Finance

The Trump administration is considering 11 candidates to replace Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell when his term expires in May, including three who have not previously been publicly named, according to two administration officials who declined to be named.
The new names include Jefferies Chief Market Strategist David Zervos, former Fed Governor Larry Lindsey and Rick Rieder, chief investment officer for global fixed income at BlackRock.

They now join a list of eight other candidates that CNBC has confirmed are under consideration, including Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, Fed Governor Chris Waller and Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson. The officials also confirmed the candidates include Marc Summerlin, an economic advisor in the Bush administration, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan and former St. Louis Fed President James Bullard.

David Zervos, chief market strategist at Jefferies LLC, during the iConnections Global Alts 2024 event in Miami Beach, Florida, US, on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. Speakers at the event will share insights and strategies related to alternative investments.
Eva Marie Uzcategui/ | Bloomberg | Getty Images

President Donald Trump recently told CNBC in an interview that Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh were among those on his list.
The officials described a “deliberative process” where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will interview all of the candidates, winnow down the list and pass on a final list to the president for his decision.
The size of the list and the process described suggest a decision is not imminent and could take a considerable amount of time. But the officials would not offer a timetable.

Rick Rieder, BlackRock’s senior managing director, speaking at the Delivering Alpha conference in New York City on Sept. 28, 2023.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC

The longer the process takes, the less likely there is to be a so-called shadow Fed chair in place for several months before Powell leaves, which some have suggested would be disruptive for monetary policy.

Though sharply critical — on an almost daily basis — of Powell, Trump has backed off suggestions he might replace the Fed chair before the end of his term in May.
While many of the candidates have advocated various levels of reform at the Fed, most have supported its independence and have experience in monetary policy and financial markets.

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The consumer price index rose 2.7% in July on an annual basis, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Core” goods prices are at their highest annual inflation rate in about two years, evidence that the Trump administration tariff policy is feeding through to higher prices, economists said.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Inflation held steady in July as price declines for staples like groceries and gasoline helped offset price increases for consumers.
However, there were worrying signs under the surface, including evidence that Trump administration policies are stoking inflation for certain goods and services, economists said. Those effects will likely become more pronounced later this year, they said.

“Tariff and immigration policy fingerprints are all over the report,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s, said.
“The tariff and immigration effects aren’t screaming at us, but they’re certainly speaking very loudly and over the next couple months they’ll start yelling,” Zandi said.
The consumer price index rose 2.7% in July relative to a year earlier, unchanged from the prior month and less than expected, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.
The CPI is a widely used measure of inflation that tracks how quickly prices rise or fall for a basket of goods and services, from haircuts to coffee, clothing and concert tickets.

In July, grocery and gasoline prices declined — or, deflated — by a respective 0.1% and 2.2% on a monthly basis from June, according to the CPI data.

Economists like to look at inflation data that strips out energy and food prices, which can be volatile from month to month.

This so-called core CPI figure has been rising in recent months: It climbed 3.1% in July 2025 from July 2024. That’s up from a 2.9% annual pace in June and is the fastest annual rate for core CPI since February.
“[W]e expect it will rise further to a peak of 3.8% by the end of the year as tariffs bleed through more fully to consumer prices,” Michael Pearce, deputy chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote Tuesday.

Inflation most evident for consumer goods

Tariffs are a tax placed on imports, paid by U.S. companies that import the good or service.
Businesses generally pass on those higher costs to consumers, at least in part, economists said. The Budget Lab at Yale University estimates the average household will lose $2,400 in the short run as a result of all tariffs the Trump administration put in place as of Aug. 6.
Tariff effects are most apparent for goods prices, like those for household furnishings and apparel, Zandi said.

Inflation for all core commodities — which strips out food and energy commodities — was up 0.2% in each of the last two months, according to the CPI data. In more typical times, goods prices are generally flat or declining, Zandi said.
“That they’re on the rise is clear evidence of tariff impact,” Zandi said.
Household furnishings prices were up 0.7% on a monthly basis in July, according to the CPI data. Apparel prices were up a more muted 0.1%, and toys 0.2%.

Not a ‘one-month event’

On an annual basis, core commodities inflation was up 1.2% in July, the fastest pace in over two years.
“There are clear signs a range of goods prices are moving higher, pushing core goods inflation to a more than two-year high, but some major tariffed items, including autos and major appliances, have yet to show much impact,” Pearce wrote.
Stephen Miran, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” that the CPI data shows “no evidence whatsoever” that tariffs have fueled higher consumer prices.
“It just hasn’t panned out,” Miran said.

