Investing

Monday – Friday, 2:00 – 3:00 PM ET

Power Lunch Podcast

Wall Street is optimistic that Olema Pharmaceutical could be developing the next major breakthrough breast cancer treatment.
Earlier this month, the company announced promising clinical data for its lead candidate palazestrant, an oral medication that is being evaluated in several trials for estrogen receptor-positive, or ER+, breast cancer.

Shares of the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company are up about 50% this year, and more than 70% over the past three months. Analysts polled by FactSet see plenty of upside ahead for Olema. Their average price target of $23.71 per share suggests the stock could skyrocket about 164% from its last closing price.
Olema was included in CNBC’s recent screen of companies headquartered in San Francisco, with market caps under $500 million, that have captured the market’s interest.

Stock chart icon

Olema stock performance over the past year.

Investors are bullish on palazestrant ahead of a primary readout from a key clinical trial expected in the second half of 2026. Those results could potentially lead to a submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and subsequent commercialization of the therapy.
“You just have to look at our data. The best way to predict how a drug is going to do, or how a combination of drugs is going to do, is to look at the data produced with that drug or that combination,” Olema CEO Sean Bohen said on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” “I think if [investors] take the time to sit down and look at that, they are going to see that there is a reason for the optimism the analysts have, and certainly for our investigators and the patients.”
Palazestrant is a part of the same therapeutic family as tamoxifen, another estrogen receptor-targeting therapy that was approved in 1997. However, Olema’s drug doesn’t have an agonist effect, which means it doesn’t spark a physiological response elsewhere in the body. Fulvestrant, another therapy in the family, also works to eliminate breast cancer but has distinct limitations given that it is injected, rather than taken orally like palazestrant.

Palazestrant is uniquely designed to shut off the estrogen receptor “all the time and completely … and thereby, delay the progression of the growth of the tumor and keep the disease stable for longer,” Bohen said.
“We’re focusing on the vast majority of patients who are diagnosed with breast cancer, which is the ER, estrogen receptor, positive or two negative population, or about 70%,” he said. “We’re taking one of the oldest validated molecular targets in cancer, the estrogen receptor … and what we’re doing is we’re improving on targeting that particular driver of the growth and proliferation of breast cancer to provide better therapy for breast cancer patients.”
Bohen explained that there have been other attempts to improve upon that, which haven’t really solved the problem. “So that’s what we’re trying to do,” he said. More

The Trump administration is moving closer to limiting eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a popular program for student loan borrowers that leads to debt cancellation after a decade of service.
Organizations “that engage in unlawful activities” such as “supporting terrorism and aiding and abetting illegal immigration” will be excluded from the program, according to an Education Department statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks during a luncheon in the Rose Garden of the White House on Oct. 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Education released its final rule on Thursday aimed at limiting eligibility for a popular student loan forgiveness program for public servants.
The rule, which takes effect July 1, 2026, will change the definition of a “qualifying employer” under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. PSLF, signed into law in 2007 by George W. Bush, offers debt cancellation after a decade to borrowers who work for non-profits and the government.

Under the new Trump administration policy, organizations “that engage in unlawful activities” such as “supporting terrorism and aiding and abetting illegal immigration” will be excluded from the program, according to an Education Department statement.
More than 40 million Americans hold student loans, and the outstanding debt exceeds $1.6 trillion. Over 9 million borrowers may be eligible for PSLF, according to a 2022 estimate from Protect Borrowers, a nonprofit focused on student loans.

Read more CNBC personal finance coverage

Rule focuses on ‘unlawful activities’

While it will be up to the Education Department secretary to decide exactly which non-profits will lose eligibility, the agency’s language in a fact sheet suggested those that work with immigrants and transgender people would be under new scrutiny.
Mike Pierce, co-founder and executive director of Protect Borrowers, wrote on X earlier this year that the Trump administration was using the PSLF program to penalize organizations that it dislikes.

“Donald Trump is weaponizing debt to police speech that does not toe the MAGA party line,” Pierce wrote.

