Finance

Take a look at some of the biggest movers in the premarket:Virgin Galactic (SPCE) – The space transportation company’s stock dropped 3% in premarket trading, after Bank of America Securities double-downgraded the stock to “underperform” from “buy.” BofA notes the recent spike in the stock after the company received approval to carry passengers into space, and said the premium earned by Virgin Galactic’s leading position is already reflected in the stock price.Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) – The housewares retailer reported quarterly profit of 5 cents per share, missing consensus estimates by 3 cents a share. Revenue came in above analysts’ forecasts. Bed Bath & Beyond predicted better-than-expected current-quarter comparable sales, and raised its full-year revenue outlook.  The stock surged 7.9% in the premarket.Xpeng (XPEV) – Xpeng will raise $1.8 billion in its Hong Kong initial public offering, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter who spoke to Reuters. The Chinese electric vehicle maker’s U.S. shares fell 2.3% in premarket trading.MongoDB (MDB) – MongoDB said it would sell 2.5 million class A common shares, seeking to raise $889 million. The database platform provider plans to use the proceeds for general corporate purposes. MongoDB stock lost 4.5% in premarket trading.Constellation Brands (STZ) – The spirits and beer maker reported quarterly profit of $2.33 per share, matching Wall Street forecasts. Revenue came in slightly above estimates.General Mills (GIS) – The food producer beat analysts’ estimates by 6 cents a share, with quarterly earnings of 91 cents per share. Revenue was above estimates as well. Organic net sales fell by 6% from a year ago, however, a reflection of the surge in at-home demand as the pandemic was taking hold.Twitter (TWTR) – Twitter appointed its vice president of global solutions Sarah Personette as chief customer officer. She replaces Matt Derella, who is leaving Twitter after nine years at the company.Las Vegas Sands (LVS) – Las Vegas Sands rose 1.7% in the premarket following reports that border restrictions between Hong Kong and Macau will loosen in mid-July. Currently, any traveler from Hong Kong to Macau is required to quarantine for 14 days.Seagate Technology (STX) – Seagate Technology was upgraded to “equal weight” from “underweight” at Barclays. The firm cites an improving market for the hard disk drive maker, particularly in mobile computing.WideOpenWest (WOW) – The broadband provider’s shares rallied 4.4% in the premarket after it announced a deal to sell five of its service areas in two separate deals for a total of about $1.8 billion.DR Horton (DHI) – The home builder was named a “top pick” by Goldman Sachs. Goldman notes that stocks in the sector are down about 15% from May highs and feels that DR Horton is best positioned to execute against industry headwinds. More

Workers at grocery delivery company Dingdong pack up vegetables for orders the company claims customers can receive in about 30 minutes.DingdongBEIJING — Chinese grocery delivery company Dingdong closed 2 cents higher in its U.S. IPO Tuesday, following a 70% cut in the offering size.The lackluster performance comes amid a surge in Chinese stock listings in the U.S. and concerns about growth in the grocery delivery industry, in which tech giants Alibaba, Meituan and JD.com have all invested significantly.In its initial public offering, Dingdong still gained a market value of $5.5 billion. That is more than double the value of Tencent-backed rival Missfresh, which fell more than 25% in its Nasdaq debut Friday.Earlier this week, Dingdong disclosed it would price its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange at $23.50 a share, on the low end of the proposed range and with fewer than 30% of the initial number of shares. Dingdong raised $95.69 million as a result, versus an offering that could have been as large as $357 million.From our perspective, the IPO itself is a milestone and how much money we raised isn’t that essential. We have adequate cash flow and that is our situation.Liang ChanglinFounder and CEO, DingdongFounder and CEO Liang Changlin told CNBC’s Eunice Yoon Tuesday he planned to use the IPO proceeds for expanding the company in China, and investing in technology and talent.”We just finished a Series D round of funding, and everyone knows we raised $1.03 billion dollars,” he said in Mandarin, according to a CNBC translation. “So, from our perspective, the IPO itself is a milestone and how much money we raised isn’t that essential. We have adequate cash flow and that is our situation.”Liang has a 30% stake in the company.Dingdong said in its prospectus it had 1.45 billion yuan ($226.56 