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Mortgage rates jumped to a seven-month high Friday as war in Iran pushed bond yields higher. View More

In an aerial view, two-story single family homes line the streets of neighborhood on Jan. 13, 2026 in Thousand Oaks, California.Kevin Carter | Getty Images Mortgage rates surged to their highest level since September on Friday as bond yields moved higher due to the war in Iran. The average rate on the 30-year fixed loan hit 6.41%, according to Mortgage News Daily. That is the highest rate since the first week of September, but still below the 6.78% notched at the same time last year.Mortgage rates loosely follow the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury, which was up again Friday."This is counterintuitive for those who expect bonds to serve as a safe haven in times of uncertainty, but when war has a direct impact on inflation expectations, it's more than enough to offset any of the safe haven benefit that might otherwise be seen," wrote Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily. Get Property Play directly to your inboxCNBC's Property Play with Diana Olick covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, delivered weekly to your inbox.Subscribe here to get access today. Even as rates began rising last week, mortgage demand from homebuyers rose, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, but this week's new surge could put a damper on the spring season, which is already plagued by other major headwinds. Lennar, one of the nation's largest homebuilders, reported disappointing first-quarter earnings. Its CEO, Stuart Miller, described headwinds for the broader market as including "high mortgage rates, constrained affordability, cautious consumer sentiment, and geopolitical uncertainty, especially now including the recent conflict in Iran." Just two weeks ago, rates had dropped to match a multiyear low, briefly touching 5.99%. Now, any savings from those lower rates is gone. For someone buying a $400,000 home, around the national median, with 20% down on a 30-year fixed mortgage, the monthly payment is now about $115 more than it would have been two weeks ago. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

At its GTC conference, Nvidia is expected to share some of its vision for incorporating technology from AI chip startup Groq. View More

On the day before Christmas, when few stocks were stirring, a pricey and pivotal transaction jolted the AI computing race: Nvidia was spending a reported $20 billion to license technology from chip startup Groq and hire key employees, including its CEO, who previously helped Google create what's become the leading alternative to Nvidia's AI processors. In the months since, Nvidia's offensive move has arguably flown under the radar, considering its competitive ramifications in the artificial intelligence gold rush. Perhaps it was lost in the Christmastime shuffle, or in the torrent of other deals and investments that have been flowing from the world's most valuable company over the past year. That should change next week, when Nvidia holds its annual GTC event, called the GPU Technology Conference in its early days, in San Jose, California. The four-day gathering is a big deal in AI. It takes place at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, with Monday's keynote address from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang held at the nearby SAP Center, where the NHL's San Jose Sharks play — a venue befitting Jensen's leather jacket-wearing, rock star-like status. Throughout the week, Nvidia plans to share at least some of its vision for incorporating Groq's chip technology into its already-dominant AI computing ecosystem. "I've got some great ideas that I'd like to share with you at GTC," Jensen said on the chipmaker's late February earnings call. Those ideas figure to be among the notable developments at a conference that's been dubbed the "Super Bowl of AI." Nvidia is also expected to update us on its roadmap for its bread-and-butter graphics processing units (GPUs), including its next-generation Vera Rubin family. The main reason for the Groq intrigue: Nvidia is likely to harness Groq's technology to build a brand-new chip targeting the daily use of AI models, a process known as inference, according to Wall Steet analysts. Inference is becoming a larger and more competitive part of the AI computing picture. Plus, it's the source of revenue for Nvidia's data center customers. Nvidia's GPUs are the clear-cut performance leader in the training stage of AI computing, where the models are fed vast amounts of data to be prepared for real-world usage. Nvidia's dominance in training fueled its meteoric ascent in recent years. The inference market, however, is much more crowded, as AI adoption goes mainstream and customers seek out cost-effective ways to meet the booming demand. Companies are essentially trying to get their hands on whatever kind of chips they can. Advanced Micro Devices , the distant No. 2 maker of GPUs, is finding some traction in inference, recently signing up Meta Platforms as a customer in a splashy partnership announcement . Meanwhile, the custom chips initiatives at large tech companies, including Meta, are generally seen as targeting the inference market. To be sure, Google's in-house Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) are formidable challengers in both training and inference, and the newfound success of Google's Gemini chatbot — built on TPUs — has elevated their reputation as Nvidia's biggest threat. Google co-designs TPUs with Broadcom . Amazon has also touted its in-house Trainium chip's capabilities in both tasks. Anthropic, the AI startup behind the Claude model, uses Trainium — though, in a reflection of the hunt for any-and-all-kinds of computing, Anthropic is also using TPUs and inked a deal with Nvidia in the fall. Another competitor to know: Cerebras, an AI startup preparing for an initial public offering. For the first time, Oracle co-CEO Clay Magouyrk earlier this week name-dropped Cerebras on its earnings call . Nvidia is no slouch in inference. While perhaps a bit outdated, Nvidia in 2024 disclosed that about 40% of its revenue was from inference. At last year's GTC, Jensen told analysts that "the vast majority of the world's inference is on Nvidia today." And, on Nvidia's most recent earnings call in late February, finance chief Colette Kress highlighted that industry publication SemiAnalysis recently "declared Nvidia inference king," noting that its current generation