The full effect of tariffs is unlikely to be felt for several months, as businesses delay passing on higher costs, economists said.
“This isn’t a one-month event,” said Sarah House, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Economics. “The impact will be dragged out over many months, as businesses are waiting to see where those tariffs settle.”
They may test consumers’ price sensitivity slowly instead of all at once, she said. Companies may also still be selling old inventory that wasn’t subject to import duties, economists said.
“It’s been a very dynamic time for these trade negotiations … but we’re still, you know, a ways away from seeing where things settle down,” Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve chair, said last month.
Additionally, there’s evidence that Trump administration policy around immigration is limiting the supply of immigrant labor in certain sectors of the economy, putting upward pressure on inflation, Zandi said.
This is most apparent in personal care services — categories like haircuts, dry cleaning and pet services — that employ a lot of immigrants, he said. Fewer immigrants working in these sectors limits labor supply and puts upward pressure on the wages businesses pay to attract workers, he said.

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For a few days in March 2000, as the dotcom bubble neared bursting point, Cisco was the world’s most valuable company. Now the seller of networking gear is a cautionary tale, even if it is also an enduring success, with real earnings per share of four-and-a-half times what they were back then. Investors became so exuberant about the firm’s prospects 25 years ago that they valued it at more than 200 times its annual profit, or around $1trn in today’s money. Starting from a valuation that stratospheric, Cisco’s solid-but-unspectacular growth was a bitter disappointment. Its market value is now $280bn. More

For a few days in March 2000, as the dotcom bubble neared bursting point, Cisco was the world’s most valuable company. Now the seller of networking gear is a cautionary tale, even if it is also an enduring success, with real earnings per share of four and a half times what they were back then. Investors became so exuberant about the firm’s prospects 25 years ago that they valued it at more than 200 times its annual profit, around $1trn in today’s money. Starting from a valuation that stratospheric, Cisco’s solid-but-unspectacular growth was a bitter disappointment. Its market value is now $280bn. More

Few pandemic-era bets will have paid off quite as nicely as nabbing a house in a boomtown such as Atlanta, Austin or Miami with a two-point-something percent mortgage rate—and holding on as its value soared in the subsequent years. People wanted sun, space and an escape from covid killjoys. These cities offered it. More

There are a few ways to prevent your cell phone bill from increasing much while traveling internationally, experts said.
Among their biggest tips: Consider a T-Mobile cell plan, buy an eSIM or rely solely on Wi-Fi networks.

Alina Rudya/bell Collective | Digitalvision | Getty Images

I didn’t think much of my daily cell phone use during a vacation to Paris in May.
But by the end of the five-day trip, I’d amassed almost $50 in extra charges — for fairly routine tasks like checking restaurant hours and menus, or researching neighborhood attractions after long, meandering walks.

While not a bank-breaking sum of money, it was high enough to frustrate this personal finance reporter and make me rethink phone use (and the value of better pre-planning) for my next excursion.
Luckily, there are many ways to potentially reduce or eliminate extra cell phone costs when traveling outside the U.S., experts said.
“There’s no one single way to save money using your smartphone when you’re overseas,” said John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud at the National Consumers League, a consumer advocacy group.
The best strategy depends on how travelers plan to use their phone during a trip, he said.

Consider T-Mobile for basic use

Kathrin Ziegler | Digitalvision | Getty Images

My additional charges resulted from my provider’s international phone package. My carrier, AT&T, charges a flat, daily rate of $12 per day for international cell use, similar to other providers. I incurred that daily charge each day I opted to use the international cell network instead of Wi-Fi to look up directions or restaurant hours.

While many carriers typically charge a per-day fee or a “hefty surcharge,” some T-Mobile plans cover international roaming, said Tim Leffel, author of “The World’s Cheapest Destinations” and “A Better Life for Half the Price.”
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As such, switching to T-Mobile as your cell provider may make financial sense for those who travel abroad often — especially those who don’t rely on their phones for more than the occasional text or data usage during trips, he said.
“If this is your plan, awesome,” Leffel said. “You’re ready to travel the world without missing a beat.”
There are limitations, though.
Not all T-Mobile plans cover international roaming charges. One longtime T-Mobile customer reportedly racked up $143,000 of charges during a 2023 trip to Switzerland because of international data roaming. (The company later reportedly withdrew those costs.)

