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India's primary market anticipates a strong showing in 2026 with several large IPOs. Companies like Jio Platforms, National Stock Exchange, Zepto, PhonePe, Manipal Hospitals, and SBI Funds Management are set to launch. These issuances could collectively raise around ?1 lakh crore. While deal numbers may decrease, the overall value is expected to remain robust. View More

Mumbai: A clutch of large IPOs is expected to prop up India's primary market in 2026 even as market uncertainty slows down broader activity compared to the previous two robust years, said Ranvir Davda, co-head of investment banking at HSBC India. "The number of deals may come down, but the size and aggregate value may still be similar (to the previous years)," said Davda in an interview. Reliance Industries' telecom arm Jio Platforms, National Stock Exchange, Zepto, PhonePe, Manipal Hospitals and and SBI Funds Management are among the large issuances expected to hit the market in 2026. Together, these issues could raise ₹1 lakh crore (about $10.8-10.9 billion). So far this year, 20 companies have raised $2.5 billion, according to Prime Database and ETIG Database. That comes after two record years that saw 94 and 115 mainboard IPOs in 2024 and 2025, raising nearly $21-23 billion. This year's IPO fundraise could be between $21 billion and $25 billion. Live Events "This year, a larger percentage of companies are mid to large-sized," said Davda. "Many of these are backed by large groups or private equity investors and, therefore, have the flexibility to wait, ride volatility, and avoid pressing forward if valuations are not aligned." The early part of this year has been slower for the IPO market, with the West Asia conflict weighing on secondary markets, IPO subscriptions and listing gains, prompting several companies to defer offerings. "This year will be volatile. Windows to complete trades will be shorter, so readiness is critical," Davda said. At the same time, companies that need capital are showing more willingness to negotiate. Issuers are increasingly tapping AIFs, family offices and special situations funds alongside traditional investors, while using pre-IPO placements as a bridge to raise capital with visibility to a listing over the next 6-18 months, he said. According to Davda, technology faces sharper scrutiny amid AI disruption, global uncertainty and profitability concerns, though large consumer-tech and fintech offerings are still likely to proceed as "must-own" India exposures. .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 ETMarkets WhatsApp channel) (You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel)

The big stock rally Friday had as much to do with bond yields going down as it did with oil plunging. The Mag 7 are also back. View More

