WHEN ADNAN SABIC began looking for a home in 2023, he was shocked. The hotel executive, whose wife had just given birth to twins, could not believe how mortgage rates had rocketed. Then he found a four-bedroom house listed for $775,000 with a nice selling point. Rather than borrow at 6% and pay $4,500 a month, Mr Sabic could “assume” the seller’s mortgage, at 2.6%, and pay just $3,100. More
A TRILLION DOLLARS. That number may keep Scott Bessent, America’s treasury secretary, up at night. Next year his government’s net interest payments will break the 13-figure mark. The combination of a bulging deficit, now worth 7% of GDP, and the sharp increase in government-bond yields over the past four years makes America’s budgetary mathematics increasingly ugly. More
A TRILLION DOLLARS. That number may keep Scott Bessent, America’s treasury secretary, up at night. Next year his government’s net interest payments will break the 13-figure mark. The combination of a bulging deficit, now worth 7% of GDP, and the sharp increase in government-bond yields over the past four years makes America’s budgetary mathematics increasingly ugly. More
America’s import duties just keep rising. On August 1st levies on more than 20 countries, plus the European Union, will take effect unless they negotiate deals in the meantime. On July 14th President Donald Trump said that he would impose “secondary tariffs” of 100% on countries doing business with Russia, should it fail to reach a peace agreement with Ukraine in 50 days. Such threats should be taken with a heavy pinch of salt: Mr Trump has form for backing down if markets become turbulent. But the trend is clear. America’s average effective tariff rate has already risen to 17%, from 2.5% last year. More
Goldman Sachs on Wednesday posted results that topped expectations as its trading operations generated $840 million more in revenue than analysts had expected.
The bank said that second-quarter profit jumped 22% from a year earlier to $3.72 billion, or $10.91 per share.
Revenue climbed 15% to $14.58 billion, roughly $1.1 billion more than the estimate.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon speaks during the Goldman Sachs Investor Day at Goldman Sachs Headquarters in New York City, U.S., February 28, 2023.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Goldman Sachs on Wednesday posted results that topped expectations as its trading operations generated $840 million more in revenue than analysts had expected.
Here’s what the company reported:
Earnings: $10.91 per share vs. $9.53 per share expected, according to LSEG
Revenue: $14.58 billion vs. $13.47 billion expected
The bank said that second-quarter profit jumped 22% from a year earlier to $3.72 billion, or $10.91 per share. Revenue climbed 15% to $14.58 billion, roughly $1.1 billion more than the estimate.
Trading desks across Wall Street have benefited this year as President Donald Trump’s tariff policies have roiled markets for bonds, currencies, commodities and stocks. Goldman Sachs, which relies more on Wall Street activities than its peers, is known to have outsized returns during boom times.
Most of the quarter’s revenue beat came from equities trading, which generated $4.3 billion in revenue, a 36% jump from a year earlier and $650 million more than analysts surveyed by StreetAccount expected.
The bank thrived in its role as both a middleman in the equities world, connecting buyers and sellers of stocks, as well as a lender to institutional investors.
Fixed income trading revenue rose 9% to $3.47 billion on higher financing fees and more activity in currency and credit markets, topping the StreetAccount estimate by $190 million.
Investment banking activity in the quarter exceeded expectations at rivals including JPMorgan Chase thanks to a sharp rebound in asset values from April lows.
Goldman said that investment banking fees jumped 26% from a year earlier to $2.19 billion as more advisory deals closed; that haul is $290 million more than the StreetAccount estimate.
The bank’s asset and wealth management division was the sole disappointment in the quarter. It generated $3.78 billion in revenue, 3% lower than a year earlier and $100 million below the StreetAccount estimate. The decline came from lower gains in private equity stakes and debt investments, Goldman said.
Finally, the firm’s smallest division, its platform solutions arm, saw revenue rise 2% to $685 million, topping the StreetAccount estimate by about $12 million.
Shares of the bank have climbed 23% this year before Wednesday.
On Tuesday, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo each posted results that topped analysts’ expectations for earnings and revenue. On Wednesday, Morgan Stanley reported similarly strong trading results and Bank of America became the sole major U.S. bank to fall short of revenue expectations for the period. More
Bank of America profit climbed about 3% from a year earlier to $7.12 billion, or 89 cents per share.
Revenue climbed about 4% to $26.61 billion, below analysts’ expectations.
CEO Brian Moynihan pointed to the larger trends at his bank, saying that it was the fourth consecutive quarter that NII rose amid rising deposits and loan growth.
Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, leaves the U.S. Capitol after a meeting with Republican members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on the issue of debanking on Thursday, February 13, 2025.
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Bank of America on Wednesday posted mixed results for the second quarter, beating estimates on earnings and missing on revenue.
It was the only major U.S. bank to fall short on revenue for the quarter.
Here’s what the company reported:
Earnings: 89 cents per share vs. 86 cents per share expected by LSEG
Revenue: $26.61 billion vs. expected $26.72 billion
The company said profit climbed about 3% from a year earlier to $7.12 billion, or 89 cents per share, topping the 86 cent estimate.
Revenue climbed about 4% to $26.61 billion, below analysts’ expectations, as the firm generated $14.82 billion in net interest income, missing the StreetAccount estimate by $70 million.
The company said that NII, which is the difference in what a bank pays its depositors and what it earns from loans and investments, rose about 7% in the quarter as deposit and loan growth were offset by lower interest rates compared to a year ago.
CEO Brian Moynihan pointed to the larger trends at his bank, saying that it was the fourth consecutive quarter that NII rose amid rising deposits and loan growth. Big American banks have benefited from strong trading results and consumer credit that has held up in the first six months of the year.
“Consumers remained resilient, with healthy spending and asset quality, and commercial borrower utilization rates rose,” Moynihan said in the earnings release. “In addition, we saw good momentum in our markets businesses.”
The firm’s fixed income operations posted $3.25 billion in revenue, exceeding the $3.14 billion StreetAccount estimate, while equities trading revenue of $2.13 billion was just below expectations.
The firm said investment banking fees fell 9% to $1.4 billion, though that was still higher than the $1.27 billion StreetAccount estimate.
Shares of the bank have climbed roughly 5% this year before Wednesday.
On Tuesday, JPMorgan, Citigroup and Wells Fargo each posted results that topped analysts’ expectations for earnings and revenue. Later Wednesday, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both reported results that beat on the top and bottom lines, boosted by strong trading revenue. More
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s Beijing trip this week coincided with news that the company expects the U.S. will let it resume sales of an AI chip to China.
Huang walked into the sunny courtyard of the Mandarin Oriental hotel about 15 minutes earlier than scheduled and took multiple questions from reporters.
Here’s what he said about export controls, Huawei and the China market.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks to journalists as he arrives for a press conference at a hotel in Beijing on July 16, 2025.
Adek Berry | Afp | Getty Images
BEIJING — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was all smiles and compliments as he made his third trip to China in just about half a year.
As the leader and co-founder of the world’s first, newly-minted $4 trillion market cap company, Huang had particular reasons to be happy when he met the press on Wednesday: Nvidia expected it would be able to resume sales of its less advanced H20 artificial intelligence chips to China after a three-month pause.
“Many of my competitors are my friends,” he noted.
Huang said his understanding was that allowing Nvidia chips into China was part of an exchange with the U.S. for Beijing to release critically needed rare earths. CNBC has reached out to the White House for comment.
Wearing his iconic black leather jacket, Huang walked into the sunny courtyard of the Mandarin Oriental hotel about 15 minutes earlier than scheduled and took multiple questions in the nearly 90-degree Fahrenheit weather.
“Only in China can we do this out in the sun!” he said.
Then he realized the press conference was supposed to be held inside an air-conditioned room.
“What are we doing out here? Why didn’t somebody say so?” he said.
He was swarmed by local reporters asking for signatures of books and T-shirts. “Who needs an autograph? I’ll do it while I’m listening.”
Here are the highlights of what he said over 90 minutes:
Whom he met
Huang said he had a “wonderful meeting” with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, and clarified that the discussions did not include China’s restrictions on battery technology or rare earths.
Earlier in the week, he met with Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun, whom he labelled as “a brilliant business person.” He said the two discussed artificial intelligence for large language models, autonomous driving and robotics.
Xiaomi uses Nvidia’s automotive chips in its electric cars.
Huang said he told U.S. President Donald Trump about his planned voyage to China during a meeting with the White House leader last week to celebrate Nvidia’s $4 trillion market cap.
“[Trump] said, ‘Have a great trip,'” Huang said.
Export controls
Nvidia on Tuesday said it expected to resume its H20 chip shipments to China soon following assurances from the U.S. government. The company was forced to halt such sales in April due to new U.S. requirements at the time.
“In terms of the H20 ban and the lifting of the ban, it was completely in control of the U.S. government and China government. The discussion has nothing to do with me,” Huang said, rejecting the idea that he had played a part in changing Trump’s mind.
