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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company could enter the cloud computing market if it overspends on data centers and has excess capacity. View More

In this articleMETAFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles after defending the company in a landmark social media addiction trial, Feb. 19, 2026.Jon Putman | Anadolu | Getty Images Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company could enter the cloud computing market if it overspends on data centers and ends up with excess capacity. "It's definitely on the table," Zuckerberg said on Wednesday at Meta's annual shareholder meeting, in response to a question about potentially competing with Amazon and Microsoft in cloud computing. Zuckerberg reiterated comments made on an earnings call last year, noting that "almost every week there are different companies that come to us from outside asking us to both stand up an API service or asking if we have compute that they could buy from us at some premium to what we've bought it at." Of the four giant hyperscalers in the U.S. Meta is the only one that doesn't have a cloud infrastructure and services business. Meanwhile, Meta's spending to fuel artificial intelligence development is right up there with its rivals. In April, Meta raised its 2026 guidance for AI-related capital expenditures to between $125 billion and $145 billion, up from a prior range of $115 billion to $135 billion. Meta shares sank 7% despite better-than-expected first-quarter earnings, underscoring concern about the company's hefty AI spending.Zuckerberg is reminding Wall Street that it has the ability to rent out some of its computing resources. "We haven't done that yet because we think that we have a use for the compute," Zuckerberg said Wednesday. "Obviously if we get to a point where we feel that we have overbuilt, then that is an option that we have, and that is partially what gives us confidence in investing in building this out."Zuckerberg also discussed the company's plans involving AI-powered personal assistants, an effort he briefly detailed in an April earnings call after the debut of Meta's Muse Spark AI model."People will be more important in the future, not less, and as people inevitably want to get more out of these agents, there will be an opportunity to charge for premium or high compute versions," Zuckerberg said.Although Meta offers businesses some AI-related features on WhatsApp, those services are currently free. Zuckerberg said the company is working at "establishing a longer-term monetization model as well."Separately on Wednesday, Meta revealed that it will begin testing monthly subscription services for its Meta AI app and website, marking the first time the company will charge users for AI features. The Meta AI subscription plans will cost either $7.99 or $19.99 a month, depending on certain features, and will initially be available in Singapore, Guatemala and Bolivia.Zuckerberg said at last year's shareholder meeting that as Meta AI improves, the company could offer "a subscription service so that people can pay to use more compute."WATCH: Meta reshapes workforce as AI disrupts entry level hiring. watch nowVIDEO3:0303:03Meta reshapes workforce as AI disrupts entry level hiringMorning Call Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal to curb foreign travel is proving to be a boon to the local travel industry. View More

In this articleBHARTIARTL-INFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Hello, this is Priyanka Salve, writing to you from Singapore.Welcome to the latest edition of "Inside India" — your one-stop destination for stories and developments from the world's fastest-growing large economy.The conflict in the Middle East has affected India's economy, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging citizens to curb overseas travel, save fuel — and even pause buying gold. This bleak-sounding appeal is proving to be a boon for India's domestic travel and tourism industry.Read on!Any thoughts on today's newsletter? Share them with the team. The big story The conflict in the Middle East is causing India acute economic pain, with its currency weakening, the import bill rising, and mounting concerns over a slowdown in growth. But there is a silver lining: the domestic tourism industry is showing signs of a boom.Earlier this month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged citizens to reduce overseas travel in an attempt to conserve India's foreign exchange reserves, under strain from a rising import bill amid a surge in global energy prices. The Indian rupee is among the worst-performing currencies in Asia, falling over 6% year to date against the greenback, LSEG data showed. This weakening of currency, combined with inflated jet fuel prices, has also led to one of the country's major airlines, Air India, to cancel more than a quarter of its international flights between June and August.All this coincides with the peak season for Indian tourists travelling abroad, experts told CNBC, adding that as schools remain shut for more than a month, it is easier for families to take longer holidays to escape the Indian summer heat.Indian Hotels Company, the country's largest hospitality group and parent of luxury chain Taj Hotels, told CNBC's "Inside India" that Modi's exhortation will "benefit the domestic tourism industry." Domestic travel boom Indian travelers have already started choosing local destinations, industry leaders and sector experts told CNBC. "Domestic travel has gained prominence, with 42% of travelers opting to explore their own countries. This trend, [is] notably observed in India, China, and the United States," according to a report by global travel insurance