When the stock market opens on Monday, we will once again face the interaction between bonds and oil. Over the weekend, we saw the breakdown of the Strait of Hormuz opening deal and the ramp-up of President Donald Trump 's willingness to go back to bombing mode. I read that there are no more targets, and I regard such writing as ignorant. There are real targets involving the infrastructure in Iran that Trump has been reluctant to hit but might feel that he has to press on with to bankrupt Iran, perhaps to cause food riots, which have always preceded regime change. None of us knows what will occur — and so far, guessing about the outcome has been frightfully dangerous and has yielded nothing investable. However, what has been investable, or at least helpful, is a near-constant examination of the bond market. It's been a tremendous predictor in that it has been stable with yields varying only slightly to the downside. (Remember, bond prices and yields move in opposite directions. So, when people buy bonds, yields go down — and when people sell bonds, yields go up. Lower bond yields tend to support stocks.) The big stock rally Friday had as much to do with bond yields going down as it did with oil plunging. If yields are stable Monday despite an increase in crude, then we will not be hammered in stocks as much as would be expected. The stock market is still incredibly overbought at a positive 7.89% on my trusted momentum indicator, the S & P Short Range Oscillator . This is a negative because we never like to see swings this hard in either direction. However, Oscillator history does show that stocks tend not to fall hard from these highly elevated levels — and, instead, work them off over time. Again, something that should hearten the bulls. For me, a stable bond market means that except for companies directly impacted by oil — the airlines and their derivatives, including Club name Boeing and GE Aerospace , as well as travel and leisure, like Marriott and Disney — you can actually focus on the earnings that are at hand. If that's the case, then we shouldn't be nearly as stressed as we would otherwise expect. One of the most vibrant signs of last week's market is one that I do not expect to change, which is the re-igniting of the "Magnificent Seven" megacap tech stocks as a force to be reckoned with. We own six of them — Alphabet , Amazon , Apple , Meta Platforms , Microsoft , and Nvidia . We do not own Tesla . Until the last 10 days, we were believers that these companies had spent too much money on equipment — as not to be left behind in the artificial intelligence arms race — and their balance sheets were too stretched. What's changed? Something that's not talked about enough but needs to be focused on if we are going to make money in this next leg of the stock market: a grudging recognition by the market that the Mag 7 has plenty more firepower than we thought. They are beginning to reap the gains of their spending, even as we don't hear anyone saying anything about it other than Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. That's the real reason why Oracle stock has sprung back to life. That's why Marvell Technology and Club name Broadcom have roared. That's the strength behind neo-cloud CoreWeave and cloud infrastructure partner Vertiv . And, of course, it's why Nvidia has, at last, moved ever so slightly versus the other Mag 7 names. It might even be why Microsoft is playing catch-up, although that may be a stretch. We'll see. The whole downfall of the Magnificent Seven occurred because they no longer had the balance sheets to self-finance. The spawning of the mag 7 took place during the mini-banking crisis of March 2023, when credit froze for many companies. These companies didn't need credit. They had cash. As long as that was the case, these stocks could continue to run. But once they had to come to the bond market because they didn't have enough money to build or finance the power and the data centers they needed, they were just, for lack of a better term, "average" stocks that went up or down with the flow of funds into and out of the S & P 500 . It would be terrific if these companies could all explain that not only do they need to spend to keep up, but they can because their other businesses are so robust. For some reason, they haven't been willing to do so. Think of it like this: Alphabet's Google, YouTube, and Google Cloud are spewing cash. Same with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon Prime. Tesla is now a tech company, and the market will give it all the money it needs. Apple doesn't have to spend at all; it is a free rider. Microsoft has the cash to do something special beyond Copilot. Meta has some sort of new, winning strategy that the market thinks will produce profits. And, let's not forget, Nvidia's next-generation chip platform, Vera Rubin, is about as sold out as you can get. At the same time, we have seen the emergence of Anthropic and OpenAI, which are losing gobs of money but they have, at least right now, the hope of endless financing from both institutions and the public. OpenAI uses Microsoft's Azure cloud as well as Oracle and CoreWeave. Anthropic has a deal with CoreWeave backed up by Google. Plus, SpaceX will soon go public, and that will generate more funds for this complex because xAI will need to build out its infrastructure. Tesla's Elon Musk is behind SpaceX and xAI, which has the chatbot Grok. All of these have no choice but to spend because it's an immense horse race with winners changing regularly. Right now, it seems like Anthropic's Claude model has the edge, but I wouldn't count out any of these companies, given all sorts of nuances like retail for Amazon and traditional search for Alphabet and OpenAI's ChatGPT, as well as Meta's possibilities. I am, by no means, giving you the complete picture of what is going on in this universe. All I can tell you, though, is that the robust nature of both OpenAI and Anthropic and their ability to raise money with ease has re-ignited this group, and the profits that they are now getting from their Nvidia spend and their own spend on chips has turned this universe and all of its accoutrements back into a positive for the market instead of a negative. Consider the broad expanse of what's happening right now in tech that's created a much more fecund world, one that has gone from novelty to big business. We are on the cusp of an explosion of AI agents. The agentic economy right now can eliminate much of call center hiring, code writer hiring, and analyst and research hiring. These are real savings that are worth real profits to enterprise clients, even as it has meant a dramatic slowing for enterprise software. You need a ton of compute to make all of this happen, and that means you need Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips. Agents run on CPUs (central processing units), not GPUs (graphics processing units), which is why Intel , Advanced Micro Devices , and newly added Bullpen stock Arm are going higher. I think Intel's comeback is for real, and I am kicking myself for missing it. The company reports this week, and while it missed last quarter and got slaughtered, this time, more analysts are itching to get behind it, not bury it. In the data center itself, there's a revolution out of copper and into fiber. We like Corning , which has been a killer in the portfolio, but Lumentum and Coherent to solve the optical interconnect problem that copper causes. Marvell is known as the third pillar of optical alliance. All three are partners with Nvidia. There's still one more wave of spending that involves the actual energy buildout: Club names GE Vernova and Eaton , as well as Bloom Energy and Caterpillar , stand to benefit, as well as the aforementioned CoreWeave and Vertiv. I do not pretend to be sophisticated about the technology involved beyond speaking to the CEOs and reading the relevant research. My focus here, though, is to say that you just needed to follow the money. The whole complex that is the fourth industrial revolution seemed stalled as we couldn't figure out where all the money could come from. Now we see it coming from the profits from earlier spending, as well as the money that OpenAI and Anthropic keep spending, as well as the next tranche that comes from their IPOs and the SpaceX offering. No other segment of the economy is attracting this level of money. This re-ignition of the Mag 7 complex is, fortunately, much broader than the one that occurred from March 2023 until September 2025, when Oracle and Nvidia topped out, the two stocks most levered to the data center explosion. Unfortunately, we don't have another center of spend to key on. Let's not forget that we are a consumer-led economy. Don't despair, though. As long as bond yields stay low, we are going to see a Federal Reserve that is at least prone to cut policy interest rates. Yes, inflation is still too high to justify more than one cut. But as long as the economy is slowing, the Fed is on your side, and it can easily asterisk oil and other commodities behind inflation, and say they are fleeting even as the consumer's decline isn't. Too rosy? All I can say is that we can repeal some of what we reaped in the last two weeks in the stock market — but if we do, buyers will surface, and you won't be alone if you stay long. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) 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.

Industrial land remains a foundational input for manufacturing, infrastructure, renewable energy and logistics View More

Union Minister for Electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the foundation stone of a semiconductor plant has been laid in Odisha on the occasion of Akshay Tritiya. He said the upcoming facility marks a significant step for high-tech manufacturing in the state, adding that he thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi. View More

Bhubaneswar (Odisha): The foundation stone for the country's first advanced 3D chip packaging unit was laid on Sunday at Info Valley, Bhubaneswar, Odisha . The project marks a significant step towards strengthening India's domestic semiconductor ecosystem and advancing the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat in high-end electronics manufacturing. Union Minister for Electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the foundation stone of a semiconductor plant has been laid in Odisha on the occasion of Akshay Tritiya. He said the upcoming facility marks a significant step for high-tech manufacturing in the state, adding that he thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi . Calling it a matter of pride for Odisha, the Union Minister said the plant will be based on advanced technology, including the use of 3D glass substrate technology in chip manufacturing, which he described as a next-generation innovation in the semiconductor sector. "On the occasion of Akshay Tritiya, the foundation stone of a semiconductor plant has been laid in Odisha. I want to thank PM Modi and CM Mohan Charan Majhi. A high-tech industry coming to Odisha is a matter of pride. This is an advanced technology. Normally, a silicone substrate is used in the manufacturing of chips, and now the technology of advanced 3D Glass substrate will be used, and the foundation stone of the first major plant using that technology has been laid in Odisha," he said. Live Events He added, "We will also work to double the capacity of the plant after the completion of the first phase of the plant. Several railway projects are underway in Odisha currently. Railway Stations in Puri, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and other cities are being redeveloped." Addressing the gathering, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi described the project as a historic milestone for Odisha and the nation. He said that for the first time in India, an advanced 3D Glass Solutions semiconductor project is being established, bringing immense pride to the state. He noted that global technology leaders such as Intel, Lockheed Martin, and Applied Materials are associated with cutting-edge packaging technologies, and their interest in Odisha reflects the state's growing industrial strength. Majhi informed that the company is investing nearly ₹2,000 crore in the project and the facility is expected to produce 70,000 glass panels annually, along with 50 million assembled units and around 13,000 advanced 3DHI modules. He added that Odisha has emerged as the only state in the country where both India's first compound semiconductor fabrication unit and first 3D glass substrate packaging facility are being established. Meanwhile, speaking to reporters, the Odisha Chief Minister said, "This is happening for the first time in the country, and its construction will take place right here in Odisha. This is the future of semiconductor technology. This company is investing Rs 2000 crore in the first phase in Odisha. More than 2500 people will also get employment from this." .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)

