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Trump says 1,000 missiles are "locked and loaded" and will hit Iran if it carries out its threats to assassinate the U.S. president. View More
Donald Trump, President of the United States, speaks during a press conference at the NATO Summit at the Presidential Complex in Ankara, Turkiye, on July 8, 2026. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images President Donald Trump threatened to "decimate and destroy" Iran if Tehran acts on threats to assassinate him, as the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned an alleged Iranian financier.Iran said Saturday that the new financial measure violated the preliminary deal the two warring countries struck last month as its foreign minister reportedly arrived in Oman for talks."1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!" Trump wrote on Truth Social late Friday U.S. time."Orders have already been given, and the U.S. Military is ready, willing, and able, for a one year period of time, subject to extension, to completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran - PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!," he added.The Wall Street Journal and other U.S. media reported earlier this week that Israel had shared intelligence about an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Trump.According to Reuters, some mourners at the funeral on Thursday of Iran's slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike early in the war, carried banners reading: "We Will Kill Trump." MASHHAD, IRAN - JULY 09: Huge crowds gather for the burial of Iran's late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the Imam Reza Shrine on July 09, 2026 in Mashhad, Iran. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)Majid Saeedi | Getty Images News | Getty Images In a post on X, Khamenei's son and successor as Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, promised to avenge the deaths of those killed in U.S. strikes."This vengeance is what our nation is demanding, and this must definitely be done," Mojtaba Khamenei said. He has not been seen in public since the attack on Feb. 28 at the start of the war that killed his father and other family members. Talks in Oman Iran's semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Oman early Saturday for talks. Oman has been a key mediator in efforts to end the war.A senior Middle East diplomat with direct knowledge of the talks told MS Now that France and the U.K. are studying proposals drafted by Oman that may allow the charging of navigational fees in the Strait of Hormuz, so long as the tolls are not compulsory and have the support of the UN's International Maritime Organization, which regulates sea transport.Shipping traffic through the strait practically ground to a halt after the start of the war, as Iranian forces choked off vital energy supplies from the Middle East, sending oil prices soaring. Under the interim deal with the U.S., Iran promised safe passage to commercial ships through the strait and agreed not to charge tolls for 60 days. In exchange, the U.S. lifted its naval blockade of Iran and temporarily removed sanctions on its oil sales.But Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said on Sunday â it has closed the strait until further notice after firing a warning â shot at a âvessel it â said had attempted â to â transit along an unapproved âroute, Reuters reported, citing state media.Tehran has insisted in the three weeks since the deal that ships are entitled to safe passage only if they use a northern route through Iran's territorial waters.The U.S. president's latest verbal salvo came after a day of relative calm following a week of fighting and fears that a fragile ceasefire could be about to break down.Trump said early Friday said that the United States and Iran have agreed to continue peace talks, even though the ceasefire established by last month's preliminary deal has been scrapped.In a Truth Social post, Trump claimed that the Islamic Republic "has asked us to continue 'talks'" and that "we have agreed to do so.""But the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!" Trump wrote.Iran's state media channels did not immediately confirm or deny that it had asked to continue negotiations. 'Technical talks' Trump's early Friday post confirmed a report by MS NOW, citing a U.S. official, that the warring powers will engage in "technical talks" and remain committed to finding solutions despite a return to hostilities.The U.S. military conducted renewed rounds of offensive strikes against Iran in retaliation for the three commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz coming under attack. The U.S. Treasury Department subsequently withdrew a waiver that had allowed Iran to sell its oil.Treasury subsequently stepped up the pressure on Iran with sanctions against an alleged financier it accused of helping Supreme Leader Khamenei."Following Iran's resumption of attacks on international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action against Iranian financial facilitator Ali Ansari (Ansari), who oversees a sprawling global network of assets benefitting Iran's leaderâMojtaba Khameneiâand other regime elites," the department said in a statement."The so-called Supreme Leader is hiding in seclusion while his regime crumbles," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was quoted as saying in the statement. "Treasury will continue using every tool at its disposal to isolate him and other regime elites from the global financial system. We will preserve these assets for the Iranian people."Araghchi said the move violated the June memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran."Iran has so far kept its word, unlike the so-called U.S. Treasury Secretary who is violating Para 9 of the MoU," Araghchi said in a post on X."That violation follows other violations and missteps by the United States. Reality check: There can only be mutual compliance," he added. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
