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The National Football League has approved the sale of 7% of the Las Vegas Raiders at a valuation of more than $11 billion. View More
Ashton Jeanty jumps on teammate Daniel Carlson as the Las Vegas Raiders celebrate after Carlson hit a 60-yard field goal against the Kansas City Chiefs with eight seconds left in the fourth quarter of their season-closing game at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Jan. 4, 2026. The 14-12 win was the Raiders' first against the Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium.Ethan Miller | Getty Images The National Football League on Tuesday approved the sale of 7% of the Las Vegas Raiders by controlling owner Mark Davis to Egon Durban, the co-CEO of Silver Lake, and Michael Meldman, the founder and chairman of Discovery Land Co., at an $11.1 billion valuation, according to a person with firsthand knowledge of the deal who asked not to be named because the transaction is private.The deal includes a 10% "flip tax" the buyers are paying the NFL, the person said. As part of the relocation agreement between the Raiders and the NFL when the team moved to Las Vegas from Oakland, California, in 2020, anyone who buys a piece of the Raiders through March 2037 must pay the league a percentage of the purchase price, according to a person familiar with the terms of the agreement who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Under the agreement, the flip tax rate is 10% from April 2022 through March 2027, he said.The Raiders, picking first in the 2026 NFL Draft, are expected to select quarterback Fernando Mendoza, who won the Heisman Trophy this past season as he led Indiana University to its first national championship and a 16-0 record. Along with the sale of the stake in the Raiders, the NFL also approved Davis giving Durban the right of first refusal should Davis decide to sell his controlling stake in the team. Durban and Meldman bought a combined 15% of the Raiders in December 2024 at a $6.5 billion valuation, including the 10% flip tax, according to the person with firsthand knowledge of the deal. NFL legend and broadcaster Tom Brady also became a minority investor in the Raiders, in October 2024. The Raiders were valued at $9.3 billion, fourth among the league's 32 teams, in CNBC's Official NFL Team Valuations 2025.NFL team valuations have been increasing as the league has been looking to renegotiate big increases in its media rights deals before its current deals expire. As CNBC previously reported, the NFL signed an 11-year, $111 billion media rights deal in 2021 that contains an opt-out clause for the league after the 2029 season for all its media partners except Disney. The NFL can opt out of its deal with Disney after the 2030 season. CNBC reported on March 13 that the NFL and CBS are discussing a deal that could see the league get at least a 50% increase in its rights fee for CBS' Sunday afternoon games, to more than $3 billion.Earlier this month Lin Bin, co-founder and vice chairman of Xiaomi, purchased a 1% stake in the company that owns the Miami Dolphins, Hard Rock Stadium, Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix and a significant stake in the Miami Open tennis tournament from Stephen Ross at a $12.5 billion valuation, which put the value of the Dolphins at more than $11 billion, according to a person with firsthand knowledge of the deal who asked not to be named because the transaction is private. In September, CNBC valued the Dolphins at $8.55 billion, ninth in the NFL. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
With Microsoft losing almost a quarter of its value this year, investors have reset the company's earnings multiple to the lowest since late 2022. View More
In this articleMSFTFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks at the Microsoft AI Tour event in Munich, Germany, on Feb. 25, 2026.Sven Hoppe | Picture Alliance | Getty Images Microsoft just closed out its worst quarter on Wall Street since the 2008 financial crisis, as investors soured on the software giant's prospects in artificial intelligence. The company's stock plunged 23% in the first quarter, a steeper drop than any of its tech peers or the Nasdaq, which fell 7% in the period. Microsoft bounced back a bit on Tuesday, alongside a broader market rally, with shares of the company gaining 3.3%, the biggest jump since July. While Microsoft remains dominant in workplace productivity software and through its Windows operating system, the company is facing twin pressures to grow efficiently in AI while also building out its cloud AI infrastructure to support soaring demand. Oil prices are surging because of the Iran war, potentially driving up costs for building and running data centers. And on the product side, Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant, has yet to show a lot of traction as users flock to competitive services from Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. Stock Chart IconStock chart iconMicrosoft vs. Nasdaq this year "Redmond is in a pickle," wrote Ben Reitzes, an analyst at Melius Research, in a note on March 23, referring to Microsoft's headquarters in Washington state. Reitzes, who has a hold rating on the stock, said the company has to use valuable capacity from its Azure cloud to fix Copilot, but has no choice "since Copilot is needed to maintain momentum in its most profitable and largest segment." Microsoft declined to comment. Meanwhile, software stocks are getting pummeled as part of an AI-inspired "SaaSpocalypse" that has pushed names like Adobe, Atlassian and ServiceNow down more than 30% this year. "Much of traditional SaaS is dying/in likely terminal decay," Jason Lemkin, founder of SaaStr, wrote this week in a post on X, using the acronym for software as a service. In a blog post, he noted that earnings multiples for software trail the S&P 500. Microsoft's multiple hasn't been this low since the fourth quarter of 2022, when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, according to Capital IQ data. Gil Luria, an analyst at DA Davidson, told CNBC that the sell-off isn't justified, and he recommends