Grace Blackwell GPUs offer massive performance improvements over its predecessor Hopper. Where Groq fits Nvidia evidently saw an opportunity to improve what it brings to the table on inference, otherwise it wouldn't have shelled out a reported $20 billion for Groq's technology and talent. Nvidia didn't outright acquire the entire Groq company, perhaps to avoid antitrust scrutiny. The licensing deal is billed as non-exclusive, and Groq continues to operate an inference cloud service running on its specialized chips (also, in case there was any confusion, the company has no ties to the other Grok, Elon Musk's AI chatbot). Some important people jumped to Nvidia in the deal, though. The most notable addition is Groq's founder and now-ex CEO, Jonathan Ross. Before starting Groq in 2016, Ross was part of the Google team that developed the original TPU. Ross now holds the title of chief software architect at Nvidia. Groq developed and brought to market what it called an inference-focused LPU, short for Language Processing Units. In various podcast interviews over the years, Ross has made it clear that Groq didn't bother trying to compete with Nvidia on training. Instead, he has said, Groq saw inference computing as the place where the startup could innovate and carve out a lane. So, Groq set out to develop a chip for running AI models that prioritizes speed and efficiency at a lower cost. A main reason why Nvidia's GPUs are so good at training AI models is their ability to perform a massive amount of calculations at the same time, often called parallel processing. Keeping it simple, AI models work to identify patterns within a mountain of training data, and that requires doing a lot of math simultaneously — hence why a GPU is superior for AI training to a traditional computer processor (CPU), which executes tasks sequentially rather than in parallel. Now, another important trait of GPUs is their flexibility, driven in large part by Nvidia's CUDA software program. Jensen has said that CUDA — short for compute unified device architecture — enables GPUs to perform across all different types of workloads, including inference. When an AI model is deployed for inference and receives a user's prompt, the model basically refers back to all those learned patterns to determine what the most appropriate response should be, piece by piece (or token by token, in AI parlance). It is making the decision based on the probabilities in its training data. But fundamentally, there is a difference in training and inference computing, and what attributes of a chip are most desirable for each varies. Groq designed its chips to be really good at inference, and in particular, real-time tasks where speed is of the utmost importance. Groq's LPUs use a type of short-term memory, known as SRAM, that is located directly on the chip's engine, a driving force behind its speediness. GPUs, on the other hand, use a type of short-term memory called high-bandwidth memory or HBM, which is located right next to the GPU's engine, not directly on it. The AI boom has created a supply crunch for HBM and set memory prices soaring. "GPUs are really great at training models. When somebody wants to train a model, I'm just like, 'Just use GPUs. Don't talk to us,'" Ross said in a podcast interview with wealth advisory firm Lumida in late 2023 . "But the big difference is, when you're running one of these models — not training them, running them after they've already been made — you can't produce the 100th word until you've produced the 99th," he added. "So, there's a sequential component to them that you just simply can't get out of a GPU. ... It's how quickly you complete the computation, not just how many computations you can complete in parallel. And we do the computations much faster." However, Ross has said he believes Nvidia's bread-and-butter GPUs and Groq's technology can complement each other. He made that clear in a separate interview on The Capital Markets podcast , dated February 2025, still many months before he left Groq for Nvidia. "We're actually so crazy fast compared to GPUs that we've actually experimented a little bit with taking some portions of the model and running it on our LPUs and letting the rest run on GPU. And it actually speeds up and makes the GPU more economical. So, since people already have a bunch of GPUs they've deployed, one use case we've contemplated is selling some of our LPUs to, sort of, nitro boost those GPUs." That comment really jumped out, as we came across this year-old interview, searching for additional insight into Groq and Ross. Hearing Ross say that long before he joined Nvidia made us even more intrigued to hear Jensen's vision next week. There are a lot of possibilities for Groq-infused Nvidia hardware. Indeed, as AI advances, it makes sense that Nvidia would branch out into more specialized chips. History suggests that the more advanced a certain technology gets, the more specialization there is. Back on Nvidia's February earnings call, Jensen indicated that he's looking at Groq in a similar vein to Mellanox, the networking equipment provider that Nvidia acquired six years ago . "What we'll do is we'll extend our architecture with Groq as an accelerator in very much the ways that we extended Nvidia's architecture with Mellanox," Jensen said. That acquisition has aged like fine wine because Nvidia's networking prowess is a crucial ingredient to its success in the AI boom, transforming it into a one-stop shop for AI computing rather than a simple chip designer. In its fiscal 2026 fourth quarter alone, Nvidia's networking business generated around $11 billion in revenue — roughly the same as AMD's overall revenue. Nvidia's better-than-expected companywide revenue in Q4 surged 73% year over year to $68.13 billion. Less than three years ago, Nvidia's networking revenue was pacing for roughly $10 billion for an entire 12-month period . Now, it's $11 billion in just three months, exploding alongside its GPU revenue, too. Investors can only hope the Groq transaction ends up being anywhere near as successful as Mellanox. The journey to finding out starts next week. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long NVDA, GOOGL, META, AVGO and AMZN. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

The average IRS tax refund is up 10.6%, based on filing data. Here's what you can expect. View More