Reliance Industries Limited is preparing to explore its eastern Sohagpur block. This move aims to augment gas production from its coal bed methane blocks. The company will begin with a test-phase investment estimated between ?300-400 crore. This cautious, phased entry supports future resource additions and production expansion. Groundwork and planning for the eastern block are currently underway. View More
Mumbai: Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is preparing to begin exploration work in its eastern Sohagpur block in Madhya Pradesh, as the company looks to augment gas production from its coal bed methane blocks, said people familiar with the development. CBM is natural gas stored in coal seams, extracted by drilling wells into coal seams and used as compressed natural gas for various domestic and industrial purposes. RIL has coal bed methane blocks in Sohagpur, spanning roughly 1,000 sq km across two separate concessions or licence areas, Sohagpur West and Sohagpur East blocks, each covering about 500 sq km. The company has so far concentrated development on the western block, which industry executives describe as the more geologically prolific of the two. With the western asset largely developed and delivering steady output, RIL will begin with a test-phase investment estimated in the range of ₹300-400 crore, aimed at establishing proof of concept before scaling up. Queries emailed to RIL did not elicit a response till press time. To start exploration work in its eastern Sohagpur block in Madhya Pradesh "RIL is producing CBM from block SP (West), with over 320 wells contributing to an average output of 0.88 million metric standard cubic metres per day in FY 2025-26, a 9.8% Y-o-Y increase. In the block SP (West), multilateral horizontal well (MLW) programmes (first of its kind in India) have been successfully implemented reversing the field decline," RIL said in its annual report for 2025-26. Live Events "Some part of RIL's western block is constrained by forest-area restrictions , so not much can be done there. Therefore, the company is planning exploration of the eastern block," an industry executive familiar with the company's plans said on condition of anonymity, adding that the groundwork and planning for the block are currently underway but on-ground development activity has not yet commenced. Should early results prove encouraging, the company is expected to expand investment and move toward formalising a field development plan for the block. In its annual report for 2025-26, RIL said it will prioritise sustaining existing production, expanding its CBM output and pursuing disciplined exploration to support future resource additions, a strategy that now appears to include a cautious, phased entry into the eastern Sohagpur concession. .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;width: 100%;box-sizing: border-box} .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)
Chip stocks had a wild but strong week. Meta led our portfolio higher. View More
Wall Street's record-setting start to the week ran into two familiar sources of volatility: the artificial intelligence trade and oil. The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Monday closed above 53,000 for the first time ever before renewed U.S.-Iran tensions erased those gains, leaving the blue-chip index down 0.5% for the week. Chip stocks â once the hottest corner of the market â also swung sharply as investors continued to question whether the AI trade had become overextended. Even so, the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 1.74% for the week, while the S & P 500 rose 1.23%. Both indexes have finished higher in four of the past five weeks. Here's a closer look at what drove the market last week. Chip stocks take investors for a wild ride Semiconductor stocks remained at the center of the market action. The group started the week strong, with the VanEck Semiconductor ETF rising about 2% on Monday as investors bought back into some of the biggest winners from the first half of the year. But the rally quickly faded Tuesday after Samsung's results failed to impress investors and Reuters reported that China's DeepSeek is developing its own AI chip. Micron , the Idaho-based rival to Samsung, fell 4.7%, while the VanEck Semiconductor ETF dropped almost 4%. The semiconductor trade stabilized Wednesday, helped by Apple's announcement that it was expanding its longtime partnership with Broadcom in a multiyear deal expected to exceed $30 billion. Apple has historically tapped Broadcom for connectivity chips that help its devices connect to cellular, WiFi and Bluetooth networks. The new agreement calls for the production of more than 15 billion U.S.-made chips and includes a $1.5 billion expansion of Broadcom's manufacturing facility in Fort Collins, Colorado. Broadcom shares climbed nearly 5% on the news Wednesday. It was the second Apple-Broadcom headline of the week. On Monday, Broadcom said in a securities filing that it agreed to supply Apple with "a range of custom ASIC silicon products for use in multiple generations of Apple products." ASIC is short for application-specific integrated circuit â and that jibes with Bloomberg News has reported that Broadcom is working Apple on a specialized AI server chip for its data centers. That would be akin to Broadcom's co-design relationship with Google on its in-house tensor processing units (TPUs). Broadcom was our second-best performer last week, up 10%. Amid the volatility, we used Wednesday's rebound in AI and semiconductor stocks to exit our remaining position in Arm Holdings , locking in a gain of roughly 69% on shares purchased in April. While we don't believe the AI buildout is nearing a peak, the trade has become shakier in recent weeks, and we didn't want to risk giving back a fantastic gain in a stock prone to wild swings. We also wanted to reduce the portfolio's overlap with the CPU renaissance theme, which our recent purchases of Intel provide. We'll continue to follow Arm from the Bullpen and could become interested again at a more attractive