Student loan borrowers graduating college in May will face different repayment options than in prior years. Here's what to know. View More

Paul Bradbury | Ojo Images | Getty Images College graduates in the Class of 2026 are stepping into a radically different student loan landscape, one with fewer repayment options and stricter rules on debt forgiveness compared to previous years.The revisions to the federal lending system follow the passage of President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill" last year and other policy changes enacted by the Trump administration. Each year, roughly 2 million students earn bachelor's degrees, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Roughly 60% of those students will have education loans, with an average balance of around $30,000, according to an analysis by higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. The typical monthly student loan bill is $304. Here's what this year's graduates should know about their federal student loans in light of the recent changes. You still have 6 months before the first bill is due One important safety net for federal student loan borrowers remains intact: Your first bill likely won't be due until six months after you graduate, thanks to the government's grace period, said Nancy Nierman, assistant director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program in New York. Those with federal Perkins Loans can get up to nine months before they need to start repayment. If your loans are subsidized, the government will pay the interest during the grace period, Kantrowitz said. Meanwhile, interest will accrue on unsubsidized loans."After the grace period, the loan status will switch to 'In Repayment,'" Nierman said. "This will probably happen around December." The exact date will depend on factors including your loan details and your graduation date. You should mark your calendar for around two weeks before your first payment is due to make sure you don't miss it, Kantrowitz said. Student loan repayment options are changing Starting in the summer, college graduates should explore which repayment options might be best for them, said Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, a nonprofit. The options are shifting: Some plans have disappeared or will, while new options are set to launch this July.The Biden administration-era Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan — which came with some of the lowest monthly bills to date — is no longer available. Those graduating in the spring also won't have access to the new Tiered Standard Plan, the U.S. Department of Education said. But starting July 1, borrowers can enroll in the new Repayment Assistance Plan. Under RAP, monthly payments will typically range from 1% to 10% of your earnings; the more you make, the bigger your required payment. There will be a minimum monthly payment of $10 for all borrowers.If all of your student loans were disbursed before July 1 of this year, you'll also remain eligible for the following plans, according to the Education Department: Standard Repayment PlanGraduated Repayment PlanExtended Repayment PlanIncome-Based Repayment Plan, or IBRIncome-Contingent Repayment Plan, or ICRPay as You Earn, or PAYE"They can read about these plans and use a loan calculator to see both the monthly payment and long-term costs at Studentaid.gov," Mayotte said. "It's important to not just look at the lowest monthly payment option, but more importantly, the lowest long-term cost options," she added. "The name of the game is paying the least amount over time." Read more CNBC personal finance coverageAverage tax refund is 11.2% higher, latest IRS filing data showsBessent says to adjust paycheck withholdings, but mistakes may trigger a tax billWhy the stock market is hitting records despite Iran war35% of Gen Z homebuyers are single women. Here's why they need an estate planCommunity college enrollment rises as more grads pursue associate degreesHow to file a tax extension for free by the April 15 deadlineOver 643,000 student loan borrowers await repayment plans, forgiveness: court filingIRS audit red flags remain despite agency budget cutsWhy BLTs just got more expensive — tariffs, war send tomato prices soaringTrump accounts sign up more than 5 million kids: TreasuryMarket volatility can 'weigh heavily' on Gen Z, advisor says — how to copeMore buyers pick 7-year car loans 'to make the numbers fit': expertTariff refunds unlikely to benefit consumers, CNBC CFO Council survey findsAverage tax refund is 11% higher, latest IRS filing data showsCNBC's Financial Advisor 100: Best financial advisors, top firms ranked Spring graduates who plan to return to school and end up borrowing student loans again, after July 1, will face more limited repayment options, Nierman said. They will have access only to the new Tiered Standard Plan and RAP, she added. Federal loan forgiveness rules are tightening After graduating, you should also see if you're eligible for any state or federal debt forgiveness programs, consumer advocates said. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, signed into law by former President George W. Bush in 2007, allows government and not-for-profit employees to have their federal student loans discharged after 10 years. But Trump signed an executive order last year that said borrowers employed by organizations that do work involving "illegal immigration, human smuggling, child trafficking, pervasive damage to public property and disruption of the public order" will "not be eligible" for PSLF. Those changes are expected to go into effect in July, though they face legal challenges. Consumer advocates have criticized the new restrictions, saying they could allow Trump officials to make any organization it doesn't like ineligible for the program. In the meantime, with the PSLF help tool, borrowers can search for a list of employers that still qualify under the program. watch nowVIDEO11:4111:41Why rising youth unemployment will spell trouble for the economyWork/Life Most state-level student debt forgiveness programs offer relief to borrowers in specific occupations, Kantrowitz said. For example, the Maine Dental Education Loan Repayment Program offers a total of $100,000 in student loan repayment assistance to dentists in underserved areas of the state.Other state programs may offer forgiveness based on your finances rather than your occupation.In New York, the Get On Your Feet Loan Forgiveness Program, rolled out in 2015, allows certain residents to get loan forgiveness for up to 24 months of their payments. Among other qualification requirements, borrowers must have an adjusted gross income of less than $50,000 a year.The Institute of Student Loan Advisors has a database of student loan forgiveness programs by state. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