buying shares. In the latest quarter, Microsoft reported revenue growth of almost 17%, accelerating from a year earlier. "The dislocation in the fundamental performance of Microsoft and the stock performance of Microsoft, and the valuation of Microsoft, is the biggest it's been in decades," Luria said. He said he expects the company's earnings growth to outpace the broader market this year. window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}); "There is no stickier product in all of enterprise software than Microsoft Windows and Office," he said.Microsoft has been trying to build a larger revenue base from productivity software with the Microsoft 365 Copilot AI add-on, but so far, just 3% of commercial Office customers have licenses for it. Luria said he has access to 365 Copilot, but that he's not a fan. More importantly, he said, Microsoft has pricing power with Office subscriptions. The company announced plans to raise prices in December. Suleyman's 'demotion' With Copilot struggling to win over users, Microsoft said two weeks ago that Mustafa Suleyman, the former co-founder of AI lab DeepMind who had been running Copilot development for consumers, will focus on building AI models. Microsoft has tasked former Snap executive Jacob Andreou with leading the Copilot experience for consumers and commercial clients."There is concern that the Microsoft 365 Copilot business has not lived up to quite their expectations, and that's an area that could see new competitors," said Kyle Levins, an analyst at Harding Loevner, which held $219 million in Microsoft shares at the end of December.Levins took the shake-up involving Suleyman as good news. Others did not. "Sure sounds like a demotion at best," former Jane Street trader Agustin Lebron wrote on X. The change followed departures of prominent executives, including gaming chief Phil Spencer and Rajesh Jha, Microsoft's highest-ranking productivity leader, who's retiring. Microsoft is still getting healthy growth out of Azure, which is second to Amazon Web Services in cloud infrastructure. Revenue in the division jumped 39% in the December quarter. Finance chief Amy Hood said in January that growth could have been in the 40s if the company had allocated all of its AI chips to Azure, rather than giving some to teams operating services such as Microsoft 365 Copilot.Azure is benefiting from a massive backlog of business from OpenAI and Anthropic. Microsoft's commercial remaining performance obligations at Azure more than doubled in the December quarter from a year earlier to $625 billion. watch nowVIDEO9:0009:00Microsoft CTO: OpenAI is our most important partner everEurope Early Edition It's a reminder that, among tech's hyperscalers, Microsoft was viewed as an early mover in generative AI due to its 2019 investment in OpenAI and strategic partnership with the startup. But the companies no longer have an exclusive arrangement when it comes to cloud infrastructure and are now competing in a number of areas. In February, OpenAI announced a service called Frontier that the company said "helps enterprises build, deploy, and manage AI agents that can do real work."Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been wearing a brave face, promoting the company's AI enhancements on social media."It's a lot of intense competition, but it's not so zero-sum, as some people make it out to be," he said in January.Aaron Foresman, managing director of equity research at Crawford Investment Counsel, a Microsoft investor, said Nadella's continuing presence is crucial for the company that he's been leading since replacing Steve Ballmer in 2014. "We've got a lot of trust and confidence in Satya," Foresman said.WATCH: Bank of America's Tal Liani talks reinstating Microsoft as a 'buy' watch nowVIDEO4:0604:06Bank of America's Tal Liani talks reinstating Microsoft as a 'buy'Closing Bell: Overtime Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
I found the AI-generated answers so convincing that I didn't realize I was missing some important context. View More
For most of my adult life, I've enjoyed a relatively straightforward tax situation. In most years, I merely made sure the income from my W-2 was correct and clicked through my preferred tax software's questions to the end. No dependents, no side hustle income, no property in my name. This past year was a little different. After years of buying stock through my company's employee stock purchase plan, I sold the majority of my shares to begin raising funds for my upcoming wedding.There are some relatively tricky rules around selling these shares, but the gist is, these plans allow employees to buy stock at a discount to the actual share price. So determining how much money you made (in which case you owe capital gains tax) or lost on the sale of your shares requires some calculations. So I did what about 1 in 5 taxpayers are doing these days, per a recent survey from IPX 1031: I asked AI for help. I did so skeptically. I'd seen enough stories about AI "hallucinations" â the industry term for when chatbots get things wrong â that I was half-expecting ChatGPT to make a mess of my taxes. Plus, it had only been three years since I'd put AI to the test on tax strategies and watched it flounder. It's also worth noting that OpenAI's usage policies caution against using its product to automate "high-stakes decisions in sensitive areas without human review."And yet, when I started chatting with the latest version of OpenAI's large language model, I could feel my hesitation melting away. It not only answered my first question about how ESPP sales are taxed, but also broke things down into digestible bullet points and asked me if I was comfortable sharing more information. Since I was using a corporate version of the software that does not use data to train OpenAI's models, I uploaded the consolidated 1099 form from my brokerage firm. "This is great â [your brokerage] actually gave us everything we need," the bot told me. "Here's what's going on."What ChatGPT told me essentially boils down to: Your brokerage is using one number, which is being uploaded into your tax software. But you actually have