major Allianz Partners earlier this month.That trend might reflect a "preference for cost-effective travel options while enjoying familiar landscapes and supporting local tourism industries," the report, based on a survey conducted by Ipsos, said.Several hospitality operators in India confirmed the trend and are reporting sharp improvement in occupancies and room prices from May onwards. A woman poses for photographs against the backdrop of landmark Hawa Mahal or "Palace of Winds", at a rooftop cafe in Jaipur on May 2, 2026. (Photo by Manan VATSYAYANA / AFP via Getty Images)Manan Vatsyayana | Afp | Getty Images Rajeev Menon, president of APAC ex-China at Marriott International, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Asia" that revenue per available room in May was "back to double-digit numbers," and the "pace remains pretty strong," going in the months ahead.The hospitality chain's revenue per available room had dropped in March, dashing expectations of double-digit growth, due to the conflict in the Middle East. Given the challenges due to the Middle East conflict, "I think what is playing out is people have pivoted and shifted their plans to stay within Asia and [are] trying to avoid going too far away," Menon said.In 2025, more than 14 million Indians took leisure trips abroad, according to government data. A significant share of that will shift to local tourism as the disruptions from the war in Iran persist, experts said.Over the past few weeks, travelers who might have otherwise opted for overseas summer holidays have been choosing to explore destinations within India, said Devendra Parulekar, founder of SaffronStays.SaffronStays, a popular Indian premium holiday property rental platform, told CNBC that its bookings for May were up by nearly 40%, while forward bookings for June are almost 50% higher than a year earlier.The firm is seeing increased demand for its luxury properties near the Himalayan foothills as travelers find it difficult to escape to Europe to beat the heat of the scorching Indian summer. Indian Hotels Company is particularly eyeing opportunities arising from a shift in destination weddings from foreign locations to India. A study by industry body, the Confederation of All India Traders estimates that weddings generated business worth 6.5 trillion rupees (nearly $68 billion) during the peak season from November to December 2025. Wedding celebrations could become "a much bigger business," with the shift to domestic locations, said Puneet Chhatwal, CEO at Indian Hotels Company. That would amplify the demand for hotels, which is already outpacing supply, he said, adding that the Indian hotel chain expects room rates to "increase anywhere between eight to 12% at least." The World Travel and Tourism Council has been very bullish on the growing outbound travel from India and predicts that the opportunity could be as big as China over the next decade. But until the Iran war-led disruptions continue, the wanderlust of Indian travelers is unlikely to cross borders. Need to know Indian telecom major Bharti Airtel is doubling down on its Africa venture, UK's BTIndia's second-largest telecom company, Bharti Airtel, is increasing its investments in Africa and U.K. businesses, joining a growing number of companies from the South Asian country that are looking to expand their global footprints.India, U.S. discuss Middle East, trade as Rubio cites progress on Iran conflictU.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday, as the two sides discussed the Middle East, trade, visas, maritime security, and energy supplies. Yotta Data Services is predicting a $100 billion boom in Indian data centersSunil Gupta, co-founder and chief executive of Yotta Data Services, said India's AI ecosystem is nearing an inflection point and expects the country to see a huge wave of data center investment totaling $100 billion in the coming years. Coming up May 28: India Industrial Output for April.June 3: India HSBC composite PMI for May. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

The White House immigration hawk and deputy chief of staff is pointing the finger in the wrong direction when assigning blame for the federal budget deficit. View More

In this articleUS10YFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller speaks with members of the press outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Aug. 29, 2025.Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images The U.S. national debt grew past 100% of gross domestic product last month, putting the country on the path to beat the record of 106% of GDP set in 1946, coming out of World War II. That record is on pace to shatter around 2029, just as Donald Trump's presidency is ending, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates. Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has identified a culprit for what might otherwise be a grim legacy."I believe based on what I've seen and what I've heard is that we could balance the federal budget if the only dollars that went out of the Treasury went to individuals who were properly lawfully correctly eligible to receive them," Miller said at a Trump administration anti-fraud event Tuesday. Miller's figures far overstate the federal government's published estimates for misspent funds, and overlook that immigrants generally help improve, not worsen, the budget deficit. But the problem isn't just misleading math. The Trump administration's inability to take the deficit seriously is worsening Americans' affordability crisis today and threatening a debt crisis down the road. The deficit is the difference between what the federal government takes in from taxes and other revenue and what it spends. That adds to the federal debt.Miller was building on his