Finance

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the two largest U.S. banks previously rejected him as a customer, reviving claims that conservative clients were being unfairly denied accounts.
Trump told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in a wide-ranging interview that JPMorgan Chase informed him he had 20 days to move “hundreds of millions of dollars in cash” to another bank.
The president then said he approached Bank of America to “deposit a billion dollars-plus” and was told the bank couldn’t provide him an account, Trump said.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the two largest American banks previously rejected him as a customer, reviving claims that conservative clients were being unfairly denied accounts.
Trump told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in a wide-ranging interview that JPMorgan Chase informed him he had 20 days to move “hundreds of millions of dollars in cash” to another bank. He didn’t say when this happened.

The president then said he approached Bank of America to “deposit a billion dollars-plus” and was told the bank couldn’t provide him an account, Trump said.
“[Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan] said, ‘We can’t do it,'” Trump said. “So I went to another one, another one, another one. I ended up going to small banks all over the place. I mean, I was putting $10 million here, $10 million there.”
While Trump mentioned his business, likely referring to his real estate and hospitality conglomerate, it wasn’t clear if this episode was in reference to personal or business accounts, or both.
Trump said that he believes that large banks rejected him and his supporters because regulators during the Biden administration applied pressure to the companies.
“The banks discriminated against me very badly, and I was very good to the banks,” Trump said.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More

Warren Buffett speaks during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska on May 3, 2025.

Berkshire Hathaway shares dipped after Warren Buffett’s conglomerate reported a small decline in operating earnings, while continuing a stock-selling spree and a buyback halt.
The Omaha-based giant saw operating earnings including those from its insurance and railroad businesses decline dip 4% year over year to $11.16 billion in the second quarter. While railroad, energy, manufacturing, service and retailing all reported higher profits from a year ago, a drop in insurance underwriting dragged down overall results.

Class A and B shares of Berkshire both declined about 1% in premarket trading Monday following the results. The stock has fallen about 12% from its all-time high in early May right before the 94-year-old Buffett announced that Greg Abel is taking over as CEO at the end of 2025.

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Berkshire Hathaway Class A year to date

A move that caught many by surprise was a big write-down for Berkshire’s underperforming Kraft Heinz stake. The conglomerate for the first time recorded a loss of $3.8 billion from its 27% Kraft Heinz stake. The move came as reports emerged that the consumer goods giant has been eyeing a spinoff of its grocery business. Two Berkshire executives resigned as directors from Kraft Heinz’s board in May.
“The investment had been carried on Berkshire’s books for more than its market value for some time,” said Bill Stone, CIO of The Glenview Trust Company and a Berkshire shareholder. “Buffett has long acknowledged that he paid too much for Kraft Heinz, especially in light of the increased competition in the branded food category.”
Buffett’s cash hoard of $344.1 billion remained near a record high. Berkshire was a net seller of stocks for a 11th quarter in a row, dumping $4.5 billion in equities in the first six months of 2025.
The conglomerate also didn’t repurchase any stock in the first half of 2025 and through July 21 even as shares suffered a sizable correction.
“While we believe Mr. Abel will build credibility with investors over time, we think near-term catalysts for BRK are increased investment activity, a potential large acquisition, and share repurchases,” Kyle Sanders, analyst at Edward Jones, said in a note. “None of those happened this quarter, which we view as somewhat disappointing.” More

Berkshire’s operating profit — those from the company’s wholly owned businesses including insurance and railroads — dipped to $11.16 billion in the second quarter.
The Omaha-based conglomerate once again issued a stern warning of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the potential impact on its various businesses.

Warren Buffett speaks during the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 3, 2025.

Berkshire Hathaway on Saturday reported a small decline in second-quarter operating earnings as Warren Buffett’s conglomerate warns of negative impacts from steep U.S. tariffs.
Berkshire’s operating profit — those from the company’s wholly owned businesses including insurance and railroads — dipped 4% year over year to $11.16 billion in the second quarter. The results were impacted by a decline in insurance underwriting, while railroad, energy, manufacturing, service and retailing all saw higher profits from a year ago.