valuation. We still like Intel, with portfolio director Jeff Marks noting Friday that we would've bought more shares if not for our trading restrictions. Chip stocks continued to roar higher Thursday, re-emerging as some of the market's best performers. The VanEck Semiconductor ETF climbed 2.5%, led by a 4.5% jump in Micron and a 7.6% gain in Sandisk . However, Friday's action in the group was somewhat muted as investors turned their attention to SK Hynix 's highly anticipated U.S. market debut . Jim Cramer has warned that SK Hynix's debut could prompt investors to sell other chip stocks to free up capital for the new offering. The South Korean memory leader, which has soared this year on booming demand for AI-related memory, opened at $170 â roughly 14% above its $149 offering price. One bright spot in Friday's chip action: Nvidia rose 4% to end the day at $210.96 share, its highest close in almost a month. Meta starts showing its AI hand Meta Platforms spent the week trying to answer the biggest question hanging over its stock : how will the company turn its massive AI investments into meaningful returns? By the end of Friday, the market had given a ringing endorsement . The Facebook and Instagram parent laid the groundwork on July 1 by confirming that it is preparing to launch a cloud business that would sell excess computing power to outside customers. The move would put the company in competition with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Alphabet's Google Cloud, as well as smaller so-called neoclouds like CoreWeave and even Elon Musk's SpaceX . Jim had been stepping up his calls for Meta to start a cloud business, correctly predicting the struggling stock would soar in response. Last week, Meta offered more evidence of how it plans to monetize its compute investments. On Tuesday, the company launched Muse Image , an AI image-generation model aimed at attracting creators and advertisers. The technology will power new tools through Meta's Advantage Plus advertising platform, which lets brands more easily develop ad creative for their marketing campaigns and automate certain tasks. Then on Thursday, Meta unveiled Muse Spark 1.1 , which it called "its strongest model yet for coding and agentic AI tasks." The company said it would charge developers to access the technology, which is a notable shift for the company that previously emphasized giving away its AI models through open-source releases. The move puts Meta in more direct competition with OpenAI's Codex and Anthropic's Claude Code. Meta is rapidly expanding the infrastructure needed to support those ambitions. Reuters reported Thursday that the company plans to begin manufacturing its custom AI chip in September as it looks to double its computing capacity next year. The chip, co-designed with Broadcom and manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co ., could help Meta lower its massive computing costs and reduce its reliance on Nvidia and AMD . Meta saved its best for last, rising 6% in Friday's session. CEO Mark Zuckerberg's comments in a Bloomberg News interview were responsible for some of the move. "The offers that you get for using the compute are so high that it may make sense, in some cases, to rent out or consider those kind of deals instead of your own internal uses," Zuckerberg told Bloomberg. Shares of Meta opened Monday lower, before the buyers stepped in â an harbinger of the rest of the week. The stock finished green in all but Wednesday's session. For the week, Meta jumped 15%, making it the Club's best-performing stock. Oil threatens to spoil the market rally ⦠again The Iran war returned to Wall Street's doorstep last week, illustrating the fragility of the interim peace agreement between Washington and Tehran. Crude prices jumped Tuesday after Iran attacked a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker near the Strait of Hormuz, renewing concerns about disruptions in one of the world's most important energy shipping routes. The pressure intensified Wednesday after President Donald Trump said the ceasefire with Iran was "over" and the U.S. military went on to strike 90 Iranian military targets , including air defense systems. Energy stocks â including ConocoPhillips , Chevron , and Marathon Petroleum â rallied Tuesday as WTI crude climbed back to $76 a barrel, while companies exposed to higher fuel costs came under pressure. Club holding Honeywell Aerospace finished as our worst-performing stock of the week, as investors worried that higher oil prices and renewed fighting in the Middle East could dampen air travel demand. That's particularly important because aerospace suppliers generate a significant portion of their profits from aftermarket services and maintenance â business that tends to slow when airlines fly fewer miles. Honeywell Aerospace's recent outperformance following its June spinoff likely also invited some profit-taking. We added to our HONA position Tuesday. The jump in crude also rekindled inflation concerns, pushing the 10-year Treasury yield to its highest level since May. The steep decline in oil prices in recent weeks led the market to discount the prospect of multiple Federal Reserve rate cuts later this year. However, a sustained rebound in crude and, by extension, energy-driven inflation, could put that back on the table. The move up in bond yields hurt shares of Club holding Home Depot , which we own as a way to play an eventual rebound in the U.S. housing market. For now, elevated borrowing costs continue to pressure the housing market, delaying the recovery in home improvement spending that would benefit the company. DuPont also lagged as investors weighed the impact that higher energy prices and renewed Middle East tensions could have on its input costs and business in the region. DuPont's water unit does a lot of business in the Middle East. By Friday, the pressure eased slightly as oil prices pulled back after Trump said Iran had called to make a deal and the two sides will continue talks . (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.