to use a different number. I just had to check my last few W-2s to see that they included a certain line item.I was ready to hit "file." But first, I ran my conversation by Miklos Ringbauer, a certified public accountant who has helped me with tax stories before. He told me that I had gotten possibly correct but also incomplete information. The W-2 check that ChatGPT had assured me wasn't that big a deal was actually quite important, he told me â I or a tax pro would need to examine the numbers and compare them with my brokerage's to make sure everything added up. What's more, a few numbers in my 1099 appeared to indicate that I had made certain taxable moves I may not have made, Ringbauer told me. ChatGPT hadn't said anything about them â probably because I didn't think to ask. "The question becomes does the taxpayer have necessary understanding of the documents they look at to understand and correct any items that needs to be addressed?" Ringbauer says. "In my understanding, many of our clients do not." AI traps to avoid when filing your taxes In the grand scheme of things, the error I encountered was a small one. ChatGPT told me something was "almost certainly" right when really I had some homework to do. Importantly, though, the advice I got seemed so sound and was so breezily delivered that I was ready to file and risk having made a mistake.For people who aren't experts on the tax code, that can be a big problem, says J.T. Eagan, a clinical assistant professor of accounting at Purdue University. "AI will convince you that the sky is green. It is so convincing," he says, citing a time when a chatbot incorrectly answered one of the tax questions Eagan gives his students. "It gave me this response that the mechanics were perfect, but I had to take a step back and say, 'Well, you're wrong.'"It's not that AI chatbots are looking to deceive you. In fact, in recent years, many of the leading models have gotten better about notifying users that they don't have complete answers to certain prompts or that they're wandering into gray areas, says Jordan Wilson, founder of AI strategy company Everyday AI. Indeed, at the top of my conversation, ChatGPT told me that, "if anything gets very specific or high-stakes, I'll flag where you might want a CPA's input.""But by default, large language models are trained to be helpful assistants," Wilson says. That means they're often going to sound very confident, and "oftentimes you're going to run into hallucinations."And those can be delivered with startling confidence. "This is a very simple return with one stock plan wrinkle," ChatGPT told me. "You do NOT need a CPA."With that in mind, you'd be wise to tread very carefully before using AI to help with your taxes, experts say. "If you make a mistake while using AI to do your taxes, it could get you in trouble with the IRS," Wilson says. "And a valid excuse isn't, 'The AI made me do it.'"If you plan on using AI as a tool during tax season, here's what pros say to keep in mind. Check which model you're usingNo two LLMs are exactly the same, and even if you have a favorite AI company, the firm will generally offer different models with different capabilities, says Wilson. For complicated subject matter, such as taxes, you're going to want to be in a "thinking" model, he says â one which breaks down difficult topics by generating step-by-step solutions and shows its work.Even if you're not using the free version of a particular chatbot, "a lot of these companies, by default, are going to stick you on their faster model that isn't as smart," Wilson says. AI firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI have tiered pricing, which gives you access to varyingly powerful versions of their AI chatbots. Even if you're in a higher tier, the model you're using may not be calibrated for complicated topics off the bat. When I first opened up my company's paid version of ChatGPT, I was defaulted into "Instant" mode "for everyday chats." I had click on a menu at the top of the chat to toggle into "thinking" mode. Another factor worth checking before uploading your documents: whether the AI firm is using your information to train its model. You can generally turn off model training when using paid versions, says Wilson, but users of free versions should think twice before sharing personal information. Your information won't end up getting posted publicly, he says, "but the companies can use any data if you are on a free plan to train its models. And that's probably not something you want, especially when it comes to sensitive information, like your bank account information, your Social Security number."Understand AI's limitations, and yoursEven if AI follows the right process, it may arrive at the wrong answer, experts say. One reason is that the model may be relying on old data, Wilson says. The data used to train a model can be, in some cases, many months old, he says, leaving it without the most up-to-date tax information, he says. That might force a model to pull current information from the internet. "Where is it going to verify that information? Is it going to find an article from 2024, 2025 or 2026?" Wilson says. "The difference obviously can sway the results and the accuracy of whatever you're using it for wildly."In some cases, AI might answer a tax question perfectly â but that doesn't mean it will be the right answer for you. That's because certain tax rules may or may not apply to you given the particular nuances of your situation. To use a simplified example, consider a taxpayer who wonders whether or not they can deduct their dog. Ask a CPA, and they'll tell you, "it depends," says Eagan. That's because, while you can't write off a pet, you can, under certain circumstances, deduct the cost of a seeing-eye dog as a medical expense. Pose the question to an AI chatbot, and "it [may] start off with 'yes,'" Eagan says. "The challenge that you have is how many people just stop reading after they get the answer that they want to hear."Extrapolated across the tax code, it's not hard to see how users may struggle to arrive at an accurate return by relying on AI for answers. Even if an AI answers