Finance

Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo shares hit record highs Wednesday after the Wall Street banks announced dividend hikes following Tuesday’s close. Both join the laundry list of Club holdings to hike their payouts to investors in 2025. After the financial firms passed the Federal Reserve’s annual stress test on Friday night, Goldman said Tuesday that it is raising its quarterly dividend payout to $4 a share from $3. That’s a 33% increase and the largest among the 15 portfolio names that boosted their dividends so far this year. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo hiked its quarterly payout by 12.5% to 45 cents from 40 cents. The dividend hikes by Goldman and Wells – along with the other Club stocks that boosted their distributions in the first six months of the year – are generally positive signs for investors. A dividend increase requires a company to distribute more profit to shareholders. It typically means management has a strong enough conviction in cash flow to support the bigger payout over time. Case in point: Shares of Goldman and Wells Fargo jumped nearly 1.5% and 1%, respectively, Wednesday. This follows 13 other Club holdings raising their dividends earlier this year. After Goldman, Danaher had the biggest dividend hike on a percentage basis at 18.5%. The company announced in February that it would raise its quarterly payout to 32 cents a share from 27 cents. Eaton, Texas Roadhouse and Costco also boosted their contributions to shareholders in recent months by double-digit percentages. Here’s a full list of the Club holdings that raised dividends in 2025, including those not mentioned earlier like Home Depot, Meta Platforms, Linde, Apple, BlackRock, Salesforce, Coterra and DuPont. Currently, the vast majority of our Club holdings – 27 out of 30 – pay out dividends. The only three that do not are Amazon, CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks. For its part, Nvidia’s is miniscule, at only 1 cent a share. Of course, dividends are only one factor to consider when deciding whether to invest in a stock. For most of our names, their annualized yields are fairly small in the grand scheme of things. Consider Meta Platforms , which last year began to pay a dividend for the first time in its history. In February of this year, the social media giant boosted its quarterly dividend to 52 cents a share from 50 cents, which translates to an annualized yield of 0.29%, as of Tuesday’s close. Still, the stock is trading near record highs on Wednesday. Shares of the Facebook parent are up 22% year to date, versus the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite’s roughly 5.5% advance. However, when there’s steady dividend growth alongside share price appreciation, it can improve total returns over time. That is true even for stocks typically not coveted for their large payouts, such as Texas Roadhouse, which supports a 1.44% yield. Over the past 10 years, the stock is up around 404% on a price return basis — and 494% on a total return basis. Indeed, to capture the benefits of compound interest, we strongly recommend members reinvest their dividends . So, who is next? We’re expecting that additional portfolio companies will announce dividend hikes in 2025. Eli Lilly raised its dividend by 15% last December, which was the seventh consecutive annual increase of that magnitude. We hope to see this again in the second half of the year. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Honeywell have in recent years announced dividend increases in the month of September. And while Capital One did not raise its dividend like its portfolio banking peers Tuesday, management is expected to announce some updated return of capital to shareholders later this year. In fact, Truist analysts said Monday that the credit card issuer has $15 billion of excess capital. That’s roughly 11% of the company’s market capitalization. Still, Jim Cramer believes the company will also invest back in the business. “I think [CEO] Richard Fairbank can take some of that capital and really make it into the rival of American Express ,” Jim said during Wednesday’s Morning Meeting . This follows Capital One’s big acquisition of Discover Financial — which was a key reason why the Club initiated a position in the financial stock, which is on pace for its 10th straight day of gains. (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

Santander has agreed to buy British high street lender TSB for £2.65 billion from Catalonia’s Sabadell in an all-cash deal.
“We never thought of leaving the U.K. The U.K. is very important for us,” Santander Chief Financial Officer Jose Garcia Cantera told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday.
The transaction further complicates the picture for consolidation in the Spanish banking sector, where TSB-owner Sabadell seeks to fend off the advances of BBVA.