In this articleIRSFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Miniseries | E+ | Getty Images The average tax refund is 10.6% higher so far this season, compared to about the same period in 2025, according to the latest IRS filing data.As of Mar. 6, the average refund amount for individual filers was $3,676, up from $3,324 about one year ago, the IRS reported on Friday. The average is down from the $3,742 reported last week. The latest filing data reflects roughly 60.7 million individual returns received, out of about 164 million expected through the April 15 deadline. Read more CNBC personal finance coverageAverage IRS tax refund is up 10.6%, filing data showsIRS paper check changes trigger tax refund delays for more than 830,000 filersDid tariff dividend checks just become more likely? Economists weigh in'High oil prices are not good for mortgage rates,' economist says. What to knowIran war heightens affordability issues ahead of the Fed's March meetingCouples often miss this 'overlooked tax break' for retirement savers: CFPTrump administration has scaled back oversight of student loan servicers: GAOSocial Security 2027 COLA forecast may rise with high oil pricesYou can't 'borrow your way out of debt,' expert says, but more people are tryingHere's the inflation breakdown for February 2026 — in one chartSAVE plan used by millions of student loan borrowers is over, court ordersIdentity theft and your taxes: It's 'a terrible reverse lottery,' one victim saysAs Iran war disrupts oil prices, consumers could be 'hammered,' economist saysMillion-dollar earners have already stopped paying into Social Security for 2026Women and the K-shaped economy: Lower pay, affordability issues reduce spendingCNBC's Financial Advisor 100: Best financial advisors, top firms ranked Typically, the average refund peaks around mid-February, when data begins to include payments claiming the earned income tax credit or the refundable part of the child tax credit, known as the additional child tax credit or ACTC, according to a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis. After that February spike, the average generally drops gradually through Tax Day. Republicans have highlighted the size of tax refunds as the midterm elections approach, as both parties pitch talking points on affordability to potential voters. In a late January release, the White House said average tax refunds could jump "by $1,000 or more," citing several media reports that reference early October research from investment bank Piper Sandler.  Why tax refunds are higher this season This season, many filers are seeing bigger tax refunds based on changes enacted in President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill."The IRS did not adjust paycheck withholdings after the July 2025 changes, which means many workers overpaid taxes through the rest of the year.But there could be "a lot of variation between taxpayers," depending on 2025 withholdings and which new tax breaks apply to their situation, Garrett Watson, director of policy analysis at the Tax Foundation, previously told CNBC. As of Mar. 8, more than 27.5 million returns, which is nearly 45% of filings, claimed at least one of Trump's new tax breaks on Schedule 1-A, the U.S. Department of the Treasury said in a news release this week.Schedule 1-A, which feeds into tax returns, is a new form that includes Trump's deductions for overtime pay, tip income, seniors and auto loan interest. Meanwhile, the higher limit for the state and local tax deduction, or SALT, is only available to filers who itemize tax breaks rather than claiming the standard deduction. During tax year 2022, nearly 90% of returns used the standard deduction, based on the latest IRS data. The same year, about 15 million returns claimed the SALT deduction, which is fewer than 10% of filings.Those percentages are expected to rise for 2025, which could result in significantly bigger refunds for those who qualify, experts say. watch nowVIDEO4:0804:08Trump tax laws to produce higher refunds in 2026Personal Finance Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Nvidia and AMD are seeing huge demand for CPUs and Jensen Huang is poised to unveil details for processors specialized for agentic AI at the GTC conference. View More

In this articleNVDAFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Nvidia showed CNBC its latest Vera CPU at its Santa Clara, California, headquarters on Feb. 13, 2026.Marc Ganley | CNBC Nvidia's graphics processing units have been the hottest-selling chips for years, but the sudden advent of agentic artificial intelligence has brought on a renaissance for its more modest host chip, the central processing unit. Now, Nvidia is poised to unveil new details about its agentic-optimized CPUs at its annual GTC conference that kicks off on Monday, with a CPU-only rack likely to appear on the showroom floor."CPUs are becoming the bottleneck in terms of growing out this AI and agentic workflow," Dion Harris, Nvidia's head of AI infrastructure, told CNBC this week, calling it an "exciting opportunity."The chip giant announced its first data center CPU, Grace, in 2021, and the next generation, Vera, is now in production. The CPUs are typically deployed alongside Nvidia's famous Hopper, Blackwell or Rubin GPUs in full rack-scale systems.Exploding demand for GPUs has turned Nvidia into a household name and the most valuable publicly traded company in the world, with a $4.4 trillion market cap. Its broader chip strategy took a major turn in February, when Nvidia struck a multiyear deal with Meta that included the first large-scale deployment of Grace CPUs on their own, with plans to deploy Vera in 2027. Thousands of standalone Nvidia CPUs are also helping power supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center and Los Alamos National Lab, Nvidia told CNBC. Bank of America predicts the CPU market could more than double, from $27 billion in 2025 to $60 billion by 2030. In the latest quarter alone, Nvidia generated data center revenue of over $62 billion, up 75% from a year earlier. The CPU resurgence is driven by a fundamental change in compute needs, as mass AI adoption shifts from call-and-answer chatbots to task-oriented agentic apps. While GPUs are ideal for training and running AI models because they have thousands of tiny cores narrowly focused on performing many operations simultaneously, CPUs have a smaller number of powerful cores running sequential general-purpose tasks. Agentic AI requires a lot of general compute power, as they move large amounts of data around for AI workflows, orchestrating across multiple agents. watch nowVIDEO13:5913:59First look at Vera Rubin, Nvidia’s next AI system that’s 10 times more efficientTech "These agentic