a question correctly or performs an accurate calculation, it's limited by what it knows about it you, Wilson says. Absent a holistic approach, you're setting these models up to fail, he says. None of which is to say that models will automatically fail when faced with tax questions. You have to ask yourself if you're equipped to give the model all of the relevant information it needs and to ask all of the pertinent follow-ups. If the answer is no, and if a lot of money is on the line, you'd be wise to consult a professional, Wilson and other experts say."I think that's one of the biggest missteps that most people make, even those that feel fairly comfortable using AI, is they think, 'OK, well, as long as I enter some of my documents and give it some decent context, it's going to do a good job on the output,'" Wilson says. "But the human actually has to do a very hands-on job making sure you are giving the model the correct context."Want to lead with confidence and bring out the best in your team? Take CNBC's new online course, How To Be A Standout Leader. Expert instructors share practical strategies to help you build trust, communicate clearly and motivate other people to do their best work. Take control of your money with CNBC Select CNBC Select is editorially independent and may earn a commission from affiliate partners on links.Six ways to file your taxes for free4 financial resources to tap when you think layoffs may be comingWhat is a good monthly retirement income in 2026?Here are 5 grocery rewards cards to beat inflation VIDEO7:2707:2726-year-old works at a bookstore and lives on $53,000 a year in New York CityMillennial Money
The National Trust for Historic Preservation in the U.S. sued President Donald Trump and the National Park Service over the White House ballroom project. View More
Architect Shalom Baranes shows elevation drawings for a new $400 million ballroom at the White House to members of the National Capital Planning Commission on Jan. 8, 2026 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday blocked, for now, construction of the new White House ballroom, which President Donald Trump has heavily touted.In an opinion explaining the order, District Court Judge Richard Leon said construction of the planned $400 million ballroom "must stop" because no law "comes close" to giving Trump legal authority to build such a structure at the White House without authorization by Congress. Leon said that the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued Trump in December to halt the project, was likely to prevail in the case. The judge enjoined Trump administration officials and the Executive Office of the President "from taking any action in furtherance of the physical development of the proposed ballroom at the former site of the East Wing of the White House."Leon, who twice previously declined to block the project, said the order would take effect within 14 days. The delay gave Trump time to appeal the injunction.The Trump administration, within hours, filed that appeal with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.The ruling comes months after the East Wing was demolished to make way for the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom, whose cost is meant to be covered by donations from businesses and other private donors."The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner," Leon wrote in a memorandum opinion explaining his ruling."President Trump claims that Congress has given him authority in existing statutes to construct his East Wing ballroom project and to do it with private funds," the judge wrote. "The plaintiff ... claims the President has no such authority under existing statutes and that a preliminary injunction is necessary to avoid irreparable harm.""I have concluded that the National Trust is likely to succeed on the merits because no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have," Leon wrote. "As such, I must therefore grant the National Trust's Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, and the ballroom construction project must stop until Congress authorizes its completion."The White House, when asked for comment on the ruling, responded with a Truth Social post by Trump, in which he called the National Trust "a Radical Left Group of Lunatics."The National Trust ex-officio trustees include Attorney General Pam Bondi, according to its website. Bondi oversees the Department of Justice, which is defending the Trump administration against the group's lawsuit.National Trust President and CEO Carol Quillen praised the ruling."We are pleased with Judge Leon's ruling today to order a halt to any further ballroom construction until the Administration complies with the law and obtains express authorization to go forward," she said in a statement. "This is a win for the American people on a project that forever impacts one of the most beloved and iconic places in our nation."Trump said the group is suing "me for a Ballroom that is under budget, ahead of schedule, being built at no cost to the Taxpayer, and will be the finest Building of its kind anywhere in the World," Trump wrote."I then get sued by them over the renovation of the dilapidated and structurally unsound former Kennedy Center, now, The Trump Kennedy Center ... where all I am doing is fixing, cleaning, running, and 'sprucing up' a terribly maintained, for many years, Building, but a Building of potentially great importance," Trump wrote.Trump also blasted the National Trust for not "suing the Federal Reserve for a Building which has been decimated and destroyed, inside and out, by an incompetent and possibly corrupt Fed Chairman. The once magnificent Building is BILLIONS over budget, may never be completed, and may never open." Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
Women haven't broken through the glass ceiling when it comes to participation in the stock market. Societal norms and ongoing pay disparities are to blame. View More