The Omaha-based conglomerate once again issued a stern warning of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the potential impact on its various businesses.
“The pace of changes in these events, including tensions from developing international trade policies and tariffs, accelerated through the first six months of 2025,” Berkshire said in its earnings report. “Considerable uncertainty remains as to the ultimate outcome of these events.”
“It is reasonably possible there could be adverse consequences on most, if not all, of our operating businesses, as well as on our investments in equity securities, which could significantly affect our future results,” it said.
Buffett’s cash hoard of $344.1 billion remained near a record high, though slightly lower than the $347 billion level at the end of March. Berkshire was a net seller of stocks for a 11th quarter in a row, dumping $4.5 billion in equities in the first six months of 2025.
The conglomerate also didn’t repurchase any stock in the first half of 2025 even as shares declined more than 10% from a record high.

Berkshire wrote down a loss of $3.8 billion from its Kraft Heinz stake, a longtime underperformer for the conglomerate. The consumer goods giant has been eyeing a spinoff of its grocery business. Two Berkshire executives resigned as directors from Kraft Heinz’s board in May.
This is the first earnings report since the 94-year-old Buffett announced that he’s stepping down as CEO at the end of 2025. Greg Abel, Berkshire’s vice-chairman of non-insurance operations, is set to take over as CEO, while Buffett will remain as chairman of Berkshire’s board. More

When President Donald Trump stood outside the White House on April 2nd and revealed his “Liberation Day” tariffs, all hell broke loose. The “reciprocal” levies threatened to break financial markets, as well as scrambling international commerce. Thankfully, Mr Trump quickly backed down, cutting tariffs to 10% for most countries on April 9th and doing the same for China a month later. Markets recovered; uncertainty receded. The world economy tried to move on. Everyone began to lose interest. Everyone, that is, except Mr Trump. More

The July 2025 jobs report suggests a sharper slowdown in U.S. job growth than previously thought, economists said.
President Donald Trump’s tariff policy is among the economic headwinds contributing to slower job creation and hiring, economists said. Immigration policy and relatively high interest rates are other factors, they said.
Job seekers face a stagnant labor market characterized by relatively few opportunities.

Ozgur Donmaz | Photodisc | Getty Images

The U.S. job market has been showing signs of a gradual weakening. But new federal data issued Friday suggests it may have hit a long-awaited wall.
“We’re finally in the eye of the hurricane,” Daniel Zhao, chief economist at career site Glassdoor, wrote in a note.

“After months of warning signs, the July jobs report confirms that the slowdown isn’t just approaching — it’s here,” he wrote.

‘Very soft’ job market

Employers added just 73,000 jobs in July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. That tally is less than expected.
Economists generally think the U.S. economy needs to add roughly 80,000 to 100,000 jobs per month to keep up with population growth, said Laura Ullrich, director of economic research for North America at job site Indeed.

The July figure suggests the job market isn’t keeping pace with population growth — and is therefore contracting, she said.
Even more concerning than the July numbers: The job growth figures for May and June were much weaker than initially thought, economists said.

The BLS revised the job growth figures for those months sharply downward, to 19,000 jobs added in May (down from an initial 144,000) and 14,000 in June (from 147,000).
All told, employers added 258,000 fewer jobs than initially thought.

Such monthly revisions are typical as the BLS collects additional data from businesses and government agencies, but these adjustments were unusually large, economists said.
It’s unclear why, they said.
“Really, it just shows a very soft job market,” Ullrich said. “It’s not disastrous. Still, those are very weak job numbers,” and not something one would expect in a strong economy, she said.
The numbers could be revised again in August, economists said.

Tariffs, other factors pose headwinds

Job growth has averaged 35,000 in the past three months, when accounting for the revised data. By contrast, job growth averaged 111,000 per month in the first three months of 2025.
New jobs have also largely been concentrated in the health care and social assistance sectors, meaning opportunities haven’t been broad-based, economists said.
The data “does tell a completely different story about the job market than what we were originally thinking,” Glassdoor’s Zhao said in an interview.
“We had been under the impression the job market was holding up surprisingly resiliently against economic headwinds like tariffs,” he said.
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President Donald Trump announced a spate of new tariffs on Thursday, putting fresh import duties on several trading partners ranging from 10% to 41%.
Tariffs are taxes that U.S. companies pay on items they import.
Tariffs, when kept in place for the long term, generally raise prices for consumers and pressure profits for many businesses by raising their input costs, economists said. Additionally, Trump’s on-again-off-again approach to tariffs creates uncertainty for businesses, leading many to pull back on hiring, economists said.