prior comments that put the nation's spending problems at the feet of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, don't buy into the American system, or both. Stolen or otherwise misappropriated benefits have "fleeced" taxpayers of hundreds of billions of dollars, Miller said Tuesday, or even trillions, as he put it in March. The administration's fraud task force is every day "uncovering levels of fraud across various federal programs that were previously inconceivable to government forecasters and working Americans alike," White House spokesman Kush Desai said when asked about Miller's statements. Read more CNBC politics coverageJudge tosses Kilmar Abrego Garcia charges, calls prosecution 'vindictive'Trump skipping wedding of son Donald Jr. to Bettina AndersonTulsi Gabbard resigning as Trump's intelligence chiefKevin Warsh sworn in as Fed chair as Trump seeks interest rate cutsNew lawsuits against Trump's DOJ 'lawfare' fund "The extraction of wealth from American taxpayers to people who don't belong here is the primary cause of the national debt," Miller said alongside the president on March 16.The national debt stands at $31.4 trillion. Presidents and members of Congress from both parties have committed to unbalanced spending in the decades since President Bill Clinton briefly managed to balance the budget in the 1990s. But recent years have seen a sharp acceleration of debt-financed spending. Trump slashed taxes in his first term, only to begin a Covid spending frenzy that culminated in a vast stimulus package under President Joe Biden. That spending staved off a recession at the cost of overheating the economy, contributing to the inflation that still plagues Americans. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said before being picked for that job that he wanted Trump to get the deficit to less than 4% of GDP by the end of his term. There is still time, but the trajectory doesn't look good. The deficit ran to 5.8% of GDP in the 2025 fiscal year, which ended in September, according to the CBO, or about $1.8 trillion.Are illegal immigrants to blame? If so the government's investigators haven't seen it. Federal inspectors general reported $186 billion in improper payments last year, or about 10% of the deficit, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. Those figures don't capture all the fraud, but they do capture some payments that were overstated but weren't completely misdirected.Democrats and Republicans have argued for years about whether it is possible to shrink the deficit purely by reducing waste, fraud or abuse.Miller's argument is difficult to disprove. It is possible fraudsters are stealing vast sums under the hapless noses of federal bureaucrats. It happens. The improper payment data may add up to $3 trillion since 2003, the GAO found, or less than two years' worth of deficits at the current rate.But Americans will suffer if fear of suspected fraud is used to cut back on immigration. That's because immigrants don't drain federal budgets, they buffer them, researchers at the libertarian Cato Institute found. Immigrants added $14.5 trillion to the fiscal bottom line over 30 years, from 1994 to 2023, according to a Cato Institute white paper. They tend to receive less from Social Security and Medicare than other Americans, both because they have less work history in the U.S. and because some are ineligible as undocumented immigrants. They also tend to receive less public schooling because they arrive later in life, among other explanations.What is driving up the deficit? Americans as a whole are getting older, and it is therefore more expensive to provide for their retirement and healthcare. Meanwhile the debt compounds, contributing to interest payments that now outstrip the annual cost of the military.There is no magic number at which debt becomes too much. And unlike a business or a household, the government's debts are dominated in the dollars that it prints, so it can't default. States must balance their budgets, but there's no such requirement for the federal government.Debt isn't free. The U.S. government is adding so much of it every year that it isn't clear there will always be buyers for it via government bonds at prices Americans will want to pay. Bond managers' worries have real effects on Americans. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note determines what consumers pay for mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and other debt. It was at 4.3% the day after Trump won the 2024 election. Bessent has said he looks to the 10-year as a barometer of the administration's success. But the 10-year remains above where it was when Trump won. It has fallen about 20 basis points, or hundredths of a percent, to just below 4.5% midday Wednesday as traders have digested the possibility that the Iran war will end soon, easing their inflation worries. But there is a floor under those yields, too, set in part by the U.S. government's plans to issue unending new quantities of debt. None of this would be such a problem if there were any prospect for a bigger-picture fix. But the second Trump administration has repeatedly used the deficit as a cudgel to attack its perceived opponents, making any kind of compromise far less likely. Elon Musk's abortive Department of Government Efficiency cut little waste and alienated potential allies who were excited about the prospect of a serious reform effort. Democrats will see little incentive to campaign in the midterms or beyond for tough fiscal choices, when Republicans have found so much political success in avoiding them. Ironically, the Democrats' loudest voice for fiscal sanity lately has been democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who recently proudly proclaimed making progress at balancing New York City's budget. But that's easier in a place where state law requires balanced budgets. Vice President Kamala Harris' brief campaign in 2024 didn't commit to a restrained spending plan and even offered to raise some taxes. Democrats' 2028 candidates will face intense pressure to be far more aggressive with government spending and even less fiscally conservative. The deficit can't be fixed by cutting payments to immigrants. And it won't be fixed until the debt crisis reaches a level that makes taking the medicine less painful than the disease. Whether or not Stephen Miller knows that, his comments Tuesday make it a little more likely.  Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Unmanned systems will be one of the biggest security threats and structural growth opportunities in defense over the next decade: David Petraeus View More

Gen. David Petraeus, Former CIA Director, Fmr. Central Commander and American commander in Iraq.Adam Jeffery | CNBC Unmanned systems will present the greatest danger and structural growth opportunity over the next decade, former CIA director David Petraeus said, pointing to conflicts in Iran and Ukraine as evidence of how warfare is rapidly evolving.Speaking at the UBS Asian Investment Conference, Petraeus said the increasing use of drones in conflict zones showed both the growing danger of unmanned weapons and the urgent need to improve defenses against them."Much of this is going to be all about unmanned systems and the defenses against them, which have not been adequate in this case," Petraeus said."It's never going to be perfect, but it can be much better than what it is that we have seen."The proliferation of drone combat in the Middle East will push the region to invest in defensive and offensive capabilities. watch nowVIDEO6:2506:25Middle East investing heavily in Strait of Hormuz alternatives: KKR's PetraeusThe China Connection Iran's cheap Shahed drones have been a regular fixture in conflicts and proxy attacks across the region, while the U.S. and allies have often relied on more expensive air defense missiles to intercept them.Public estimates place the cost of a Shahed drone at roughly $20,000 to $50,000 each, far below the price of ballistic or cruise missiles, which can cost millions of dollars."There's going to be enormous spending on defense against what we've seen come from Iran, which is only a hint of the future war," he added. Petraeus pointed out that even a "modest" amount of drones has caused real problems, including cutting Qatar's liquefied natural gas production. The former four-star general, who also led the United States Central Command, said the future of warfare will increasingly shift towards unmanned systems. He added that in a year or so, warfare will evolve beyond unmanned systems to include autonomous systems fighting each other. Autonomous drones can form swarms that overwhelm defenses through numbers while adapting to changing battlefield conditions by communicating with one another, instead of being remotely piloted by a human controller."Now you have swarms coming at you, and we really don't have a defense for swarms."Drawing on visits to Ukraine, Petraeus said Kyiv's armed forces were "just extraordinary" at producing their own drones and defeating Russian drones through measures including using interceptor drones, electronic warfare to disrupt control networks. Ukraine has also used pickup trucks equipped with machine guns connected to targeting computers to help intercept incoming drones.Still, Petraeus warned that current countermeasures, such as individual drone interceptors, may prove insufficient against coordinated drone swarms."That gets really, really, really scary, actually, because autonomous systems mean ... you're not limited by the number of pilots that you have who are remotely flying these systems," he said. Big, transformative moment The rise of unmanned systems, however, represents a major investment opportunity, Petraeus said.When asked which part of the defense value chain was likely to see the biggest structural growth, Petraeus said the answer was "unmanned systems of all types."The "big, even more transformative moment," he said, would come when militaries move beyond individual autonomous weapons and begin deploying what he described as "autonomous systems of autonomous systems."In that scenario, he said, autonomous sensors could gather battlefield data and feed it back to autonomous command-and-control systems, which would then direct autonomous weapons systems with little or no human input. watch nowVIDEO6:5806:58Gen. David Petraeus: The war in Ukraine poses the greatest test case for the future of warfareSquawk Box The shift toward autonomy, he added, is partly driven by the difficulty of maintaining command-and-control links on the battlefield.If drones or other weapon systems cannot rely on continuous communication with human operators, they would need to navigate, identify targets and coordinate independently."Autonomy is going to be absolutely the breathtaking development in the future," Petraeus said.He added that space-based communications, including systems such as SpaceX's Starlink, would help connect unmanned platforms. Petraeus noted that Iran's Shahed drones did not rely on satellite communications, describing them instead as closer to "low-level small cruise missiles" than remotely piloted drones."All of this is coming soon to a theater near us," Petraeus said. "The investment implications are absolutely enormous." Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

Salesforce has been hammered by investors on concern that artificial intelligence models and services will disrupt some traditional software products. View More