In this articleELFFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT The Fearless Girl statue is pictured as an American flag hangs on the facade of the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan on the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election Day in Manhattan in New York City, U.S., November 5, 2024. Stephani Spindel | Reuters Aviva Mehta noticed her husband regularly talked about money and investing in his social circles. She set out to do the same among the women in her life.The 27-year old started a book club focused on personal finance. The topic comes up regularly on video calls with friends. On a recent evening, the New York resident discussed investing over a glass of wine."Women are making strides in every other aspect," Mehta said. "We have to normalize it for women and not just look at it as something that men do."Women are gaining ground on â and in some cases surpassing â men by several measures of financial and professional wellness. Yet a data analysis shows women haven't broken through the glass ceiling when it comes to participation in the stock market, an idiosyncrasy that advocates tie to societal norms and ongoing pay disparities.Single women are more likely to own a home. Women outnumber men at every level of higher education. An Indeed report from this month shows there are now more women in the workforce than men.But a JPMorgan analysis of federal government data shows women accounted for around 35% of investors in 2025. That share is around the same as where it sat seven years earlier, the data found."We just don't encourage girls as much as we encourage boys to pay attention to money and finance when they're children," said Jennifer Itzkowitz, a professor focused on gender-related issues in finance at Seton Hall University. "They just don't develop an interest in it because they've never been motivated or encouraged to think about it." The pay gap and risk aversion Part of the disparity stems from the fact that women typically earn less than men. The National Women's Law Center found women earned around 81 cents to every dollar a man did. A Glassdoor report released this month showed that the pay disparity widens with age.Experts have long said that a natural aversion to risk among women can make them less likely to place their money in the stock market. Layered on top of that is the long-held societal belief that money and finance is a "man's job," while women are expected to focus on domestic priorities such as cooking and childrearing.But that caution around risk can make women better investors once in the market, as they are less likely to pick higher-volatility investments or try to time market swings, Wells Fargo noted. Research has long found that women investors tend to outperform men on a risk-adjusted basis."Maybe they're not taking on as much risk in their accounts as their male counterparts might be," said Veronica Willis, global investment strategist at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. "But maybe that's for the best."An ability to spot trends in consumer spending and brand prevalence has given Breanna Giglio and other women she knows an edge.For instance, the Texas-based event planner said she bought shares of e.l.f. Beauty after the cosmetics company announced plans to acquire Hailey Bieber's Rhode brand in May as a short-term trade. E.l.f.'s shares surged more than 23% in the trading session following the announcement, marking their best day on record."A lot of things that are affecting the stock market are also just what's happening in life and in pop culture," Giglio said. "Women very much do a lot of the household shopping, so it would make sense for them to then do the household investing." 'Bridging a gap' A network of women are trying to get others to participate in the market.At Fordham University, hundreds of female students gather for Smart Women Securities meets to learn about analyzing equities and financial statements, according to Rosa Romeo, a Fordham accounting professor who supervises the group. They also practice pitching stocks for judges.On social media, Tori Dunlap regularly shares her experience saving $100,000 by 25 to millions of followers. Dunlap also has a book called "Financial Feminist" and an educational program called the Stock Market School aimed at women."If you are investing, automatically, you are bridging a gap that we're seeing time and time again," Dunlap told CNBC. "You are actually not becoming the statistic of the woman who waited or didn't invest at all, and that's powerful." Tori Dunlap hosts a workshopKarya Schanilec Data shows there should be progress on the horizon: Fidelity found a larger share of women surveyed had invested in the stock market from 2023 to 2024. But despite the growth, more than half of women believed investing was intimidating.With women expected to particularly benefit from an ongoing wealth transfer, they will become a client base that wealth managers will increasingly target. Still, until the disparity is resolved, the stock market will miss out on inflows that would make it more stable, said Seton Hall's Itzkowitz. "We're just letting them fall behind," Itzkowitz said. "It's bad for women. It's bad for society. It's bad for the market."Markets shift and headlines fade, but the core principles of building long-term wealth remain constant. Join us for our third CNBC Pro LIVE, where investors of all backgrounds - from financial professionals to everyday individuals - come together to cut through the noise and gain actionable strategies for smarter, more disciplined investing. No matter where you're starting from, you'll leave with clearer thinking, stronger strategies. Enter your email here to get a discount code. Get Morning Squawk directly to your inboxThe Morning Squawk newsletter by Alex Harring is your rundown of five things to know before the stock market opens.Subscribe here to get access today. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
Gold edged higher on Tuesday morning, but the metal remained on course to notch its biggest monthly decline in almost 17 years. View More