A sign hangs from a branch of Banco Santander in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010.
Simon Dawson | Bloomberg via Getty Images

In one move, Santander has silenced months of speculation over it’s allegiance to the British high street – and complicated a year-long consolidation saga in Spain’s banking sector.
On Tuesday, Spain’s largest lender said it agreed to buy British high street lender TSB for £2.65 billion ($3.6 billion) from Catalonia’s Sabadell in an all-cash deal subject to approval. The transaction will generate a return on invested capital of more than 20%, bringing its return on tangible equity in the U.K. from 11% last year to 16% by 2028, Santander said.

Acquisitions have been at the heart of Santander’s British expansion after it entered the market in 2004 through the purchase of Abbey National. But the profitability of the U.K. branch has faltered — with pre-tax profit down by an annual 38% last year — sparking questions over Santander’s long-term presence in Britain. A March announcement of potential layoffs and 95 branch closures did little to abate the rumors despite CEO Ana Botin’s frequent denials.
“We never thought of leaving the U.K. The U.K. is very important for us,” Santander Chief Financial Officer Jose Garcia Cantera told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday. “It’s actually the largest balance sheet of all the countries [where] we operate. It’s a high quality, low-risk business, predictable returns, in hard currency, in sterling, and this helps to stabilize our risk-return profile.” 
He added that the U.K. has “always been a very important and core component of Santander’s diversification strategy.”
The TSB acquisition, meanwhile, “not only makes sense strategically, as I said, the U.K. helps with our risk-return profile, but it’s also financially very, very compelling.”
The deal could work as a defensive play from Sabadell, which only took over TSB from Lloyds in 2015 and seeks to stop a takeover bid from Spanish peer BBVA. The two banks have been locked at odds since Sabadell rejected BBVA’s initial all-share merger offer in May last year, on grounds of it undervaluing the acquisition target.

Now entrenched in a potential 14-billion-euro hostile takeover, BBVA has decided to keep its bid alive despite a recent condition from the Spanish government that the takeover may only proceed if the two banks do not integrate their operations for at least three years.
Over this period, “both entities maintain [must] separate judicial identity and assets, as well as autonomy in the management of their activities,” Spanish Economist Minister Carlos Cuerpo said during a press briefing, according to a CNBC translation.

Spanish banking competition ‘toughest in Europe’

Madrid — whose government under Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez depends on parties in Sabadell’s home base of Catalonia — has long opposed the deal amid concerns over job losses, received a late-May caution from the European Commission against hindering the merger unduly.
“It is important that banking sector consolidation can take place without undue or inappropriate obstacles being imposed,” said Olof Gill, the European Commission’s spokesperson for financial services, according to Reuters. Spain’s antitrust watchdog has already cleared the acquisition. 

It remains to be seen whether the TSB sale will dull BBVA Chairman Carlos Torres Vila’s appetite to press ahead with submitting a merger offer to Sabadell shareholders once permissions come through.
RBC analysts on Wednesday assessed that Santander’s acquisition of TSB “seems to be a last major effort to convince [Sabadell]’s shareholders to not accept BBVA’s offer during the upcoming take-up period” and would “likely further complicate” BBVA’s takeover.
“We are completely neutral on the Sabadell-BBVA transaction,” Santander’s Garcia Cantera told CNBC. “This is an asset that becomes available in one of the countries where we operate, and it’s our fiduciary duty to look at all these opportunities and try to do our best for our shareholders.”
Yet he recognized that competition in Spanish banking at present is “probably the toughest in Europe,” citing the weak price of domestic mortgages.
“I don’t think this is going to make banking in Spain more comfortable. Probably the opposite,” Garcia Cantera said. More

Xpeng reported an eighth-straight month of more than 30,000 monthly vehicle deliveries amid a fierce price war in China.
Xpeng’s U.S.-listed rivals, which target a more premium segment of China’s car market, saw more modest sales momentum.
BYD remained the market giant, with its passenger car sales edging higher in June to 377,628 vehicles.