The International Monetary Fund has lowered its global growth forecast for 2026. This adjustment comes as the war in the Middle East has caused a significant oil price shock. The IMF also anticipates higher inflation due to rising energy and food costs. View More

The International Monetary Fund trimmed its global growth forecast for 2026 as the oil-price shock from war in the Middle East rippled across economies worldwide. The global lender sees the world economy expanding 3.1%, down from a January forecast of 3.3%, according to its World Economic Outlook. The IMF also raised its inflation estimate, reflecting higher energy and food prices. Economic data out this week showed economic growth in China quickened in the first quarter. Meanwhile, US wholesale inflation in March was softer than expected and the UK economy expanded in February by the most in two years. Here are some of the charts that appeared on Bloomberg this week on the latest developments in the global economy , markets and geopolitics: World Bloomberg The International Monetary Fund downgraded its growth projection for the year after the war in the Middle East triggered a major oil shock and included the possibility of a downturn if the conflict drags on and energy infrastructure is severely damaged. Live Events US Bloomberg Wholesale prices rose by less than expected in March, despite a surge in energy costs tied to the Iran war. The producer price index rose 0.5%, while an underlying gauge that excludes food and energy rose just 0.1%. Bloomberg Exports of US oil, including crude and refined products, surged to a record as the war in Iran sent buyers hunting for alternatives to Middle Eastern supplies. Most of the gains came as crude shipments jumped above the key mark of 5 million barrels a day, reaching the highest since September 2025, according to government data. Bloomberg Stellantis NV’s global shipments jumped 12% in the first quarter, led by a surge in North American deliveries of refreshed Jeep and Ram models. North American shipments to dealers and distributors, or directly to retail and fleet customers, rose 17% to 379,000 vehicles. Bloomberg The surge in gasoline prices is causing more economic pain in some cities than others and it’s not necessarily in the places where they have risen the most, like Chicago or Los Angeles. Instead, it’s in smaller, more spread-out cities, like Nashville or Indianapolis, according to an analysis of local gas prices through April 9 from data aggregator GasBuddy and figures on driver mileage from the Federal Highway Administration. Europe Bloomberg The UK economy was expanding quickly in the weeks leading up to the outbreak of war in Iran, revealing the extent to which conflict in the Middle East has changed British fortunes. Gross domestic product grew 0.5% in February. Britain’s powerhouse services sector boosted activity, growing for a fourth straight month. Production and construction also expanded. Bloomberg The European Central Bank will raise interest rates in June as the Iran war drives inflation higher this year, a Bloomberg survey showed. The quarter-point increase is likely to be the only such move, however, as the conflict won’t cause a long-lasting price shock. Bloomberg The value of Norway’s crude exports surged to a record last month due to the outbreak of the war in the Middle East, helping to raise the country’s trade surplus to the highest level in more than three years. Asia Bloomberg China’s economic growth rebounded more than expected in the first quarter, powered by strong manufacturing and exports. At the same time, the figures showed few signs of a turnaround in weak consumer spending. Bloomberg South Korea’s import prices posted their biggest surge in nearly three decades, underscoring the scale of cost pressures rippling through the economy as the Iran war spurs a spike in oil and weighs on the won. Bloomberg Taiwan overtook the UK in stock market value as the island’s tech firms regained favor amid hopes for further de-escalation in the Iran war. Taiwan’s market capitalization rose to $4.14 trillion as of Wednesday, making it the world’s seventh largest, according to data compiled by Bloomberg showing the combined value of companies with a primary listing on the island. The UK’s market was valued at around $4.09 trillion. Africa Bloomberg The Democratic Republic of Congo is poised to overtake Ethiopia to become sub-Saharan Africa’s fifth-largest economy this year, the IMF said, buoyed by a mining boom and a strengthening currency. South Africa will retain top spot followed by Nigeria, Angola and Kenya. .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!

Consumers are still spending amid U.S.-Iran war and $4 gas prices, but there's a pullback at entertainment and dining venues hitting local economies hard. View More