In this articleCRMFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT Britain's King Charles III speaks with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and President and Chief Investment Officer of Alphabet and Google Ruth Porat during a meeting with chief executives from the technology industry at Blair House on day two of the State Visit of King Charles III and Queen Camilla to the U.S. in Washington on April 28, 2026.Ken Cedeno | Getty Images Salesforce reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results on Wednesday, but the cloud software vendor issued full-year guidance that was slightly below Wall Street expectations. The stock was little changed in extended trading. Here's how the company did relative to LSEG consensus:Earnings per share: $3.88 adjusted vs. $3.12 expectedRevenue: $11.13 billion vs. $11.05 billion expectedRevenue increased 13% year over year during the quarter, which ended on April 30, according to a statement. Net income rose to $2.11 billion, or $2.42 per share, from $1.54 billion, or $1.59 per share, a year earlier. Adjusted net income excludes impact from stock-based compensation, income tax and amortization of intangible assets.For the current quarter, Salesforce called for $3.25 to $3.27 in adjusted earnings per share on $11.27 billion to $11.35 billion revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected $3.25 per share on $11.36 billion in revenue. The company pushed up its full-year forecast to $14.06 to $14.12 in adjusted earnings per share on $45.9 billion to $46.2 billion in revenue. The middle of the revenue range, at $46.05 billion, implies about 11% growth. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had been looking for $13.22 per share and $46.12 billion in revenue.The guidance factors in continuing challenges in marketing and commerce, worsening performance in Tableau bookings and renewals, and higher license revenue volatility following the acquisition of data management company Informatica, Robin Washington, Salesforce's chief operating and financial officer, said on the company's earnings call. Salesforce has been hammered by investors on concern that artificial intelligence models will pressure the company's growth prospects, as well as those of other software developers. As of Wednesday's close, Salesforce shares were down 33% so far in 2026, while the S&P 500 index had gained about 10%. Salesforce has been expanding through dealmaking, and by selling Agentforce AI tools that can perform certain sales and customer service processes automatically. The company said subscription and support revenue from Agentforce apps, including sales, service, marketing, commerce and Slack, totaled $6.91 billion, up almost 9% from a year ago. Data 360, headless platform and other subscription and support revenue increased 25% to $3.68 billion, with $428 million from Informatica, which Salesforce bought for $9.6 billion in November. The Tableau and commerce categories showed weakness in the quarter, Washington said.Annualized revenue from Agentforce reached $1.2 billion, up 205% year over year. The figure came in above $1 billion for the first time.Remaining performance obligation, a measure of contracted revenue that has not been recognized, stood at $67.9 billion at the end of the quarter. The consensus among analysts polled by StreetAccount was $68.61 billion.During the quarter, Salesforce acquired commerce startup Cimulate and sales startup Momentum, both for undisclosed terms, and said the U.S. Veterans Health Administration would adopt an AI agent system in Slack.Slack has come a long way since Salesforce announced plans to buy it in 2020 in a deal that cost over $27 billion. "It was doing less than a billion in ARR, and it was struggling," said Marc Benioff, the company's co-founder and CEO, using the term for annual recurring revenue. "It was having problems. The management team was really not clear how they were competing against Microsoft." In the fiscal first quarter, Slack was involved in almost half of Salesforce's deals worth over $1 million. In January, Slack gained new generative AI capabilities with help from Anthropic."I'm sure we'll be talking in short order about Slack being a $10 billion cloud as well," Benioff said.Meanwhile, Salesforce's headcount has been growing, mostly in sales."I think we all realize the one thing that we're doing here with you, selling and communicating that — agents are not exactly doing that," Benioff said. "They can qualify, okay, they can provide service, but in sales we still scale, because there's so many different parts of the market that we have to get to, so that will be a critical part of expanding our company, but at the same time expanding our margins."WATCH: Software earnings put Salesforce and Snowflake in focus watch nowVIDEO1:2601:26Software earnings put Salesforce and Snowflake in focusMorning Call Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

The rising threat of food insecurity is partly why Americans feel worse off than ever before, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. View More