systems are spawning off different agents working as a team," CEO Jensen Huang said on Nvidia's earnings call last month. "The number of tokens that are being generated has really, really gone exponential, and so we need to inference at a much higher speed." Huang mentioned agentic AI a dozen times on the call, and said "the best performance-per-watt is literally everything" as hardware needs shift. The company said in a press release that its standalone CPUs deliver significant performance-per-watt improvements in Meta's data centers."This is new infrastructure: Greenfield expansion of racks of CPUs whose only job is to run agentic AI," said chip analyst Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies. "Your software is going to sit elsewhere, your accelerators are just going to run tokens, but something has to sit in the middle and orchestrate that."'Quiet supply crisis'Now, the once-sleepy central processor market is facing what The Futurum Group calls a "quiet supply crisis," predicting the CPU market growth rate could exceed GPU growth by 2028.   Leading CPU providers AMD and Intel have warned customers in China of supply shortages, according to Reuters. CPU delivery lead times are up to six months, and prices have gone up more than 10%, according to the report."Increases in demand are unprecedented over the last six to nine months," AMD's head of data center Forrest Norrod told CNBC in an interview. Norrod said he doesn't see "any prospect of this slowing down or stopping anytime soon," but that AMD anticipated the lift in demand and is "working diligently" to meet it.An Intel spokesperson told CNBC it expects inventory to hit its "lowest level" in the current quarter, "But we are addressing aggressively and expect supply improvement in Q2 through 2026.""Wafers don't grow on trees," Bajarin said. "It's not like we can just go harvest 10% more silicon wafers. There's a crunch across the entire industry. So unfortunately, CPU wafers are constrained."As for whether Nvidia has seen any CPU shipment delays, Harris told CNBC, "So far, so good." He said Nvidia's "robust supply chain" has been able to manage the demand, largely because many of its CPUs will be sold alongside GPUs in its rack-scale systems. AMD launched its 5th generation EPYC "Turin" server CPU in 2024.Courtesy: AMD Optimized for 'feeding their GPUs'Harris said Nvidia took a fundamentally different approach in design that makes its CPUs "best suited" for data processing and agentic AI workflows, compared to the more general-purpose CPUs made by industry leaders Intel and AMD.A big difference is in the number of cores in each CPU. AMD's EPYC line and Intel's Xeon high-performance server CPUs typically have 128 cores, compared to 72 cores in Nvidia's Grace CPU."If you're a hyperscaler, you want to maximize the number of cores per CPU, and that essentially drives down the cost, the dollars per core. So that's one business model," Harris explained.Instead, Nvidia designed its CPU specifically to help its star GPUs run AI workloads."Your single-threaded performance becomes much more important than your dollars per core because you're trying to make sure that that very expensive resource, being the GPU, isn't sitting there waiting," Harris said.Nvidia also bases its CPUs on Arm architecture, more typically used for chips in lower-power devices like smartphones, while Intel and AMD base their CPUs on traditional x86 architecture. Introduced by Intel nearly 50 years ago, x86 is the leading instruction set that has dominated PC and server processor designs since its inception.AMD's Norrod said Nvidia has, "Optimized their chips very well, I think, for feeding their GPUs. They're not well optimized for general-purpose applications."Indeed, Nvidia relies on more general-purpose CPUs for some of its products. For example, Nvidia pairs its GPUs with host CPUs from Intel or AMD in its HGX Rubin NVL8 platform that customers use as the building blocks for their own AI racks.  An Intel manufacturing technician holds an Intel Xeon 6+ data center CPU inside Intel’s new Fab 52 in Chandler, Arizona in September 2025.Courtesy: Intel 'Platform agnostic'Nvidia's foray into standalone CPUs comes as more of its customers are making their own Arm-based processors for their data centers.Amazon was the first major hyperscaler to launch an in-house CPU with the release of Graviton in 2018. Google's Axion processor, released in 2024, now handles some 30% of internal applications, according to the Futurum Group. Microsoft released its second-generation Cobalt processor in November. Arm is expected to launch its own in-house CPU this year, with Meta as an early customer. Mercury Research estimates the server CPU market share in the last quarter of 2025 was dominated by Intel at 60%, AMD at 24.3%, and Nvidia at 6.2%, with the remaining share split among in-house Arm-based CPUs from hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft and Google.  In the face of insatiable need for compute, Nvidia typically takes a welcoming attitude toward competition. Keeping with that tradition, Nvidia opened up its NVLink networking technology to third-party licensing in May.The rest of 2025 saw a flurry of NVLink deals with Intel, Qualcomm, Fujitsu, and Arm, easing the path for third-party CPUs to integrate with Nvidia GPUs in AI servers.While these deals involve CPUs made on Arm or x86 architecture, Nvidia also now supports open instruction-set architecture RISC-V. Gaining traction in recent years, RISC-V allows companies to design custom processors without paying licensing fees to companies like Arm. In January, Nvidia struck a deal enabling U.S. chip company SiFive to use NVLink to connect its RISC-V chip designs with Nvidia GPUs. Harris said that no matter how the CPU demand gets filled, Nvidia's strategy remains "platform agnostic." "We are certainly building an Arm-based CPU, but we are so invested in the x86 community, we're so invested across the ecosystem, that we're going to have a strong position either way."Bajarin describes Nvidia's shifting strategy as "soup-to-nuts.""To compete, Nvidia's answer can't be you buy GPUs from us or nothing else," Bajarin said. Whether it's GPUs, CPUs or specialized hardware, "that's just the way the product has to expand to meet a diversity of workloads," he said. Watch: CNBC's Exclusive first look at Nvidia's Vera Rubin AI system Read more CNBC tech newsSam Altman faced 'serious questions' in meeting with lawmakers about OpenAI's defense workAdobe CEO Shantanu Narayen says he will step down after company installs successorAnthropic's Claude would 'pollute' defense supply chain: Pentagon CTOPalantir is still using Anthropic's Claude as Pentagon blacklist plays out, CEO Karp says Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Months after President Donald Trump suggested sending Americans a $2,000 tariff dividend check, there's a chance households could see that stimulus in 2026. View More