“It’s my job to inform the president about what I know very well, which is the technology industry, artificial Intelligence, the developments of AI around the world,” he said.
Huang emphasized Nvidia complies with the final policy decision and that tariffs are just something the company has to “adapt to.”
What’s next for Nvidia in China
U.S. chip restrictions nearly halved Nvidia’s market share in China, Huang said in May. Due to the U.S. export controls on China, the company said it missed out on $2.5 billion in sales during the April quarter and will likely take another $8 billion hit in the July quarter, pegging its sales at $45 billion over the period.
The U.S. effectively banned Nvidia from selling its most advanced chips to China back in 2022.
“I hope to get more advanced chips into China than the H20,” Huang said in response to a CNBC question, “and the reason for that is because technology is always moving on. It’s not like wood.”
He stressed that, years from now, there will be better and better technology available, adding, “I think it’s sensible that whatever we’re allowed to sell in China will continue to get better and better over time as well.”
But Huang would not give a definitive answer about how many orders Nvidia had received, or when the company would restart local sales of its chips — which he acknowledged were not the company’s best, but which could still train AI models.
He said the U.S. government was still processing the licenses for Nvidia to sell the chips to China, and that the company would need to restart its supply chain — a process he indicated could possibly take nine months.
Huawei
Huang also discussed the outlook for competing Chinese tech giant Huawei, which has been impacted by U.S. sanctions that precede the export controls on Nvidia.
“Anyone who discounts Huawei and anyone who discounts China’s manufacturing capability is deeply naïve,” Huang said, pointing also to how Huawei has “excellent chip design” and their own connected cloud system.
“They can go to market all by themselves.”
Underpinning Huawei’s AI model capabilities is an entire tech system that doesn’t rely on any of Nvidia’s chips or tools. Instead, Huawei has developed its own Ascend chips, which works with the company’s “CANN” system that acts as an alternative to Nvidia’s CUDA. It has also built an AI-specific cloud computing system called CloudMatrix that launched last year.
Asked about indications that Huawei’s AI chip systems are still challenging for many developers to switch over to, Huang said, “That’s just a matter of time.”
He said “the important thing to realize I’ve been doing this for 30 years, they’ve been doing it for a few, and so the fact they’re already on the dance floor tells you something about how formidable they are.”
China’s AI
Huang rained down praise on Chinese AI models, as he had during a speech Wednesday morning at the opening ceremony of the high-profile supply chain expo in Beijing.
“The Chinese models, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, are excellent,” he said, referring to the breakthrough from a Chinese startup, Alibaba’s model and another one from an Alibaba-backed startup Moonshot.
“I think over time it will be increasingly less important which one of the models are the smartest,” he said. “It’s going to be which one of the models are the most useful.”
China-developed DeepSeek shocked global investors in January with the release of an AI model that undercut OpenAI on development and operating costs. It’s not clear how DeepSeek managed to develop the model under broad U.S. chip restrictions on China, but the startup’s parent, High-Flyer, reportedly stockpiled Nvidia chips.
One aspect that Huang said he particularly appreciated about Chinese AI models was that they are open source, making them available for people to download for free and use on their own computers.
He said many companies in many countries downloaded DeepSeek R1 — “99%” of people — to use it locally for healthcare, robotics, imaging and other applications.
As Huang was about to end the press conference, a reporter asked whether he would come back to China again this year.
“I hope so. You have to invite me.” More
People walk out of the Morgan Stanley global headquarters in Manhattan on March 20, 2025 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Morgan Stanley on Wednesday reported second-quarter results that crushed Wall Street expectations on the back of higher trading revenues.
Here’s what the bank reported for the second quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:
Earnings per share: $2.13 vs. $1.96 expected
Revenue: $16.79 billion versus $16.07 billion expected
Net income rose 13% to $3.5 billion, or $2.13 per share, from $3.1 billion, or $1.82 per share, for the same period a year ago.
Institutional securities reported net revenues of $7.64 billion, compared to about $6.98 billion a year ago. The strong performance was propelled by higher client activity with notable strength in equity trading.
“Morgan Stanley delivered another strong quarter,” Ted Pick, CEO and chairman of the bank said in a statement. “Six sequential quarters of consistent earnings … reflect higher levels of performance in different market environments.”
Wealth management was another strong segment for the bank, which delivered net revenues of $7.76 billion on higher asset management revenues. A year ago, the business saw revenues of $6.79 billion.
The bank stock has risen more than 12% this year, doubling the S&P 500’s performance. Shares were around flat in premarket trading immediately following the results. More
