"I didn’t fall in love with acting by watching TV or movies. Instead, I fell in love with the power to make people feel things." www.wsj.com/real-estate/...

"Only about 11% of companies that have gone public through a SPAC merger since 2019 are trading above their issue price, and dozens went bust just months after listing on US stock exchanges." www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

AI euphoria may be blinding Washington to the effects of its policies on the rest of the economy: "This thing is so large that it’s breaking people’s mental models of how the economy works, and they’re making mistakes as a result" www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

The number of global rate cuts just one away from the post-financial crisis high, per BofA

JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon: "If you open a newspaper any day of any year, there are serious issues the world's facing. I do think they're a little more serious today than they've been since World War II. It doesn't mean they don't resolve...but we should think about the future, in light of them."

Please tune in tomorrow on CNBC! ⏰ 7am ET: Carlyle CEO Harvey Schwartz ⏰ 12:40pm ET: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon ⏰ 2pm ET: Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick

"We weren’t chasing hype for its own sake. We were trying to spark the feeling that draws people to Burning Man or the World Cup: the thrill of witnessing something unrepeatable." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/21/o...

GOLDMAN SACHS: "Short interest for the median S&P 500 stock represents 2.3% of float, near the highest level since 2019." Goldman's Crowding Index remains near record highs and market breadth registers one of the narrowest levels in recent decades -- ripe conditions for short squeezes.

“I lost $400,000 in Yieldstreet. I consider myself moderately financially savvy, and I got duped by this company. I just worry that it’s going to keep happening to others.” Great piece by @cnbc.com's Hugh Son www.cnbc.com/2025/08/18/y...

Shares of CoreWeave down 13%, in part, due to the anticipated flood of share supply that could pressure the stock in the short run. CoreWeave's lock-up on 83.7% of shares expires tonight -- not 180 days after its IPO, as is typical, but rather two trading days after this quarter's earnings. 🧵/1`

Busy week for the “S-word”. 👀 @marketwatch.com @opinion.bloomberg.com

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to CNBC on *if* it were to ever go public: "I get why people would like love for us to be public sooner. And I'm sure people also get the reality of we're in still a crazy position and it would be very hard for us to be public given just all of the realities of that."

Elon Musk, the perpetual vacation-ruiner of @matt-levine.bsky.social.

We've already gotten some great questions. AMA on the deficit, starting in 10 mins!

NEW REPORT: J.P. Morgan’s Global Economic Research team believes it is increasingly likely that the U.S. effective tariff rate will settle close to the 22% rate initially announced on April 2, due, in part, to sector-specific Section 232 tariffs -- many of which have not yet been finalized.

Do you want to learn more about our nation's growing deficit and the implications for markets, the economy and geopolitics? Join us this Thursday, August 7 at 1 PM ET on Reddit for an AMA with our senior banking and finance reporter Leslie Picker. bit.ly/455vahl

Banks cannot provide services to individuals who have been indicted. So, they were unable to do business with President Trump. President Trump said on CNBC earlier that he and other conservatives were discriminated against for political reasons.

JPMorgan statement after Trump's claims of discrimination: “We don’t close accounts for political reasons, and we agree with President Trump that regulatory change is desperately needed. We commend the White House for addressing this issue and look forward to working with them to get this right.”

Statement from Blackstone:

Sam Altman's Three Scary AI Scenarios (via conversation at the Fed today): (1) Bad guy gets superintelligence first (2) Loss of control (AI is like…no, you can’t turn me off) (3) Models accidentally take over the world

Sam Altman at Fed Capital Conference: "Every time you're wasting your time in any way every time you're kind of looking around the internet, you can't quite do the productive thing. I think we are in an under supply of labor to a degree that is going to look horrible in retrospect."

Looking forward to sitting down in DC with Michelle Bowman tomorrow -- her first-ever CNBC interview. No shortage of things to talk about. I hope you'll tune in!

This morning, on Squawk Box, we previewed the Japanese election on Sunday, why polls are causing the JGB long end to spike, and how that may soon catch the attention of bond vigilantes in the U.S. www.cnbc.com/video/2025/0...

Bloomberg: "Across the five biggest US banks, trading revenue hit a new record in the first six months of 2025. Uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s tariffs drove a surge of activity...leading the desks to smash second-quarter revenue expectations." www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

👏👏👏

Okay...hear me out. New season of "Severance." But the "innies" are investment-banking analysts. And the "outies" work in private equity. Who needs a loyalty pledge...