million) in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash. Together with anticipated cash flows from financing activities, the company said it expected to meet its financial needs for at least 12 months.The company said it operates in 29 cities in China, with a monthly average of 6.9 million transacting users in the first quarter and gross merchandise value (GMV) of 4.3 billion yuan. That’s up from 2.92 billion yuan in the same period a year ago.GMV measures the total value of merchandise sold over a period of time.However, Dingdong also disclosed a net loss of 1.38 billion yuan in the first quarter, up from 244.5 million yuan in the year-ago period.Read more about China from CNBC ProJPMorgan picks its favorite Chinese stocks on everything from hydrogen to EV batteriesWedbush says Tesla faces a ‘moment of truth’ in China with recallJim Cramer says he feels better about Apple’s China exposure after Nike earningsIn May, SoftBank invested $330 million in Dingdong, following a $700 million investment a month earlier from Coatue, Sequoia Capital and others, according to advisor Cygnus Equity.As Chinese consumer demand for delivery grows, Dingdong claims it can send fresh produce in about 30 minutes. The company’s strategy is to work out of warehouses, rather than retail stores which need consumer-friendly interior design. Location can also add to costs.Liang claimed Dingdong has grown an average of 300% a year for the past three years, and was confident in “booming” demand for grocery delivery in China.”If something becomes popular during a pandemic but fades when the pandemic is over, then it is not a good business,” he said. For Dingdong, “our price per order might have dropped a little, but the strength of orders is there. So we think the pandemic only accelerated our development.” More

In this articleBRK.AWarren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in Los Angeles California. May 1, 2021.Gerard Miller | CNBCLegendary investor Warren Buffett said the economic consequences of the pandemic are falling disproportionately on small businesses and the unpredictability of Covid-19 is far from over.”The economic impact has been this extremely uneven thing where… many hundreds of thousands or millions of small businesses have been hurt in a terrible way, but most of the big companies have overwhelmingly have done fine,” the Berkshire Hathaway CEO said during an interview with Becky Quick on CNBC’s special “Buffett & Munger: A Wealth of Wisdom,” which aired on Tuesday.In March 2020, the pandemic cut a deadly swath across America, which led to a shutdown of a $20 trillion economy in full swing. Thousands of small businesses were forced to close their doors while big-box retailers and e-commerce giants took in those customers. Gross domestic product for the first quarter last year dropped 31.4%, which was unprecedented in post-Great Depression America.”It’s not over,” the 90-year-old investor said. “I mean, in terms of the unpredictability…it’s been very unpredictable, but it’s worked out better than people anticipated for most people and most businesses. And it’s just, for no fault of their own, it’s just decimated all kinds of people and their hopes.”Covid created ‘fabulous success’For some businesses like auto dealers, the pandemic even brought on windfall profits, said Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire and Buffett’s longtime business partner.”It didn’t create just a return to normal; it created fabulous success they didn’t anticipate,” Munger said. “The auto dealers are coining money that they wouldn’t have had except for the pandemic.”Due to factory shutdowns and a global shortage of semiconductors, automakers and dealers have experienced wider, if not record, profits and even selling vehicles before they arrive at dealerships.Berkshire Hathaway Automotive is one of the largest dealership groups in America, with over 78 independently operated dealerships. The conglomerate also owns the BNSF Railway and NetJets, a private business jet charter and aircraft management company.”All of the dealers that we have partners in each dealership, they very sincerely felt that they were gonna have one hell of a problem in March and April,” Buffett said. “Some might have wanted to go in for the assistance from the government, but we wouldn’t let them, because they had a rich parent … we didn’t know what was gonna happen with NetJets in terms of the demand.”The biggest lessonBuffett said the biggest lesson he learned from the unprecedented pandemic is how ill-prepared the world can be for emergency situations that are bound to happen.”I learned that people don’t know as much as they think they know. But the biggest thing you learn is that the pandemic was bound to occur, and this isn’t