Chinese electric car company Xpeng displays its mass-market Mona M03 coupe inside a headquarters’ showroom in Guangzhou, China, on Aug. 26, 2024.
CNBC | Evelyn Cheng

BEIJING — Chinese electric car startup Xpeng is keeping up the sales momentum against its rivals, even as BYD expands on its market dominance amid a fierce price war in China.
Xpeng said Tuesday it delivered 34,611 cars in June, its eighth-straight month of delivering more than 30,000 cars.

Shares rose more than 2% in New York trading. Xpeng did not specify what portion of the deliveries were for its cars with advanced driver-assist, or for its lower-priced Mona brand.
China’s electric car price war has only intensified in recent weeks, drawing government criticism for “involution,” or excessive, non-productive competition. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday also led a high-level financial and economic commission meeting that called for more governance of “low price, disorderly competition,” according to a CNBC translation of Chinese state media.

Mixed results for competitors

Xpeng’s U.S.-listed rivals, which target a more premium segment of China’s car market, saw more modest sales momentum.
Geely-backed Zeekr reported 16,702 car deliveries in June, down 11.7% from the prior month and 16.9% year over year.
Nio reported 24,925 car deliveries in June, a slight increase from May, thanks to growth across its premium “Nio” brand and lower-priced Onvo and Firefly brands.

Li Auto reported 36,279 vehicle deliveries in June, a 11.2% drop from May, but its total deliveries in the second quarter came in at 111,074 units, better than the company’s lowered guidance of 108,000 cars. The company on Friday cut its second-quarter delivery outlook by more than 15,000 cars, attributing the decline to an upgrade to its sales system.
“Based on our channel checks and analysis, we understand Li Auto has started toprohibit extra rebates [from salespeople sharing their commission with customers] within its sales network since the beginning of June 2025,” Nomura analysts said in a report Sunday. They viewed the automaker’s moves as an effort to limit competition among its salespeople while focusing on improving services and brand recognition.
Most of Li Auto’s models are SUVs that come with a fuel tank, which extends the car’s driving range and addresses one of the biggest consumer concerns about electric vehicles. Li Auto’s monthly deliveries had surpassed 50,000 late last year.

Tesla under pressure

Hong Kong-listed Xiaomi reported deliveries of over 25,000 electric cars in June, a slight decrease from the previous month.
Less than a day after announcing its new YU7 SUV would be 10,000 yuan ($1,400) cheaper than Tesla’s Model Y, the Chinese smartphone maker said its car received more than 240,000 locked-in orders. Xiaomi claimed the YU7 offered a longer driving range than the Model Y, but acknowledged that Tesla’s assisted-driving system was more advanced.
YU7 SUV deliveries are now slated to take more than half a year, if not much longer, according to Xiaomi’s online ordering portal. The company had initially said deliveries would take one to five weeks.
“We believe a significant portion of new orders may come from scalpers, reflecting expectations of extreme popularity for the new model,” Junheng Li, CEO, head of research, at JL Warren Capital, said in a note Wednesday.
“We estimate [Tesla] Q2 sales in China to be ~128K units, down 12% YoY, pressured by intensifying competition from Chinese brands’ new model launches,” Li said.
Tesla raised its price in China for the Model 3 long-range all-wheel drive by 10,000 yuan, according to its website Tuesday.
As of May, Tesla was the fifth-largest automaker by market share in China’s new energy vehicle segment, which includes battery-only and hybrid-powered cars. The figures from the China Passenger Car Association showed that Tesla’s retail sales in the country for the first five months of the year fell slightly to just over 200,000 vehicles. Figures for June were not available as of Wednesday morning local time.
Leapmotor, which has partnered with Stellantis, the owner of Chrysler and Jeep, for the overseas market, also maintained steady growth in June with record deliveries of 48,006 cars for the month. Aito, which uses Huawei technology for the car’s entertainment and driver-assist system, reported 44,685 car deliveries for last month.