Investment Banking Fees 2Q'25: JPMorgan: +8% to $2.5B Goldman Sachs: +26% to $2.2B Morgan Stanley: -5% to $1.5B BofA: -9% to $1.4B Citi: +13% to $1.1B Wells Fargo: +9% to $700M

Bank executives on earnings calls today: JPMorgan: "We're essentially firing on all cylinders." Citigroup: The firm is firing on all cylinders." BNY Mellon: "There are a lot of cylinders in this particular engine."

Jamie Dimon was asked on the 2Q analyst call whether JPMorgan would consider buying a private-credit firm. Dimon said: "I would say it's not high in my list because we can do it ourselves....I also think, you know, you may have seen peak private credit a little bit." $JPM

JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum: "We continue to struggle to see signs of weakness...If you look at indicators of stress, not surprisingly, you see a little bit more stress in the lower income bands than you see in the higher income bands. But that's always true."

Jamie Dimon on 2Q Media Call: "From what I've seen, the president has said he's not going to try to remove Jay Powell...Playing around with the Fed can often have adverse consequences of the absolute opposite of what you might be hoping for." $JPM

3.20% 🇯🇵 www.reuters.com/markets/asia...

Mike Mayo on 2Q Earnings: "The main question is the degree that this better loan growth is sustainable for JPM and the industry. That's because the main new news is the acceleration in loan growth. Avg Loans up 3% QoQ and 5% YoY (period end loans up 4% QoQ, implying acceleration)."

WFC CFO on Tariffs: "It’s still a little early…[clients have] been able to manage through what’s happened so far pretty effectively. It's causing some clients to be cautious about borrowing or big investments they want to make, but at this point, we haven’t seen it impact credit quality."

A tale of two Net Interest Income guides: - Wells Fargo took down guidance for 2025 net interest income to be unchanged from 2024 levels (from the +1-3% guide, shared in April) - JPMorgan raised its FY NII guide by $1 billion to $95.5B $WFC $JPM

~60% of everything the U.S. buys from abroad comes from four trading partners: the EU, Mexico, Canada & China. New tariff rates on imports from those four partners, starting Aug. 1: — EU: 30% — Mexico: 30%* — Canada: 35%* — China: 30% *USMCA goods may be exempt, but the decision is not final

First company to reach $1 trillion market cap: Apple First to $2 trillion: Apple $3 trillion: Apple $4 trillion: Nvidia

A Bloomberg editorial today is calling for Congress to create a bipartisan fiscal commission to offer an "honest assessment of the budget trajectory and propose reforms," and says the OBBBA's "provisions were were designed to obfuscate its true costs." www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

CNBC wanted to tackle the "so what?" questions related to the U.S. deficit? What are the consequences of skyrocketing debt? Why should anyone care? After dozens of conversations, spanning five months, we explore the implications in our 20-minute video here: www.cnbc.com/video/2025/0...

"A central bank that shifts its priorities from employment and inflation to financing the government has succumbed to 'fiscal dominance...' The result is typically some combination of inflation, crisis and stagnation." www.wsj.com/economy/cent...

Please tune in Monday for our special report: America's Deficit Reckoning. Dozens of interviews, over the course of five months, diving into -- not how to fix the deficit but what are the consequences down the road if we don't. Coverage on air, beginning at 7:45 a.m. ET on @cnbc.com.

"Under the new tax plan, universities might pull back from strategies that regularly generate short-term gains and shift money into other investments such as private equity, which generally don’t realize gains for years." www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, when asked about succession: "Obviously it's up to board if I'm here for four more years and maybe two more three as executive chairman...but that's a long time."

New JPMorgan 2Q Guidance: - Investment banking fees expected to decline mid-teens (percent, YoY), depending on how remainder of quarter plays out - Markets had a strong start but volatility has moderated; expect growth in mid-to-high single digits YoY

JPMorgan's Marianne Lake on health of consumers/small business: - Spend is modestly higher YoY across income bands (some weakness in travel spend) - Consumer + small biz cash buffers have normalized - Sentiment has weakened (small biz expectation about inflation/supply chains has deteriorated)

At JPMorgan Investor Day, the firm’s CFO shared an analysis they did across various sectors on the impact on margins from tariffs based on how much can be passed to the consumer

Point72's Steve Cohen at Sohn today: "We're not in a recession yet; I think we're going to have significant slowing growth. We think it'll probably be a 45% chance of recession -- not insignificant." He said if he was asked the question a week ago, he might have given a different answer.

David Einhorn on trade deficit: When I go to a Chipotle and order a burrito, I don’t claim that they cheated me because I spent more money on them than they did on me Via @cnbc.com

GS Prime Brokerage Note: "We currently have HF and L/O demand on our desk pre mkt in macro products and tech. It feels like today is the trading session when investors who have remained on sidelines get stopped in as buyers."

Spending, per capita, on drugs in certain countries, via @bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...