watch nowVIDEO3:2003:20Pres. Trump addresses tariff ruling in front of Supreme Court justicesNews Videos After the Supreme Court struck down a large portion of President Donald Trump's tariff agenda last month, the possibility of getting tariff dividend checks was seemingly discarded too, experts said."Tariff dividends were a long shot from the beginning," certified financial planner Stephen Kates, a financial analyst at Bankrate, told CNBC at the time. Any such broad-based benefit program would require legislation passed by Congress and "there does not appear to be sufficient political support," Kates said. "The odds of this policy moving forward is now effectively zero."And then the Tariff Refunds for Working Families Act came along. On Thursday, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., introduced a bill that would create a new tax rebate for those hit by higher costs for everyday items due to Trump's reciprocal tariffs. If enacted as drafted, the rebate would provide joint filers making an annual income of under $180,000 with a payment of $1,200, plus an additional $600 for each dependent child, starting in the 2026 tax year. Read more CNBC personal finance coverageAverage IRS tax refund is up 10.6%, filing data showsIRS paper check changes trigger tax refund delays for more than 830,000 filersDid tariff dividend checks just become more likely? Economists weigh in'High oil prices are not good for mortgage rates,' economist says. What to knowIran war heightens affordability issues ahead of the Fed's March meetingCouples often miss this 'overlooked tax break' for retirement savers: CFPTrump administration has scaled back oversight of student loan servicers: GAOSocial Security 2027 COLA forecast may rise with high oil pricesYou can't 'borrow your way out of debt,' expert says, but more people are tryingHere's the inflation breakdown for February 2026 — in one chartSAVE plan used by millions of student loan borrowers is over, court ordersIdentity theft and your taxes: It's 'a terrible reverse lottery,' one victim saysAs Iran war disrupts oil prices, consumers could be 'hammered,' economist saysMillion-dollar earners have already stopped paying into Social Security for 2026Women and the K-shaped economy: Lower pay, affordability issues reduce spendingCNBC's Financial Advisor 100: Best financial advisors, top firms ranked Tariffs are a tax on imports from foreign nations and are paid for by U.S. entities that import the item. Companies often bear some of the cost and pass on the rest to consumers through higher prices.A paper published last month by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that U.S. firms and consumers bore "the bulk" — roughly 90% — of the economic burden of tariffs imposed in 2025. White House officials disputed that finding."This bill will return the money lost to Trump's tariffs back to the people who paid the price," Heinrich said in a release announcing his legislation. A customer shops in a grocery store on March 11, 2026 in Miami, Florida.Joe Raedle | Getty Images The Supreme Court did not rule on potential tariff refunds, but "it appears without new legislation, the law dictates those who sent in the tariff checks, importers, are the ones who will be paid back even though they may not have been harmed," said Tomas Philipson, a professor of public policy studies at the University of Chicago and former acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. After the high court's ruling, the White House invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to enact new tariffs, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said "will result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026." The tariff impact on consumers A recent analysis by the Budget Lab at Yale found that the increase in prices in due to tariffs in place through March 9 was expected to cost each household between $450 and $570, on average, over the short run. If Section 122 tariffs are made permanent, the household loss figure would be between $770 and $940. The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee — Minority estimates that if tariffs remain in place for the year it will cost each household more than $2,500 in 2026."There is no way to completely undo the economic effects of tariffs that were enacted last year," Bankrate's Kates told CNBC in an email this week. He also said that direct payments could cause inflation to worsen.As oil prices climb and global trade faces uncertainty, "introducing new stimulus, even if targeted to specific households, would be risky at a time when inflation pressures are rising," Kates said. The affordability issue Heinrich's bill is part of the effort by Democrats to address affordability issues ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, experts say. The expanding U.S. war in the Middle East has only amplified cost-of-living concerns as energy prices surge.Republicans, too, have raised the idea of making direct distributions to Americans in the lead-up to November's midterm elections."While both parties are eager to claim credit for a popular policy ahead of the midterm elections, injecting additional money into the economy could also intensify the very price increases that the refunds are intended to address," Kates said. However, since companies are unlikely to lower their prices to reflect the rollback of Trump's tariff agenda, directing government refunds to the households and businesses that bore some of the burden "could make some sense," said Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia Business School. Further, "since both sides of the aisle have proposed bills to implement these refunds, it should be possible to find bipartisan support for this," House said. An idea for a stimulus check The idea for stimulus checks funded with tariff revenue was first floated by the president back in July. That summer, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced the American Worker Rebate Act of 2025. The Senate referred the bill to the Committee on Finance, where it remains.Later in 2025, Trump said that a rebate check with the money his tariffs had generated would be forthcoming."A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone," the president wrote in a post on Truth Social in November. At the end of last year, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett also said that "the president will bring forth a proposal to Congress to make that happen."When asked about tariff rebates in January, Trump said the checks would come "toward the end of the year."Correction: This story has been revised to reflect that the The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee — Minority put the estimated cost of tariffs closer to $2,500 per household for 2026. A previous version misidentified the name of the entity that put out the estimate.Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Oil prices have skyrocketed in the days since President Donald Trump's war on Iran began. View More