In this articleCALYFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT The Washington Post | The Washington Post | Getty Images Robert Evans doesn't have to watch the news to find out about economic jolts that might cause the American consumer to pause. He just has to look at his cycling race registrations. "Every time something major is announced, like tariffs, or an attack on another country, our event registration tracks like the stock market. People pull back for a minute and pause and take a wait-and-see attitude," said Evans, who is the CEO of Cycling Quests, which organizes high-end road races. He says that wait-and-see attitude is now in evidence."Sometimes it rebounds quickly, other times it stays off by 20-30%. We notice this is more so with our events that have a lower entry price point and targeted more down market," Evans said, noting that events with higher price points seem to be a little more insulated. "But we are starting to see a downturn there as well," he said. The more an event is tied to travel and sports tourism, the more increases in airfares and travel costs reduce demand. And for every "fun stop", Evans says, there is a multiplier effect. Even for mid-sized sporting events in smaller cities like Boise, Idaho, or Provo, Utah, each out-of-town participant represents roughly $900-$1,000 in ancillary economic activity — meals, lodging, gas, and incidental spending — on top of registration fees. Evans says half of participants typically stay at least one night, with 60 percent traveling more than two hours to compete. "The stakes for host communities are significant. When consumers start skipping events or choosing closer-to-home alternatives, that spending evaporates while promoters' fixed costs remain — meaning the economic hit falls hardest on local restaurants, hotels, and retailers, not just the event organizer," Evans said. The same economic impact applies to truly local events. People who opt out of going to an escape room, for instance, may just stay home, skipping the dinner they would have stopped to eat beforehand. This deprives the local eatery of revenue and the waitstaff of tips. Escape rooms, bowling, arcade troubleThe war's impact on the consumer is uneven to be sure. Debit and credit card spending was up in March, the most in more than three years, according to Bank of America, with a 16.5% jump in spending at gas stations the biggest factor, but there also was growth of 3.6% excluding gas. Changes in tax law have pushed up the average IRS refund this year by over 11%, which is also a help.But overall, Americans are having less "fun" as high gas prices and uncertainty shadow their discretionary spending. The impacts are being felt in the dollars spent on escape rooms, bowling alleys, and arcades. "Placer.ai data confirms a recent shift in consumer behavior: shoppers are decreasing their visits to discretionary retailers and entertainment venues, instead prioritizing consumer staples to stretch their household budgets," says R.J. Hottovy, Head of Analytical Research at Placer.ai. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told CNBC on Wednesday. "The consumers are spending, the credit quality is very good and improving. ... We all face that same uncertainty, but right now, the U.S. companies and consumers are doing well."But the consumer psychology is fragile. The University of Michigan's monthly survey of consumer sentiment tumbled to 47.6, down 10.7% from the March survey to its lowest on record.   watch nowVIDEO2:4802:48Consumer sentiment plunges to record low at 47.6Squawk on the Street That consumer push-and-pull is having a ripple effect across the U.S.Bowlero operates over 350 bowling entertainment centers throughout the U.S., and its traffic was down 10.6 percent on average in March, according to Placer.ai data. Dave & Buster's, with 170 adult eatertainment locations across the U.S., has seen its traffic slide 4.5 percent in March. Main Event, which is owned by Dave & Busters, and offers a similar slate of eatertainment activities at its 50-plus outlets, saw its traffic decline by 7.6 percent in March, according to Placer.ai data.Escape rooms, in general, were down 6.7 percent on average in March. Signs of weakness before U.S.-Iran conflictStill, dig a little deeper and it shows Americans are still willing and able to indulge for something they really want. While bowling alleys and other venues have seen lagging traffic in March, that isn't the case for the cinema. "Movie theaters have bucked this trend, buoyed by a strong slate of new releases like Project Hail Mary and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie," Hottovy said. For some entertainment-based businesses, the consumer softness began long before the war.Dave and Buster's stock has been under pressure as far back as mid-2024, with the more recent geopolitical issues compounding negative investor sentiment. Past management mistakes have been cited by a new leadership team now leading a turnaround effort. But the war is clearly on Wall Street's mind, with its CFO on a March 31 earnings call responding to a question from a Jefferies analyst about a world that has "changed a lot in March.""Obviously, there's a lot going on from a macro perspective, from gas prices, from consumer sentiment and the like," said CFO Darin Harper. He said it was difficult for the company to evaluate any macro impact versus timing of holidays changing this year, including spring break and Easter. "So as typical for our business, we kind of like to get through this spring break period of time and try to get a better read on things. We certainly know it's out there, but it's too early for us to really parse through what impact that's having," Harper said.Dave & Buster's did not respond to a request for comment.  Stock Chart IconStock chart iconDave and Buster's Entertainment stock performance in 2026. Hottovy says the recent data shows a definitive impact from the war. "Visits to eatertainment and escape room venues have consistently declined on a year-over-year basis since mid-February," he said. Mark Flint, CEO and co-founder of the Escape Game and the Great Big Game Show, one of the nation's largest operators of escape rooms, said that his company is aware of the Placer.ai data for experiential categories, and the irregular traffic patterns which also coincided with changes in spring holiday dates versus the prior year. "We did anticipate a year-over-year decrease for this time of year, but it does look like some concepts and categories were impacted more than expected," Flint said of the March numbers. But he said the impacts his businesses are seeing are not as pronounced as the overall category data, and year-over-year numbers in April are up so far compared to prior year. In his view, if you run a business people want to come to, "it creates a buffer from the impact of what we consider temporary ebbs and flows from these types of world events."Flint said the company is investing $40 million this year on new stores and new experiences across the U.S., and there are no anticipated changes in that plan, "regardless of the macro environment," he said. "A great game played in a great environment with those you love is valuable to our guests all the time, and even more so when things get tough," Flint added.No reason yet to think permanent shift in 'fun' economy Mark Johnson, faculty fellow in investments and portfolio management at Wake Forest University School of Business, said this is textbook consumer behavior when gas prices go up. "When people are spending more to fill up their tank, the first things to go are the fun and discretionary items. Those are easy to put off, but rent, a car payment, and groceries are not," Johnson said. While discretionary and "fun" spending may seem trivial, it isn't to the macroeconomy. "It matters more than people realize because that discretionary spending is a big part of what keeps local economies growing," Johnson added.The good news, Johnson says, is that the "fun" pullback is usually more of a pause than a permanent shift and a quick end to hostilities in Iran would likely bring people back to the bowling alleys and escape rooms. "Once gas prices come down and budgets feel less tight, people tend to come back fairly quickly," Johnson said. The desire to go out and do things does not disappear — it just gets delayed. On Friday, President Trump again indicated the war was nearing an end, and Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz to all traffic, sending oil prices down by as much as 9%. But by Saturday morning, Iran imposed control over the waterway again amid gunfire."The key question is how long it lasts," Johnson said. "I think this surge in gas prices could stick around longer than many expect. If that happens, inflation could spread into more parts of the economy and some discretionary spending habits may start to change in ways that are harder to reverse," he added.A recent consumer sentiment survey by Ernst & Young Parthenon shows 27 percent of consumers are pulling back on discretionary spending. "While gas prices aren't the sole cause of discretionary pullbacks, households are becoming more selective as they prioritize essentials," said Will Auchincloss, Americas retail sector leader at EY Parthenon. "We're seeing targeted pullbacks in fitness and entertainment, as dollars shift toward non-negotiables such as groceries and housing." Auchincloss says consumers are feeling more confident managing their budgets, even as stress and uncertainty remain elevated, and if broader cost pressures ease, "we're likely to see consumer spending recover gradually." Meanwhile, back at Cycling Quests, Evans watches registrations with trepidation. He describes a long, convoluted registration recovery from Covid, only to be stopped cold by tariffs. "We had events last year that were trending well ahead of previous years, and then the tariffs were announced and registrations just stopped. Stopped," Evans said — weeks with just a trickle versus a steady stream. "As long as there is geopolitical chaos, there will be chaos in the fun economy as well, while people hesitate on whether they should save their money or enjoy life as normal. It's unpredictable," Evans said.  Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

