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A government shutdown looms on Oct. 1.
Congress is at an impasse over negotiations about government funding.
Democrats want to extend enhanced healthcare subsidies that 22 million people receive to make health insurance plans purchased on the Affordable Care Act marketplace less expensive.
A shutdown likely wouldn’t have significant financial impacts if it lasts less than two or so weeks.
A lengthy shutdown could impact household income, travel and mortgage applications, for example.

Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images

A government shutdown looms after midnight — and, depending on how long it lasts, could have far-reaching implications for household finances.
Those repercussions might include anything from delayed paychecks and layoffs for federal workers to broad effects for other Americans, including disrupted travel plans and an inability to get a mortgage, economists said.

Enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare — that have made health plans less expensive for millions of enrollees in recent years are also indirectly at stake.
Economists and market analysts are predicting that Democrats and Republicans won’t be able to reach an 11th-hour deal.
“Congressional gridlock has struck again, leaving the government grinding toward a potential shutdown beginning October 1,” Jennifer Timmerman, investment strategy analyst at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute, wrote in a note Monday.

What is a government shutdown?

Every year, Congress must pass legislation to fund the federal government for the coming fiscal year. A shutdown occurs if Congress can’t wrap up the appropriations process on time.
Oct. 1 marks the start of the 2026 fiscal year.

During a shutdown, the government halts all unfunded “nonessential” functions, Timmerman wrote.

By comparison, “essential” services related to public safety, such as air-traffic control or national security, will keep operating, she wrote.
Social Security checks and Medicare benefits — which are considered “mandatory” government spending — would continue flowing, Timmerman wrote.
The last shutdown happened during President Donald Trump’s first term. It was also the nation’s longest on record, starting in late December 2018 and running 35 days, Thomas Ryan, a North America economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note Sept. 26.

What’s at stake during a government shutdown?

A shutdown that lasts for less than two weeks is unlikely to have a material or lasting impact on the U.S. economy or household finances — though the negative effects mount as the weeks pass, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s.
Most immediately, federal workers deemed to be nonessential would be furloughed, economists said.
They wouldn’t be paid during a shutdown, though they’d receive paychecks retroactively, Zandi said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a press conference alongside House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), following a meeting between the Congressional Democratic leaders and President Trump and Congressional Republican leadership on funding the government, outside of the White House in Washington DC, United States on September 29, 2025.
Nathan Posner | Anadolu | Getty Images

Government contractors — from companies that provide cafeteria services, to those that provide strategic advice to the government — would start to feel the financial pain after about three to four weeks since they wouldn’t be getting paid for services, Zandi said.
However, unlike federal employees, federal contractors have historically not received back pay, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
This income loss could put financial stress on households — especially those in the D.C. area — that don’t have stopgap financial resources to weather a missed paycheck, he said.
However, the pain shouldn’t be too severe if the shutdown is short-lived, Zandi and other economists said.
“The direct costs of shutdowns are usually negligible, with most only lasting a few days,” wrote Ryan of Capital Economics. Many shutdowns have largely played out over the weekend, blunting the impact, according to the CRFB.
About 800,000 federal employees were either furloughed or worked without pay during the last shutdown, representing lost income of about $70 billion (or 0.3% of gross domestic product, in annualized terms), Ryan wrote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks next to U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) on the day U.S. President Donald Trump meets with top congressional leaders from both parties, just ahead of a September 30 deadline to fund the government and avoid a shutdown, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Sept. 29, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

That 2018-19 episode was only a partial government shutdown, since Congress had passed five out of 12 appropriations bills before the deadline, Timmerman wrote. The last full shutdown, like the one that looms, was in 2013 and lasted 16 days; about 850,000 workers were furloughed that year, according to the CRFB.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates about 750,000 federal workers could be furloughed each day of a government shutdown.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: Every week of a government shutdown shaves about a tenth of a percentage point from annualized GDP for the quarter, on average, Zandi said.
“Every tenth matters, but it doesn’t mean the world comes crashing down or that the economy will plummet into recession,” Zandi said. “Though the economy is quite vulnerable [right now]. It’s struggling, especially with regard to jobs.”

How does a shutdown affect consumers?

If a shutdown occurs, the federal flood insurance program would also immediately close to new policies until there’s a spending deal, according to Jaret Seiberg, financial services policy analyst at TD Cowen.
“That means no mortgages which require federal flood insurance will be originated,” Seiberg wrote in a Sept. 26 note.
Financial firms likely moved up mortgage closings ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline, softening the impact, though extended shutdowns “will block mortgages from being made,” he wrote.
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Travelers could face disruptions, too.
Federal parks and monuments would close, for example, and staff deemed to be essential — like Transportation Security Administration officers and air traffic controllers — must work without pay, Ryan wrote.
Some TSA agents may choose not to show up for work, as happened during the last shutdown, causing long lines at airports, delaying travel and disrupting tourism, Zandi said.

How does a shutdown affect investors?