While its international plans generally include unlimited texts and an allotment of high-speed data when overseas, phone calls may come with an additional price tag. (One workaround: All calls made over Wi-Fi to the U.S., Mexico and Canada are free, according to T-Mobile’s site.)
T-Mobile plans also don’t work in every country, so customers should be wary to avoid extra fees in such places, experts said.

Additionally, such plans may not be well-suited for digital nomads (they’re not intended for extended use abroad, according to T-Mobile), or for heavy data users, Leffel said.
Check what your cell plan already offers, and compare costs and services before making any changes, Breyault said.

Use an eSIM

D3sign | Moment | Getty Images

People who intend to use a lot of data away from Wi-Fi networks may be better off buying a SIM card, Breyault said.
Replacing your phone’s current SIM with an international one essentially turns your device into a local phone, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
Many people can use a digital eSIM service today instead of replacing their phone’s physical SIM card, experts said.
It’s generally a cheaper option compared to many carriers’ international phone packages, experts said. Pre-paid SIMs let travelers more easily manage their budgets, they said.
“Now you can just download an app and buy as much data as you need, generally $1 or less per day for usage spread out over a week or a month,” Leffel said. “If you run out of data, you just buy more instantly.”

He recommends sticking with more established providers like Saily, GigSky or Airalo to be safe. They generally work anywhere in the world, he said.
Many people opt for data-only SIM plans and save any calls or texts for Wi-Fi, he said.
One caveat: Travelers may need to “unlock” their phone for an eSIM to work, Breyault said. This would ensure the phone isn’t locked to a particular carrier. In such cases, customers should reach out to their provider before traveling to ask if they can unlock the phone, he said.
Also, be aware that your phone number may temporarily switch to a local number when using a new SIM, experts said.

Use Wi-Fi when possible

Natalia Lebedinskaia | Moment | Getty Images

OK, yes, this may sound obvious.
But there’s no denying that leveraging free Wi-Fi — perhaps at a hotel, restaurant or otherwise — can save you money.
You can use Wi-Fi even when your phone is on Airplane mode, which ensures you won’t get dinged with international roaming charges.
Experts have some hacks to help limit your need for cellular data when away from Wi-Fi.
Among the top tips: Download an offline map on Google Maps before traveling. This will allow you to navigate an area via GPS even without internet. There are some drawbacks: It may be difficult to find details like the nearest museum or restaurant and their respective hours on the fly without internet, for example.
Download any helpful article PDFs or guidebooks ahead of time to limit your need for the internet while on the go, Leffel said.
Connecting to public Wi-Fi networks may pose a digital security threat, so avoid conducting sensitive transactions like banking over Wi-Fi, Breyault said. In such cases, consider sticking with a cellular network, which is more secure, he said.
I returned from another trip last week, to Namibia and Botswana, during which I adopted a strict policy of putting my phone on Airplane mode and, if necessary, occasionally using public Wi-Fi.
My extra cell fees? $0. More

President Donald Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill” ends a $7,500 EV tax credit after Sept. 30.
Consumers are acting quickly to claim the tax credit before it disappears, according to analysts and sales data.

Halfpoint Images | Moment | Getty Images

Consumers are racing to buy electric vehicles before a fast-approaching deadline to claim tax credits worth up to $7,500, according to auto analysts.
Legislation championed by Republicans on Capitol Hill and signed by President Donald Trump in July eliminates the tax breaks — available for new, used and leased EVs — after Sept. 30.

The Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act had originally offered the tax breaks to consumers through 2032.
“We’re expecting Q3 may be [a] record for EV sales because of the tax incentives going away,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, a senior analyst at Cox Automotive.
“People are rushing out” to buy, she said.

‘Significant volume’ of EV sales

Consumers purchased nearly 130,100 new EVs in July, the second-highest monthly sales tally on record, behind roughly 136,000 sold in December, according to Cox Automotive data. The July figures represent a 26.4% increase from June and nearly 20% increase year-over-year, Streaty said.
The share of EV sales in July also accounted for about 9.1% of total sales of passenger vehicles that month, the largest monthly share on record, according to Cox.

“We’re seeing significant volume in new EVs,” said Liz Najman, director of market insights at Recurrent, an EV marketplace and data provider.

Meanwhile, there were nearly 36,700 used EVs sold in July, a record monthly high, Cox data shows.  
Specific EV models — the Chevy Equinox EV, Honda Prologue and Hyundai IONIQ 5 — also saw record-breaking sales last month, Najman said.
There were 8,500 Equinox EVs sold in July, the highest monthly EV total in the U.S. for any model outside of Tesla, which is the market leader, Najman said.
(This comes as Tesla’s sales have declined for two consecutive quarters, by about 12% year-over-year in Q2 and 9% in Q1, according to Cox data.)