There's a good and bad way to write effective artificial intelligence prompts for personal finance advice. View More

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images Many Americans are turning to artificial intelligence for financial advice.But getting good or bad advice depends a lot on how well users write their instructions — or prompts — to AI platforms. "I think that there's a real art and science to prompt engineering," Andrew Lo, director of MIT's Laboratory for Financial Engineering and principal investigator at its Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, said in a recent web presentation for Harvard University's Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The limitations of AI for personal finance Firstly, it's important to note that AI has limitations when it comes to financial planning, experts said. AI is generally good at providing high-level overviews of financial topics: For example, why it's important to diversify investments, or why exchange-traded funds may be better than mutual funds in some cases but not others, Lo told CNBC in an interview.However, it struggles in other areas. Tax planning is a good example, Lo said. Perhaps counterintuitively, AI isn't great at crunching numbers and doing precise financial calculations, he said. While AI can provide general guidance on the types of tax deductions or tax rules people might consider, asking AI to do a numerical analysis of their own taxes is risky, he said. "When it comes to very, very specific calculations of your own personal situation, that's where you have to be very, very careful," Lo said. AI can also sometimes provide wrong answers due to so-called "hallucination" of the algorithm, Lo said. "One of the things about [large language models] that I find particularly concerning is that no matter what you ask it, it'll always come back with an answer that sounds authoritative, even if it's not," Lo said. Read more CNBC personal finance coverageAverage tax refund is 11.2% higher, latest IRS filing data showsBessent says to adjust paycheck withholdings, but mistakes may trigger a tax billWhy the stock market is hitting records despite Iran war35% of Gen Z homebuyers are single women. Here's why they need an estate planCommunity college enrollment rises as more grads pursue associate degreesHow to file a tax extension for free by the April 15 deadlineOver 643,000 student loan borrowers await repayment plans, forgiveness: court filingIRS audit red flags remain despite agency budget cutsWhy BLTs just got more expensive — tariffs, war send tomato prices soaringTrump accounts sign up more than 5 million kids: TreasuryMarket volatility can 'weigh heavily' on Gen Z, advisor says — how to copeMore buyers pick 7-year car loans 'to make the numbers fit': expertTariff refunds unlikely to benefit consumers, CNBC CFO Council survey findsAverage tax refund is 11% higher, latest IRS filing data showsCNBC's Financial Advisor 100: Best financial advisors, top firms ranked That's not to say people should avoid it altogether. And indeed, many seem to be leveraging the technology: 66% of Americans who have used generative AI say they have used it for financial advice, with the share exceeding 80% for millennials and Generation Z, according to an Intuit Credit Karma poll of 1,019 adults published in September. About 85% of the respondents who have used GenAI in this manner acted on the recommendations provided, according to the survey. "[People] should be using AI for financial planning — but it's how they use it that's important," Lo said. How to write a good AI prompt for personal finance This is where writing strong prompts can be helpful. "Even if it's the best model in the world, if it's fed a bad prompt" it will only be able to do so much, said Brenton Harrison, a certified financial planner and founder of New Money New Problems, a virtual financial advisory firm. A strong prompt isn't too broad: It contains enough detail so the AI can provide relevant information to the user, Lo said. Take this example he provided relative to retirement planning. A bad prompt in this context might be: "How should I retire?" Lo said during the Harvard webinar. "It's just too generic," he said. "Garbage in, garbage out." Lo said that a better prompt would be: "Assume you are a fee-only fiduciary [financial] advisor. Here are my goals, constraints, tax bracket, state, assets, risk tolerance and timeline. Provide me with, number one: base case strategy. Number two: key assumptions. Three: risks. Four: what could invalidate this plan. Five: what information you are missing, and in particular, what are you uncertain about."In this case, the user is telling the generative AI program — examples of which include OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini — to frame its advice as a fiduciary. This is a legal framework that requires the financial advisor to make recommendations that are in a client's best interests.Ultimately, it's a process of trial and error — almost like a conversation that involves multiple prompts, perhaps more than 20, until the user gets a satisfactory answer, Lo told CNBC. It's important to double- and triple-check the output, especially when it comes to financial issues, he said. How to 'reverse engineer' a prompt After going through this sequence of prompts, users can "shortcut" the process for future queries by asking one additional question: "What prompt should I have asked you in order to generate the answer that I was looking for?" Lo told CNBC. Basically, the user is asking the AI how to generate the "right" prompt more quickly, Lo said. watch nowVIDEO4:2804:28Workslop: When AI makes work worseSquawk Box "Once you get that response, you can store it away and use that in the future for questions that are similar to the one that you just asked," Lo said. "That's one way to make your prompt engineering more efficient: It's to reverse engineer the prompt by asking AI to tell you what you should have done differently." Take an additional step Lo told CNBC he recommends taking a few additional steps for financial questions. When a user receives what seems to be a good answer to their question, they should always follow up by asking the AI additional questions to determine its limitations. For example, asking what it's uncertain about and what information it's missing, Lo said.For example: "What kind of information did you not have in order to be able to make that recommendation, and that could lead to some unreliable outcomes?"Or, along the same lines: "How convinced are you that this is the correct answer? What kind of uncertainties do you have about the answer, and what kinds of things don't you know that you need to in order to come up with a conclusive answer to the question?" This way, the user can tease out the range of uncertainty behind an AI's answer, Lo said. One of the things about [large language models] that I find particularly concerning is that no matter what you ask it, it'll always come back with an answer that sounds authoritative, even if it's not.Andrew Lodirector of MIT's Laboratory for Financial Engineering and principal investigator at its Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab Along the same lines, Harrison, the financial planner, said he recommends requiring the AI program to list its sources. Users can also instruct the AI to limit its sources to those that meet certain criteria. "If you don't require it to verify the sources, it'll give an opinion, which isn't what I'm looking for," Harrison said.Ultimately, there's so much "context" and complexity relative to each individual's financial situation that a human financial planner can tease out of their client, Harrison said. Someone using AI won't necessarily know that they're uncovering all those subtleties in their prompts, he said. "Looking to [AI] for advice implies you are giving it enough information to form an opinion and make a recommendation, and that's a step further than I'd go with AI," he said. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Gamers once helped save Nvidia from bankruptcy. Now they feel left behind as the memory crunch drives focus to AI chips and DLSS 5 disrupts game design. View More