Borrowers who are currently working for or previously worked for an organization that the Trump administration later excludes from the program will still get credit for that time — at least up until the changes go into effect in July.
The regulations are expected to face legal challenges. More

The Social Security Administration announced a 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment for 2026.
Some Democratic Senators say they believe the increase won’t be enough to help beneficiaries cope with rising costs.
On Thursday, a group of lawmakers will propose a bill to increase benefits by $200 per month for six months.

A Social Security Administration office in Washington, D.C., March 26, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

To help Social Security and Veterans Affairs beneficiaries cope with higher prices, a group of Democratic senators are proposing to increase benefits by $200 per month for six months.
The bill — called the Social Security Emergency Inflation Relief Act — is backed by Democratic Senators including Mark Kelly of Arizona, Alex Padilla of California, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Tina Smith of Minnesota, Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer of New York, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Peter Welch of Vermont.

The leaders plan to introduce the proposal on Thursday morning, according to a Warren spokesperson.
The extra $200-per-month emergency increase would boost benefit payments through July 2026, according to the senators’ proposal. The benefit boost would apply to individuals receiving benefits from Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, railroad retirement, veteran disability compensation and veteran pensions.

Read more CNBC personal finance coverage

The proposal follows the Social Security Administration’s Friday announcement of a 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment for 2026. The annual adjustment is intended to help Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits maintain their buying power.
The 2.8% increase will add about $56 per month to Social Security retirement benefits, on average, starting in January, according to the Social Security Administration.
Almost 71 million Social Security beneficiaries will see the 2026 cost-of-living adjustment reflected in their payments starting in January, according to the Social Security Administration, while nearly 7.5 million Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries will see the benefit boost starting in late December.

An ’emergency lifeline for seniors’

The adjustment for 2026 is “not enough” for seniors who face “skyrocketing” costs when it comes to groceries, health care and utilities, Warren wrote in an Oct. 24 social media post.
In a statement, Warren called the bill to provide an extra $200 per month to beneficiaries an “emergency lifeline for seniors struggling to afford Trump’s tariffs and rising inflation.”
Schumer, in a separate statement, said the Social Security COLA is “simply not reflective of the current reality” for seniors as they see their bank accounts shrinking.

The latest consumer price index data shows inflation increased at an annual rate of 3% in September, which was lower than expectations. While that rate is above the 2% target the Federal Reserve has set, inflation is easing in some areas, according to the data.
Price levels from the 2025 tariffs are expected to rise by 1.3%, according to an Oct. 17 analysis by Yale’s Budget Lab, prompting an average household income loss of $1,800 in 2025.
In 2026, retirees may face higher premiums for Medicare Part B. Those monthly premium payments are typically deducted directly from Social Security checks, and therefore affect how much of the cost-of-living adjustment beneficiaries may see.
The projected standard Medicare Part B premium for 2026 is $206.50 per month, according to projections from Medicare trustees. That would be a $21.50 increase from the $185 standard premium rate in place for 2025.

On Monday, another group of Democratic lawmakers proposed a bill, the Boosting Benefits and COLAs for Seniors Act, that calls for basing the annual cost-of-living adjustment on the CPI-E, or Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, a research index that tracks the spending patterns of Americans ages 62 and over.
Social Security’s annual COLA adjustments are currently based on a subset of the consumer price index — the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, which tracks price changes for goods and services bought by certain workers.
Changing the Social Security COLA to be indexed to the CPI-E would increase the future adjustments by about 0.2 percentage points, Social Security’s chief actuary has estimated, according to research from the Bipartisan Policy Center. That change would also increase the program’s long-term shortfall by an estimated 11%, according to the estimate.
It is not clear how much the senators’ proposal to add $200 per month to benefits would cost or whether it would affect Social Security’s trust fund depletion dates. The Congressional Budget Office has not scored the proposal. More

More buyers are turning to adjustable-rate mortgages, which offer lower initial rates than fixed-rate loans.
Some ARMs could shave almost a percentage point off the 30-year fixed rate, recent data shows.
For those who meet the criteria, ARMs may be “underappreciated,” according to an advisor on CNBC’s Financial Advisor 100 for 2025.
But there are some risks for home buyers to consider.