$7,500 tax credit puts EVs near price parity

The tax credits — worth up to $7,500 for new EVs and $4,000 for used EVs — aim to make EV purchases more financially enticing for consumers.
The EV tax breaks were one of many policies the Biden administration adopted to try try to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The transportation sector is the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
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EVs are “unambiguously better” for the environment than traditional cars with an internal combustion engine, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
However, while EVs tend to be cheaper over the lifecycle of car ownership relative to traditional gasoline vehicles, they generally carry a higher upfront cost, analysts said.
The average transaction price for all new passenger vehicles (aside from battery electric vehicles) in July was $48,078, according to Cox data.
The average for new EVs was $55,689, before any dealer incentives and tax credits, Cox said. If the purchase were to qualify for the full $7,500 tax credit, it’d be near price parity, around $48,189.

The price gap between EV and gasoline cars “no longer exists,” Tom Libby, an analyst at S&P Global, wrote in July. The disappearance of the federal tax credits “jeopardizes” price competitiveness, he wrote.
States and utilities may offer additional financial incentives for EVs, depending on where consumers live, analysts said.

EV dealers boost incentives

Maskot | Maskot | Getty Images

Dealers are also seeking to capitalize on the upcoming Sept. 30 deadline, stoking a sense of consumer urgency to boost sales, analysts said.
“$7,500 Federal Tax Credit Ending,” was in bold lettering at the top of Tesla’s home page as of early afternoon Friday. “Limited Inventory — Take Delivery Now,” the automaker wrote underneath.
Sept. 30 is the date by which consumers must take ownership of the car (essentially, be driving it off the lot) to qualify for an EV tax credit.
Beyond the tax breaks, dealers are also offering relatively generous financial benefits to entice consumers.
They provided about $9,800 of additional financial incentives, on average, to new-EV buyers in July, worth about 17.5% of the average transaction price, Cox data shows.

That share is the highest percentage dating to October 2017, which was before the “new era of EV adoption” when monthly sales volume was quite low, Streaty said.
EV sales are likely to “collapse” in the fourth quarter of 2025, once the tax credit expires and the market adjusts to a new financial reality, she said.
Used EVs are likely to be a bright spot in the near term, analysts said.
Growth has been accelerating, and most buyers today already don’t qualify for the $4,000 tax break.
“[A]pproximately one-third of used EVs qualified for the incentive anyway,” Cox Automotive wrote last month. “With availability growing and incentives for new EVs expected to fall, the used EV market may grow faster in the quarters ahead.” More