the worst one that’s imaginable at all,” Buffett said. “Society has a terrible time preparing for things that are remote but are possible and will occur sooner or later.”More than 600,000 people have died of Covid in the U.S., and countries are grappling with new variants amid vaccine rollouts. The delta variant, now in at least 92 countries, including the United States, is expected to become the dominant variant of the disease worldwide. In the U.S., the prevalence of the strain is doubling about every two weeks.”There’ll be another pandemic, we know that. We know there’s a nuclear, chemical, biological, and now cyber threat. Each one of those has terrible possibilities,” Buffett said. “And we do some things about it, but … it’s just not something that society seems particularly capable in fully coming to grips with.”A steady uptick in sweeping cyberattacks this year has directly impacted Americans and hampered logistics and services in the United States. In May, a ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline forced the U.S. company to shut down approximately 5,500 miles of pipeline.”Charlie and I have been ungodly lucky in many ways. But the luckiest thing was actually being around at this time and place,” Buffett said. “How do we actually do this so that mankind, 50 and 100 and 200 years from now, should enjoy the incredibly better life that could be enjoyed while not screwing it up?”Enjoyed this article?For exclusive stock picks, investment ideas and CNBC global livestreamSign up for CNBC ProStart your free trial now More

In this articleZM6694.T-JPCharlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, revealed he is fond of Zoom, saying the videoconferencing software will keep thriving even as life goes back to normal after the pandemic.”I have fallen in love with Zoom,” Munger said during an interview with Becky Quick on CNBC’s special “Buffett & Munger: A Wealth of Wisdom,” which aired Tuesday. “I think Zoom is here to stay. it just adds so much convenience.”The 97-year-old investor said he uses Zoom at least three times a day, and he made a deal in Australia via a video call.Zoom stood out as a big pandemic winner as millions of stay-at-home users globally turned to the app for video calls and other capabilities. Shares surged a whopping 395% in 2020 as revenue exploded amid the surge in demand. Earlier this month, the company reported another blowout quarter with sales growth of 191% in the period ended April 30.Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsHowever, Munger’s longtime business partner and Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett is not seeing eye to eye on Zoom, saying he still prefers the old school telephone.”I’m just not a Zoom guy,” the 90-year-old investor said. “I don’t see any plus to it, particularly. I did it once or twice, and they had a whole screen of people that… I just didn’t figure it was adding to the experience. I’d rather have my, you know, feet on the desk, and I find the telephone a very satisfactory instrument.”Charles Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., left, and Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., attend a BYD Co. press event in China, on Monday, Sept. 27, 2010.Nelson Ching | Getty ImagesMunger’s bull case for Zoom is based on his belief that business travel is unlikely go back to pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, he said office demand will stay low as many workers will likely have the flexibility to work from home.”I think a lot of business travel will never come back. Just corporation after corporation deciding one meeting a year, two meetings a year in person, and the rest Zoom. And I think that’s here to stay,” Munger said.”What’s happened to office demand is just… think of the agonies in that field now. A lot of people have found they don’t need to be there,” Munger added. “And I think a lot of people are going to decide that they can work three days a week and stay home the other. I think all kinds of things are gonna happen that… we don’t go back to what we did before.”During the first-quarter report, Zoom did warn of a coming slowdown as expansion drops from the pandemic-fueled 2020. The company now sees 50% revenue growth for the full fiscal year.Enjoyed this article?For exclusive stock picks, investment ideas and CNBC global livestreamSign up for CNBC ProStart your free trial now More