The release of key economic reports would also likely be delayed, economists said.
For example, the Labor Department wouldn’t issue its monthly jobs report slated to be published on Friday. The bureau is also supposed to release its monthly consumer price index on Oct. 15.
The Federal Reserve, which is next convening Oct. 28-29, uses such data to guide its decisions on interest-rate policy.
The central bank would be “kind of flying blind” without such data at its fingertips, Zandi said. A shutdown of more than a month could lead to “some serious errors,” Zandi said, with implications for the job market and borrowing costs.

For investors, the stock market has generally “demonstrated resiliency” in past shutdowns as investors have looked past the political noise toward companies’ long-term earnings prospects, wrote Timmerman of Wells Fargo.
In fact, any pullback would likely be short-lived and pose a good opportunity for investors to “incrementally add exposure” to certain sectors, she wrote.
The S&P 500 stock index has risen 4.4%, on average, during past shutdowns, which suggests other macroeconomic factors play a bigger role for investor outcomes, according to a Sept. 29 report by Monica Guerra, head of U.S. policy at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
However, a lengthy shutdown could pressure investor confidence in the nation’s governance and add to existing jitters about the relative safe-haven status of the U.S. for investor assets, Zandi said.

How does a shutdown affect student loans?

Federal student loan bills will still be due during a government shutdown, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
The country’s $1.6 trillion outstanding student debt portfolio is managed mostly by independent contractors, and these companies shouldn’t be too disrupted if Congress is delayed in reaching a deal to continue government funding.
However, applications to the U.S. Department of Education for student loan forgiveness, which are already experiencing processing delays, “will be further disrupted,” Kantrowitz said.
Borrowers may also find it temporarily harder to enroll in one of the department’s repayment plans or to reach someone at the agency for assistance with their loans.

How long might a shutdown last?

The US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

While shutdowns typically don’t last long, this one may be drawn out due to political dynamics at play, analysts said.
“A shutdown could go for a while,” Chris Krueger, managing director at TD Cowen’s Washington Research Group, wrote Sept. 29.
Republicans need 60 votes in the Senate to advance legislation that would fund the government, and need some Democratic votes to meet that threshold.
Congressional Democrats want Republicans to make concessions on health-care policy as a condition of their support.
Specifically, Democrats want to extend enhanced subsidies for health insurance premiums for ACA enrollees, which are slated to expire at year’s end absent congressional action. If they expire, that would raise premiums an estimated 75% next year, on average, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.
Roughly 22 million Americans receive those healthcare subsidies. They’re estimated to cost about $30 billion per year to extend. Republicans say negotiations on continuing those credits should happen after the Senate approves a funding resolution.
Both sides seem dug in, experts said.
The only “action-forcing catalyst” to end a shutdown is the Nov. 1 open enrollment for ACA health plans, Krueger wrote.

‘A whole different ball game’

There’s another reason this shutdown could play out differently than others in the past, experts said: President Donald Trump has threatened to fire — not furlough — thousands of non-essential workers if Congress can’t reach a deal. These would be permanent instead of temporary layoffs.
“That’s the fodder for potential recession, in the current context” of the U.S. labor market, Zandi said.
It would increase the unemployment rate by about a half percentage point if roughly 750,000 non-essential workers were laid off, he said.
“I don’t see that happening,” Zandi said. “But if it does, it’s a whole different ball game. The impacts would be very significant, very quick.”
CNBC personal finance reporter Annie Nova contributed reporting. More

In part due to the U.S. government’s recent changes to the student visa policy, there are fewer students on college campuses this fall.
For financially vulnerable schools, any decline in enrollment comes at a price.
As higher education faces increased headwinds, closures and mergers are looming “at a pace we haven’t seen since the Great Recession,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education.

Drew University in Madison, N.J.
Courtesy: Drew University

As college and university leaders returned to campus this fall, there were new signs that a long-building financial crisis may finally be reaching a breaking point.
Closures and mergers are looming “at a pace we haven’t seen since the Great Recession,” said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education.

The warning lights have been flashing for years. Fewer high school graduates are enrolling in college and the overall population of college-age students is shrinking, a trend experts refer to as the “demographic cliff.”
Higher operating costs and limitations on tuition increases have restricted institutions’ ability to raise revenue, according to 2024 research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Higher education as a whole is “facing serious financial headwinds,” the report said.
And now, international student enrollment is poised to drop off due to the Trump administration’s tougher visa rules and anti-immigrant policies, representing billions of dollars in lost tuition and stripping away one of higher ed’s most reliable financial lifelines.
Add deep federal funding cuts, and the sector faces what Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, calls “a perfect storm.”
Collectively, with fewer students and less money coming in, there are fewer resources for teachers, programs, and most importantly, financial aid. For many schools, there may not even be enough funds to stay open.