In this articleNVDAFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch nowVIDEO3:0603:06Nvidia's once-tight bond with gamers is cracking over AI: 'That breaks my heart'Tech For its first 30 years, Nvidia wasn't a household name unless you were a gamer. Now, some of its original fan base feel left behind as artificial intelligence has made the chipmaker the world's most valuable company. "The gaming segment is no longer the driving force of the company. There was one point when it clearly was," said Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein Research.Nvidia popularized the graphics processing units, or GPUs, that enable fast frame rates and rendering that make the best video game play possible. When Nvidia released its first GPU in 1999, the GeForce 256, it laid off the majority of workers and approached bankruptcy to make it happen. Gamers snapped up the new type of processor, bringing Nvidia back from the brink.Now, with demand for AI soaring, nearly all of Nvidia's revenue comes from its products that serve that industry, instead of gaming. And as AI chipmaking shrinks the available memory supply, Nvidia has been forced to make tough decisions about priorities.In a memory-constrained reality, it's not shocking that Nvidia would prioritize its far more profitable data center GPUs such as Hopper and Blackwell. Nvidia's operating margins in its compute and networking segment averaged 69% over the past three years, compared to a 40% margin for the consumer-forward graphics segment."I understand that they're going to chase that. And that breaks my heart," said Greg Miller, co-founder and host of popular video game podcast Kinda Funny Games Daily in an interview with CNBC. "Dance with the one who brought you. Gamers have brought you this far," Miller added.If analyst predictions are correct, 2026 will be the first year in three decades that Nvidia doesn't release a new generation of its consumer-facing GeForce line of graphics processing units.Gamers are "hugely important" to Nvidia, according to an email the company sent to CNBC, adding that it's "always innovating, testing and releasing" new gaming-focused technologies.The current RTX 50 series of GeForce GPU was unveiled at CES in January 2025. But with 2026 CES and GTC in the rearview mirror, some worry this will be the first year without a new generation, although Nvidia does commonly reveal new hardware as late as September.While it represents a big strategy pivot, some gamers say it's not a bad move for their budgets. "It's kind of hard to keep up. You can't upgrade every single year, so having a bit of a break and waiting for a generation to really matter I think is actually in service of the gamers out there," said Tim Gettys, Miller's co-founder of Kinda Funny Games. AI profits take over Nvidia's current era of AI dominance started two decades ago with the 2006 launch of its CUDA software toolkit. Suddenly, developers could use GPUs for general-purpose computing instead of just graphics.Then, in 2012, Nvidia's deep learning capabilities were made clear during what many consider the big bang moment for modern AI. Nvidia's GPUs and CUDA were used to build a neural engine called AlexNet that blew away the competition during a prominent image recognition contest.Although Nvidia didn't stop making gaming GPUs, it signaled a new focus on GPUs for AI in 2020 when it purchased high-performance computing chipmaker Mellanox Technologies for $7 billion.The company has been releasing new generations of high-end GPUs ever since, along with full rack-scale systems for AI workloads such as the new Vera Rubin platform, which CNBC got an exclusive first look at in February. watch nowVIDEO13:5913:59First look at Vera Rubin, Nvidia’s next AI system that’s 10 times more efficientTech Nvidia doesn't reveal prices for its AI chips, but analysts say one Blackwell GPU costs up to $40,000, while the Futurum Group estimates a full Vera Rubin system will cost up to $4 million.In contrast, Nvidia sells its RTX 50-series gaming GPUs for between $299 to $1,999.During the cryptocurrency peaks of 2018 and 2021, Nvidia's GPUs sold in online marketplaces for up to three times listing price because they were once key to mining Bitcoin and Ethereum. Although prices fell when mining changed course in 2022, Nvidia's current RTX 5090 GPU is still sold online for up to double the retail price. Plenty of demand for last year's generation may make Nvidia less motivated to put out a new version this year. 'Hard to get the memory' But the memory shortage is a more likely culprit for Nvidia's gaming drawback.Industry reports suggest Nvidia has made plans to reduce production of its latest gaming GPUs by up to 40% as it faces a major shortage of the general-purpose memory that's necessary for making a GPU. Dynamic Random Access Memory, or DRAM, enables fast, temporary data storage so the GPU can run parallel tasks.Personal computers, where Nvidia's gaming GPUs end up, have borne the brunt of DRAM shortages. When memory prices go up, manufacturing a GPU costs more, and that cost trickles down to consumers.Gartner predicts PC prices will rise by 17% this year, causing PC shipments to decline 10.4%."With how expensive all of this has gotten, it's concerning to see prices go up on the gaming side with no signs of ever coming back down, and then Nvidia clearly chasing a completely different category of consumer," Gettys said. If the entry-level consumer PC market disappears by 2028 as Gartner predicts, the market for Nvidia's entry-level gaming GPUs is likely to contract, too. Instead, Nvidia is likely saving limited memory inventory for its higher cost, higher margin AI chips. "If there is push-outs or delays on the gaming roadmap, it's probably in large part that they probably can't make the cards anyways because it's hard to get the memory," Rasgon said. "Every bit of memory that's out there, I think is really getting