“TRULY EXTRAORDINARY.” That was how Craig Lazzara of S&P Global, the firm that compiles a widely watched measure of house prices in America, described its reading for the month of April, released on June 29th. House prices rose by 14.6% year over year, the fastest rate in the 34-year history of the index (see chart, top panel). Houses listed for sale are on average snapped up in just 17 days, a record low. On Reddit, a social-media site, would-be buyers bemoan missing out on house after house because they are unwilling to forgo inspecting the property on which they plan to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, something that most successful buyers are apparently doing.The Federal Reserve still has monetary policy on ultra-loose mode. Interest rates are anchored at zero and the central bank is buying up $120bn-worth of assets each month—$80bn of Treasuries and $40bn of mortgage-backed securities—in order to depress long-term interest rates. This stance is in many ways still justified. There are 7.6m fewer jobs in America than there were before the pandemic. A large minority of adults remains unvaccinated. And yet consumer-price inflation has climbed to an annual rate of 4.9%, and commodities and labour are in short supply. A real-time estimate of economic output compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta puts annualised GDP growth in the second quarter at a heady 8.3%. If true then America has recovered all the output lost during the pandemic and even added more.The case of the housing market aptly illustrates how different corners of the economy are pulling the Fed along at different speeds, if not in different directions. The current property craze is at least in part spurred on by loose monetary policy. Low mortgage rates, which are a function of prevailing yields on mortgage-backed securities, tend to entice would-be homebuyers. Given that the housing market is already fired up, it might seem odd that the Fed is juicing it further by buying mortgage-backed securities and suppressing mortgage rates.Even some Fed officials are discomfited by this turn of affairs. In an interview with the Financial Times on June 27th Eric Rosengren, the president of the Boston Fed, said that America could not afford a “boom-and-bust cycle” in the housing market that would threaten financial stability. He is not alone. Robert Kaplan, the head of the Dallas Fed, has said that there are “some unintended consequences and side-effects of these [mortgage-backed-security] purchases that we are seeing play out”, including contributing to rocketing house prices. James Bullard, the president of the St. Louis Fed, told CNBC on June 18th that “maybe we don’t need to be in mortgage-backed securities with a booming housing market.”At the Fed’s monetary-policy meeting on June 15th and 16th Jerome Powell, its chairman, made clear that the central bank is not yet ready to stop buying assets, but has begun to discuss when might be appropriate. One option might be to do what Mr Rosengren called a “two-speed taper”, slowing mortgage purchases more quickly than purchases of Treasuries. If housing needs less support than the wider economy this seems a sensible step. The Fed has already begun to offload corporate bonds bought through an emergency programme launched in spring 2020, because the liquidity crunch that prompted intervention has abated.A two-speed taper probably would not dent the housing market by much. For a start, the heat seems mainly to reflect a fall in supply during the pandemic, rather than low rates alone. And in any case, it is not as if the mortgage-backed-security market operates in isolation from broad monetary conditions. Yields tend to closely track those of Treasuries, even when the Fed is not buying up assets (see chart, bottom panel). If the central bank is not ready to tighten monetary policy yet, then a hot housing market might be a side-effect it has to live with. Still, it probably does not need to egg property prices on. More

In this articleA trader works on the New York Stock Exchange on March 3, 2020.Michael Nagle | Xinhua via GettyU.S. stock futures were little changed on Tuesday night as the market gets set to close out a winning first half of 2021 and second quarter.Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 20 points, or 0.06%. Futures on the S&P 500 rose 0.08%. Futures on the Nasdaq-100 added 0.11%.Wednesday is the last day of the second quarter and final day of the first half of 2021. So far on the year, the S&P 500 is up 14%, while the Nasdaq Composite and the Dow are up 12% apiece. For the quarter, the S&P 500 is up 8%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq all posted fresh record closes on Tuesday.Investors have shrugged off high inflation readings and have kept buying stocks on the hopes an economic comeback from the pandemic would continue. The three biggest winners in the Dow this year so far are Goldman Sachs, American Express and Walgreens Boots Alliance, all up more than 30%. Chevron, Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase are up more than 20% each.Good