International student enrollment is falling

Last September, the U.S. hosted more than 1.2 million students from abroad, an all-time high, according to the latest data by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
But in 2025, the number of international students on many U.S. college campuses is suddenly decreasing.
Largely due to the Trump administration’s recent changes to the student visa policy — which deactivated and then reactivated the immigration status of thousands of students and put a temporary pause on new visa applicants — there may be as many as 150,000 fewer international students enrolled for the 2025-26 academic year, according to preliminary projections by NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
That represents a 30%-40% drop in new students from abroad and a 15% decline in total international student enrollment, amounting to a loss of nearly $7 billion in economic impact, according to the findings, which are based in part on State Department data. 

“International student enrollments are down massively,” said Wolfson.
Chris Glass, a professor and higher education specialist at Boston College, said the NAFSA analysis was in line with his own projection based on applications for F-1 student visas in the spring, which were trending lower even before the pause on new applicants.
However, new government data suggests that the total number of international students may not have declined to the extent NAFSA projected. “We just don’t know yet,” Glass said.

Drew University in Madison, N.J.
Courtesy: Drew University

At Drew University in Madison, N.J., about one-third of new students from abroad either withdrew or deferred this semester due to visa denials or lack of appointments, according to Hilary Link, Drew’s president. 
“For a small institution like Drew, we did see an impact,” Link said. International students — coming from 58 countries around the world — account for 14% of Drew’s total enrollment of roughly 2,200 students, according to the school. 

Fewer students, less revenue

Although international undergraduate and graduate students in the U.S. make up slightly less than 6% of the total U.S. higher education population, according to the Institute of International Education, they are an important source of revenue for schools. 
U.S. colleges and universities need a contingent of foreign students, who typically pay full tuition, in addition to enhancing the diversity of perspectives in classrooms and on campuses, Mitchell said.
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Altogether, international students who studied in the U.S. contributed $46.1 billion to the U.S. economy in the 2024-25 academic year, according to the most recent data by NAFSA, including tuition revenue as well as student spending, which extends well beyond higher education.
Those funds support colleges’ ability to provide financial aid, Mitchell said. “Full-paying international students pay scholarships for domestic students — it’s a 1-to-1 relationship.”

The colleges in jeopardy

When it comes to which colleges will be hardest hit, “it’s a tale of two worlds,” said Jamie Beaton, co-founder and CEO of Crimson Education, a college consulting firm. On one hand, “top schools are really bulletproof.”
In fact, Harvard University, which has been at the forefront of the escalating battle over international student visas, banked a recent win over the White House, freeing up $2.2 billion in grant funds.
The nation’s most elite colleges, including the Ivy League, have large endowments, a diverse student body and an advanced pipeline of applicants that largely shield them from sudden shocks. “They can fill their entire class over and over and over again,” Beaton said.

“These upper-tier schools are not without risk, but they have so many hedges against that risk they are more insulated from disruptions,” said Boston College’s Glass. “They are going to be the most resilient.”
Alternatively, “there is a fair percentage of institutions essentially living month to month, or paycheck to paycheck,” Glass said. Those less competitive and tuition-driven institutions are “extremely vulnerable,” he said. “International students have been integrated into their enrollment strategy and their viability.”

Mid-tier schools may also not be in the position to easily recruit other students, he added. “The pipeline is constricted, exposing them to risk.”
Some “will feel the immediate pain,” he said. Others “are going to bleed money, reallocate funds and see if they can survive.”

“It’s going to mean a lot of challenges for smaller, less wealthy institutions if the international student population declines and the domestic student population declines,” said Drew’s Link.
“We all need to work harder and more creatively to think about the value of a degree from a U.S. institution in this moment and how we make higher education more accessible and desirable,” Link said.

For decades, research has shown that getting a college degree pays: College graduates earn significantly more than those with just a high school diploma. But in addition to higher earnings and better employment prospects, getting a degree is the ticket to social mobility, allowing graduates from diverse backgrounds to climb the economic ladder — an opportunity that is unmatched elsewhere.
Yet, today’s pressures point to an era when fewer Americans go to college at all, and fewer colleges are in business.
“Declining international student enrollment is a piece of the larger puzzle undermining the financial health of higher education,” said AAUP’s Wolfson. “What we are going to see is programs shut down, campuses shut down, smaller public or private institutions closing or merging and a curtailment of opportunities for our students.”
For now, Mitchell said, “colleges and universities are not holding their breath” for a rebound in revenue. “They need to hit the cost side hard.”

Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.
Courtesy: Southwestern University

“We are carefully monitoring all of our expenses, but we also know the next few years are going to be tough,” said Laura Trombley, president of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. Only about 7% of the school’s 1,434 students come from overseas, she said, so the impact has been minimal, so far.
In times of financial stress, the first cuts would be to the facilities budget, Trombley said, followed by under-enrolled academic programs — often in the humanities — and then reducing the number of faculty and staff.
“You have levers to pull, but you don’t have that many levers,” Trombley said.
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The combination of setting a financial goal and setting regular reminders to make progress toward that goal is a powerful duo, said Katy Milkman, a behavioral economist.
Automating the savings is generally the best bet since it helps overcome inertia, experts said.