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Competing against a giant

BYD remained the market giant, with its passenger car sales edging higher in June to 377,628 vehicles, more than half of which were of battery-only cars. The rest were plug-in hybrid electric cars.
That brought BYD’s passenger car sales for the first half of the year to 2.1 million vehicles.
In contrast, Leapmotor and Li Auto each saw deliveries of more than 200,000 cars in the first half of the year, while Xpeng came just shy of the benchmark at 197,189 vehicle deliveries.
Xiaomi’s deliveries for the first half of the year exceeded 150,000 cars, according to CNBC calculations of publicly available figures.
BYD, Xiaomi, and Geely will be the most likely to survive any chaotic industry consolidation, predicted Michael Dunne, head of advisory at Dunne Insights.
Speaking on CNBC’s “The China Connection,” he added that Nio might be at risk despite having a great product and “doing all the right things” due to their poor finances. More

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that the U.S. central bank would have eased monetary policy by now if not for President Donald Trump’s tariff plan.
Powell’s admission comes as the Fed has entered a holding pattern on interest rates despite mounting pressure from the White House.

US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testifies during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on “The Federal Reserve’s Semi-Annual Monetary Policy Report” on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on June 24, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that the U.S. central bank would have eased monetary policy by now if not for President Donald Trump’s tariff plan.
When asked during a panel if the Fed would have lowered rates again this year had Trump not announced his controversial plan to impose higher levies on imported goods earlier this year, Powell said, “I think that’s right.”

“In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs and essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs,” Powell said at European Central Bank forum in Sintra, Portugal.
Powell’s admission comes as the Fed has entered a holding pattern on interest rates despite mounting pressure from the White House.
The Fed last month held the key borrowing rate steady once again, keeping fed funds at the same range between 4.25% and 4.5% where it’s been since December.
The central bank’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee indicated via its so-called dot plot of members’ projections that there could be two cuts by the end of 2025. However, Powell also said at a press conference last month that the Fed was “well positioned” to remain in a wait-and-see mode.
On Tuesday, Powell was asked if July would be too soon for markets to expect a rate cut. He answered that that he “really can’t say” and that “it’s going to depend on the data.” Fed funds futures traders are pricing in a more than 76% likelihood that the central bank once again holds rates steady at the July policy gathering, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

“We are going meeting by meeting,” Powell said during Tuesday’s panel. “I wouldn’t take any meeting off the table or put it directly on the table. It’s going to depend on how the data evolve.”
Powell’s future at the Fed
The Fed’s unrelenting position to keep rates where they are for now has caught the ire of Trump and his administration, who have publicly admonished Powell for the central bank’s failure to lower borrowing costs. Trump last week called Powell “terrible” and said he was a “very average mentally person.”
When asked on Tuesday if he would stay on as Fed governor after his term as chair ends next year, Powell responded, “I have nothing for you on that today.” Powell’s term as a Fed chair ends in 2026, while his position as governor is set to run into 2028.
Global trade policy and Trump’s attacks on Powell took center stage at Tuesday’s event, where the U.S. Fed chief was flanked on the panel by other leaders of central banks from around the globe. International central bank leaders fielded questions ranging from whether they’d act as Powell if they were in his shoes, to whether nations are breaking away from the U.S.
Trump’s on again, off again tariff policy has put global markets and monetary policy makers on edge. The president first unveiled a plan for steep levies on imported goods in early April, before delaying many of the steepest tariffs shortly after when U.S. markets tumbled.
The U.S. stock market has more than regained losses recorded in the wake of Trump’s initial announcement, with the S&P 500 hitting all-time highs in recent days for the first time since February. But investors and monetary policymakers still report feeling uncertain about the future of global trade and its impact on global economic growth, profits and stock markets.
“All I want — and all anybody at the Fed wants — is to deliver an economy that has price stability, maximum employment, financial stability,” Powell said. “What keeps me awake at night is: How do we get that done? I want to hand over to my successor an economy in good shape.” More

Citadel CEO Ken Griffin speaks during the Semafor World Economy Summit 2025 at Conrad Washington on April 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kayla Bartkowski | Getty Images

Billionaire investor Ken Griffin’s hedge funds at Citadel have all posted positive returns during a volatile 2025, led by the tactical trading fund.
Citadel’s multistrategy Wellington fund, its largest, gained 2.5% during the first half of the year, according to a person familiar with the firm’s returns who asked to remain anonymous as the information is private. Citadel’s tactical trading fund, which combines equities and quantitative strategies, rose 6.1% during the same time, the person said.