In this articleXAU=@GC.1@SI.1Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Gold rose on Thursday as the widening Middle East conflict drove investors towards the safe-haven asset, while a softer dollar also lent support to prices.Photographer: Damian Lemanski/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesBloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Gold rose on Tuesday, but still recorded its worst month in more than a decade.Gold futures climbed more than 2% to settle at $4,678.60. For March, gold fell more than 10% in March, marking its biggest monthly decline since June 2013 and snapping an eight-month positive streak. Stock Chart IconStock chart iconSpot gold price Silver futures climbed more than 6% to $74.92. The metal has tumbled more than 19% in March, ending a 10-month winning streak and recording its worst monthly performance since 2011.Despite March's declines, gold and silver rose more than 7% and 6%, respectively, in the quarter. Latest war updates The latest moves came amid lingering uncertainty over the trajectory of the U.S.-Iran war, which has entered its fifth week. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday evening that U.S. President Donald Trump told aides he was willing to end military hostilities against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remained largely closed. Trump said in Truth Social post that Washington was "in serious discussions" with Iranian officials, but added that if a deal was not reached soon U.S. forces would attack electricity plants, oil wells and the critical Kharg Island. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Al Jazeera in an interview published Monday that Washington's objectives in Iran would take "weeks, not months" to achieve. Reuters reported that 2,500 U.S. Marines had arrived in the Middle East over the weekend, with unnamed officials telling the news agency the deployed troops were from the elite 82nd Airborne Division. The conflict in the Middle East has weighed on gold prices, with surging oil and gas prices raising expectations of an inflation spike across economies that will lead to a bout of interest rate hikes. Wayne Nutland, Investment Manager at Shackleton Advisers, told CNBC on Tuesday that the past four years have changed the way gold is traded. "Prior to the Ukraine war, the gold price tended to be inversely correlated to real bond yields and the US dollar, with the gold price rising when those metrics fell, and gold falling when those metrics rose," he said. "The period after the Ukraine war upended these relationships, in particular in 2025 and into early 2026 when gold rose very strongly, far in excess of the moves suggested by those historic relationships."Nutland added that in the wake of the Iran war, gold had reverted to its more traditional relationships. "Bond yields and the U.S. dollar have both moved higher, and against this backdrop gold has demonstrated its traditional inverse sensitivity to these metrics, falling as a result," he said. "Gold's declines have perhaps also been exacerbated by the strength of the gold price going into 2026 and possibly a desire amongst investors to liquidate profitable positions."Iain Barnes, chief investment officer at Netwealth, said the price volatility of gold has been running at twice its historical level in recent months, due to increased participation from financial investors. "International central banks seeking to diversify their reserves away from U.S. dollars may have started gold's bull market in the past few years, but in the end the market ran out of new financial buyers and instead saw widespread profit-taking as wider uncertainty hit markets and the dollar rebounded," he said in an email. While Barnes noted that the broad economic and market backdrop differs to 2008, he said there were similarities in that investors with "over-extended starting positioning in commodities" had dramatically amplified price moves after a change in fundamentals and sentiment for the U.S. dollar. "In the first half of 2008, investors doubled down on the emerging market growth story, fueling commodity price increases alongside dollar weakness even as western economies hit the buffers," he added. "As the global financial crisis spread wider, global risk appetite collapsed and gold was hit alongside more productive commodities such as oil and copper as the dollar surged. This year, the market has again found where investors are most exposed: excessive positioning in gold as it was seen as the last remaining safe haven asset."In a Monday note, analysts at Goldman Sachs said they were still constructive on gold despite the Iran sell-off, noting that markets had repriced the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy path to one or no rate cuts this year. "[But] we continue to forecast gold prices reaching $5,400/toz by endâ2026, as central bank diversification continues, currently low speculative positioning normalizes, and the Fed delivers the 50bp of cuts our economists expect," they said. "Our base case assumes no further private sector liquidation of gold nor any additional private sector diversification in gold (beyond the modest boost from Fed cuts)."They also noted that while risks to their forecast were skewed to the downside in the near term, as persistent disruption to the Strait of Hormuz keeps gold vulnerable to further liquidation, the medium term picture differs. "Over the medium term, risks are skewed to the upside if the Iran episode â together with broader geopolitical developments (e.g., Greenland, Venezuela) â were to accelerate diversification into gold and to weigh on perceptions of Western fiscal sustainability," they said. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
President Donald Trump, whose former daughter-in-law Vanessa Trump is dating Woods, told The New York Post that Woods "lives a life of pain." View More