Goldman Sachs has long been considered the king of Wall Street dealmaking. Now, the bank is increasing its focus on another target: managing money for wealthy clients and institutions. Investment banking services, like underwriting initial public offerings (IPO) and advising mergers and acquisitions (M & A), have long been Goldman’s bread and butter. In fact, the firm was ranked No. 1 in overall global M & A activity for the first seven months of 2025, capturing 32% of market share among its financial peers, according to LSEG data. Most recently, Goldman has had its hand in a number of high-profile initial public offerings, too, such as Nvidia chips-for-rent company CoreWeave , trading platform eToro , and fintech company Chime. But management sees a big opportunity in its much-smaller asset and wealth management (AWM) division. Speaking to CNBC, Marc Nachmann, Goldman’s global head of asset and wealth management, said the company has a plan to grow this business — which includes portfolio construction, risk management, financial planning and other investment services — and challenge its banking peers in a less-crowded corner of Wall Street. “There’s still an opportunity to take market share and be a winner in this game,” he said. Indeed, Goldman’s not alone in this pursuit. Morgan Stanley , for example, has been working for years to hit its goal of $10 trillion in total client assets across its wealth and investment management division, which was set under former CEO James Gorman in 2022 and continues under current CEO Ted Pick. The push for Goldman would also help to further diversify the firm’s revenue streams. Investment banking makes up more than two-thirds of overall sales, but these incomes can be volatile and cyclical. That was last seen in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic caused a huge disruption to Wall Street dealmaking, which the industry is still recovering from. In contrast, revenue from asset and wealth management services are often fee-based and less impacted by short-term market fluctuations. In a wide-ranging interview with Nachmann, we also talked about Goldman’s generative artificial intelligence ambitions, the regulatory backdrop under President Donald Trump , and Wall Street’s push into alternative assets, which the White House wants to allow into retirement accounts. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. A lot of Wall Street is focused on Goldman as a play on the rebound in investment banking, but I’m interested in looking into growth and expansion in areas outside of the GBM division, specifically your asset and wealth management businesses. How does AWM complement Goldman’s overall business mix? Nachmann: When you take it back to the big picture, one of the things that has helped tell our story better is that in the beginning of 2023 we had our investor day at the end of February. We reorganized the way we report and manage ourselves into these two big areas, right? So, you have GBM and AWM. GBM is the combination of the trading business and the investment banking business. I’d say it’s the long-established businesses. Both of these businesses are pretty concentrated when you think about the key players. When you think about both trading and banking between Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan , and Morgan Stanley, that’s a huge percentage of the market. And we’ve been a leader there for a long time. I’d also say overall GBM is a capital-intensive business, too, right? So, it requires a good amount of balance sheet. I think it’s a good return business, but it has some cyclicality in it. So, you see the capital markets activity, IPO calendars going up and down, M & A volumes going up and down, and trading volumes up and down. That’s a big 70% of our revenue from there. When you look at AWM, generally speaking, we have fee revenues that are sticky, durable, and generally speaking, good secular growth with both asset management and wealth. There’s less cyclicality. So, now you have less cyclical, less capital-intensive, more durable, sticky revenues, but it’s much more fragmented. And it’s not the same thing where you don’t have a Goldman, JPMorgan or Morgan Stanley who owns a huge proportion. There’s still an opportunity to take market share and be a winner in this game. I think we really simplified the firm into these two buckets. And given that AWM has this underlying secular growth, as well as the opportunity to continue to build more market share, it’s the growth part of the firm. I say that with all due respect to my colleagues in GBM. They of course want to grow too, but I’m just saying in terms of long-term growth, it’s really on the AWM side. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon emphasized during the conference call that Goldman is “particularly focused on thinking about ways to accelerate the asset and wealth management franchise.” Can you break down the firm’s strategy to grow this division in a more pragmatic and practical sense? Nachmann: In a big picture way, though, the AWM business grows with more headcounts because in wealth management, if you want to cover more clients, you got to have more advisors, right? These businesses grow with headcount. So, when David says we’re trying to do things to accelerate the growth, we’ve been allocating a good bit of human capital to AWM to allow the growth. That’s a big portion of it. I think the key to that on the wealth side is really two pieces. One is to continue to grow the advisor count, right? So, we watch that very carefully. We grow our advisor count consistently. One of the things we’ve done is we’re growing both in the U.S. and internationally. I’d say internationally we’re growing faster than in the U.S., but that’s because it’s off a lower base. We’ve been very focused on growing Europe and Asia at a faster advisor hiring than in the U.S., but all three regions are growing well. So, the strategy in some sense is to continue doing what you’re doing but doing it with more people. There’s a strong emphasis as well on focusing on continuing to build us out in international markets. Then the second thing on the wealth side, when you look at us as a wealth manager, we are only servicing the ultra-high-net-worth segment. That’s a $30 million account size and up. It makes us different from most of the other wealth managers amongst the public companies, and we’re sticking to that segment. Historically, our business has been super heavy on the fee revenues around advising our clients on how to do the asset allocation and how to invest their money. We have historically not been as active on the lending side, especially if you compare us to a JPMorgan. If you look at JPMorgan, more than 50% of their wealth management revenues come from lending. For us, it’s around 20% or so. We will never be at the extreme of where JPMorgan is because we want to continue to be a wealth manager in terms of giving advice on the asset side and on the investing side. But we think we can do more with our clients in helping them on the lending side. That’s another growth driver for us. In what way is Goldman trying to do that on the lending side? Nachmann: So, there’s two categories. There’s