the borrowers who defaulted on the marine loans, the startup told customers last week in letters obtained by CNBC.

But since the company’s recovery cost “well exceeds the entire settlement amount,” it’s unlikely investors will see any repayment, Yieldstreet said. The deals are being closed and financial statements showing losses will be filed by February, the company said.
“We recognize this outcome is disappointing,” Yieldstreet said in the investor letter. “Yieldstreet pursued this extensive recovery effort because we are committed to exhausting every reasonable avenue for investor recovery.”
Yieldstreet put its investors into deals totaling $89 million in loans that were supposed to be backed by 13 ships, according to a lawsuit filed by the startup against the borrower in that project. The loans float money to companies that take apart ships for scrap metal; the vessels themselves are the collateral on the deals.
Yieldstreet lost track of the ships and then pursued the borrower, which it accused of fraud. While it won monetary awards in a number of jurisdictions outside the U.S., the borrower avoided paying the startup by concealing their assets, Yieldstreet said in the August investor letter.
The episode garnered media coverage and in 2020 contributed to the collapse of a high-profile partnership with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.

The news of this latest loss follows CNBC’s report last month that Yieldstreet customers in four real estate deals worth $78 million have been wiped out, with roughly $300 million of other deals on watchlist for possible losses.
This year, Yieldstreet changed its CEO and announced a new business model that leans more on distributing private market funds provided by established Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group.
In a statement provided to CNBC, Yieldstreet said the investor letters refer to marine loan deals from 2018 and 2019 in an asset class that the firm no longer offers.
“While substantially less than the amounts invested by the funds and ultimately the investors, this settlement allows us to bring closure to litigation that could otherwise continue indefinitely,” Yieldstreet said in the statement.
The firm “takes its fiduciary responsibilities seriously and, throughout the recovery effort, advanced its own funds in an effort to protect its investors and has absorbed significant losses alongside its investors,” the startup said.

Bitter end

Arman, an investor who plowed $180,000 into marine loans in 2019, called the result a bitter disappointment. After receiving $16,000 from Yieldstreet in a class action settlement tied to the soured marine deals, he estimates that he lost more than 90% of his original investment.
CNBC is withholding Arman’s last name from publication at his request.
“My mother passed away in 2018, and I didn’t know where to put the money,” Arman said. “I thought this was somewhere safe to put it, and it wasn’t.”
The Yieldstreet marine loan deal was supposed to mature in six months, a relatively short-term investment.
Instead, it stretched into a six-year saga for Arman, who works as a firefighter and paramedic near the West Coast.
“They are now washing their hands of the whole thing,” he said. “They are taking $5 million to cover their own expenses, with no regard for investors.” More

The New York Stock Exchange on Aug. 26, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters

The August jobs report on Friday is expected to confirm the labor market is weakening.
Just by how much is what will matter to investors. It can’t be too slow, nor can it be too hot.

Wall Street is on edge heading into Friday’s nonfarm payrolls. Economists polled by Dow Jones are forecasting the U.S. economy added 75,000 jobs last month, a weak estimate that’s only slightly higher than the dismal 73,000 headline number in the July report. The unemployment rate is also projected to tick higher, to 4.3% from 4.2%.
Investors may be able to shrug off a soft report so long as the headline number manages to hit a sweet spot, one that is cool enough to justify a September rate cut, but not so weak as to add to recession fears. Adam Crisafulli of Vital Knowledge puts an “ideal” range that fulfills those two requirements between 70,000 and 95,000.
The August jobs report will also be heavily scrutinized for another reason. It will be the first after the poor jobs data and accompanying revisions last month prompted President Donald Trump to fire the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner. It’s a decision that has spurred fears of government overreach and cast doubt over federal economic data.
Trump nominated conservative economist E.J. Antoni to be the new head of the BLS. William Wiatrowski is acting commissioner until Antoni is confirmed.

Market reaction

The stock market could come under pressure if the jobs figure is outside of the expected range from traders. Luke Tilley, chief economist at Wilmington Trust, worries a downside surprise is coming in the jobs data, one that will ding markets. Just not quite yet.