ETF Action's Mike Akins is encouraging investors to boost exposure to groups that underperformed compared with major artificial intelligence stocks. View More
In this article.MAG7.NDX.RUTSMHQQQ.SPXFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch nowVIDEO4:3104:31Software and cloud computing names have strong growth scenarios, says ETF Action's Mike AkinsETF Edge Overlooked market areas may have a banner second half of the year.ETF Action co-founder Mike Akins is encouraging investors to boost exposure to groups that underperformed compared with major artificial intelligence stocks.He told "ETF Edge" this week that his list includes software and cloud computing names. Many have fallen from "nosebleed valuations" and have "very strong growth scenarios.""These companies prove that 'yes,' we still do need software to do our day-to-day jobs," Akins said.He is also flagging disruptive technology as a strong buy for the next six months."It's a thematic strategy," Akins noted. "It kind of plays a little bit further down market into the mid [and] small-cap range. Those names have been kind of left behind in this mega-cap, semiconductor-led market â¦. Those could do quite well when you look through to their earnings growth estimates by the analysts. It's just a pretty rosy set up." Akins, who was head of exchange-traded funds at ALPS before co-launching his independent financial tech and research firm, also highlights opportunities among the underperforming "Magnificent Seven" index, which is comprised of Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Apple and Tesla."Who [would have] thought that Mag 7 was going to be flat year-to-date at the halfway market," said Akins, who considers the group as a sound catch-up trade for the year's second half.The Magnificent Seven underperformed the Nasdaq-100 in the first half of the year, falling more than 2% while the Nasdaq-100 gained nearly 20%.The momentum may already be materializing. In the early trading days of the year's second half, the Magnificent Seven index is up 5% while the Nasdaq-100 is 1% lower as of Friday's close.Plus, Akins expects small and mid-cap companies as favorable spots going into 2027, noting how small-caps in particular have performed incredibly well this year."All of the down-market names are really starting to catch up," he said. "I think you could see that continuing throughout the year â not just from growing earnings [and] growing revenue, but also from an expansion of multiples that [have been] extremely depressed over the last several years."So far this year, the Russell 2000 index, which tracks small-cap stocks, is up almost 20% while the broader S&P 500 is up almost 11%. Disclaimer Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
Interest in brain-computer interfaces is rising as it promises to help people with compromised neural abilities. View More
Brain-computer interfaces, a nascent technology, establishes a direct link between human minds and devices.BrainCo Elon Musk's Neuralink, which uses implants in people's heads to compensate for disabilities, has become the poster child for so-called brain-computer interfaces (BCI). But some companies are betting that mass-market neural tech won't require opening the skull at all.BCI works by processing brain signals and translating them into commands, allowing external devices to be controlled by thought. Funding for startups in the field is a fraction of the capital flowing into artificial intelligence. But interest in the nascent field is rising as companies notch up milestones, such as enabling people with degenerative conditions including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to type or play video games using brain signals.AI is a catalyst, boosting signal-processing capabilities. Some in the industry envision a further leap one day: using the mind to control or connect with AI and robots.The technology is raising the stakes in the U.S.-China rivalry. The Chinese government included BCI as a strategic "future industry" in its latest Five-Year Plan. Regulators recently approved what officials call the world's first minimally invasive BCI device for commercial use, developed by Neuracle Medical Technology to regain some hand function after spinal cord injuries.While companies including China's StairMed and NeuroXess push ahead with implants, the non-invasive field is gaining momentum â from the Sam Altman-backed Merge Labs to China's Gestala, both pursuing ultrasound-based approaches. BrainCo, one of the so-called "six little dragons" of tech startups in the eastern city of Hangzhou, makes prosthetics and wearable devices using BCI technology.Rui Ma, founder of the Tech Buzz China media and research platform, said that while today's proven BCI applications can dramatically improve the quality of life for severely impaired patients, the far bigger market likely lies in augmenting human capabilities.But she added: "I don't think anyone is remotely close to realizing that ... . Augmentation is like sci-fi at this point." A brain-tech roadmap Founded in 2015 and born out of the Harvard Innovation Labs, BrainCo has planted its flag on the non-invasive side.The implanted and non-invasive approaches are different paths to different problems, BrainCo partner and senior vice president Nyx He told CNBC in a recent interview. Some conditions can only be addressed by going into the brain, she said, but BrainCo believes many others â particularly where drugs fall short â can be served by non-invasive methods that are easier for people to accept and access, at lower risk and cost.The company's bionic hands, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, read an amputee's neural and muscular electrical signals and translate intended movements into finger motions. Its wearables include a sleep aid that BrainCo says uses low-intensity electrical pulses to stimulate neurochemicals associated with stress relief.BrainCo has raised 2 billion yuan ($280 million) in a funding round co-led by IDG Capital and Walden International, the venture firm founded by Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan. BrainCo's bionic hands process brain signals and translate intended movements into commands.CNBC The core challenge for non-invasive methods, according to He, is acquiring and decoding brain signals, which are subtle and noisy when read from outside the skull. BrainCo developed a dry electrode sensor to capture the signals and an AI algorithm to decode them.He outlined the company's roadmap in stages: start with those who need the technology most, such as amputees in markets covered by insurance; expand into medical conditions like ADHD and depression; then target the mass market with consumer electronics.Eventually, BrainCo plans to license its BCI platform to other companies building brain-tech products â a business she expects to become the company's largest revenue driver.The startup's plan echoes thinking emerging at the national level. In a state-media commentary this week, a Chinese Academy of Sciences researcher specializing in non-invasive BCI laid out a similar trajectory: from medical applications in the near