Xavier Lorenzo | Moment | Getty Images

Many of us set savings goals. But we don’t always follow through.
About 90% of Americans set financial goals for 2025, according to a recent NerdWallet survey. As of June, about 37% of the 2,090 adults NerdWallet surveyed weren’t on track to hit their biggest financial goal.

There’s an easy two-step way to make these milestones easier to reach: Set a goal and then set a reminder to take action, behavioral scientists said.

“When we set goals — and then we make sure that there are reminders associated with those goals — it can be really incredibly helpful to savings,” said Katy Milkman, a behavioral economist and author of “How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.”
For households that take a more manual approach to saving, this might mean setting up a repeating nudge on your calendar to make a deposit to savings, or even asking your bank, financial advisor, romantic partner or roommate for that reminder, Milkman said.
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When possible, automating the actual saving generally yields better results, according to behavioral experts.

“Your main savings strategy should be to switch from having to remember to save a small amount every month to saving a percentage of your income automatically, any time you receive income,” said Wendy De La Rosa, a behavioral scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Data shows this passive “set it and forget it” approach helps people save more, because it leverages people’s tendency toward inertia, De La Rosa said. Even making small, regular automatic transfers can be impactful, she said.
She advocates for setting one financial goal at a time to avoid splitting attention across multiple priorities. For example, households can focus on first building an emergency fund, De La Rosa said.

Give yourself a ‘fresh start’ for savings

Milkman’s research shows that “fresh starts” are often the best time to set a new financial goal, she said.
These are moments like the start of a new year that feel like new beginnings, she said.

“There are moments in our lives when we are more motivated to make a change than on a mundane Wednesday,” Milkman said. “We feel a little bit of a disconnect from who we were before. And that gives us more optimism about what we can achieve,” she said.
It’s not just New Year’s Day, though: Mondays (the start of a new week), birthdays, holidays or the beginning of a school year can all be fresh starts, Milkman said. More

The Nvidia logo is displayed on a building at Nvidia headquarters on Aug. 27, 2025 in Santa Clara, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Despite macroeconomic uncertainties, several companies are well-positioned to deliver strong returns to investors from rapid technological advancements and artificial intelligence (AI) adoption.
To pick attractive stocks with strong prospects, investors can track top Wall Street analysts, whose recommendations are based on in-depth research and analysis of a company’s financials and growth drivers.

Here are three stocks favored by the Street’s top pros, according to TipRanks, a platform that ranks analysts based on their past performance.
Nvidia
We start with semiconductor giant Nvidia (NVDA), which has strengthened its dominant position through continued innovation and strategic deals, such as the recently announced $5 billion investment in Intel and massive $100 billion investment in OpenAI.
Following a conversation with Nvidia’s CFO on the OpenAI deal, Evercore analyst Mark Lipacis reiterated a buy rating on NVDA, saying the chip company is the “AI ecosystem of choice, not just with its CUDA software stack, but also with its connectivity solution, NVLink, which we think is poised to become a de facto standard.”
The top-rated analyst increased his price target on Nvidia to $225 from $214 and said that Nvidia remains a top pick for Evercore. TipRanks’ AI Analyst has an “outperform” rating on Nvidia stock with a price target of $204.
Highlighting the key takeaways from his conversation with the company’s CFO, Lipacis said that Nvidia will be the preferred supplier to OpenAI, adding that the ChatGPT platform has underestimated demand for its solution and wants to get ahead of future demand. Nvidia is well-positioned to help OpenAI with this infrastructure buildout.

Lipacis noted that the deal specifies at least 10 GW (gigawatts) of AI infrastructure, and Nvidia management confirmed that, historically, the company’s total addressable market (TAM) was $30 billion to $40 billion per GW, although it could increase in the future. The analyst increased his 2026 revenue and earnings per share (EPS) estimates by 2% for Nvidia, but thinks that his forecast may be conservative.
Lipacis ranks No. 53 among more than 10,000 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been successful 66% of the time, delivering an average return of 26.5%. See Nvidia ETF Exposure on TipRanks.
MongoDB
Next is database management software company MongoDB (MDB). The company recently held a MongoDB.local event in New York City, hosting an Investor Session focused on profitable growth and providing a 3- to 5-year financial framework.
Following the event, Needham analyst Mike Cikos reiterated a buy rating on MongoDB and increased his price target to $365 from $325. TipRanks’ AI Analyst is also bullish on MDB stock, giving it an “outperform” rating and a price target of $355.
Cikos said that while investors’ initial reaction to the high-teens revenue growth forecast was underwhelming, he expects both AI and competitive migrations to drive incremental growth for MongoDB.
The 5-star analyst noted that management plans to continue investing in the business, though at a slower rate than revenue and gross profit growth. MongoDB’s investments will mainly focus on developer awareness, research & development and its sales force.The company has also identified areas for optimization and expects its scale to drive profitable growth through efficiencies.
Cikos said that following the MongoDB.local event he is “incrementally more positive on MongoDB’s AI positioning,” driven by embeddings, which bridge data and Large Language Models (LLMs), and the continued integration of Voyage’s best-in-class models.
Cikos ranks No. 581 among more than 10,000 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been profitable 59% of the time, delivering an average return of 14.1%. See MongoDB Ownership Structure on TipRanks.