Wednesday’s Federal Reserve decision, along with expectations that the Fed could cut interest rates again before the end of the year, may put more downward pressure on mortgage rates — finally providing a little relief for would-be homebuyers.
A 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage fell to 6.3% for the week ended Oct. 24, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Although mortgage rates are now at their lowest level since September 2024, the average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage is still significantly higher compared to the under-3% levels near the start of the pandemic.
Those relatively high mortgage rates, along with high home prices and uncertainty about the economy, have kept many would-be buyers on the sidelines.
But adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, offer even lower initial rates than fixed-rate loans. With these mortgages, the initial interest rate is fixed for a set amount of time — often five, seven or 10 years — before adjusting based on interest rate changes.
The ARM rate is currently almost a percentage point lower than the 30-year fixed rate, according to the MBA’s data from earlier this month.
For a 5/1 ARM, the average interest rate is 5.66%, according to the MBA.

At this point, ARMs may be “an underappreciated opportunity,” according to Brad Houle, principal and head of fixed income at Ferguson Wellman Capital Management in Portland, Oregon, which ranked No. 12 on CNBC’s Financial Advisor 100 for 2025.

More from CNBC’s Financial Advisor 100:

Here’s a look at more coverage of CNBC’s Financial Advisor 100 list of top financial advisory firms for 2025:

Because these home loans are less expensive in the short term, adjustable-rate mortgages are making a comeback, experts say. ARMs accounted for about 10% of all mortgage applications in September, according to the MBA, the highest share in almost two years.
“That has been a trend that has been pretty consistent, and a lot of that is because the arm rate is significantly lower than the fixed rate,” said Joel Kan, MBA’s vice president and deputy chief economist.
“If you assume a $400,000 loan, that’s about a $200-per-month lower payment. That’s a big reason for why ARMs in general have been more popular,” Kan said.

A ‘For Sale’ sign is posted beside property for sale in Alhambra, California, on August 28, 2025.
Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Yet, ARMs still aren’t nearly as trendy as they were during the subprime mortgage crisis in the mid-2000s — when the ARM share peaked at 35%, but looser credit standards then caused problems for many borrowers.
“ARMs do have a bad reputation from the financial crisis,” said Houle.
However, a lot has changed since then. These days, “the tendency is for ARM borrowers to be higher credit quality because they are pretty stringently underwritten,” said MBA’s Kan.
That means ARMs may also be harder to qualify for and are often reserved for larger loan sizes.

Some risks of ARMs remain

“For potential homebuyers on the sidelines, that is a good way to finance a purchase,” Houle said, particularly if long-term interest rates continue to fall. Although adjustable-rate mortgages are pegged to the prime rate, the 10-year Treasury influences the longer-term outlook.

Some risks remain. After a certain period, the rate on the ARM will adjust to reflect current market conditions. If rates have moved higher, borrowers could end up with an interest rate that is substantially higher than a fixed-rate loan — and a bigger monthly mortgage payment.
Problems will arise “if there is a payment adjustment and the borrower is not equipped to handle that change in payment,” said Kan.
For that reason, an ARM may make sense for buyers who anticipate moving or refinancing into a fixed-rate loan before the initial rate period expires.
Whether this is the right option often depends on your time horizon, Kan said.
Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. More

The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by 25 basis points on Wednesday.
The central bank’s move will have a ripple effect on many of the borrowing and savings rates consumers see every day.
From credit cards and mortgage rates to auto loans and savings accounts, here’s a look at all of the ways a Fed rate cut could affect your finances.

Jerome Powell, chair of the US Federal Reserve, during a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, July 30, 2025.
Bloomberg | Getty

The Federal Reserve cut borrowing costs for the second time in a row on Wednesday.
Lowering the federal funds rate by a quarter point puts that benchmark in a range between 3.75%-4.00%. The decision comes amid intense pressure from President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly called on Fed Chair Jerome Powell to drastically lower rates, arguing that would make it easier for businesses and consumers to borrow and boost the economy.