term, to uses in autonomous driving and smart manufacturing, and ultimately to mass-market consumer products. Sci-fi hype to commercial reality Investors are split over the best technological approach. But most agree the real test is whether companies can build products that offer clear improvements â and that consumers will pay for.Some argue only implants can deliver. "Non-invasive is like trying to capture light in distant galaxies," said Alex Zhavoronkov, CEO of biotech firm Insilico Medicine.Others see promise in emerging non-implanted techniques. Thomas Tsao, cofounder of Gobi Partners, a venture capital firm that has invested in Gestala, said ultrasound-based approaches offer a more holistic view of the brain without surgical risk.Growing investment could help the industry reach a tipping point, Tsao said, but added its ultimate market size is virtually impossible to quantify, with many future use cases hard to imagine today.Jefferies, in a July 8 report, said invasive implants and ultrasound-based methods represent the "most promising" frontiers, noting that conventional non-invasive systems remain constrained by how clearly they can capture and interpret brain signals. But the bank added that BrainCo's proprietary sensors, AI decoding algorithm and commercialization record give the company an edge.Industry players say the best approach depends on the use case: recording or stimulating brain activity, aimed at patients or consumers, used briefly or continuously, targeting surface or deep brain regions, and how much burden users are willing to bear. The Silicon Valley vs. China playbook If American neurotechnology is bankrolled by billionaires, China's has the backing of the central government.In Beijing, seven ministries jointly issued an implementation plan for the BCI industry in August last year, targeting key technological breakthroughs by 2027. In June, the provincial government of Anhui published an action plan to fast-track BCI development across research, production and industrialization.Some startups in China, facing pressure from state-linked or risk-averse backers to show revenue, have turned to selling equipment or consumer-grade products, said Tech Buzz China's Ma, while U.S. investors prefer the "world-changing bet."For now, China's BCI market is taking off first in non-invasive rehabilitation technologies, Jefferies said, which face lower regulatory and clinical barriers."China has now incorporated BCI into its industrial policy apparatus," said Paul Triolo, a partner at consultancy DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group. "Beijing thinks in terms of not just one breakthrough technology, but the whole supply chain." BrainCo, founded in 2015, makes prosthetics and wearable devices using BCI technology and research.CNBC The country's focus is also broader, he said, from stroke rehabilitation to prosthetics to cognitive assessment.That coordination extends to hospitals and universities. Shanghai has paired BCI startups with Huashan Hospital, broadening access to patients and neurosurgeons. China's health authorities also created a separate insurance category for BCI last year, which experts say could help to scale up the technology.Like AI and semiconductors before it, BCI â with its sensitivities around intimate personal data and privacy â could become a geopolitical flashpoint as it matures. Performance-enhancing uses also raise ethical considerations.BrainCo's He said the company doesn't collect customer data, which is stored on users' devices, not transmitted to the cloud and erased after each use. Information such as concentration scores could also be saved locally on focus-training devices, He said.Asked about tensions between the world's two tech powers, she brushed the politics aside.He said the company's goal is to deliver solutions to those in need, whether in China or the U.S. "I don't think I'll stop at borders for that." Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
With 2026 a bit more than half over, Berkshire Hathaway's B shares are down 1.8% year-to-date and 12.4 percentage points behind the S&P 500's 10.7% gain. View More
In this articleBRK.B.SPXBRK.BFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT (This is the Warren Buffett Watch newsletter, news and analysis on all things Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. You can sign up here to receive it every Friday evening in your inbox.) Berkshire gains ground but still trails S&P as '26 enters second half With 2026 a bit more than half over, Berkshire Hathaway's B shares are down 1.8% year-to-date and 12.4 percentage points behind the S&P 500's 10.7% gain. (Including dividends, the S&P is up 11.4% giving it a 13.1 percentage point lead).A strong June for Berkshire erased almost a third of its 17.5 percentage point deficit as of June 1, its biggest losing margin of the year so far. Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards Even with that June bump, however, it's been a tough Q2 (+ 10 days) for Berkshire with a gain of a bit more than 3% versus the benchmark's strong tech-driven 16% advance, totally erasing what was a slim 1.8 percentage point Berkshire lead at the end of March. Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards Last year, Berkshire underperformed the S&P by 5.5 percentage points excluding dividends. The deficit was 7.0 percentage points with dividends included. Berkshire execs spotted at exclusive Sun Valley conference Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel and portfolio manager Ted Weschler aren't featured in the Forbes article on "Sun Valley's Billionaire Summer Camp" now underway in Idaho.But they are on the magazine's list of attendees and photos from CNBC's David Grogan and Brendan McDermid of Reuters provide visual evidence they are present at the annual Allen & Co. invitation-only gathering of moguls, along with names like Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman. Greg Abel, President and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway arrives at the annual Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho on July 8, 2026.David A. Grogan | CNBC Ted Weschler, portfolio manager for Berkshire Hathaway Inc., attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., July 8, 2026.REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Warren Buffett went to Sun Valley for decades but has not attended the last few years.In 1999, at the height of the dotcom craze, he gave a notable speech at the conference warning that while the internet would be transformative, investors were expecting too much and were bound to be disappointed. BUFFETT & BERKSHIRE AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription:Barron's on MSN: Bank of America stock hits record high and Berkshire Hathaway is a big winnerFinancial Express (India): Warren Buffett vs. Indian grandmothers: Who wins the great gold debate HIGHLIGHTS FROM CNBC'S BUFFETT ARCHIVE AI could make financial scams a 'growth industry' (2024) Warren Buffett describes seeing a convincing AI-generated video of himself that has him worried the technology will make financial scams much more effective. watch