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Many parents intend to teach their children to have a healthy relationship with money but end up falling short — even though a majority say personal finance lessons are best taught at home.
Some 83% of adults say parents should teach their kids about personal finances, according to a CNBC + Acorns Invest in You survey. Even though they think they should be the ones educating their children about the ins and outs of personal finance, most parents are not, in fact, talking about money with their children.

The same survey found that just15% of parents talk to their kids about money once a week. More than 30% said they never discuss it with their children.
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“It’s kind of similar to having the birds and the bees talk with your kids,” said Alex Melkumian, a licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of Financial Psychology Center in Los Angeles. “Money and sex can be intense conversations but they’re really necessary and can be meaningful if done the right way.”
He said parents should understand that they may feel uncomfortable talking about money because it wasn’t something they did at home when they were growing up.
“This is something that they are going to reverse the cycle on, and the earlier they can start the better,” he said.

Start early
Parents can talk about money with their children at an early age — as soon as their kids are in elementary school.
“Children need to learn from a very early age that money is not a scary concept,” said Debra Kaplan, a licensed therapist, author and speaker based in Tucson, Arizona. “And the more they know about it, the more they can feel a kind of mastery over it.”
How parents should communicate about money will vary greatly depending on the age of the child, she said. With young children, parents can include their kids in activities where they budget and spend, such as going grocery shopping.
“We have to give [money] context for a child,” said Kaplan. That means explaining to them in terms they understand what money can be used for — it can be spent on things like food, or toys for kids, or saved for later.

These outings often bring up opportunities to discuss money with children, like if they ask for a certain toy or food item that isn’t in the budget or you weren’t planning on purchasing that week. That’s a time that parents can begin to model healthy behaviors, according to Kaplan.
Say, for example, you are grocery shopping, and your 5-year-old child asks for two different types of cookies.
You can say something like you can’t afford both, or that two types of cookies aren’t in your budget, which your child likely won’t understand.
Instead, Kaplan recommends acknowledging that the family likes buying cookies, but to choose one for this week and leave the other type for next week.
“That begins to model moderation and strategic thinking,” she said.
Have age-appropriate conversations

Thomas Barwick | Digitalvision | Getty Images

As your children get older, you can teach them more about what options they have around money.
Mac Gardner, a Tampa, Florida-based certified financial planner, wrote a book called “The Four Money Bears” to do just that. He noticed with his own children and during outreach he did with school-aged kids that most knew money was for spending, but very few said it should be saved. Almost no kids knew that they could invest money or donate it to help others in need.
In his book, Gardner introduces kids to the four options they have for money with bears: the spender bear, the saver bear, the investors bear and the giver bear.
“We wanted to make it as simple as possible,” said Gardner, founder and chief education officer at FinLit Tech. “If we can at least provide our kids with those four basic functions, they can go out into the world.”
He’s also developing a game, called Berryville, that will help kids put these financial ideas into practice in a fun way.
“If we can educate more kids in underserved and overlooked communities and educate them early as to what their options are and have stories about investing and giving and not just spending and saving, it would do some really amazing things in society,” he said.
Fix your relationship first
Parents who didn’t grow up with a lot of financial education or a solid relationship with money may have to spend some time educating themselves to make sure they’re passing along healthy habits to their children.
“The first step is that they have to see what’s missing in their own world for them to model or teach their children in a healthier way,” said Kaplan. “They have to be aware of their own behaviors and relationships and emotional life with money.”
If money makes you anxious, it’s important to address that so you aren’t teaching your children to also be afraid of finances.

“When you lack your own confidence in your financial decisions, it’s important to keep that contained,” said Melkumian, adding that children are intuitive and pick up on their parents’ stress around money even if they don’t understand it.
There are many resources out there for parents to learn more personal finances, said Gardner. He recommends parents do some research before choosing one to make sure it’s giving them quality information.
Melkumian also said learning about money can be something parents and children do together. And, if parents have made mistakes with money, it can be healthy to be honest with their kids about it and use it as a learning opportunity.
“Telling your kids the truth is extremely powerful,” said Melkumian.
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Jones said the environment for investors is worse than ever as the Fed is raising interest rates when financial conditions have already become increasingly tight.
“You can’t think of a worse environment than where we are right now for financial assets,” he said Tuesday on CNBC.
“Clearly you don’t want to own bonds and stocks,” Jones said.

Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones said the environment for investors is worse than ever as the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates when financial conditions have already become increasingly tight.
“You can’t think of a worse environment than where we are right now for financial assets,” Jones said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “Clearly you don’t want to own bonds and stocks.”

The Fed is expected to announce a half-percentage point increase in its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, to tamp down surging inflation at a 40-year high.
The founder and chief investment officer of Tudor Investment believes investors are now in “uncharted territory” as the central bank had only eased monetary policy during past economic slowdowns and financial crises. He said investors should prioritize capital preservation in such a challenging environment for “virtually anything.”
“I think we’re in one of those very difficult periods where simple capital preservation is I think the most important thing we can strive for,” Jones said. “I don’t know if it’s going to be one of those periods where you’re actually trying to make money.”
Many on Wall Street have grown more concerned that the Fed could tip the economy, still in the middle of a pandemic, into recession with aggressive tightening to control soaring prices.
“They’ve got inflation on the one hand, slowing growth on the other, and they’re going to be clashing all the time,” Jones said.

With extreme volatility ahead, the longtime trader said he would consider owning trend-following strategies, which often use algorithmic models to identify price trends in markets.
“If there was a strategy that I would want to employ right now, if someone put a gun to my head, I’d say simple trend-following strategies,” Jones said. “They are not too popular today. … They will probably do very well in the next five to 10 years.”
Jones shot to fame after he predicted and profited from the 1987 stock market crash. He is also the chairman of nonprofit Just Capital, which ranks public U.S. companies based on social and environmental metrics.

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Take a look at some of the biggest movers in the premarket:
Paramount Global (PARA) – Paramount Global fell 4.3% in the premarket, despite quarterly profit that beat Wall Street estimates. Revenue came in below analysts’ forecasts for the media company, amid increasing video streaming competition and weak ad sales growth.

Logitech (LOGI) – Logitech slid 5.3% in the premarket after reporting a 20% drop in sales from a year earlier, as the maker of computer mice, keyboards and other peripherals faced tough comparisons to a pandemic-fueled surge last year.
Chegg (CHGG) – The online education company saw its shares plummet 39.2% in premarket trading after it cut its revenue outlook, saying current economic conditions are prompting consumers to prioritize “earning over learning.”
Nutrien (NTR) – Nutrien reported surging quarterly profit and raised its full-year forecast, with the world’s largest fertilizer maker seeing its results boosted by surging prices for crop nutrients. The stock rallied 4.8% in the premarket.
Hilton Worldwide (HLT) – The hotel operator beat estimates by 6 cents a share, with quarterly earnings of 71 cents per share, helped by a rebound in travel demand. Hilton also issued a lower-than-expected full-year outlook.
Biogen (BIIB) –The drugmaker announced that CEO Michel Vounatsos would be stepping down, but will stay on until a successor is found. Separately, Biogen matched estimates with quarterly profit of $4.38 per share. Revenue was essentially in line with estimates. Its shares rose 1% in the premarket.

Pfizer (PFE) – Pfizer reported a first-quarter profit of $1.62 per share, 15 cents a share above estimates. Revenue topped forecasts as well. The drugmaker cut its full-year outlook due to an accounting change. Pfizer shares fell 1.3% in premarket action.
Expedia (EXPE) – Expedia lost 47 cents per share for its latest quarter, but that was less than the 62 cents a share loss that analysts had anticipated for the travel services company. Revenue exceeded estimates, as travel demand remained strong despite concerns about Covid, Ukraine and other factors. Expedia shares gained 1.5% in the premarket.
Rocket Lab USA (RKLB) – Rocket Lab shares gained 2% in premarket action after the company successfully caught a rocket booster out of midair and dropped it into the ocean, as it tested ways to recover used rockets.
BP (BP) – BP reported better-than-expected profit and sales for its latest quarter, although it did take a $25.5 billion charge for exiting its Russian operations. The stock jumped 4.8% in premarket trading.
Avis Budget (CAR) – The car rental company’s stock surged 6.8% in the premarket after it reported a much better than expected quarterly profit and also announced a $3 billion increase in its share repurchase authorization.
Clorox (CLX) – Clorox fell 2.1% in the premarket after it reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue, but cut its full-year forecast due to higher costs for commodities and manufacturing.