watch nowVIDEO6:3506:35The K-shaped gap widens: Here's what to knowSquawk Box The so-called K-shaped economy is now linked to "a remarkable increase in food insecurity," according to a new blog post by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.Large segments of the population are facing high levels of financial strain, according to a post published on Wednesday, based on data from the Survey of Consumer Expectations.Among this group, lower- and middle-income households have been hardest hit by prolonged inflation. A greater share of their spending is allocated to goods that have seen prices soar since the pandemic, such as housing, food and utilities, causing them to cut back on groceries, the researchers found. A higher cost of living, combined with cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, "have led to renewed concerns about food insecurity among those at the bottom of the K-shape," the New York Fed researchers wrote. Households have struggled with the expiration of pandemic-era aid, including expanded SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps, researchers said. More recently, President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill" tightened the work requirements for SNAP benefits. Nearly 14% of American households were food insecure in 2024, according to the most recent report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Read more CNBC personal finance coverageCould Trump Accounts be a model for Social Security? Here’s what experts say'Survivor's penalty' can affect retirees after a spouse dies. What to expectThis federal program trains older workers. The Trump administration wants to cut itJeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxesCNBC's Financial Advisor 100: Best financial advisors, top firms ranked The New York Fed said that food insecurity is likely linked to why Americans now feel worse off even as the economy overall has expanded at a solid pace since the Covid pandemic. After a series of recent financial shocks, consumer sentiment has been on a downward trend. The University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, a closely watched bellwether, hit all-time lows in May."Consumers overall have been pessimistic about their own financial circumstances and outlook," the New York Fed researchers wrote.But there is also "significant" variation across households, the New York Fed researchers found, "supporting the notion of a 'K-shaped' economy." The rise of the K-shape Stock market rallies and appreciating home values tend to buoy high-earner households, which disproportionately own such assets, and leave lower-income households behind.The pandemic turbocharged those dynamics — as stock and housing wealth soared while lower-income households struggled to keep up with rising prices — giving rise to the concept of a K-shaped economy.Now, gasoline prices are also dragging down the lower prong of the K. The national average gasoline price reached $4.46 a gallon as of Wednesday, up about 40% from a year ago, according to AAA. "The top of the K-shape reflects high and growing levels of net wealth," the New York Fed researchers wrote, while "the bottom of the K-shape represents a significant share of the middle- and lower-income population experiencing elevated levels of economic uncertainty and financial hardship." The central bank's monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations, released May 7, also found that about one-third of households expect to be in a worse financial situation in one year from now. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.

AI stocks aren't the only place to put money to work, Jim Cramer said at the Investing Club's May Monthly Meeting. View More

The CNBC Investing Club on Wednesday held its May Monthly Meeting, featuring Jim Cramer and Jeff Marks, director of portfolio analysis, covering all 33 stocks in the portfolio. Jim offered his unvarnished takes on the stocks and spotlighted his four favorite names for new Club members to buy. Jeff also provided an in-depth look at the two newest positions and why we initiated positions. One theme Jim emphasized was the importance of diversification, even in moments where one dominant theme drives the market. Right now, artificial intelligence is winning the day. We have plenty of AI winners. But as long-term investors, our discipline requires us to own other stocks too. Now, let's get into what Jim and Jeff had to say. The four stocks that Jim recommended new Club members buy are marked in bold. Big tech winners Alphabet : We were wrong to sell it last spring. We were right to buy it back, lured by the powerful combination of Google Search, Gemini, Google Cloud, YouTube, and the robotaxi service Waymo. For new members, Google is Jim's favorite to buy right now. Amazon : This is another one with a remarkable collection of businesses. From cloud unit Amazon Web Services and its custom silicon chips to the Prime membership program and the advertising business, these are all worth more than what the current stock price indicates. Some investors may be worried about its massive AI spending, but the profits should start flowing as soon as next year. Apple : The stock has experienced a sudden run on optimism around its AI offerings. Many investors were worried after Apple's delayed AI rollout, but we're glad it didn't end up putting out a second-rate product. Apple focuses on being the best, not the first. Let's hope we get a long-awaited AI-infused Siri at the company's annual developer conference on June 8 . Nvidia : The AI chip giant finds itself where Apple was over a decade ago, and it should follow in the iPhone maker's footsteps by embarking on a massive buyback program paired with consistent, large dividend increases. Nvidia's best buy right now is its own stock. Big tech laggards Meta Platforms : CEO Mark Zuckerberg is known for not tolerating underperformance, but that's exactly what this stock has delivered lately. We're afraid to sell it, only for Meta to deliver a breakthrough on AI shortly after we do. So, we're keeping it. Microsoft : A similar debate here. We can all see there are real issues here, and it is inconceivable that CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood do not see them as well. We're giving them another quarter to show something that improves their prospects in the age of AI. We've owned this one for almost a decade and don't want to give back any more of that