nowVIDEO3:1103:11AI could make financial scams a 'growth industry'2024 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting AUDIENCE MEMBER: How do you think about the role of technological advances, especially generative AI, on more traditional industries? Thank you...WARREN BUFFETT: I don't know anything about AI. But I do â I do have â I don't â that doesn't mean I deny its existence or importance or anything of the sort.And last year I said, you know, that we let the genie out of the bottle when we developed nuclear weapons, and that genie has been doing some terrible things lately.And the power of that genie is what, you know, scares the hell out of me. And on, the other hand, I don't know any way to get the genie back in the bottle.And AI is somewhat similar. It's out â it's part-way out of the bottle. And it's enormously important, and it's going to be done by somebody...Now AI, I had one experience that does make me a little nervous. And I'll just explain it.Very recently â fairly recently â I saw an image in front of my eyes on the screen, and it was me, and it was my voice and wearing the kind of clothes I wear. And my wife or my daughter wouldn't have been able to detect any difference. And it was delivering a message that no way came from me.So â it â when you think of the potential for scamming people, if you can reproduce images that I can't even tell, that say, I need money, you know, it's your daughter, I've just had a car crash. I need fifty thousand dollars wired.I mean, scamming has always been part of the American scene. But this would make me, if I was interested in investing in scamming, it's going to be the growth industry of all time.And it's enabled in a way â you know, obviously AI has potential for good things, too, but I don't know how you â based on the one I saw recently, I practically would send money to myself over in some crazy country. (Laughter)So I don't have any advice on how the world handles it because I don't think we know how to handle what we did with the nuclear genie.But I do think, as someone who doesn't understand a damn thing about it, that it is â it has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm, and I just don't know how that plays out. BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH Four weeks Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards Twelve months Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards BRK.A stock price: $739,750.00BRK.B stock price: $493.71BRK.B P/E (TTM): 14.70Berkshire market capitalization: $1,064,452,706,579Berkshire Cash as of March 31: $397.4 billion (Up 6.5% from Dec. 31)Excluding Rail Cash and Subtracting T-Bills Payable: $380.2 billion (Up 3.0% from Dec. 31)Berkshire repurchased $234 million of its shares in Q1 2026. BERKSHIRE'S TOP EQUITY HOLDINGS - Jul. 10, 2026 Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwards Berkshire's top holdings of disclosed publicly traded stocks in the U.S. and Japan, by market value, based on the latest closing prices.Holdings are as of March 31, 2026, as reported in Berkshire Hathaway's 13F filing on May 15, 2026, except for:Alphabet, which includes the $10 billion in shares that Berkshire agreed to buy directly from the company, as announced on June 1, 2026. Berkshire has not yet formally disclosed whether the transaction has been completed. The entry is a combination of Class A and Class C Alphabet shares. The market price is a weighted average of the prices of the two classes.Mitsubishi, which is as of April 30, 2026The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker. QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS Please send any questions or comments about the newsletter to me at alex.crippen@nbcuni.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)If you aren't already subscribed to this newsletter, you can sign up here.Also, Buffett's annual letters to shareholders are highly recommended reading. There are collected here on Berkshire's website.-- Alex Crippen, Editor, Warren Buffett Watch Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
Odisha Chief Minister met with Kumar Mangalam Birla to discuss investments. The Aditya Birla Group proposed expanding its Kansariguda alumina refinery project. View More
Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Saturday held a strategic meeting with Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of the Aditya Birla Group , to review the progress of the conglomerate's ongoing and proposed investments in the state. The discussions focused on the implementation of key projects, assessing their current status and exploring ways to expedite execution through timely policy and administrative support. Discussions also focused on further expansion of the Aditya Birla Group’s presence in sectors where it does not currently have significant operations in the State. A major outcome of the meeting was the Group’s proposal to expand its greenfield alumina refinery project at Kansariguda in Kashipur Tehsil of Rayagada district. The project is being developed by Hindalco Industries Limited . The refinery was initially envisaged with a capacity of 1 million tonnes per annum and an investment of approximately Rs 8,000 crore. Considering the long-term potential of the project and the proactive support extended by the Government of Odisha, the Group has proposed an additional investment of approximately Rs 12,000 crore to enhance the refinery’s capacity by another 2 million tonnes per annum. With the proposed expansion, the total capacity of the Kansariguda refinery will increase to 3 million tonnes per annum, with an overall investment of approximately Rs 20,000 crore. The project is expected to generate substantial direct and indirect employment and create further opportunities for local enterprises, service providers and downstream industries. Live Events Welcoming the proposal, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi said in a statement, “Odisha’s mineral strength must translate into greater value addition, advanced manufacturing and quality employment within the State. Aluminium is central to this vision. We intend not only to lead the country in alumina and aluminium production but also to build a globally competitive ecosystem across the entire value chain, from refining and primary metals to downstream and advanced products. The expansion of the Kansariguda refinery will further strengthen this momentum and reinforce Odisha’s position as India’s leading metals and metallurgy hub.” The Chief Minister assured the Group of continued support from the State Government for the timely implementation and expansion of its projects. He emphasised that the Government would work closely with the company to facilitate land, infrastructure, utilities, statutory approvals and other project requirements through a coordinated approach. The meeting also reviewed the Group’s existing and proposed investments across aluminium, alumina, chemicals, cement, renewable energy, textiles and apparel. .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;width: 100%;box-sizing: border-box} .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!