The federal funds rate, which is set by the Federal Open Market Committee, is the interest rate at which banks borrow and lend to one another overnight. Although that’s not the rate consumers pay, the Fed’s moves have a ripple effect on many types of consumer products.
For Americans who are stretched thin, this latest move could bring some relief from high borrowing costs, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s. “Their standard of living has flatlined, and a lot of people are uncomfortable with that,” Zandi said. “Many are borrowing money to supplement their income, and now they are paying interest on that debt.”

Read more CNBC personal finance coverage

Many shorter-term consumer rates are closely pegged to the prime rate, which is the rate that banks set and extend to their most creditworthy customers — typically 3 percentage points higher than the federal funds rate. Longer-term rates are also influenced by inflation and other economic factors.
From credit cards and car loans to mortgage rates, student debt and savings accounts, here’s a look at how the central bank’s policy could impact the rates you see.

Credit cards

Credit cards are one of the main sources of unsecured borrowing, and 60% of credit card users carry debt from month to month, according to a March report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

But credit card rates are currently near an all-time high, averaging more than 20%, according to Bankrate.
Since most credit cards have a variable rate, there’s a direct connection to the Fed’s benchmark. When the Fed lowers rates, the prime rate also comes down and the interest rate on your credit card debt could adjust within a billing cycle or two. Yet even then, credit card APRs will still be at extremely high levels.

Damircudic | E+ | Getty Images

When the Fed cut rates in the second half of 2024, lowering its benchmark by a full point by December, the average credit card rate fell by only 0.23% over the same period, an analysis by CardRatings found.
“A quarter-point rate cut is good, but it doesn’t really change a lot for people carrying a balance on their credit card,” said Stephen Kates, a financial analyst at Bankrate.
When it comes to savings on interest charges, “we are talking about dollars per month,” Kates said. “That’s not nothing, but it’s also not a lot.”
For example, if you have $7,000 in credit card debt on a card with a 24.19% interest rate and pay $250 per month on that balance, lowering the APR by a quarter-point would save about $61 over the lifetime of the loan, according to calculations by Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief credit analyst.

Mortgages

Although mortgages make up the lion’s share of consumer debt, those longer-term loans are less impacted by the Fed. Both 15- and 30-year mortgage rates are fixed for the life of the loan, so most homeowners won’t be immediately affected by a rate cut.
Mortgages are also more closely tied to Treasury yields and the economy. Still, homebuyers could benefit if the expectation of future cuts puts downward pressure on mortgage rates.
“This presents a tangible opportunity for consumers,” said Michele Raneri, vice president and head of U.S. research and consulting at TransUnion.

For example, with another 25-basis-point reduction, a new home buyer securing a $350,000 mortgage at a 6.75% interest rate could potentially see their monthly payments fall by nearly $150, according to Raneri. “Over time, such savings can significantly ease household budget pressures,” she said.
Other home loans are more closely tied to the Fed’s moves. Adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, and home equity lines of credit, or HELOCs, are pegged to the prime rate. Most ARMs adjust once a year, but a HELOC adjusts right away.

Auto loans

Beyond mortgages and credit card debt, auto loans also account for a significant share of household expenses. But the interest rate is only one factor: High prices and Trump’s tariffs have worsened the affordability equation for car shoppers.
Since auto loan rates, like most mortgages, are fixed for the life of the loan, experts say potential car buyers could mostly benefit if borrowing costs come down in the future.
“While another 25-basis-point rate cut may not drastically lower monthly payments in today’s high-rate, high-price environment, it could help lift consumer confidence,” said Joseph Yoon, Edmunds’ consumer insights analyst.

Salesman Walter Silva (R) helps Alexis Lechanet shop for a Ford vehicle at Metro Ford on May 6, 2025 in Miami, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images

“More importantly, it may signal that lenders and automakers are preparing to introduce additional financing incentives as we head into the holiday season,” he said. “For many shoppers who’ve been waiting for the right deal, this could be the moment when more attractive offers finally start to appear.”