prioritized to AI compute."Higher-performance GPUs like Blackwell and Rubin are lined with dense stacks of a specific type of DRAM known as High Bandwidth Memory, or HBM. Rasgon said it takes about four times as many silicon wafers to make a gigabyte of HBM as it does to make the same amount of more traditional types of DRAM."That dynamic is starving the overall industry of the type of memory that is traditionally used for more consumer type applications. It's just not available," Rasgon said.Nvidia told CNBC that it's continuing to ship all GeForce GPUs as it sees strong demand, and is working closely with suppliers to maximize memory availability."If they're making three times the money and the stockholders are three times happier, then yeah, I do think that they will abandon gaming despite it being what got them there," Gettys said. Read more CNBC tech newsAnthropic's Dario Amodei to meet with White House about MythosAMD, Oracle, Microsoft and the IGV lead a monster week for tech stocksNvidia AI chip rivals attract record funding as competition heats upTSMC and ASML post-earnings stock moves could be a sign of what's to come from chip companies 'Feels like a slap in the face'CEO Jensen Huang did make a big gaming announcement at the beginning of his keynote address at Nvidia's annual GTC conference in March, but the gaming community was less than enthused. Huang announced the next generation of its rendering software called Deep Learning Super Sampling or DLSS, coming in the fall. It's well known for boosting frame rates by rendering games at lower resolutions and using AI to scale up the image, helping games run more smoothly on less powerful hardware.The controversy with the new DLSS 5 is that gamers worry it uses generative AI to change the look of the game. Huang unveiled DLSS 5 with a sizzle reel of photorealistically enhanced versions of characters in popular games such as Resident Evil Requiem, Starfield, and Hogwarts Legacy."I play video games because they're an art form. And so I like to see the thumbprint of the creator in what I'm doing," said Miller of Kinda Funny Games. "That raised a lot of hair on a lot of necks in the video game industry as we deal with so many layoffs, so many studio closures." Nvidia unveiled DLSS 5 at GTC on March 16, 2026, causing an uproar amongst gamers who said the new Deep Learning Super Sampling rendering software used generative AI to change the art of popular video game characters, like Grace Ashcroft in Resident Evil Requiem.Nvidia As it grapples with a post-pandemic slowdown, the gaming industry has seen studio closures, canceled games, and thousands of job cuts across giants like Epic Games, Microsoft's Xbox, and Sony's PlayStation.Gettys was a fan of previous versions of Nvidia's DLSS for making gaming more accessible on a lower budget."The technology is mind-blowing for what it can do to make games run on lower-end PCs," he said. "But then to add this generative AI stuff, it feels like a slap in the face."Gettys' big fear is that this is a step toward fully AI-generated games, which he thinks is "100% the goal."Elon Musk has already addressed the potential for it. In an October post on X, Musk said his xAI game studio will release "a great AI-generated game" before the end of 2026."You're literally altering the art created by the developers. And then at a certain point you're replacing the developers and then their studio gets closed down," Gettys said.Nvidia said in a statement to CNBC, "Games are a creative artform that give developers the opportunity to tell engaging stories and immerse players in incredible worlds. Our RTX technologies are tools that enable game developers to achieve their creative vision - these include rendering techniques such as ray tracing and path tracing, and those enhanced by AI, like DLSS Super Resolution, DLSS Frame Generation, and DLSS 5, all working together to provide the best performance and image quality."During his GTC keynote, Huang said AI is going to "revolutionize how computer graphics is done." In a question-and-answer session the next day, Huang responded to assertions from the gaming community that DLSS 5 makes games appear homogeneous. "They're completely wrong," Huang said. He emphasized that game developers will still be in control, able to "fine-tune the generative AI" to match their style. 'Clear favorite' For over a decade, Nvidia has also offered gaming in the cloud through a service called GeForce NOW. The model has evolved to include different subscription tiers — including a free option — that lets users stream games they own on services like Steam, running on Nvidia GPUs in data centers, rather than on personal devices. "You see XBox and you see PlayStation, you see other competitors trying to get the cloud into gamers' hands in a way that actually makes sense. And Nvidia GeForce NOW has really cracked that code," Miller said.Gettys told CNBC that Nvidia's streaming platform is the best "by a landslide." "It allows millions more people access to gaming at the highest level, even if they don't have the latest cards and all of that. And it's truly incredible technology," he said.Advanced Micro Devices is Nvidia's top competitor in gaming, with its Radeon line of GPUs.But the memory crunch remains a challenge for both."If Nvidia can't get the memory, AMD ain't going to get the memory," Rasgon said. "Sentiment wise, both brands have their fans and they can be die hard.""There's a clear favorite," Gettys said. "If you're playing on PC, you're going to want an Nvidia card."Watch: How AMD became a chip giant and finally caught Intel watch nowVIDEO15:0715:07How AMD became a chip giant and finally caught IntelTech Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Over 34,983 acres have been pooled from more than 31,000 farmers so far, with plans to expand further to support infrastructure projects like roads, railways, and a sports city View More