CrowdStrike

Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike (CRWD) is this week’s third pick. The cloud-native platform offers security solutions for critical areas of enterprise risk — endpoints and cloud workloads, identity, and data.
Following CrowdStrike’s recently held Fal.Con 2025 event, RBC Capital analyst Matthew Hedberg reiterated a buy rating on CrowdStrike with a 12-month price target of $510, saying the commentary from management, partners and customers reinforced his bullish long-term thesis. CrowdStrike remains one of RBC’s top cybersecurity ideas, he added. TipRanks’ AI Analyst has a “neutral” rating on CrowdStrike stock with a target price of $543.
“Overall, we thought the event made a compelling case for the company’s positioning as we enter the agentic era,” said Hedberg.
The 5-star analyst mainly noted lucrative prospects in agentic security for CrowdStrike and the evolution of its agentic security operations center (SOC). He added that management views the agentic revolution as a huge opportunity (potentially over a 100x), with the rise of more identities and complexity creating new security needs.
Management sees a total addressable market (TAM) of $300 billion in 2030, up from $140 billion in 2026, with key tailwinds resulting from market consolidation, the evolving threat landscape and technological advancements. Helped by these tailwinds, Hedberg believes CrowdStrike is well-positioned for continued market consolidation as it secures an AI-led transformation.  
Hedberg noted that CrowdStrike is about halfway through its $10 billion annual recurring revenue (ARR) goal for fiscal 2031. While cloud, the Next-Gen Identity Security offering and the Next-Gen SIEM platform are the key drivers for the current ARR of $4.7 billion, management expects agentic SOC to be the main catalyst for achieving the $10 billion ARR target for fiscal 2031. CrowdStrike expects Agentic Everywhere to be the key driver for the newly introduced $20 billion ARR target for fiscal 2036.
Hedberg ranks No. 37 among more than 10,000 analysts tracked by TipRanks. His ratings have been successful 70% of the time, delivering an average return of 21.6%. See CrowdStrike Insider Trading Activity on TipRanks. More

The Pentagon’s equity stake in rare earth miner MP Materials has investors wondering where the Trump administration might invest next.
The federal government needs to invest in additional miners to diversify the rare-earth supply chain, Energy Fuels CEO Mark Chalmers said.
The MP deal could serve as a blueprint for interventions in other critical mineral markets like lithium, executives, analysts and lobbyists say.

The Trump administration needs to strike multiple deals with U.S. miners to secure the nation’s supply chain against China, said Mark Chalmers, CEO of Energy Fuels, a miner focused on uranium and rare earth minerals.
The Pentagon decision to take an equity stake in MP Materials, the largest U.S. rare earth miner, in July and support the company with a price floor surprised many in the industry, Chalmers told CNBC.

But it was a necessary step that the White House should now follow with more deals to diversify the U.S. supply chain and reduce the risk that would come with backing a single national champion, the CEO said.
“One company doesn’t fix it,” Chalmers said of the MP Materials deal. “You have to have multiple deals to ensure that you don’t just have the company risk, because all companies aren’t going to deliver.”
The White House is “not ruling out other deals with equity stakes or price floors as we did with MP Materials, but that doesn’t mean every initiative we take would be in the shape of the MP deal,” a Trump administration official told CNBC.
Rare earths are key inputs in weapons platforms such as the F-35 warplane as well as consumer products like electric vehicles and smartphones. The U.S. is almost entirely dependent on China, which supplied 70% of rare earth imports in 2023, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. 
China has manipulated the market by suppressing prices to drive Western competition from the market, said Ryan Castilloux, founder of Adamas Intelligence, a critical mineral market research firm. The MP deal demonstrated that the U.S. is willing to break with free market ideals and push back against China by mimicking its model of strategic capitalism when necessary, Castilloux said.

“We’ve seen just how disadvantaged the free market view is versus a long term, industrial policy driven market — and something needed to give,” Castilloux, an expert on critical minerals, told CNBC.
Possible rare earth targets
Energy Fuels’ stock has surged nearly 200% since the MP deal on July 10, as investors speculate that it could be a deal target for the Trump administration. Critical mineral miner NioCorp Developments is also up almost 200%, Ramaco Resources has gained 140%, and USA Rare Earth is up more than 70%.
MP Materials will likely need more heavy rare earths as it develops a second facility to make magnets under the Defense Department deal, Castilloux said. Heavy rare earths are needed to produce magnets that can withstand high temperatures in EV motors and defense industry applications, he said.