watch nowVIDEO7:1707:17Oil markets brace for fallout as Iran conflict echoes Iraq war turmoilMarkets and Politics Digital Original Video President Donald Trump promised to "drill, baby, drill" on the presidential campaign trail.It's not going to bail him out of this oil crisis spurred by the war he started in Iran, lawmakers and analysts say.Trump and Republicans last year aggressively ramped up policies favorable to fossil fuels after romping to an electoral victory in 2024 on a promise to lower the cost of living, including by quelling gas prices.Their signature domestic policy bill, known as the "one big beautiful" tax and spending measure, opened up swaths of new land to oil and gas leasing. The administration has moved to slash regulations that the fossil fuel industry views as hurdles. And it has pursued an aggressive leasing schedule to get more rigs operating on federal lands and waters. Now, Trump is confronted with a crisis there's little chance of drilling his way out of. The war in Iran has whipsawed oil markets as the Strait of Hormuz has remained largely impassible. The strait carries about 20% of the world's oil supply. And the U.S. is unlikely to rapidly ramp up drilling to fill the void, analysts and lawmakers say. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Women's History Month event, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. March 12, 2026. Nathan Howard | Reuters "No, the quantity is not there," Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said. "I don't care what you do with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or drilling, you can't make up that kind of quantity." "You're still going to see a big impact on gas prices no matter what. ... The tail of how long it's going to take to get back to normal is going to be many months," Heinrich said in an interview. The phrase "drill, baby, drill" was popularized in 2008 by Sarah Palin, the vice presidential candidate on John McCain's Republican ticket. In the nearly two decades since, it's been a Republican rallying cry, and Trump used it at his rallies in the 2024 presidential campaign.Palin, who was the Alaska governor, touted drilling in her state and in the Gulf of Mexico. The New York Times reported this month that there were no bidders for the Trump administration's opening of Alaska's Cook Inlet to new offshore oil and gas exploration.The U.S. currently produces about 13.7 million barrels of oil per day, according to December data from the Energy Information Administration. Last week, the U.S. refined about 16 million barrels of oil per day. Oil is also beholden to global market conditions, which is why the Strait of Hormuz closure has been so disruptive. The strait carries about 20% of the world's oil, and the world demands more than 100 million barrels per day. "What matters is the overall supply and demand, and with what's going on in the Middle East right now, that is going to be out of balance for a very substantial amount of time," Heinrich said.Analysts agree. Brian Prest, an economist and fellow at Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan research group that focuses on natural resources, said domestically drilling the volume of oil necessary to offset the Strait of Hormuz shutdown is likely unfeasible. That's despite sky-high U.S. production for the last several years. Read more CNBC politics coverageHousing affordability bill clears Senate as investor ban creates headachesFed chair pick Kevin Warsh meets with more senators as Thom Tillis blockade continuesTrump-backed SAVE America Act will get a Senate vote next week, Thune says "You would need to see huge increases in U.S. production to actually manifest as meaningful percentages of total global supply," Prest said. "The U.S. has seen a huge run-up in the past 15 years in oil production, but that's exactly what it is; it took 15 years.""I can't imagine that you are going to see huge surges from the U.S. alone that are going to balance the market over the course of a war that they're hoping is going to last a few weeks," Prest said. The war reaches its two-week mark on Saturday. A foreign tanker carrying Iraqi fuel oil damaged after catching fire in Iraq's territorial waters, following unidentified attacks that targeted two foreign tankers, according to Iraqi port officials, near Basra, Iraq, March 12, 2026. Mohammed Aty | Reuters There are also signs that U.S. oil producers aren't planning to rapidly increase their production of oil and gas to take advantage of sky-high prices. At the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, oil prices skyrocketed. And while the U.S. rig count did increase modestly to reflect the price jump, U.S. total crude oil production maintained what has been a steady march upward since 2010. Much of that increase has been driven by technological advances in drilling, particularly in horizontal drilling and fracking, that has greatly increased output in places like the Permian Basin in New Mexico and Texas — not a fire sale of new prospective drilling. Even Republicans, who have spent the better part of Trump's second term touting "energy dominance" and "energy independence," acknowledge that drilling more is not going to get the U.S. out of the oil crisis in the short term. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said the increased oil and gas drilling that the Trump administration is trying to propagate will bring prices down in the long run, but opening the Strait of Hormuz is the priority to get prices down now. "The key in the near term will be kind of how this dynamic works on the Strait of Hormuz," he said in an interview. "If that gets covered pretty well, then even if there's a perception this drags on a little longer, it's mitigated.""In the long term, because we continue to grow ... and we keep growing that number over time, that'll actually bring the oil markets down, prices cheaper, and make us even less reliant on the Middle East," Hoeven said. "But that's a longer term."So far, the strait remains effectively closed, despite the Trump administration trying to find a way for vessels to pass through it. And oil markets, despite dipping for a brief period this week when Trump suggested the war may be over soon, continue to march higher. U.S. oil futures closed at more than $95 on Thursday. And Brent, the global index, tipped over $100 as Iran's new supreme leader said the Strait of Hormuz must remain closed. 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HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL) announced a Rs 2,600 crore investment in Punjab's speciality and fine chemicals sector. Additionally, HMEL plans to launch 500 new retail fuel outlets nationwide, equipped with modern technology. This expansion follows HMEL's significant Rs 60,000 crore investment in its Bathinda refinery, Punjab's sole oil refinery. View More

Mohali: HPCL-Mittal Energy Limited (HMEL) will invest Rs 2,600 crore in the speciality and fine chemicals sector in Punjab, renowned industrialist Lakshmi Niwas Mittal said on Friday. HMEL will also enter the retail fuel sector and open 500 retail outlets across the country, he added. Mittal, who is also the executive chairman of ArcelorMittal, was addressing a gathering during the three-day Progressive Punjab Investors Summit 2026, which began here on Friday. On the occasion, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal and other dignitaries were present. The AAP government is holding the summit to showcase investment opportunities in Punjab. Live Events During his address, Mittal said HMEL is now moving forward with investments in the speciality and fine chemicals sector. "We are moving forward in the speciality and fine chemicals sector for which we are announcing a new investment of Rs 2,600 crore," Mittal said. Referring to HMEL's Guru Gobind Singh refinery in Bathinda, he said Rs 60,000 crore has been invested so far, making it the biggest investment in Punjab. The project, which began in 2008 with a capacity of 9 million metric tonnes, has been expanded to 13.50 million MT over time and stands as Punjab's only oil refinery, playing a crucial role in meeting the energy demand. The Bathinda refinery not only meets the energy requirement of Punjab but also caters to other states, including Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand, he said. Considering the rising demand for LPG in the country, its production has been raised from 1,000 tonnes per day to 3,000 tonnes per day, he said. Mittal further stated that with the support of the Punjab government, a world-class petrochemical complex has been established here. This has significantly contributed to the social and economic development of the Bathinda region, he said. The company has also set up a bio-ethanol plant, which produces around 10 crore litres of ethanol annually and contributes to India's fuel blending programme, he added. The company is also investing in green energy in Bathinda and will further increase its participation in renewable and sustainable energy in the future. "We are entering the petrol pump sector. In the first phase, we will set up 500 new retail outlets across the country, equipped with modern technology and AI-enabled systems," he said. Mittal said a large downstream industrial ecosystem can be developed around the refinery and petrochemical industry in Punjab. This ecosystem would create extensive opportunities for plastic processing, speciality chemicals, packaging, auto components, textiles and other manufacturing units, he noted. Mittal said he spoke to Mann and Kejriwal on Friday in this regard. He said the government has assured that a downstream industry complex will be developed over 1,500 acres in Bathinda. Mittal also stressed skill development for the youth in the state. PTI .Pbanner{display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;background-color:#ec1c40;margin-top:20px;padding:5px 10px;border-radius:4px;color:#fff;line-height:10px;} .Pbannertext{display:flex;align-items:center;font-size:16px;font-weight:600;font-family:'Montserrat';} .Pbannertext img{height:20px;margin:0 6px} .Pbannerbutton a{display:flex;align-items:center;background-color:#fff;color:#ec1c40;text-decoration:none;font-weight:600;padding:4px 8px;border-radius:6px;font-size:15px;font-family:'Montserrat';} .Pbannerbutton img{height:20px;margin-right:6px} .Pbannerbutton a:hover{background-color:#f7f7f7} Add as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now! (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel) (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)

India's urea imports from China reached a three-year peak. Fertilizer imports from China and Russia saw a significant increase this fiscal year. Urea imports from China dramatically outpaced previous years. Russia also supplied substantial quantities of urea, DAP, MoP, and NPK fertilizers. Overall urea imports from these two nations are considerable. Domestic urea availability currently exceeds requirements. View More

India imported 21.24 lakh tonne of urea from China between April 2025 and February 2026, the highest in three years, even as total fertiliser imports from China and Russia rose sharply this fiscal year, as per the government data placed before Parliament on Friday. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Fertilisers Anupriya Patel said that India had sourced fertilisers from both countries, with Chinese urea imports dramatically outpacing the 0.99 lakh tonne recorded in the full fiscal year 2024-25 and also exceeding 18.65 lakh tonne in 2023-24 and 12.80 lakh tonne in 2022-23. Beyond urea, India imported 5.11 lakh tonne of Di Ammonium Phosphate (DAP), 0.28 lakh tonne of Muriate of Potash (MoP) and 9.61 lakh tonne of NPK fertiliser from China between April 2025 and February 2026, bringing total phosphatic and potassic imports to 15 lakh tonne. Urea imports from Moscow stood at 13.99 lakh tonne till February, already higher than the 9.23 lakh tonne imported in 2024-25. India also sourced 7.55 lakh tonne of DAP, 12.97 lakh tonne of MoP and 21 lakh tonne of NPK fertilisers from Russia this fiscal year. Total urea imports from China and Russia alone are about 35.23 lakh tonne till February of the current fiscal. Live Events Overall, urea imports from other countries were at 56.47 lakh tonne