Tiger Woods is driven from the Martin County Jail after being arrested for driving under the influence after a car crash on March 27, 2026 in Stuart, Florida. Joe Raedle | Getty Images Police found two hydrocodone pills on golf legend Tiger Woods after the rollover crash last week in Florida that led to his latest arrest for driving under the influence, according to an affidavit released Tuesday.Woods, who said the two-car crash happened after he looked down at his phone, had "bloodshot and glassy eyes," "extremely dilated pupils," and was "sweating profusely" as he sat in another vehicle that had its air-conditioning on when cops arrived, the affidavit says."Woods movement was lethargic and slow," a Martin County Sheriff's deputy wrote in the affidavit. "Woods had hiccups during the entire investigation.""I asked Woods if he consumed any illegal substances, to which he stated no," the deputy recounted. "I asked Woods if he consumed any alcoholic beverage to drink today to which he stated 'none.' ""I asked Woods if he consumed any prescription medication to which he stated, 'I take a few,' " the deputy wrote.During a search later, police "located two white pills" inside the golfer's left side pant pocket, according to the affidavit. Identifying marks showed the pills were hydrocodone, an opioid medication."I asked Woods if he had any medical conditions," the deputy wrote in the affidavit. "Woods advised he's had seven back surgeries and over twenty operations on his leg."President Donald Trump, whose former daughter-in-law Vanessa Trump is dating Woods, told The New York Post on Tuesday that Woods "lives a life of pain" because of prior injuries, but is "doing great" after the accident, the newspaper reported. Read more CNBC politics coverageTSA funding update: Senate tees up House vote to end DHS shutdownUkraine, Saudi Arabia sign defense deal as U.S. reportedly weighs redirecting Kyiv aidSen. Warren rips Federal Reserve chair pick Warsh: 'You have learned nothing from your failures'Trump extends pause on attacking Iran energy facilities to April 6 Police said the crash occurred when Woods, who was driving a black Land Rover, was following directly behind a white Ford F-150 truck with an attached trailer. As the truck slowed to make a right turn into a driveway, Woods' vehicle "proceeded "to go into oncoming traffic, traveling over the double solid line," the affidavit says.Woods' Land Rover then struck the left rear fender of the truck's trailer, "lost control and flipped over on the driver's side," the deputy wrote.Woods told the deputy that "he looked down at his cell phone and did not realize that [the truck] had slowed down," the affidavit said. Woods, who also claimed he was "changing the radio station" at the time, "did not report any injuries sustained from the collision," police said.The truck's driver told police he helped Woods out of the rolled-over SUVWoods submitted to a breath test, which found no alcohol in his system. But he refused to provide a urine test, according to police.Woods was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, with property damage and refusal to take a urine test. Tiger Woods speaks to the media a preview for the Hero World Challenge 2024 at Albany Golf Course on December 03, 2024 in Nassau, Bahamas.David Cannon | Getty Images Woods in February 2021 crashed and rolled over an SUV he was driving in Southern California, badly injuring his right leg.The golfer had continued to deal with the fallout of that crash, undergoing multiple surgeries. Woods was arrested in May 2017 for DUI in Florida after cops found him asleep in a car that had been damaged.The prescription drugs Vicodin, Dilaudid, Xanax, Ambien were found in his system after that arrest, as was THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. A month after his arrest in that case, Woods entered a clinic to be treated for issues with prescription pain medication and sleep disorder. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
Amazon and MGM promised to spend around $1 billion each year on theatrical releases, a figure that would fund between 12 and 15 films annually. View More
In this articleAMZNFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace in Amazon MGM's "Project Hail Mary."Amazon MGM "Project Hail Mary" is setting records for Amazon MGM and lighting the path for a box-office revitalization.The science fiction flick, starring Ryan Gosling, has tallied more than $300 million globally since its theatrical opening two weeks ago. That marks the best performance for an Amazon MGM film ever."The runaway success of 'Project Hail Mary' represents a key turning point for Amazon MGM giving the distributor its first $100 million plus domestic box office earner," said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore."Project Hail Mary" has held notably strong at the box office since its debut, with only a 32% drop in ticket sales from its first weekend in the U.S. to its second and a nearly unheard of 5% decline internationally. A typical Hollywood blockbuster will see a 50% to 70% drop in ticket sales from opening weekend to the second weekend after the rush to the theater fades."When Amazon showcased 'Project Hail Mary' at CinemaCon exactly one year ago, it was clear the studio had big plans in mind," said Shawn Robbins director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. "After two incredible weekends so far, the movie is a major contributor in year-over-year box office gains."Domestically, the film has tallied about $165 million, helping to prop up first-quarter box-office numbers alongside Disney's "Hoppers" and Paramount's "Scream 7." Through Sunday, the domestic box office has tallied $1.75 billion so far this year, up 23% from the same period last year. Back in 2022, e-commerce giant Amazon and relative upstart movie studio MGM promised to spend around $1 billion each year on theatrical releases, a figure that would fund between 12 and 15 films annually. Last year, the company said it had 14 titles lined up for 2026.This surge of theatrical content is just what the domestic box office needs. While blockbuster franchise films have been abundant in the wake of the pandemic, the overall number of wide releases has shrunk over the last decade. Even before Covid and dual Hollywood labor strikes slowed production down, Hollywood was making fewer and fewer movies each year, according to data from Comscore. At the same time that studios were altering their film slates, movie houses were merging. The most recent union between the Walt Disney Co. and 21st Century Fox, first announced in 2017 and finalized in