Headquartered in Denver, Energy Fuels is the largest uranium miner in the U.S. and is forming a rare earth operation through mines it has acquired around the world. Its operation will produce heavy rare earths, Chalmers said.
Energy Fuels is focused on “providing a product that is attractive to the U.S government” and complements the strengths of MP Materials, the CEO said.
“The government cannot bet on one horse — it just doesn’t make sense,” Chalmers said. “We spend a lot of time in D.C. making sure they understand the merits of our strategy,” he said.
Trump eyes lithium
Other critical minerals like lithium, cobalt and graphite are ripe for federal investment to smooth out volatile price fluctuations that undermine U.S. miners, said Rich Nolan, CEO of the National Mining Association. Those minerals are all used in batteries, among other applications.
The Trump administration has proposed an equity stake in Lithium Americas, as the Canadian company renegotiates the terms of a $2.2 billion loan from the Department of Energy for its Thacker Pass mine in northern Nevada. The mine is expected to become one of the largest sources of lithium in North America, with the first phase of the project scheduled to start operations in late 2027.
Lithium Americas stock surged more than 90% this week on news of the potential government stake.
Albemarle CEO Kent Masters told CNBC that something “in the ballpark” of the MP deal could apply to the lithium sector. Albemarle, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is one of the largest lithium producers in the world.
“What you want to do is move the market such that private industry can invest behind it,” Masters told CNBC in July, pointing to Apple’s offtake agreement with MP just days after the Defense Department deal.

Miners seek price floors
While it might take a government equity stake to move the market in some cases, the price floor established by the Pentagon in the MP deal is the “critical part” that allows private industry to invest and build out the supply chain, Masters said.
Price support from the federal government “sends a true market signal that these investments are long term, that they are here to stay,” the National Mining Association’s Nolan said.
Under the MP deal, the Pentagon set a price floor of $110 per kilogram for neodymium-praseodymium oxide, or NdPr, a key input in rare-earth magnets. The government pays MP the difference when the market price is below $110 but in turn takes 30% of the upside when the price is above $110.
The price of NdPr surged 40% in the wake of the MP deal, Castilloux said.
“It serves as a blueprint for any market where suppressed pricing is slanting the competitive playing field against the U.S. and its allies,” the analyst said of the price floor. The deal signals that “there is a way to break free of China’s artificially suppressed pricing,” he said. More

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Hours after we first reported last week that Berkshire sold off the remainder of its stake in BYD earlier this year, the Chinese electric vehicle maker confirmed the news and thanked Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger for believing in the company.

In a post on the Chinese social media site Weibo, BYD public relations executive Li Yunfei wrote, as translated by Google:

“In August 2022, Berkshire began gradually reducing its holdings of company shares purchased in 2008, and by last June, its stake had fallen below 5%…Investing in stocks involves both buying and selling, which is completely normal…We are grateful for Charlie Munger’s and Warren Buffett’s recognition of BYD, as well as for the investment, support, and companionship over the past 17 years…Praise to all long-term believers!”

BYD Dolphin Surf electric cars are parked infront of the venue where BYD carmaker holds a vehicle presentation event in Berlin, Germany May 21, 2025.
Annegret Hilse | Reuters

BYD Executive Vice President Stella Li, appearing on CNBC Europe’s Access Middle East this week, echoed the Weibo post, saying Buffett and Munger “loved” BYD and its management, but “they are investors, so naturally buying and selling is their business, so it’s not because they don’t like us.”

And Reuters quotes a special adviser to BYD, Alfredo Altavilla, as saying that Buffett “made a profit of 20 times the capital he invested. He did very well to do what he did.”
“We’ve been extremely glad to have had Buffett (as an investor), but the fact that he monetised [UK spelling] his position is exactly what Berkshire Hathaway does for a living: buying, earning and selling.”
Investors around the world, however, were not as accepting.

BYD shares fell more than 6% this week in Hong Kong.

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 Second Japanese stake tops 10%

While Berkshire is closing out its Chinese investment, it continues to expand its holdings of Japanese “trading house” stocks.
This week, Mitsui said in a news release that it was “informed” by Berkshire that “they now hold 10% or more of the voting rights in Mitsui as a result of an additional acquisition of our shares.”
It did not, however, know the exact number of shares Berkshire now owns.
In a March 17 disclosure, Berkshire reporting holding a 9.8% stake of 285,401,400 Mitsui shares. They would be valued at around $7.3 billion at today’s close.
Late last month, a Mitsui official told Reuters Berkshire raised its stake but declined to give a percentage. 
At the same time, Mitsubishi said in a regulatory filing that Berkshire’s stake had increased to 10.2% from 9.7%.
We haven’t heard anything about Berkshire’s three other Japanese holdings, Itochu, Marubeni, and Sumitomo, but it would not be a surprise to learn those stakes have also gone above 10%.

BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ARCHIVE
Why Berkshire created Class B shares (1996)

Leading up to the Berkshire board’s vote on adding Class B shares, Warren Buffett explains the thinking behind the move.

BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH

Four weeks

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Twelve months

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BERKSHIRE’S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS – Sep. 26, 2025

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Berkshire’s top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on today’s closing prices.
Holdings are as of June 30, 2025 as reported in Berkshire Hathaway’s 13F filing on August 14, 2025, except for:

The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com’s Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS

Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at [email protected]. (Sorry, but we don’t forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)
If you aren’t already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.
Also, Buffett’s annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire’s website.
— Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch More

A Clear Channel Outdoor digital billboard displays a temperature of 102 degrees at 5:18 p.m. on northbound I-35 in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday, July 12, 2023.
Irwin Thompson | The Dallas Morning News via AP

Company: Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings (CCO)
Business: Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings is an outdoor advertising company that provides clients with advertising through billboards, street furniture displays, transit displays and other out-of-home advertising displays. The company operates entirely within the United States, with assets including printed and digital billboards, transit displays, including airports, street furniture and wallscapes and other spectaculars. 
Stock Market Value: $755.45 million ($1.52 per share) 

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Clear Channel Outdoor shares year to date

Activist: Anson Funds

Ownership: 3.65% 
Average Cost: n/a 
Activist Commentary: Anson Funds is a multistrategy fund founded in 2007 by Moez Kassam and has over $2 billion in assets. While not historically activists, on Oct. 3, 2023, Anson hired Sagar Gupta, former senior analyst and head of TMT investing at Legion Partners, to build out their activism strategy. 
What’s happening
On Sept. 22, Anson Funds announced that they are calling for a sale of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings. 
Behind the scenes
Clear Channel Outdoor is one of the largest out-of-home advertising companies that offers a variety of advertising services, including through billboards, street furniture displays, transit displays, and airport displays. In the U.S., they are one of the three big companies in this sector, with Lamar Advertising and Outfront Media numbers one and two, respectively.

Historically, the challenges for CCO have centered around the company’s two business lines – Americas and Europe, each with very different business models and valuations. The European business worked on fixed limited-term contracts with municipalities, which were re-bided at maturity. Because of this, the European business traded around 8x EBITDA multiple, while the U.S., largely comprised of owned billboards, traded closer 13 – 15x EBITDA.
These problems prompted Legion Partners to launch an activist campaign at CCO in May 2023, urging the company to consider a broad strategic review process, including divesting non-U.S. assets or a sale of the entire company. Legion also highlighted CCO’s potential value proposition through its transition to digital billboards, which would allow each billboard to generate about four times more revenue and six to 10 times more EBITDA. Ultimately, they settled for a board seat for Legion co-founder Ted White, who still serves as a director today. Since then, CCO has executed a series of divestures, including selling its European business to Bauer Media Group, its Latin America business to Global Vía Públic, and, just two weeks ago, its Spain business to Atresmedia. These moves have transformed CCO into a U.S. pureplay and allowed it to start paying down its debt. However, despite this successful activist catalyst, CCO is yet to achieve the rerating some expected – currently, CCO trades at approximately 13-14 times EBITDA, versus peers Lamar and Outfront at 16-18 times. As a result, the stock is down 26.56% since Legion filed its 13D and over 90% from its IPO price.
On Sept. 22, Anson Funds joined the party, announcing that they are calling for a sale of the company. While this is a new campaign for Anson, this is not the beginning of their investment story. Sagar Gupta, who runs Anson’s activism strategy, was at Legion Partners when they launched their campaign, and, perhaps not coincidentally, CCO has appeared in Anson’s 13F holdings every quarter since Gupta joined the fund, now with a 3.65% position as of their most recent filing. So, Anson’s call for a sale of the company is not a short-term, opportunistic campaign, but a decision made after years of analysis and working amicably with the company and at a time when it has become most feasible.
The company is now a U.S. pureplay, making it more focused and more valuable from a multiple perspective and easier to acquire from a regulatory perspective. Possible acquirers include JCDecaux and Lamar.
In fact, JCDecaux terminated an agreement to buy CCO’s Spain assets after facing restrictive demands from Spanish regulators. More specifically, JCDecaux maintains major exposure in virtually every OOH market outside the U.S. and has been rumored to be interested in the company.
As for Lamar, it has a history of acquiring CCO’s assets, including a $458.5 million transaction in 2016, and has publicly expressed potential interest in additional transactions. In addition, Blackstone’s recent acquisition of New Tradition at 18x EBITDA, Berkshire Hathaway’s new position in Lamar, and Ares Management’s 8% position in CCO, all underscore the private equity appetite for the OOH industry. 
Before coming to a decision like this, it is important to see what the standalone alternative looks like and why a sale may be more compelling for shareholders. To really properly restructure this business in the public market it would certainly require the time and risk of reconstituting the board and likely many management changes. Even with that, the company would still carry approximately $5 billion of long-term debt making it difficult to attract capital.
Additionally, CCO’s promising digital transformation has been very slow. Since Legion’s campaign, digital billboards have only grown to 5% of the portfolio, though they already count for over a third of CCO’s revenue. While this underscores the huge value opportunity with digital conversion, it requires approvals of individual municipalities, significantly slowing the speed at which CCO can roll out digital ads, and not ideal for a public company that reports quarterly progress. As a result, after years of analysis and support, Anson has concluded that a sale offers the best risk adjusted path forward, a position we imagine Legion and other shareholders likely share.
Ken Squire is the founder and president of 13D Monitor, an institutional research service on shareholder activism, and the founder and portfolio manager of the 13D Activist Fund, a mutual fund that invests in a portfolio of activist 13D investments. More