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On April 4, Russia made a payment on two sovereign bonds due to mature in 2022 and 2042 in the local currency rather than in dollars as mandated under the terms of its contract.
Russia on Friday tapped its domestic foreign currency reserves to make the two overdue payments, potentially averting a first foreign debt default since 1917.

Russia faces renewed threat of debt default on May 4, according to major ratings agencies, as the grace period comes to a close after it attempted to service its dollar bond payments in Russian rubles.
Mikhail Tereshchenko | Sputnik | via Reuters

Russia looks set to meet another deadline for debt payments on Wednesday after tapping its domestic foreign currency reserves to avert a historic sovereign default.
The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, the department at the Treasury that administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions, received the payments from Moscow last week. And Bloomberg reported Tuesday that at least one international clearinghouse had processed payments for $650 million in coupon and principal payments on eurobonds maturing in 2022 and 2042.

The funds have reportedly been channeled to the London branch of Citibank, but it is unclear whether they will reach their intended recipients before the deadline. A spokeswoman for Citibank declined to comment.
The Russian Finance Ministry’s U-turn on Friday came after it initially attempted to make payments on its dollar-denominated bonds in Russian rubles on April 4. Major ratings agencies suggested this would constitute a first foreign debt default since 1917 if Moscow did not manage to meet its obligations in foreign currency by the end of the month-long grace period on May 4.
Timothy Ash, senior EM sovereign strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, on Tuesday expressed surprise that the OFAC had seemingly waved through the payments after its prior tough messaging.
“OFAC is keeping all options open. It still has the option of not extending the general license on May 27, and can act any time to stop Western institutions from processing bond repayments,” he told CNBC via email.
Ash said the latest developments had shown both that Russia wants to pay its foreign creditors and has the resources to do so, beyond those frozen by sanctions.

“OFAC can force Russia into default at any time. OFAC is still in the driving seat,” he added.
The attempt to pay in rubles came after the U.S. Treasury Department refused in early April a waiver for Russian payments to foreign bondholders to go through despite U.S. sanctions, a special permission it had granted in March.
Around half of Russia’s vast foreign currency reserves have been frozen by punitive economic sanctions imposed by international powers in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.

S&P Global Ratings downgraded Russia’s foreign-debt credit rating to “selective default” after its April 4 ruble payment, while prior to the attempted dollar payment, Moody’s had suggested that deviating from the payment terms of the original bond contracts by paying in rubles may be considered a default on May 4 unless remedied.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday that it will almost double its staff responsible for protecting investors in cryptocurrency markets.
The regulator’s Crypto Assets and Cyber team, a unit of the SEC’s broader Enforcement division, will increase its head count by 20 for a total of 50 dedicated positions.
The SEC said that the 20 additions will include investigative staff attorneys, trial lawyers and fraud analysts.

Gary Gensler
Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday that it will almost double its staff responsible for protecting investors in cryptocurrency markets.
The regulator’s Crypto Assets and Cyber team, a unit of the SEC’s broader Enforcement division, will increase its head count by 20 for a total of 50 dedicated positions.

Wall Street’s top law enforcer said that the 20 additions will include investigative staff attorneys, trial lawyers and fraud analysts. Both SEC Chair Gary Gensler and Enforcement Director Gurbir Grewal applauded the hires as overdue and key to regulating one of Wall Street’s newest and most popular industries.
The SEC’s crypto unit “has successfully brought dozens of cases against those seeking to take advantage of investors in crypto markets,” Gensler said in a statement. “By nearly doubling the size of this key unit, the SEC will be better equipped to police wrongdoing in the crypto markets while continuing to identify disclosure and controls issues with respect to cybersecurity.”
Grewal added that individual retail investors tend to comprise the bulk of victims of crypto-related securities fraud. Cyber threats continue to pose “existential” risks to the U.S. financial system, he added.
“The bolstered Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit will be at the forefront of protecting investors and ensuring fair and orderly markets in the face of these critical challenges,” Grewal said in a statement.
The announcement comes nearly eight months after Gensler lamented to lawmakers that his agency needed more staff to handle the volume of new and complex financial technologies.