The national hiring rate is around its lowest since 2014, outside of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It’s hard for people to make a decision or change in the face of so much uncertainty,” Ullrich said.
Tariff policy compounds other headwinds, such as immigration policy that has reduced the amount of available workers, cuts to the federal workforce and government spending, and higher interest rates, Zhao said.

‘High degree of stagnation’ in job market

There are other concerning signs in the U.S. job market, economists said.
For example, the labor force participation rate fell to its lowest level since 2022, Thomas Ryan, North America economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note Friday.
This is “potentially further evidence of President Trump’s immigration crackdown keeping undocumented migrants away from the labour market even though they remain in the country,” he wrote.
The unemployment rate also rose to 4.2% in July, up from 4.1% in June, the BLS reported.

The share of unemployed Americans who are long-term unemployed — meaning they’ve been out of work for more than six months — has increased to nearly 25% from 21.6% since July 2024, the BLS said.
One silver lining for workers: Layoffs remain near historical lows.
However, an environment of low layoffs, hiring and quitting creates challenges for job seekers.
“There’s a high degree of stagnation right now,” Ullrich said. “There’s not a lot of movement in and out of jobs.” More

Two Federal Reserve officials who voted this week against holding a key interest rate in place explained their decisions Friday, both indicating that the central bank is making a mistake by waiting to ease policy amid rising threats to the labor market.
Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman both said they wanted a quarter percentage point reduction, as they see tariffs having only a temporary impact on inflation. They said staying on hold, as the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee has done since December, poses risks to the economy.

In separate statements, Waller and Bowman laid out their reasons for dissenting, the first time two governors have done since 1993. The committee voted 9-2 to hold, and the differences of opinion reflect “a healthy and robust discussion,” Waller said.
“There is nothing wrong about having different views about how to interpret incoming data and using different economic arguments to predict how tariffs will impact the economy,” he wrote. “But, I believe that the wait and see approach is overly cautious, and, in my opinion, does not properly balance the risks to the outlook and could lead to policy falling behind the curve.”
Further, Waller insisted that inflation impacts from President Donald Trump’s tariffs have been “small so far” and could continue in that vein.
Both he and Bowman did not advocate for the kind of dramatic cuts Trump has pushed. The president has suggested the federal funds rate, which sets a target that banks use for overnight lending but spills over into many other rates, should be as much as 3 percentage points lower.
Waller suggested something more gradual — cutting by as much as 1.5 percentage points, at a slow pace as the committee monitors impacts from policy easing.

Similarly, Bowman backed “gradual cuts” as she also said tariffs are having only limited impact on prices. In fact, she said that without the duties, the Fed’s key inflation measure would be below 2.5% “and considerably closer to our 2 percent target.”
“With tariff-related price increases likely representing a one-time effect, it is appropriate to look through temporarily elevated inflation readings,” said Bowman, who also serves as the Fed’s vice chair for bank supervision. “I see the risk that a delay in taking action could result in a deterioration in the labor market and a further slowing in economic growth.”
Trump has been unrelenting in his criticism of the Fed for not cutting. In a Truth Social post Friday morning, he again tore into the central bank, and Chair Jerome Powell in particular.
“Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell, a stubborn MORON, must substantially lower interest rates, NOW. IF HE CONTINUES TO REFUSE, THE BOARD SHOULD ASSUME CONTROL, AND DO WHAT EVERYONE KNOWS HAS TO BE DONE!” Trump said. More

Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates LP, speaks during the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore, on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. The size of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut this week won’t be a game changer for global investors, though risks from China’s slowdown continue to weigh on their minds, according to participants at the regional forum. Photographer: Ore Huiying/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Ray Dalio, founder of one of the biggest hedge funds Bridgewater, has dumped his remaining shares in the firm and stepped aside from its board.
Bridgewater completed the final sale of Dalio’s equity shares, wrapping up his management transition started in 2022, according to a person familiar with the matter. Dalio will continue to be a significant investor in Bridgewater’s strategies and a mentor, the person said.