existing clients that have lending needs that we’ve historically not been very focused on. So, it’s doing more with existing clients on lending. And then I’d say there’s a large universe of clients where lending is a precursor to a wealth relationship, where lending is very important. There’s lots of wealthy people out there that are asset rich but liquidity-light. They have a lot locked up in their business. Let’s say you’re a hedge fund manager and all your money is in the hedge fund or you own a family business and you put most in that business. You can be very wealthy, but you don’t necessarily have a ton of liquidity to just do general investing into the public markets or private markets. Those clients tend to want to have some lending facilities to give them liquidity or to allow them to invest in other things. So, whoever gives them the lending becomes their preferred partner to do their wealth management. And so given that we historically haven’t been very focused on lending, those clients kind of selected themselves out and really worked more with the JPMorgans. So by more proactively focusing on the lending side, we will start doing lending with these clients. These clients over time will do all their wealth management business with us. It’s a combination of doing it with more existing clients and opening up to a whole host of new clients that we haven’t approached as well as we could have. Goldman announced a private credit product for retirement plans late last month. Can you tell me the origin of this offering and what the firm hopes to achieve by rolling it out? Nachmann: So, the way to think about private assets is that they are illiquid, and that is a fundamental thing. I am nervous about people who run around out there in the world – other asset managers who talk about having illiquid assets and describing them in vehicles that look like they’re liquid. By definition, it doesn’t work like that because private assets are illiquid. That’s the whole point of them. Now, part of the reason private assets have outperformed historically is because you’re basically getting a liquidity premium. If you believe asset prices in general are efficient, there has to be a reason why private assets have outperformed. One of the reasons is because you actually get paid for the fact that they are illiquid and you can’t take your money out all the time. Now, another reason why you can make more money in private markets sometimes is because you can actually actively manage them. If you’re a private equity firm and you buy a company, you can now make changes to the company. If you’re good at it, you can actually generate excess returns because you manage this company better. That’s much harder to do than buying a stock in the public market because you, as an individual shareholder, cannot really have as much impact. So, when you think about the democratization of alternatives that everybody talks about, what is a good way to do this? Well, one really good way to do this is in the retirement channel. Think about a 401(k). When you’re 24 years old and you graduate from college and you start your first job and you start putting your first real dollars into a 401(k) fund, those are exactly the dollars that you should put into something that pays you for being locked up for a period of time, for being illiquid. Because at 24, you’re not going to access that liquidity for decades. So, I think the retirement channel is a really interesting channel to get alternatives exposure because the fact that alternative assets are illiquid doesn’t really hurt. And so that’s why we’re very focused on launching something into the retirement channel, specifically into target date funds. One of the big benefits is these target dates all have glide paths: they start with higher equity contributions when you’re young, and as you get closer to retirement, there’s more fixed income so that when you then go into retirement, you have a fixed income stream of earnings. Does this indicate an even bigger push for Goldman moving forward into alts and other private assets? Nachmann: I think we’re a big alts player overall. We’ve stayed top five in terms of assets on the alts side. It is a bigger push that we’re making consistent with what the industry is making though into this democratization of these alt products. It’s one of the things we’re very good at because we have this ultra-high net worth business. We have a wealth system that for many decades has been investing in alternatives. We’ve had, what we call it, two-legged individuals. These are individuals who’ve invested in alternatives versus kinds of institutions. And so we have a lot of experience with individuals investing in alternatives already. I ncorporating alts into a retirement plan probably isn’t an exceptionally new idea. I’m sure people have wanted to do it for a while. The only difference now is that we have an administration that many feel will loosen up the rules. So, does the recent regulatory environment have anything to do with your decision? Nachmann: In some sense, yes. You need the right regulatory environment to be able to have alternatives in the retirement plans. As you said, this has made sense for a while. In fact, when you think about it, most pension funds, which are really kind of defined benefit programs, have big alternatives exposure. If you look at all the state pension funds, they are retirement systems. It’s just a defined benefit versus a defined contribution. That has been a long-standing way of doing things. It’s just that individuals in defined-contribution in their 401(k) plans have not been able to do it. A big reason for that is the regulation around it, and so I think it makes sense that the administration is now changing the regulation because individuals in their defined contribution plans should be able to have access to the same things that the big pension funds have. Goldman unveiled a firm-wide generative AI tool assistant earlier this year. How is this technology being utilized specifically in the AWM division? Nachmann : We are using it more and more. There are opportunities on the efficiency side, where generative AI can do things much faster or more efficiently than we’ve done historically. We’ve got a whole bunch of use cases that we’re working on. A lot of them are at various stages. They look promising. Within the next year or two, that will really accelerate and people will understand the results much better. Can you give me an example of how currently one of Goldman’s advisors may be using this tool on a day-to-day basis? Nachmann: On the wealth side, if you’re an advisor and you have a bunch of clients, you can use AI to do runaway screens through your clients’ portfolios. Is your asset allocation mixed in the right place as markets change? Based on what’s happening to various stock prices, are you overallocated to specific stocks? Are there things missing in your asset allocation that you should be incorporating? So, there’s a lot that goes into productivity enhancement. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long GS, NVDA. See here for a full list of the stocks.) 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