Business

The Garden City Port Terminal in Savannah, Georgia.Sean Rayford | Getty ImagesUncertainty among U.S. shippers is escalating into 2025 with the expectation of new Trump tariffs and the possibility of a new ports strike that could begin in mid-January. Supply chain and logistics executives tell CNBC that shippers are now trying to game out the snafus that could be coming in the global supply chain and how much inventory to order against a consumer backdrop that remains strong, but subject to macroeconomic risks, and an early start to Lunar New Year, a holiday period in Asia during which manufacturing operations halt for as long as a month.In an advisory to clients, Honour Lane Shipping said it did not expect a volume spike in November because it took two to three weeks for production cycles ...

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon speaks at the Computex forum in Taipei, Taiwan, June 3, 2024.Ann Wang | ReutersQualcomm said on Tuesday that it expects its push into new markets to generate an additional $22 billion per year by 2029.Of that amount, roughly $4 billion will come from PC chips, Qualcomm said at its investor day on Tuesday. The chipmaker just introduced PC processors earlier this year, when it released Snapdragon X for Windows devices.The latest forecast marks an important milestone for Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, who took over the company in 2021 with a promise to get past a reliance on smartphones. In fiscal 2024, Qualcomm's handset business reported $24.86 billion in sales, about 75% of its entire chip business.Qualcomm also said on Tuesday that automotive revenues would rise ...

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) building in Beijing on Dec. 15, 2022.Bloomberg | Getty ImagesChina's central bank on Wednesday kept major benchmark lending rates unchanged, as Beijing assesses the effects of its existing stimulus measures. The People's Bank of China said it would keep the 1-year loan prime rate at 3.1%, and the 5-year LPR at 3.6%.Market watchers polled by Reuters had expected PBOC to keep the lending rates unchanged this month.There was "no immediate need to adjust the LPR this month," said Bruce Pang, chief economist and head of research for Greater China at JLL, adding that the Chinese leaders were likely still assessing the impacts of recent stimulus. The record-low net interest margins at Chinese commercial banks have limited their ability to support lower lending ra...

The Comcast NBC logo is shown on a building in Los Angeles, California, June 13, 2018.Mike Blake | ReutersComcast is moving forward with the spinoff of its cable network channels, people familiar with the matter told CNBC on Tuesday.The separation is expected to take about a year, and an announcement from the company could come as early as Wednesday, the people said.The new entity will be led by Mark Lazarus, the current chairman of NBCUniversal's media group, one of the people said. NBCUniversal's Chief Financial Officer Anand Kini, will serve as the CFO and operating chief of the new entity, the person said.Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts will maintain a voting position in the company, but will not serve as an officer or on the board of directors, the person added.The spinoff wil...

Nvidia earnings results this week are more important to the stock market than the Federal Reserve or even jobs data, according to the options market. The artificial intelligence chipmaker is set to release results Wednesday after the stock market closes, moving back into the spotlight on Wall Street following a lengthy focus on the U.S. presidential election and the Federal Reserve's interest rate outlook. But Jensen Huang's company remains crucially important to the market, according to Wall Street firms tracking the options market. "While election implications, rates volatility and the Fed dominate conversations, options tell us NVDA earnings are still a very big deal for the market," Gonzalo Asis, equity-linked analyst at Bank of America Securities, wrote Sunday. Asis says future implie...

Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz poses for a portrait outside of a poling location during the primary election in Rockledge, Pennsylvania, U.S. May 17, 2022. Hannah Beier | ReutersPresident-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would nominate Dr. Mehmet Oz — celebrity TV host and former U.S. Senate candidate — as Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator.CMS operates or oversees programs that provide health coverage to about 1 out of every 2 Americans, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Obamacare marketplace exchange Healthcare.gov.Those four programs account for $1.6 trillion in spending, or nearly 25% of the entire federal budget, which Trump highlighted in announcing the heart surgeon Oz was his pick...

SpaceX is set to launch its sixth test flight of its Starship rocket on Tuesday, as the company looks to keep up momentum of the mammoth vehicle's development.The company has a 30-minute window, from 5 p.m. ET to 5:30 p.m. ET, to launch Starship from its private "Starbase" facility near Brownsville, Texas. If SpaceX is unable to launch within that window for weather or technical reasons, the company will postpone the attempt to a later date.There will not be any people on board the Starship flight.SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket is prepared for launch at the company's Boca Chica launchpad, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S., November 16, 2024. Joe Skipper | ReutersAssuming the launch goes according to plan, Starship would reach space and then tr...

Since early last year Nvidia (NVDA) has become the Super Bowl of earnings and like the actual big game, it comes right at the end of the season. Here we are at the end of third-quarter earnings reporting season and markets are again on pins and needles waiting for Nvidia's earnings Wednesday after the market close to see if this boom in artificial intelligence and data center buildouts continues. We'll talk about what we're expecting after the report, and how we plan to hedge in the event that earnings fail to impress, much like we saw in the prior Q2 report. Fundamental outlook The analyst community is looking for Nvidia to report 75 cents in EPS on $33.13 billion in revenue, according to FactSet. The focus will be on the new Blackwell GPU that has been covered heavily with reports of it ...

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThe stock prices for H&R Block and Intuit fell after a Tuesday report saying the Trump transition team is considering creating a free tax-filing app.Intuit, which makes the TurboTax tax-filing software, was down 5%, putting it on pace for its worst day since Aug. 23, when the company's stock price fell nearly 7%. H&R Block was down 8% and on pace for its worst day since 2020.President-elect Donald Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency" has held "highly preliminary" discussions about creating the free tax-filing app, The Washington Post reported. DOGE will be led by billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and aims to slash governmental spending.A DOGE tax-filing app would represent a competitor...

The intended Department of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could push through policies that will provide a tailwind for some food and beverage stocks, despite the pressure the sector has seen since news of his potential appointment. "A knock-on effect of RFK could be expansion of an already strong trend toward healthy eating," Wells Fargo equity analyst Edward Kelly wrote in a Monday note. "This could drive increased consumption of higher margin fresh, natural, and organic products." Kennedy is a vaccine skeptic and he opposes artificial ingredients. These stances have recently led to a pull back in biotechnology stocks , while food and beverage stocks also came under pressure in recent days due to President-elect Donald Trump's plans to nominate Kennedy to lead HHS...