achieved in 2024-25. On domestic availability, the minister said approximately 432.44 lakh tonne of urea is currently available in the country against a requirement of 370.84 lakh tonne. Sales of urea through direct benefit transfer have reached 381.59 lakh tonne so far this year. Phosphatic and potassic fertilisers are covered under the Open General Licence, allowing companies to import or manufacture them based on their own commercial assessments. PTI .Pbanner{display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;background-color:#ec1c40;margin-top:20px;padding:5px 10px;border-radius:4px;color:#fff;line-height:10px;} .Pbannertext{display:flex;align-items:center;font-size:16px;font-weight:600;font-family:'Montserrat';} .Pbannertext img{height:20px;margin:0 6px} .Pbannerbutton a{display:flex;align-items:center;background-color:#fff;color:#ec1c40;text-decoration:none;font-weight:600;padding:4px 8px;border-radius:6px;font-size:15px;font-family:'Montserrat';} .Pbannerbutton img{height:20px;margin-right:6px} .Pbannerbutton a:hover{background-color:#f7f7f7} Add as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now! (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel) (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)

Rajya Sabha polls are scheduled on the 16th of this month and legislators are expected to fly back for the voting. View More

Some households earning $160,000 or more a year fall on the “thin ice” side of the K-shaped economy, a new report finds. View More

Economists often describe the U.S. economy in recent years as "K-shaped," where higher-income households have seen stronger gains in wealth and spending while lower-income families face more financial pressure.While financial precarity is often associated with lower-income households, a February 2026 analysis by consulting firm Kearney suggests many higher earners remain vulnerable as well. Based on federal economic data and consumer surveys, the report looks at factors such as income, debt levels, savings, investments and family support to assess how exposed consumers are to economic shocks."You can have good income, but there could be a lot of factors that leave you exposed," Katie Thomas, lead at the Kearney Consumer Institute and author of the report, tells CNBC Make It.A household earning $200,000 a year may appear financially comfortable, but if most of that income goes toward a large mortgage, child care, debt payments and other fixed costs, there may be little flexibility if something goes wrong, the study says. In some cases, that household could be more financially exposed than one earning far less but living within its means.Many high earners say they feel that pressure, with nearly one-third of six-figure earners reporting they are financially "stretched, struggling or drowning," according to a 2025 Harris Poll survey. That dynamic helps explain the disconnect between high incomes and financial stress, and why a high salary doesn't always guarantee financial security. Financial risk can appear at both ends of the K In Kearney's analysis, the upper arm of the K begins around $160,000 in annual income, where many households appear financially secure on paper. That's roughly in line with estimates from Moody's Analytics placing the top of the K-shaped economy around $175,000 or more in household income.High-income households also play a large role in the broader economy. The top 20% of earners accounted for about 60% of all consumer spending in 2025, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data by Moody's Analytics.But some of those higher earners are also among the most financially exposed, says Thomas: "Assuming that top of the K is permanently insulated is not the right assumption."Kearney's report describes certain households in that group as "on thin ice." These are people with high incomes but also high costs, such as large mortgages, debt payments and expensive living costs. If much of their income is already committed, even relatively small disruptions — a job loss, higher interest rates or unexpected expenses — can quickly strain their finances.At the other end of the spectrum, vulnerability is more straightforward, Thomas says. Households earning $30,000 a year or less often face financial pressure simply because rising prices, borrowing costs and job instability leave little room for unexpected expenses. Why cash flow can matter more than income Some financial advisors say that financial stability often comes down to cash flow, or how much room households have in their budgets after paying essential expenses."We work with many higher-income households who look comfortable on paper, but once you actually look at cash flow, things can be tighter than expected," says Joon Um, a certified financial planner with Secure Tax & Accounting in Beverly Hills, California. "The biggest issue we see is high fixed costs — housing is usually the largest one."Mortgages, property taxes, insurance and upkeep can consume a large share of income, particularly in expensive housing markets like Los Angeles or New York. Add child care, car payments and other recurring expenses, and much of a household's income can become locked into monthly obligations.Another common issue is low liquidity, Um says, meaning some households have strong incomes and valuable assets, but relatively little cash available for unexpected emergencies.If income drops or something unexpected happens, there may not be much of a cushion. In those situations, a high salary can mask a fragile financial position when spending and fixed costs rise alongside income, Um says."Even though inflation has slowed, prices are still rising, and many households are experiencing that pressure in their day-to-day expenses," says Justin Rice, a CFP with Personal Wealth Strategies in Hamilton, New Jersey.Rice says he sees this happen often with higher-income households with high fixed expenses: "Financial stress is not determined by income alone."Want to improve your communication, confidence and success at work? Take CNBC's new online course, Master Your Body Language To Boost Your Influence. Take control of your money with CNBC Select CNBC Select is editorially independent and may earn a commission from affiliate partners on links.Six ways to file your taxes for freeWhat is a good monthly retirement income in 2026?How to buy gold from CostcoHere are 5 grocery rewards cards to beat inflationThe 6 best personal loans of February 2026 VIDEO7:2707:2726-year-old works at a bookstore and lives on $53,000 a year in New York CityMillennial Money