Student loans

Federal student loan rates are also fixed. The rate for new loans only resets once a year on July 1, so most borrowers won’t be immediately affected by a rate cut.
Eventually, as rates fall, borrowers with fixed-rate private student loans may be able to refinance into a less expensive loan, according to higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.
However, refinancing a federal loan into a private student loan will forgo some of the “superior benefits” of federal student loans, he said, such as better deferments and forbearances, as well as the income-driven repayment plans, loan forgiveness and discharge options that exist for now. Trump’s “big beautiful bill” will phase out some of those repayment plans in 2028. 

Also, some private loans have a variable rate tied to the Treasury bill or other benchmarks, which means borrowers with variable-rate private student loans may automatically get a lower interest rate in line with the Fed’s move, Kantrowitz said. 

Savings rates

For savers, it’s more important to take matters into your own hands now that the Fed is on a rate-cutting path. While the central bank has no direct influence on deposit rates, the yields tend to be correlated with changes in the target federal funds rate.
“Yields on high-interest savings accounts and CDs are only going to keep dropping,” said LendingTree’s Schulz. “It is likely time to act to lock in today’s high rates.”
For now, top-yielding online savings accounts and one-year certificate of deposit rates pay more than 4%, according to Bankrate, still above the rate of inflation.
Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. More

The federal funds rate may fall to 3.1% by the end of 2027, according to a September forecast from the Federal Open Market Committee.
Reductions in interest rates influence yields on savings accounts and can potentially alter longer-term financing rates for cars and homes.
Lower interest rates lead to asset price booms, which disproportionately benefit wealthier and older segments of the population.

The Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates on Wednesday, and wealthy U.S. households may benefit most. 
The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which banks borrow and lend to one another overnight. A quarter-point reduction would bring the benchmark rate to a range between 3.75%-4.00%. It could fall to 3.1% by the end of 2027, according to a September forecast from the Federal Open Market Committee. 

“That really sets the floor for all other interest rates,” said Michael Wagner, co-founder of Omnia Family Wealth in Aventura, Florida. “We ultimately start earning less money on cash, which makes it less attractive versus other investments.”

Read more CNBC personal finance coverage

Reductions in the fed funds rate typically set off a chain reaction throughout the economy.
For example, cash held in high-yield savings accounts typically earns less money soon after a reduction in the federal funds rate. The change in short-term interest rates can also potentially lead to cheaper terms on longer-term loans, such as mortgages.

Fed cuts may ‘widen the generational wealth gap’

Lower interest rates can speed up economic growth and lead to an increase in hiring, experts say.  But they are also associated with rising levels of wealth inequality. 
“The Fed’s easing cycle could unintentionally widen the generational wealth gap, lifting the net worth of retirees, baby boomers,” said Kathryn Rooney Vera, a chief market strategist at StoneX Group.

That’s because asset price booms tend to follow Fed rate cuts, and older, wealthier consumers — who own more stocks — disproportionately benefit from those market gains. Meanwhile, younger and less advantaged households with more of their assets in cash may see their returns diminish.

The top 0.1% wealthiest households own over $23 trillion in financial assets as of the second quarter of 2025, according to Federal Reserve data. That’s a 91.2% increase from the $12.32 trillion recorded in the first quarter of 2020.
By contrast, the bottom half of the U.S. population holds about $10 trillion in assets. That’s a 46.6% increase from the start of 2020, when this segment held just $6.93 trillion in assets.
Watch the video above to see how the Fed’s decision to lower interest rates affects your wealth. More

Monday – Friday, 2:00 – 3:00 PM ET

Power Lunch Podcast

Planet Labs stock has been on a tear over the last few months as investors bet on the company’s satellite data offerings.
Shares have surged since early September and are up more than 100% over the last three months, making it one of the best performers in CNBC’s screen of San Francisco-based companies. The stock has soared more than 215% this year, building on last year’s gain of more than 60%.