Gensler in September told Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., that the regulator could use “a lot more people” to assess and regulate some 6,000 new digital projects.

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“Currently, we just don’t have enough investor protection in crypto finance, issuance, trading, or lending,” Gensler told the Senate Banking Committee at the time. “Frankly, at this time, it’s more like the Wild West or the old world of ‘buyer beware’ that existed before the securities laws were enacted.”
Representatives for the SEC did not reply to an email seeking comment on whether the 20 additional hires would completely satisfy the need for a larger staff.
Since being confirmed by the Senate to lead the SEC in April 2021, Gensler has embarked on one of the most ambitious regulatory agendas in decades.
He has pushed for potential rule changes for brokers that sell customers’ orders, more thorough climate disclosures from corporations and far-stricter oversight of the fast-growing cryptocurrency market.
While President Joe Biden and other Democrats have lauded Gensler’s determined approach, Republicans have criticized his efforts as partisan and restrictive to innovation.
“As to the people and the companies that you regulate, do you consider yourself to be their daddy?” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., asked Gensler in September. “Why do you impose your personal preferences about cultural issues and social issues on companies, and therefore their customers and their workers?”
Gensler has said that investors themselves want more clarity from the companies about the risks they face from climate change and bad actors who seek to steal digital assets.

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Chinese state media reported earlier in the morning that the Hangzhou security bureau on April 25 took “criminal coercive measures” on an individual with the last name Ma over suspicion of using the internet to endanger national security.
CNBC was unable to confirm the report.
Subsequent state media updates indicated the person had a first name with two Chinese characters, rather than one. Jack Ma’s first name in Chinese only has one character.

Alibaba headquarters in Hangzhou, China.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares closed about 1.7% lower Tuesday — after earlier falling more than 9% —following unconfirmed rumors that linked the company’s founder Jack Ma to a national security investigation.
Chinese state media reported earlier in the morning that the Hangzhou security bureau on April 25 took “criminal coercive measures” on an individual with the last name Ma over suspicion of using the internet to endanger national security.

State-backed tabloid Global Times separately reported, citing the Hangzhou security bureau, that the person under investigation is the director of a tech company’s hardware research and development department.
CNBC was unable to confirm the Chinese report. Alibaba and the Jack Ma Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Subsequent state media updates indicated the person had a first name with two Chinese characters, rather than one. Jack Ma’s first name in Chinese only has one character.
Such “coercive measures” can include detention, arrest or bail. The security bureau is also investigating the case, state media said.
Jack Ma stepped down from Alibaba’s board in 2020 and no longer has executive responsibilities, the company said in a July 2021 statement.

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The market may be in the early innings of a dramatic decline.
Despite Monday’s tech comeback, money manager Dan Suzuki of Richard Bernstein Advisors warns the group is in a “bubble.”

“Go back and look at the history of bubbles. They don’t softly correct and then are off to the races six months later. You typically see a major correction, you know, 50% or more. And, typically it comes with an overshoot,” the firm’s deputy chief investment officer told CNBC’s “Fast Money.”
Suzuki suggests the stakes are high this week with the Federal Reserve set for a two-day policy meeting. Wall Street consensus expects a half-point hike on Wednesday. The biggest wildcard, according to Suzuki, will be guidance.
“There’s probably a lot more downside to go,” said Suzuki, who’s also a former Bank of America-Merrill Lynch market strategist. “Information technology, communication services and consumer discretionary… alone make up about half of the market cap of the S&P 500.”
Suzuki and his firm made the tech bubble call late last June. The forecast is built on the notion a rising interest environment will hurt growth stocks, particularly technology.

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Meanwhile, the Nasdaq is coming off its worst month since 2008. The tech-heavy index jumped 1.6% on Monday. But, it’s still off almost 23% from its all-time high, hit on Nov. 22, 2021.