The economist, who is projecting nonfarm payrolls growth of 75,000 in August, said that he expects a negative jobs number will come in the second half of the year at some point. He said it’s possible that the weak number could even come Friday.
KKM Financial investment chief Jeff Kilburg worries Friday’s jobs data could come in stronger than expected, given the low expectations heading into the report, and that could boost interest rates and reduce the chances the Fed cuts as many times as expected this year. Many traders are hoping for three rate cuts between now and year’s end.
Ultimately, Wall Street is hoping for greater clarity on the labor market, one that is alarming some who have noted companies are abstaining from hiring or firing workers in a troubling pattern.
“Is this just a case of, sort of, a ‘low hires, low fires,’ kind of stagnant labor market, or is there some real deterioration that’s starting to unfold?” said John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Growth Innovators ETF. “And historically, when the labor market has started to deteriorate, it has a tendency to quickly deteriorate further.”
ADP’s private employment report, which can sometimes be a precursor to the official figures that follow, was weaker-than expected on Thursday, but within a comfortable range that didn’t panic markets. It showed an addition of just 54,000 private payrolls last month. The stock market gained on Thursday following the figures. More

Stephen Miran wouldn’t fully resign from his position at the White House while filling the vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board if confirmed.
He’s set to replace Adriana Kugler, who resigned unexpectedly at the beginning of August.

Stephen Miran, currently the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, testifies before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 4, 2025.
Win Mcnamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Stephen Miran will take an unpaid leave of absence as the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors at the White House while filling the vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board if confirmed.
At a confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Banking Committee, Miran, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the open Fed Governor role, said he wouldn’t fully resign from his position at the White House while serving out the Fed Governor’s term, which expires Jan. 31, 2026. He’s set to replace Adriana Kugler, who resigned unexpectedly at the beginning of August.

Miran’s appointment comes amid speculation that Trump would seek to nominate a “shadow chair” and obtain ample influence in the central bank, raising fears about the central bank’s independence. Miran keeping his White House job while serving as Fed governor could further fuel those concerns.
“I have been advised by counsel that the legal approach is to take an unpaid leave of absence from the Council of Economic Advisors, cease my activities and if council advises me otherwise, I will follow the law and follow council’s advice,” Miran said at the hearing.
“The term for which I’ve been nominated is four and a half months. If I am nominated and confirmed for a longer term than just a handful of months, I would absolutely resign,” he added.
Trump has been pushing for sharply lower interest rates, criticizing current Fed Chair Jerome Powell for staying put for too long. At the hearing, Miran repeatedly pledged to uphold the central bank’s independence, stressing that no one at the administration had asked him to commit to easing monetary policy.
The Fed’s next policy meeting takes place on Sept. 16-17.

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The Senate Banking Committee is set to hold a hearing for Stephen Miran on Thursday.

Miran, the economist nominated by President Donald Trump to fill the open Federal Reserve governor post vacated by Adriana Kugler, will come under scrutiny amid questions of the Fed’s independence.
On Wednesday, Miran pledged to uphold the central bank’s independence, as well as its dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment.
“In my view, the most important job of the central bank is to prevent Depressions and hyperinflations. Independence of monetary policy is a critical element for its success,” Miran said in his opening remarks submitted to the Senate Banking Committee ahead of time.
The hearing is set to start at 10 a.m. ET.
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The T. Rowe Price Technology Development Center in New York, US, on Monday, May 1, 2023. 
Bing Guan | Bloomberg | Getty Images

T. Rowe Price shares rallied Thursday after the asset manager struck a $1 billion deal with Goldman Sachs to sell private-market products to retail investors.
Goldman will buy up to $1 billion in T. Rowe Price common stock through open-market purchases with the intention to own up to 3.5%, according to the announcement. The two financial firms will team up to offer wealth and retirement funds that give access to private markets for individuals, financial advisors, plan sponsors and plan participants.

T. Rowe Price shares were up 8% in premarket trading.
“This investment and collaboration represent our conviction in a shared legacy of success delivering results for investors,” David Solomon, CEO of Goldman, said in a statement. “With Goldman Sachs’ decades of leadership innovating across public and private markets and T. Rowe Price’s expertise in active investing, clients can invest confidently in the new opportunities for retirement savings and wealth creation.”

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T. Rowe Price’s shares have struggled over the years with the Baltimore-based firm slow to embrace the exchange-traded fund boom with its bread-and-butter being active management, resulting in massive withdrawals and disappointing returns. T. Rowe shares have provided a negative return over the last five years for investors.
The new deal came on the heels of President Donald Trump’s newly signed executive order that aimed at allowing investors greater access to alternative assets to 401(k) plans, including cryptocurrencies and private-market assets. More