The backlog of student loan borrowers trying to access Public Service Loan Forgiveness continues to grow under the Trump administration.
As of Aug. 31, there were 74,510 applications pending for the PSLF Buyback program. That’s up from 72,730 in July and 65,448 borrowers at of the end of June.
PSLF Buyback allows borrowers who’ve hit 120 months of qualifying public service employment to submit a request to the Education Department to retroactively pay for — or “buy back” — any months they missed because of a forbearance or deferment.

Alex Potemkin | E+ | Getty Images

More than 74,000 federal student loan borrowers are stuck in a backlog of applications for a popular student loan forgiveness program.
That program, called Public Service Loan Forgiveness Buyback, allows borrowers pursuing PSLF to get their debt wiped away sooner than they might have expected. Signed into law in 2007 by President George W. Bush, PSLF offers debt cancellation to those who’ve spent a decade working for certain not-for-profits or the government.

As of Aug. 31, there’s a 74,510-person backlog of borrowers waiting to have the U.S. Department of Education process their buyback applications, according to a new court filing. That’s up from 72,730 in July and 65,448 borrowers as of the end of June. During the month of August, just 5,600 buyback applications were processed, the filing shows.
The U.S. Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.
More from Personal Finance:As some colleges near $100,000, these schools are freeThese college majors have the best job prospectsStudent loan forgiveness may soon be taxed again
The Education Department has regularly shared data on pending buyback requests as part of a lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Teachers. The teacher’s union alleges the agency is blocking borrowers from their rights.
Some of the borrowers CNBC has spoken with describe waiting for half a year or more for a determination on their buyback request.

Here’s what student loan borrowers need to know about the program and its current challenges.

PSLF Buyback applications pile up under Trump

The Biden administration first offered PSLF Buyback in the summer of 2023.
The opportunity allows borrowers who’ve hit 120 months of qualifying public service employment to submit a request to the Education Department to retroactively pay for — or “buy back” — any months they missed because of a forbearance or deferment. During those payment pauses, borrowers typically don’t get credit toward PSLF.
The Buyback program became especially popular after courts blocked the Biden-era Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan in the summer of 2024. Millions of student loan borrowers who signed up for SAVE were automatically enrolled in a forbearance during that legal battle. Those borrowers found their progress towards PSLF frozen throughout the payment pause, even as they continued to work in eligible public service.
Now applications have piled up under the Trump administration. In March, Trump officials terminated nearly half of the staff at the Education Department, including many of the people who assisted borrowers.

Student loan borrowers should still apply

Despite the PSLF buyback delays, “if you are eligible, there’s no harm in submitting the application,” said Nancy Nierman, assistant director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program in New York.
“But if you can afford payments in other repayment plans, don’t rely solely on the Buyback to get you to 120 qualifying payments, particularly if you only need a few months of credit to reach forgiveness,” she said.

You can apply for Buyback and also submit paperwork to switch into another repayment plan at the same time. But there’s a backlog of repayment plan applications, too. More than one million requests for a new plan are pending with the department, court records also show.
While you can remain in the SAVE forbearance for now, borrowers’ debts began accruing interest again in August.
If you continue making payments on your loans after you’ve applied for a buyback offer, or if the Education Department finds you’ve made more than the required 120 qualifying payments for PSLF, you’re entitled to a refund from the government, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. He has heard from people who’ve gotten one in this scenario.

How to apply for PSLF Buyback

You can apply for the Buyback program through the PSLF Reconsideration portal on your Federal Student Aid account, Nierman said
Consumer advocates recommend keeping track of when you submitted your buyback request (you should receive a confirmation email) and the number of your qualifying PSLF payments. That figure should be accessible on your student loan account.

How your buyback offer is calculated

After you’ve submitted your buyback request, the Education Dept. is supposed to send you an offer letter. That should include the number of monthly payments you missed during your public service history, and a chance to pay that bill now in exchange for student loan forgiveness.
How the government calculates your missed monthly payments is complicated, said Kantrowitz. But it’s usually based on what your bills were before and after the period during which you weren’t making qualifying payments, Kantrowitz said.
Some people who have low incomes are eligible for zero-dollar payments, and they might not have to pay anything to get their debt cleared.
Once you get the offer letter, Kantrowitz said, “You must pay the amount to your loan servicer within 90 days.” More