first halves usually bode well for the rest of the year. Whenever there has been a double-digit gain in the first half, the Dow and S&P 500 have never ended that year with an annual decline, according to Refinitiv data going back to 1950.During the regular session Tuesday, stocks were little changed in light trading although the S&P 500 did notch its 4th straight positive session and an all-time high. The Dow rose 9 points, or less than 1%. The S&P 500 ended the day 0.03% higher and the Nasdaq Composite ended the day up 0.2%Homebuilder stocks rose Tuesday after S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller published its National Home Price Index, which showed home prices rose more than 14% in April from the previous year and several major cities in the U.S. had their highest annual price gains. Lennar stock rose almost 1% and shares of PulteGroup rose 1.9%.The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index also came in at its highest level since March 2020.Weekly mortgage applications and pending home sales data are due to be published Wednesday. Payroll firm ADP is scheduled to report on the number of private payrolls added in June.Stocks likely won’t see big movement until Friday’s jobs report gives a better idea of the state of the economy. Economists expect 683,000 jobs were added in June, according to a Dow Jones survey.—With reporting from Robert Hum. More

In this articleGETXTFDXFBLENFOXAMRNAMSBoxes containing vials of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine are stored at the Kedren Community Health Center on January 25, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty ImagesCheck out the companies making headlines in midday trading.Moderna — Moderna shares surged 5.1% after the company said its Covid vaccine showed promise in a lab setting in protecting against coronavirus variants, including the highly contagious delta variant first identified in India.Banks — Big banks saw their shares gain after announcing dividend increases following the Fed’s latest stress tests. Morgan Stanley shares gained 3.3% after the bank said it would double its dividend. Goldman Sachs shares added 1% as the bank announced it would boost its dividend by 60%. Meanwhile, Citigroup saw its shares dip 2.5% after it was the only major bank to not commit to any specific dividend increases.Lennar, PulteGroup — Homebuilder stocks rose on Tuesday as the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index showed that home prices rose more than 14% on an annual basis in April. Several major U.S. cities saw their highest annual price gains on record. Shares of Lennar rose almost 1%, while PulteGroup rose 1.9%.General Electric — General Electric shares added 1.5% after Goldman Sachs named the stock a top idea. “We view GE as the ultimate self-help, re-opening levered story in Industrials,” Goldman Sachs’ Joe Ritchie said in a note released Tuesday.Herman Miller – Shares of the furniture company dipped 6.9% after its fiscal fourth quarter earnings report. The company beat top and bottom line estimates for the period, earning an adjusted 56 cents per share on $621.5 million in revenue, ahead of the expected 39 cent profit and $583 million in revenue, based on estimates compiled by FactSet. However, shares dipped on the company’s lower-than-expected earnings forecast.Facebook — The Big Tech stock dipped 1% after rising more than 4% on Monday following a court decision that dismissed both federal and state antitrust complaints against the social media giant. Monday’s stock jump pushed the social media giant into the trillion dollar club.Textron – Shares of the industrial conglomerate ticked 0.5% down after Morgan Stanley upgraded the stock to overweight from equal weight. The Wall Street firm said Textron will benefit from the return of sustained growth in business jets as well as a growing market for electric aircrafts.FedEx – The courier stock rose 1.3% after Bank of America Securities added it to its “US1” list of top picks and reiterated its buy rating on the stock. It also said it’s maintaining its price target of $372, implying upside of 26.5%. “We see significant tailwinds for FDX, led by pricing gains, margin improvement (including TNT integration), continued ecommerce growth, and the return of [business-to-business] volumes,” BofA’s Ken Hoexter said in a note.FOX — Shares of Fox fell 3.8% after Guggenheim downgraded the media company to neutral from buy. “Our revised estimates reflect our view of the advertising market as well as adjustments for the timing of y/y shifts in the sports calendar, production timing, and incremental investments,” the firm said.DoorDash — DoorDash shares increased 4.7% after Wells Fargo raised its price target on the delivery company to $215 from $170. The new price target is Wall Street high.— CNBC’s Pippa Stevens, Maggie Fitzgerald, Tanaya Macheel, Yun Li and Jesse Pound contributed reportingBecome a smarter investor with CNBC Pro. Get stock picks, analyst calls, exclusive interviews and access to CNBC TV. Sign up to start a free trial today More