In the eight-plus months since Amazon announced its most expansive job cuts ever, laid off workers have been thrust into an increasingly saturated labor market. View More
In this articleAMZNFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT People pass by The Spheres in downtown Seattle, Washington, on June 25, 2025. Juan Mabromata | AFP | Getty Images On an early morning in January, Jake Linsley woke up to a text from Amazon that was lighting up his phone."I thought it was saying, 'Your package is delayed,'" Linsley said in an interview. "I read it again and was like, 'Holy s---, I got fired.'"Linsley, who worked as a finance manager at Amazon for nearly six years, was one of roughly 16,000 employees swept up in the company's mass layoffs in late January. Combined with the more than 14,000 staffers let go three months earlier, it marked the steepest cuts in Amazon's history.As an Amazon employee, Linsley was part of an American corporate elite: working for a tech giant with opportunities for growth, promotion, high salaries and enviable perks. But he and the other laid-off workers suddenly entered the harsh reality of a job market being rapidly reshaped by artificial intelligence â and competing with hordes of others who had been let go b Meta, Salesforce and Cisco. In some cases, the jobs they'd been hired to do simply don't exist anymore. And the tech giants continue to cut roles in part to fund the hundreds of billions of dollars they're investing in AI.The tech sector has laid off roughly 140,000 employees in the U.S. so far this year, more than any other industry, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. In May, layoffs across the industry reached their highest for any month since August 2024, before easing in June. (function(){function e(){window.addEventListener(`message`,function(e){if(e.data[`datawrapper-height`]!==void 0){var t=document.querySelectorAll(`iframe`);for(var n in e.data[`datawrapper-height`])for(var r=0,i;i=t[r];r++)if(i.contentWindow===e.source){var a=e.data[`datawrapper-height`][n]+`px`;i.style.height=a}}})}e()})(); AI was the main reason companies gave for the cuts for a fourth straight month, Challenger said in a report last week. The firm said AI has been cited in about 23% of all job cut announcements in 2026. "Tech remains the epicenter of this year's cuts," Challenger said. "AI is the dominant force as companies are restructuring around it, automating roles and reallocating budgets toward new capabilities. The sector is being reshaped in real time." Amazon has been downsizing more aggressively than many of its peers, laying off more than 57,000 staffers since 2022, or roughly 16% of its corporate workforce. According to data from the website Layoffs.fyi, Amazon has accounted for about 13% of the tech industry's cuts this year. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has warned employees that AI "should change the way our work is done," and that in the next few years, efficiency gains from the technology "will reduce our total corporate workforce." The company has looked for ways to unwind its pandemic-era hiring binge and eliminate bureaucracy so that it can operate like "the world's largest startup."CNBC spoke to more than a dozen people laid off by Amazon over the past eight-plus months about how they've navigated the job market at a time of swelling industry unemployment and, for many, a sense of diminishing opportunity.While some have since landed roles at places like Apple or Salesforce, others are staring at hundreds of unanswered job applications and roles with pay cuts. Some described the dark irony of going all in on AI at Amazon only to find themselves replaced by it. Montana MacLachlan, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement that the cuts were made to ensure the company can move fast and serve customers. Amazon continues to hire and invest in strategic areas that are critical to its future, she added."We don't make decisions to eliminate roles lightly, and we work hard to support employees who are impacted," MacLachlan said.AI wasn't the reason for the vast majority of the layoffs, Amazon said.Linsley's job search lasted for about three months, before he took a position in April as a vice president at a health-care IT startup. "I'd rather have a stable job than one that can grow 5x and disappear overnight," he said. The job hunt Courtney Haeflinger applied to hundreds of jobs but struggled to land interviews. For months after she was laid off from Amazon Web Services in January, she'd begin her day in front of her computer at 8:30 a.m., diligently scanning job boards and refreshing her inbox, hoping to hear back from recruiters. As soon as a job was posted, there would quickly be 200 to 300 applicants, Haeflinger said. She couldn't tell if it was due to the raft of unemployed workers, or if bots were running wild."It makes it harder for us as real job seekers to get in the door," said Haeflinger, 49, who landed a job last week at AT&T. "It's frustrating." In the months after her departure from Amazon, the pace of cuts across the industry turned a difficult task into a seeming impossibility. Haeflinger applied for a few jobs at Meta, around the time the company was announcing plans to eliminate 10% of its staff. A job at Oracle came across her feed. But when she saw the software vendor was cutting thousands of jobs, she hesitated to apply. watch nowVIDEO1:4801:48Amazon layoffs hit engineers, gaming division, ad businessMoney Movers Amazon, meanwhile, has continued to downsize through smaller rounds, slashing roles in customer service in April, followed by cuts in the third-party seller support division in May, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the layoffs weren't made public. The company laid off 57 employees in its home state of Washington between May and early June, according to a WARN filing released Monday. The filing doesn't indicate what units were impacted, but software engineers, program managers and product roles were among the job titles listed. Dorian Smith was only out of work for about a month after getting laid off by Amazon in January, but he said it was a humbling experience that drove him to take a job at a late-stage startup. Smith said he'd thought of Amazon as a "lifelong career," having worked his way up in customer service to a job as a web development engineer over his 10-plus years at the company. "It was almost heartbreaking in a way because my identity felt tied to that job," Smith said.  