early 2019, resulted in the loss of between 10 and 15 film releases annually, Comscore data shows.The pending merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery has Hollywood fearful of even fewer theatrical releases. While Paramount has said it is committed to releasing 15 films from each studio, it's unclear if the combined company will be able to keep up with that kind of production.In the meantime, Amazon appears poised to fill a gap in the schedule. The company's upcoming slate is a diverse offering of films: Coming this year are features like "The Sheep Detectives," a comedy murder mystery due out in May, the action-packed "Masters of the Universe" set for June and "Verity," a psychological thriller adapted from the Colleen Hoover book of the same name, arriving in October. Like "Project Hail Mary," which is based on the book by Andy Weir, "Verity" may benefit from a built-in fanbase of readers who want to see the story translated to the big screen. "Bottom line, 'Project Hail Mary' is the studio's new gold standard for what they can accomplish in the world of cinema," Robbins said. "That's good news for an entire industry still adapting to the tailwinds of shorter windows, consolidation, and ever-evolving consumer habits. You can bet every studio, even the old guard, in the business will be looking at the takeaways from Amazon's success with this film. The power of the moviegoing experience is on full display right now."Disclosure: Versant is the parent company of CNBC and Fandango. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
The Iran war has caused energy prices to surge, directly benefiting — and filling the coffers — of major oil and gas producers like Russia. View More
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with Iranian President in Ashgabat on December 12, 2025.Alexander Kazakov | Afp | Getty Images Russia has found itself in the curious position of benefiting from the turmoil hitting its Middle East partner and ally, Iran.Tehran's almost total closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused global oil and gas prices to surge, filling the coffers of major oil and gas producers like Russia.Sergey Vakulenko, senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told CNBC on Tuesday that Russia's windfall from the Iran war resulting energy price growth ran into the billions of dollars."So far the oil price, and the Urals in particular, has jumped by more than $60 a barrel and this brings the Russian state almost $9 billion per month, that's quite substantial," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe.""Even the countries that were considering less oil from Russia, like India, are buying more again and the United States is even issuing dispensations for that," he noted, referring to a 30-day waiver issued by the White House earlier in March enabling countries to purchase sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products stranded at sea, in an effort to tame global energy price hikes.The price of a barrel of Russian Urals crude oil currently stands at $115 on Tuesday. On Feb. 27, the day before the U.S. and Israel launched their bombardment of Iran, the price per barrel was $57. Russian exports of helium, aluminum and nitrogen fertilizer have also given state revenues a boost, but "at an order of magnitude smaller" than oil, he noted. Stock Chart IconStock chart iconBrent and WTI futures for May delivery While the Russian state budget had its own problems, Vakulenko noted, with the deficit amounting to around $35 billion in the first two months of the year, the boost from the Iran war had been "palpable," nonetheless. The windfall was helping Russian President Vladimir Putin to postpone planned cuts to state spending in various sectors of the economy that would have proved unpopular, Vakulenko said."What he was spending on the war meant he was basically pawning the country. Now, he doesn't have to do that anymore," the analyst said. watch nowVIDEO7:0607:06Russia's windfall on the back of the Iran war is 'palpable,' expert saysSquawk Box Europe The longevity of this windfall for Moscow will depend on the duration of the conflict, but the turmoil in the Middle East not only alleviates some fiscal pressures but also serves as a distraction from problems that have dogged Russia's economy since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.Inflation, currently at 5.9%, remains a thorn in the side of the Russian central bank, with interest rates having to be kept stubbornly high, at 15%. Russia's central bank is struggling to tame price rises caused by the Kremlin's massive military spending and an economy that has pivoted toward serving the country's war machine, as well as rising food prices, labor shortages and sanctions.Retired Gen. Richard Shirreff, former NATO deputy supreme allied commander Europe, told CNBC on Tuesday that the short-term benefit Russia was seeing from the Iran war belied the beleaguered state it was in."This is an economy that's in the death zone â it's in exactly the same position as a climber over 8,000 feet -- the body begins to eat itself, it's facing existential long-term damage â but he [Putin] is gaining economically [right now]," Shireff told "Squawk Box Europe." Ukraine is, understandably, concerned about the extent to which the Iran war is benefiting its nemesis Russia â not only on the economic front, but also from a geopolitical perspective. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed this week that some of the country's partners had called on Kyiv to scale down strikes on Russia's oil sector because of the global oil price surge.The Iran war is proving to be a significant distraction from its own conflict and is diverting military resources it might have received from the U.S. toward Iran."The Americans fired off something like four times as many Patriot missiles in the first four days of war as they've supplied Ukraine in four years," Shireff, co-founder and managing partner of Strategia Worldwide, added. "So, Putin is gaining because there will be less kit to provide to the Ukrainians," he said. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.