gain. Saving grace AI plays Arm Holdings : Our second newest name, after FedEx, has been a rocket ship since we bought the chipmaker last month. Concerns about securing enough manufacturing capacity from TSMC haven't vanished. It's just that the zest for anything data center-related has made the question not matter for the stock. We took more profits on Tuesday. Broadcom : This one has stalled out recently, perhaps due to concerns that Marvell is a real threat in the custom AI chip business and a lack of new customer announcements. But we cannot forget the strength of its networking portfolio and the steady hand of CEO Hack Tan. We're happy to wait out the sellers here because Broadcom remains at the heart of the data center. Eaton : This is a great example of a company doing the best to ease power concerns caused by the data center buildout. Eaton makes cooling and electrical equipment that makes the data center run smoothly and without interruption. GE Vernova : Another great pick to play AI's insatiable appetite for energy. GE Vernova is a winner because it's the principal builder of natural gas turbines that provide power to data centers. Corning : As data center operators wean themselves off of slow copper connections and onto fiber, this stock is our biggest winner. Corning is a fabulous, treasured American company and a tremendous name to own, as it keeps getting rediscovered by the analyst community. Qnity : Spun off from DuPont in the fall, Qnity is crushing it because of the AI chip boom. We've taken some profits, but we still like it, especially considering the stock remains under the radar on Wall Street. When more tech-focused analysts start covering it instead of chemical specialists, we could see that next leg of upside. Tech outside the data center CrowdStrike : It took gumption to stick with cybersecurity stocks during the "AI is eating software" sell-off earlier this year. We ignored the negatives here, and we've been rewarded with shares racing back to all-time highs. The small pullback on Wednesday, following peer ZScaler's disappointing outlook, isn't cause for concern . Palo Alto Networks : The long-term importance of cybersecurity isn't fading. So for now, we're comfortable holding a second cyber stock in Palo Alto. Both CrowdStrike and Palo Alto report earnings next week. Salesforce : The toughest tech stock we own reports earnings after Wednesday's close. The debate: If it's going to take a while to realize the AI implications, why not just sell it, and if we really want to, we can just buy it back? We'll have a better idea of what to do when we get the latest quarterly numbers. The diversifiers The goal of the Club is to run a diversified portfolio that is durable and works over the long term. That means we can't own just data center and AI plays. We also must recognize that not everything goes up at once. Goldman Sachs : This is a business that typically operates in sales and trading but excels in the far more lucrative IPO and M & A markets. It wouldn't be surprising if the nearly $1,000 stock could rally 25% from here by the fall. That's how many big public offerings and mergers are about to happen. This is another stock that Jim said new members can consider buying. Wells Fargo : It might be time to say goodbye if the bank reports another bad quarter. Its last earnings release was so disappointing that we downgraded the stock. It's perplexing because CEO Charlie Scharf has done tremendous work. Capital One : It's hard not to be disappointed in this bank after its top and bottom line misses in late April, and another subpar quarter before that. CEO Richard Fairbank is an exceptional leader, but Capital One hasn't yet rationalized the Discover business it acquired last year as we hoped. It's a cheap stock, and we're willing to be a little more patient with this one compared with Wells. Eli Lilly : We've owned this one for years, and it's done well by us. Its next-generation injectable retatrutide is poised to be the real game-breaker, the one that allows Lilly to pull away from its main rival, Novo Nordisk , for good. Cardinal Health : No getting around the fact that there's been a harsh and destructive rotation away from medical device and ancillary health-care names. The reaction to last month's earnings was excessive for a company of Cardinal's quality. This is a stock worth battling. Johnson & Johnson : Another victim of the market's disdain for health care. But management has an exciting portfolio and pipeline of new drugs and medical technology products to accelerate growth in the coming years. Plus, it has adopted a stronger legal strategy to fend off talc lawsuits and refocus investors on business fundamentals. J & J said its new once-daily psoriasis pill could be one of its biggest drugs ever. Home Depot : This has been our main bet on falling mortgage rates and a major pickup in housing activity. That, unfortunately, hasn't materialized despite the Federal Reserve's rate cuts in recent years. But we don't want to take this hedge off because we never know when that catalyst will arrive. Costco : Far better than Home Depot within retail is Costco, which reports on Thursday night. The quarter should be fine because it sells cheap gas to attract new cardholders . TJX Companies : Another retail winner. We bought ahead of last week's earnings, and we're glad we did. The T.J. Maxx and Marshalls parent may still be cheap enough to buy for those of you who are new to the Club. Yes, it is that good. Starbucks : We're sticking with this one. We're glad we didn't bail when Wall Street got sick of it in the $80s and $90s range. Recent results show CEO Brian Niccol's turnaround is working. There should be more upside for the stock as he works his way through the long list of