“We are starting to see investors wake up to the potential of our business,” Ashley Johnson, the company’s president and chief financial officer, told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in an exclusive interview on Tuesday.

Stock chart icon

Plant Labs in 2025

Sullivan is interviewing the leaders of top-performing San Francisco stocks all week. The interviews can be viewed on the Power Lunch’s homepage.
Johnson said Planet Labs documents everything going on across the planet with its hundreds of satellites. From there, the company utilizes artificial intelligence to help its customer base of governments and large companies to make decisions.
Historically, she said the industry has been more focused on “point-and-click” data that captures a place at any given moment in time. But Johnson said Planet Labs is “shifting the paradigm” by using large quantities of data and measuring things like the land surface temperature that are untraceable by the human eye.
Planet Labs uses machines “to do correlations over very large areas, and then derive really important decision-making capabilities from that,” Johnson said. “That is very different from: ‘Can I count how many cars are in this parking lot using this image that I took over that parking lot?'”

Johnson noted that each satellite costs around $300,000 to produce and launch, a price she says has been driven down by Silicon Valley’s innovation. In fact, she said the cumulative cost of Planet Lab’s more than 600 satellites is lower than what one from the traditional industry would have been a decade ago.
Planet Labs’ margins get a boost due to the fact that the company can sell the same data to multiple clients, Johnson said. She said the company is seeing heightened interest from governments looking for an edge amid geopolitical uncertainty.
To be sure, the stock hit a rough patch earlier this year with declines of more than 20% in both February and March.
But the majority of analysts have a buy rating on the stock, according to LSEG. Wall Street also expects the stock to run further, with an average price target implying 5% more upside. More

Monday – Friday, 2:00 – 3:00 PM ET

Power Lunch Podcast

Investors are noticing ripe opportunity in Cytokinetics, a late-stage biopharma company targeting medicines for specialty heart diseases, that has seen shares skyrocket in recent months.
Shares of Cytokinetics have jumped about 69% over the past three months and are up 31% year to date. The stock is one of the top-performing San Francisco-based companies profiled by CNBC’s Brian Sullivan on Power Lunch this week from the City by the Bay.

The stock surged in early September after the company posted strong phase 3 trial results for its lead cardio drug called Aficamten, a cardiac myosin inhibitor, which showed an improvement in exercise capacity in patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Cytokinetics is now awaiting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its drug, fueling strong investor interest in the company as this drug could disrupt a space dominated by publicly traded biotech giant Bristol Myers Squibb.

Stock chart icon

Cytokinetics stock performance over the past month.

Cytokinetics originally discovered and developed drugs that are tied to heart disease, and one of those drugs, called Mavacamten, was later acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2020. Under the transaction agreements, Bristol Myers Squibb obtained the rights to use the drug for products it is developing or commercializing, while Cytokinetics gained capital which it then used to fund more clinical trials.
Now, Cytokinetics’ new drug is looking to compete directly with Bristol Myers Squibb, given that it targets the same disease.
“[Bristol Myers Squibb] are actually commercializing a medicine that was discovered in our laboratories, and ultimately the subject of a company we formed that they acquired. They’re now selling that, doing a great job. Patients are benefiting from that medicine,” Blum said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Power Lunch.” We’re now in the process of developing a next-generation medicine that will hopefully enter the same space. It’s in front of the FDA for a potential approval later this year.”
Cytokinetics has received funding from specialized biotech financing firms, and uses a mix of royalty financing and partnerships to secure investments for its drug development.

“That journey required us to do a number of things as we invested in research at the moment, and ultimately did some financial engineering in order to support the billions of dollars that we’ve spent advancing a portfolio of potential medicines,” Blum told CNBC. He added that heart disease is the primary reason for hospitalization among Americans, especially an increasing aging demographic.
“Our pipeline, our portfolio of potential medicines directed to those diseases, we’re in a good position to build an enduring business starting with this first potential medicine,” he said. More