Yet, Suzuki is staying invested in stocks.
To weather a potential crash, Suzuki is taking a barbell approach. On one end, he likes stocks which typically benefit in an inflationary environment, particularly energy, materials and financials. He lists defensive stocks, which include consumer staples, on the other side.
“Most of the inflation beneficiaries tend to come with a lot of cyclicality,” he said. “The further that the economy continues to slow, you probably want to switch the concentration of that barbell away from the inflation beneficiaries and toward more of the defensive names.”
Suzuki acknowledges investors are paying a premium for safer trades. However, he believes it’s worth it.
“If you go back and look at all of the bear markets over the last 20 to 30 years, look at the starting point valuations for defensive stocks. They are never cheap going into a bear market,” Suzuki said. “They are expensive relative to the rest of the market where earnings estimates are probably too high.”
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THERE IS NOT yet an app to keep track of the growing number of antitrust complaints against Apple. But perhaps there should be. On May 2nd the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, added another to the pile. Following an investigation begun in 2020, it sent the smartphone-maker a “statement of objections”, saying that, in the commission’s view, Apple is abusing its power in the market for smartphone payments.At issue is Apple Pay, a contactless-payment service introduced in 2014. Apple Pay uses a specialised radio called a Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip to allow an iPhone to work like a contactless credit card. Users who have loaded their banking details onto their phones can wave them at contactless-payment terminals—or even other iPhones—to pay for things. Apple collects a fee from the user’s bank for each transaction.The service has quickly become popular: in 2020 Bernstein, a financial firm, estimated Apple Pay accounted for about 5% of global card transactions, and forecast that it might reach 10% by 2025. The problem, in the commission’s view, is that iOS, the operating system used by iPhones, allows only Apple’s own mobile-wallet software to make use of the nfc chip. That freezes out rivals who might want to build competing payment apps of their own. Android, a rival smartphone operating system maintained by Google, does allow third-party apps access to a phone’s NFC chip, meaning that Android users can choose contactless-capable smart wallets from firms such as Google, Samsung, PayPal and others. (Complaints from PayPal in particular are thought to be at least one reason for the commission’s investigation.)The commission’s findings are only preliminary. But if a full-blown investigation comes to the same conclusion, Apple would be in breach of European competition laws, and exposed—at least in theory—to hefty fines of up to 10% of its worldwide turnover. The firm will have further chances to argue its corner, both in writing and in person, before the commission issues a final decision, a process that could take many months.The antitrust probe is the latest in a string of attacks on Apple’s business model by app developers, rival firms and governments. Apple runs the iPhone as a “walled garden”, in which the firm imposes tight controls on which apps are allowed to run on its smartphones, and on what those apps are allowed to do. Apple says its restrictions are there for the privacy and security of its users, an argument it has repeated in response to the commission’s allegations.Others, though, allege less noble motives. In 2020 Epic Games, the makers of “Fortnite”, a popular video game, and “Unreal”, a software engine on which hundreds of other video games are built, sued Apple, claiming that its refusal to allow rival firms to process payments made from within apps was anticompetitive, and that its cut of up to 30% was too high. (Epic had wanted to offer Fortnite players a rival, cheaper payment system). After losing the initial case, Epic has appealed—this time with support from Microsoft, America’s Department of Justice and 35 individual states.Similar complaints by Spotify, a music-streaming firm, helped prompt another eu antitrust investigation in 2020; a third is under way in Britain. Following a complaint from Match Group, an operator of dating sites, Dutch trustbusters found Apple’s in-app payments policies to be anticompetitive in October. Since the firm has not meaningfully changed its approach, Dutch regulators fined it €5m a week every week between January and March 28th (when it reached the €50m maximum fine, a cap the watchdogs have not yet raised).Investigations and court cases, of course, are not foregone conclusions. But even if Apple wins some battles, it could still lose the war, for legislative changes are looming too. On March 24th the eu agreed the text of the Digital Markets Act (dma), a bumper piece of legislation designed to force big tech firms to open their platforms up to competition. One of its themes is to try to forbid companies from giving preferential treatment to their own apps and services. The dma would require Apple to allow users to install apps from places other than Apple’s own App Store, and force it to allow rivals to provide in-app payment tools of their own. The walls are not looking as solid as they were. More