He applied to at least 250 jobs and only heard back from four companies, all with "generic rejection emails," Smith said. He ultimately connected with a recruiter after posting on LinkedIn, which led him to the startup world."I always had this thought of, 'I have Amazon on my resume, this prestigious thing,'" Smith said. "But when this layoff happened, it was like, 'OK, big deal, so do 30,000 other people.'" 'New era' of software Yogesh Verma, who was let go by Amazon in January, has since joined an AI marketing company where he said there's more work-life balance.Yogesh Verma For some former Amazon workers, the layoffs provided an opportunity to reset.Yogesh Verma, a former AWS engineer who lost his job in January, called it a "blessing in disguise." The 25-year-old said he soured on Amazon as it enacted a strict return-to-office policy, pressure around AI usage grew and employees were tasked with "building new products haphazardly." "Initially, it felt like, 'Oh, what am I going to do now,' but it gradually turned out for the better," Verma said. "The workload was getting higher and higher, and the work-life balance was also getting worse."In April, Verma took a slight pay cut to join an AI marketing company that he said offers a "good environment," hybrid work options and an opportunity to learn new skills. A former director in Amazon's advertising unit who was laid off in October â and who wished to remain anonymous in order to not jeopardize his job search â said working for a big tech company was a "life changer," but that the job had become a drain on his mental and physical health.He said he's taking time off to strengthen his AI coding skills, so that when he reenters the job market, he's better equipped for "software development in this new era."Chris DeSantis, who worked as a senior product manager for nearly four years, said he's "happy to take less money" if it means he can work for a company that's closer to the cutting edge of AI. DeSantis, 32, was laid off from Amazon's retail organization in January. "When you look at these companies and what they're doing with AI, people like us, engineers and technical product managers, we want to be doing the fun stuff, building things super fast," DeSantis said. "It used to be that going to the bigger companies was that, but now, at least based on the organization I was in, we weren't close to doing the fun stuff."  Chris DeSantis, who was laid off from Amazon in January, said he's open to taking a pay cut if it means he can work on cutting edge AI projects.Chris DeSantis Whether it's fun or not, AI has taken over the halls of Amazon. Jassy, who replaced founder Jeff Bezos as CEO in 2021, has urged employees to "use and experiment with AI whenever you can," and figure out ways to "get more done with scrappier teams." AWS has released a slew of AI tools mostly targeted for enterprises, while also striving to develop more competitive AI models and putting Amazon at the center of the surge in demand for AI compute. The company has infused AI across more surfaces of its e-commerce website, including the search bar, and has revamped its aging Alexa digital assistant with more conversational and agentic features. 'Rat race' While the AI blitz is viewed as essential to keep Amazon relevant in the next era of technology, life at the company now resembles a "rat race," in the words of a current software engineer, who asked not to be named in order to speak candidly on the subject.Some Amazon managers track employees' AI activity via internal dashboards, and are instructed by leaders to remind their teams to adopt the tools as much as possible, with certain teams factoring usage into performance reviews, three current and former employees said. A former AWS engineer who was laid off in January and also asked to remain unnamed said it had become "abundantly clear that the priority was AI everywhere, regardless of whether it really helped or made sense."At the same time, Amazon and other companies are reckoning with the high costs of AI and have taken steps to rein in so-called tokenmaxxing, where developers use AI as much as possible with little regard to output. Another former engineer at AWS said Amazon added badges to its internal "phone tool" directory that scored employees' usage of its AI apps called Q, based on the number of tokens they consumed.In late May, Amazon shut down a similar phone tool leaderboard, called Kirorank, after it discovered employees were tokenmaxxing to climb up the ranks. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy speaks at a company event in New York on Feb. 26, 2025.Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images As it slashes its corporate workforce, Amazon has ramped up its hiring in lower-cost countries like India, according to three former employees who described that dynamic in the organizations where they worked. One of those people â a former manager who was laid off in May â called it a "no-brainer," as the company knows that, compared to Seattle, it can hire people in India at a "fraction of the cost." DeSantis, the laid-off product manager, said he adopted a "survivalist mentality" after making it through six rounds of job cuts during his time at Amazon. When his time finally came, DeSantis said he did his best not to take it personally."It really is kind of bizarre when it does happen to you," DeSantis said. "When you look back, it's like there's nothing you could've done." WATCH: Long-term unemployment is rising in the U.S. along with its hidden costs to the economy watch nowVIDEO4:3104:31Why long-term unemployment is rising in the U.S.Markets and Politics Digital Original Video Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.