problems. Procter & Gamble : Like Home Depot, P & G is a hedge. In this case, it's a way to protect against a severe slowdown. We're not saying one is imminent, but we also didn't foresee a war in the Middle East. You just don't know. Nike : This stock has been a disappointment. No denying that. If the apparel maker posts yet another lackluster quarter and Wall Street is forced to cut estimates again, we'll have to dump it. CEO Elliott Hill might have just been dealt too bad a hand. The industrials Boeing : This is another one that Jim said new members should consider buying. As monthly deliveries increase, the stock should keep moving higher toward that $300 level. The stock is up nearly 2% Wednesday afternoon after CEO Kelly Ortberg said at a conference that it has met regulatory requirements to increase 737 Max production. Honeywell : We trimmed some on Tuesday because the stock is running for a preposterous reason: it owns half of a quantum computing company that is going public. That excitement has overwhelmed the market's judgment. Honeywell's stake in Quantinuum actually means very little to shareholders like us. The real catalyst is the industrial conglomerate's upcoming split. DuPont : This one is a pastiche of chemicals, plastics, filtration, and safety materials. It's hard for investors to get their arms around, though, which is why the stock's been a bit directionless for some time. There's plenty of value in DuPont. CEO Lori Koch just needs to bring it out soon, or else we'll exit our position. Its former electronics business, now trading as Qnity, has been the real star of the show. Dover : This is a terrific conglomerate levered to so many different parts of a growing economy. But it's hard to figure out what to make of Dover the stock. It seemingly trades up and down on nothing, while other names soar. This is one we're monitoring closely to determine whether it deserves to stay in the portfolio. Linde : The good thing about this industrial gas company is that it's exposed to a host of industries, including health care, semiconductors, wine, and soda. Linde is the kind of stock that does well when the economy is just OK and superb when the economy is humming. FedEx : We called up FedEx from our Bullpen watchlist on May 18. CEO Raj Subramaniam has done a great job improving FedEx's operations, and the spin-off of its freight shipping business next week is another catalyst for making investors money. We love spin-offs around here because they help companies get a sharper focus. (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.

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In this articleAMZNFollow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT An Amazon device is displayed at an Amazon Devices launch event in New York City on Feb. 26, 2025.Brendan McDermid | Reuters Amazon has been using homegrown artificial intelligence technology to help users compare products and buy or reorder items on their behalf. Now the company is licensing that technology to other retailers, as it vies to be the backbone of AI shopping across the web. In a blog post Wednesday, Amazon said it's taking the "architecture, starter code and learnings" from Alexa for Shopping and packaging it together for the rest of the retail industry. The new service allows retailers to launch their own AI shopping tools tailored to their storefront, catalog and branding "in as little as 60 days," Amazon said. For Amazon, the move marks another effort to take technology built internally and sell it to other companies, including competitors, as a service. It's the approach Amazon took roughly two decades ago with Amazon Web Services, its cloud computing unit, and later with its cashier-less checkout, warehousing and supply chain services. Earlier this month, Amazon rebranded its e-commerce chatbot from Rufus to Alexa for Shopping and enabled it by default in search queries on its store. As it turns outward, the new tool is being offered by AWS, which could help reassure retailers leery of partnering and sharing data with the industry giant.Amazon said it's already signed up Tapestry-owned luxury fashion brand Kate Spade as a customer, which used the service to launch a gifting assistant. Additional retailers are "currently in testing," the company said. Across the burgeoning AI industry, leading players are targeting shoppers. OpenAI, Google and Perplexity have rolled out research tools and agents for shopping, though some of those efforts have stumbled due to technical bugs or challenges with onboarding retailers. It's also unclear if shoppers are ready to hand off the task of completing a purchase to bots. Retailers and marketplaces like Walmart, Target, Etsy, Gap and eBay have taken a multipronged approach to AI shopping by building their own tools while also partnering with OpenAI and Google. Software companies like Salesforce have pitched services to help retailers launch chatbots or agents on their sites.Amazon has been reluctant to partner with rival AI platforms, opting instead to focus on building internal tools like Alexa for Shopping. It's also walled off its site from being scraped by external agents. Meanwhile, Amazon built a feature called Buy for Me that can make purchases for users on other retailers' websites. In Wednesday's post, Amazon suggested retailers build their own AI tools, rather than relinquishing control of the shopping experience to "an intermediary.""Retailers already possess deep vertical knowledge about their products, customers, and categories that no general-purpose AI can match," the company said.WATCH: OpenAI deepens Amazon ties watch nowVIDEO3:4903:49OpenAI deepens Amazon ties as relationship with Apple fraysTechCheck Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.