The billionaire has been selling his equity for years. To facilitate the final transition of his ownership, Bridgewater raised capital from existing investors and employees. Co-CIOs Bob Prince and Greg Jensen are two significant equity holders, the person said.
“We share our congratulations to Ray – he will always be our cherished founder, is a mentor to many, and remains a longstanding client with significant investments in Bridgewater’s strategies,” Bridgewater CEO Nir Bar Dea and Co-Chair Mike McGavick said in a July 21 letter to clients seen by CNBC. “Ray has always described the transition as a ‘dream come true’ and we’re excited to have made it a reality together.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported Dalio’s stake sale. The founder seemingly confirmed the transition in a LinkedIn post.
Dalio, who founded Bridgewater in 1975, has focused on macro strategies, such as trading currency and fixed income markets based on economic trends. Dalio stepped down as Bridgewater’s chief executive officer in 2017 and chairman at the end of 2021.
Bridgewater enjoyed solid gains in the first half of 2025, with its Pure Alpha fund up 17% and its All Weather fund rising 8%, the person said. More

Workers with emergency funds of at least $2,000 are less likely to raid their 401(k) accounts, according to Vanguard research.
401(k) “leakage,” such as cashing out an account upon job separation, hurts households’ retirement security, experts said.
Saving even $10 to $25 per paycheck into an emergency fund can make a difference.

Ingwervanille | Moment | Getty Images

Setting aside money in a rainy-day fund can bolster households’ retirement prospects down the road, especially for hourly workers with inconsistent income streams, experts said.
Emergency funds are a “security blanket,” said Fiona Greig, global head of investor research and policy at Vanguard Group, an asset manager.

That’s because they offer a cash buffer for people who might otherwise raid their 401(k) accounts to pay for unforeseen expenses in the short term, she said.
401(k) investors with at least $2,000 of emergency savings are less likely than those without rainy-day funds to tap their retirement plans early, according to new Vanguard research.

Specifically, they are 19 percentage points less likely to take a 401(k) loan and 17 points less likely to withdraw 401(k) funds for a financial hardship, Vanguard found.
Leaving a job is another trigger that allows workers to access their 401(k) savings before retirement age. Job-switchers who have emergency funds are 43 percentage points less likely to cash out their 401(k) accounts than those without, according to Vanguard.
“Emergency savings protect retirement savings,” Greig said.

Retirement savers with emergency funds also save a greater share of their incomes — 2.2 percentage points more — in a 401(k) relative to those without them, Vanguard found.  

401(k) ‘leakage’ is a large concern

Riska | E+ | Getty Images

Policymakers view so-called “leakage” from 401(k) plans — especially cash-outs — as a big impediment to retirement security.
Withdrawing 401(k) assets early generally comes with tax penalties and shortchanges investors, who forgo years of investment earnings on withdrawn funds, experts said.
There would be roughly $2 trillion of additional savings in 401(k) plans over a 40-year period if workers didn’t prematurely cash out their accounts, the Employee Benefit Research Institute estimated in a 2019 paper.
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Leakage is an especially large concern for hourly workers, Vanguard’s Greig said.
Hourly workers are less likely to have emergency funds and more likely than salaried employees to tap their 401(k) savings early, Greig said.
(That’s not just because hourly workers also tend to be lower earners, she said. The trend persists even when comparing hourly and salaried workers with similar incomes, according to Vanguard’s research.)
Hourly workers have more volatile incomes, Greig said. Without an emergency buffer, they may need to tap their 401(k) if cash flow decreases unexpectedly, she said.

How to build an emergency fund

Ideally, households would set aside enough money to cover three to six months of expenses (like a mortgage and groceries) in an emergency fund, said Carolyn McClanahan, a certified financial planner based in Jacksonville, Florida, and a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.
However, for households barely making enough to make ends meet, anything helps, McClanahan said.
Financial planners generally recommend stashing an emergency fund in a conservative, liquid account like a high-yield savings account or money market fund, which earn more interest than a traditional bank checking account.

Cash-strapped savers can start by diverting as little as perhaps $10 to $25 per paycheck into an emergency fund, McClanahan said.
“Let it grow and before you know it that money will be worth something,” she said.
Workers should automate the savings, either by asking their employer to send a certain amount to their designated emergency account each pay period or by setting up an automatic transfer from their bank account, McClanahan said.
Workers should also strive to save at least half of any financial windfall like a bonus or tax refund, she said. More