The fundamental equity fund returned 3.1% through the end of June, while its global fixed income strategy advanced 5%, the person said.
Citadel declined to comment. The hedge fund giant had $66 billion in assets under management as of June 1.
The stock market has proven resilient in the face of President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade war and conflict in the Middle East. The S&P 500 has rebounded from a near 20% sell-off in April, going on to score a record high on Friday and again on Monday. The equity benchmark is up more than 5% year to date.
Griffin has been critical of Trump’s protectionist trade policy, calling tariffs a “painfully regressive tax” that hits working-class Americans the hardest. The billionaire also said Trump’s global trade fight risks spoiling the U.S. “brand” as well as its government bond market.
Citadel’s flagship Wellington fund rose 15.1% last year. Since Citadel’s inception in 1990, the firm produced an annualized net return of 19.2% through the end of May.

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AQR Capital Management’s Apex strategy rallied 11.4% in the first six months of the year, according to a person familiar with the fund’s returns.
AQR’s long-short Delphi equity fund gained 11.6% net of fees in the first half of 2025, the person said.
Its alternative trend-following Helix strategy has returned 7.4% so far this year, the person said.

Cliff Asness.
Chris Goodney | Bloomberg | Getty Images

AQR Capital Management took advantage of a volatile first half of 2025, with a duo of hedge funds doubling the S&P 500’s return.
The Apex strategy from Cliff Asness’ firm, which combines stocks, macro and arbitrage trades and has $4.3 billion in assets under management, rallied 11.4% in the first six months of the year, according to a person familiar with AQR’s returns who asked to be anonymous as the information is private.

AQR’s long-short Delphi equity fund, with $4.1 billion in assets under management, gained 11.6% net of fees in the first half of 2025, the person said.
The stock market staged a stunning rebound this year even as uncertainty remains amid an aggressive trade war and Middle East escalation. The S&P 500 has rebounded from a near 20% sell-off in April, going on to score a record high on Friday and again on Monday. The equity benchmark is up 5.3% year to date.
AQR’s alternative trend-following Helix strategy has returned 7.4% so far this year, the person said.
Asness co-founded AQR in 1998 after a stint at Goldman Sachs. He and his partners established the quant-driven firm’s investment philosophy at the University of Chicago’s Ph.D. program, focusing on value and momentum strategies.
The firm has successfully expanded into multistrategy approaches in recent years. AQR has $142 billion in assets under management, up from about $99 billion at the start of 2024.
AQR declined to comment.

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In recent years, America’s student-loan policy has come to resemble an alphabet soup. During the covid-19 pandemic, relief came from the CARES, ARPA and HEROES acts. Repayment plans ranged from the appropriately named (SAVE and PAYE) to the less so (PSLF and TEPSLF). Even seasoned bureaucrats at the FSA will have struggled to keep track. Owing to these various policies, some $189bn in student debt was forgiven, and more than $260bn of payments waived. More

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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is set to speak at a European Central Bank forum on Tuesday.

The panel, which is slated for 9:30 a.m. ET, focuses on the global economy amid policy shifts. It takes place in Sintra, Portugal.
Powell’s commentary comes after the U.S. Federal Reserve once again held interest rates steady at its policy gathering last month. Despite pressure from President Donald Trump to lower borrowing costs, Powell said recently that the central bank was “well positioned” to wait on a rate cut.
His remarks also come ahead of closely watched jobs data due later this week.
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