In this articleJPMJPMorgan Chase wants to take the sustainable-investing trend to the next level.To do that, the biggest U.S. bank by assets has agreed to buy OpenInvest, a San Francisco-based start-up backed by Andreessen Horowitz and founded by former Bridgewater Associates employees, CNBC has learned exclusively.It’s the third acquisition of a fintech start-up by JPMorgan since December, when the bank bought 55ip, a company that automates the construction of tax-efficient portfolios. This month, JPMorgan said it was acquiring UK-based robo-advisor Nutmeg to help boost its overseas digital banking efforts.CEO Jamie Dimon said last year that the bank would be “much more aggressive” in searching for potential takeovers to help it bolt-on capabilities and fend off threats from fintech and Big Tech players alike. The traditional banking industry has begun to lose ground to fast growing, disruptive players including PayPal and Square, while Alphabet and even retailer Walmart have each announced intentions in consumer finance.The bank’s latest move, for deal terms that couldn’t be determined, will help JPMorgan’s financial advisors customize clients’ investments in ESG, the broad category that includes environmental, social and governance factors. ESG funds have attracted record inflows this year, pushing global assets under management to almost $2 trillion.Mary Callahan Erdoes at Delivering Alpha 2015 in New York.David A. Grogan | CNBC “Clients are increasingly focused on understanding the environmental, social, and governance impact of their portfolios and using that information to make investment decisions that better align with their goals,” Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management division, said in a statement.OpenInvest was co-founded in 2015 by Conor Murray, Joshua Levin and Phillip Wei to help financial advisors, big asset managers and retail users create portfolios that more accurately reflect investors’ values.Rather than just plowing money into ESG investment funds or excluding certain companies from a stock portfolio, clients can use OpenInvest to create highly personalized, dynamic values-based portfolios. The company pulls data from more than 35 sources to feed decision engines embedded in its tools.”Through technology, it’s now possible, for example, to give people granular control over how their values are implemented,” Murray said last week in an interview. “It’s not just whether or not you care about gender equality, but whether you want to tilt more towards maternity leave or gender pay gap or board compensation, any of the things that matter to the client.”Conor Murray, Co-founder and CEO, OpenInvest.Source: JP Morgan ChaseJPMorgan approached OpenInvest when the start-up was close to wrapping its Series B funding round, according to people with knowledge of the situation who declined to be identified speaking about private negotiations. The company, which was one of the first venture-backed start-ups to have the public benefit corporation designation, had raised about $25 million in funding to date.While OpenInvest had begun to gain traction in accumulating assets, the co-founders said they ultimately chose to join JPMorgan to accelerate their mission to bring ESG investing into the mainstream. The company already has $2.4 trillion in ESG-related assets under management, and its massive consumer bank has customers in half of American households.”We caught them early in their journey, but I would say just from studying what they built and the trajectory they were on, there’s no doubt in my mind that they were on a quick path towards greater impact and a much larger level of AUM,” said Mike Camacho, JPMorgan’s head of wealth management solutions.The co-founders hinted that their technology could ultimately be used at JPMorgan beyond the investing realm. In the future, it could conceivably help ensure that customers’ purchasing decisions and charitable donations align with their values, they said.”The scope of this opportunity stretches across financial services,” Levin said. “We face an opportunity to fundamentally change finance and the way that humans interact with money.”Joshua Levin, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, OpenInvest.Source: JP Morgan ChaseBecome a smarter investor with CNBC Pro. Get stock picks, analyst calls, exclusive interviews and access to CNBC TV. Sign up to start a free trial today. More