Disney’s (DIS) streaming business once again turned a profit last quarter. But its flagship platform is starting to lose subscribers.

The House of Mouse on Wednesday released its fiscal first-quarter results, with growth being driven primarily by the company’s box office dominance and profit gains in its streaming business.Disney stock rose about 1% during pre-market trading Wednesday.

“Overall, this quarter proved to be a strong start to the fiscal year,and we remain confident in our strategy for continued growth,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement. He noted that the company had the top three movies last year: Inside Out 2, Deadpool & Wolverine, and Moana 2.

But on the streaming side, paid subscriptions for Disney+ fell 1% from the previous quarter, to 124.6 million subscribers. The company also said it expects another “modest decline” in the second quarter.

Despite this, Disney reported that its overall streaming business, which includes Hulu and ESPN+, turned a profit, with operating income rising more 100% to $293 million in the three months ending Dec. 31. That compared with a loss of $138 million during same period in 2023.

Disney may have been late to the streaming game — Disney+ launched in 2019, more than a decade after Netflix (NFLX) — but it seems to have finally hit its stride, as long as it can stop or minimize shedding subscribers. After five years, the company’s streaming division finally urned a profit for the first time last year. And more recently, Disney expanded its portfolio by acquiring the sports-centric FuboTV. Disney has also raised its prices.

Overall, Disney’s profit rose 38% in in the three months ending Dec. 31 to $2.6 billion, from $1.9 billion in the same period the prior year. The company’s revenue was up 5% year-over-year to $24.7 billion in its fourth quarter, from $23.5 billion.. Its earnings per share came to $1.76, outperforming Wall Street expectations of $1.45, according to a consensus estimate from analysts surveyed by FactSet (FDS)

Amid all this, Disney continues to struggle with its traditional television assets, which include the broadcast network ABC and its cable channels National Geographic, FX, and others. The company reported that its operating income from the linear networks fell 11% to $1 billion million in its fourth fiscal quarter, from $1.2 billion in the same quarter in 2023.

Unlike some of its competitors, the company remains committed to its broadcast and cable networks — for now.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that Nvidia will only offer China its “fourth best” AI chips, after the Trump administration reversed course to let the tech giant sell its chips again to China. 

“We don’t sell them our best stuff, not our second best stuff, not even our third best,” Lutnick said in an interview on CNBC. “The fourth one down, we want to keep China using it. … We want to keep having the Chinese use the American technology stack, because they still rely upon it.”

Lutnick said China is “more than capable of building their own” but the U.S. wants to “keep one step ahead of what they can build, so they keep buying our chips. … You want to sell the Chinese enough that their developers get addicted to the American technology stack. … That’s the thinking.”

The vast majority of China’s most advanced AI data centers — including close to 40 recently announced projects that will be loaded with more than 115,000 high-end Nvidia GPUs — still rely on Nvidia chips, often stockpiled through intermediaries or legacy contracts.

Lutnick's comments came a day after Nvidia announced its return to China. 

Nvidia said in a company blog post on Monday that it has received assurances from the Trump administration that Commerce Department licenses for the company’s H20 AI chip will be granted, allowing the $4 trillion powerhouse to restart deliveries to China. That announcement came just days after Huang reportedly made Nvidia's case directly to President Donald Trump and Lutnick.

The H20 was supposed to be Nvidia’s big workaround for restrictions on sales of powerful AI hardware to China. When the U.S. tightened export rules last year, Nvidia responded by launching the chip, a lower-spec version of its flagship GPU designed to fall just under those limits. But in April, the Commerce Department blocked the H20 anyway, leaving Nvidia with billions in stranded inventory and Chinese customers in limbo. 

Now, the U.S. has reversed course — at least partially. Nvidia says it hopes to begin H20 shipments to China “soon.”

Alongside the H20, Nvidia is also introducing a “China-compliant” chip: the RTX Pro, a lower-performance model designed for industrial and logistics applications that Huang said “is ideal for digital twin AI for smart factories and logistics.” The new chip meets U.S. export rules and was cleared without controversy. The RTX Pro should give Nvidia a legal and diplomatic safety valve, keeping one foot in the Chinese market even if future restrictions tighten (again).

—Shannon Carroll contributed to this article. 

Apple announced on Tuesday its investing $500 million in the rare earths company MP Materials.

The tech company said it will buy earth magnets produced at MP Materials’ Independence facility in Fort Worth, Texas and it will work with the rare earth producer to create a rare earth recycling line in Mountain Pass, California. 

On Thursday, MP Materials announced that the Department of Defense committed to purchasing $400 million of the company’s preferred stock, making the Pentagon the company’s largest shareholder. 

MP Materials’ Independence facility has plans to develop a series of neodymium magnet manufacturing lines for Apple products, according to its release. To aid in the production of magnets for Apple, the two companies plan to build “an entirely new pool of U.S. talent and expertise in magnet manufacturing,” the statement said. 

Apple said that once the new recycling facility in Mountain Pass is up and running, it will recycle rare earth feedstock (including electronics materials and “post-industrial scrap”) for use in Apple’s products. The iPhone maker said that it, alongside MP Materials, has been piloting rare earth recycling technology to repurpose materials for its products for almost five years. 

“Rare earth materials are essential for making advanced technology, and this partnership will help strengthen the supply of these vital materials here in the United States,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the statement. “We couldn’t be more excited about the future of American manufacturing, and we will continue to invest in the ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit of the American people.”

Apple has faced stark criticism from the Trump administration over its production in China with calls for the Cupertino, California-based company to return its manufacturing to the U.S. Apple vowed to move production of its U.S.-sold iPhones from China to India by the end of 2026, according to The Financial Times, and in February announced its commitment to spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. Apple’s partnership with MP Materials is part of that commitment. 

“The collaboration with MP Materials will help secure domestic supply of this critical material, strengthen the U.S. rare earth industry’s capabilities to capture more raw material, and advance environmental progress with innovative recycling methods,” the statement said. 

The U.S. currently gets much of its rare earth minerals from China, but with Apple’s and the Pentagon’s recent investments in American-produced rare earth materials, that could change. 

- Shannon Carroll contributed to this article. 

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in an earnings call on Tuesday that the bank will be getting involved in stablecoins — whether he likes it or not. 

According to Investing.com’s transcript of the call, when asked how the U.S. bank is thinking about “utilizing, leveraging, [and] competing” with stablecoins, Dimon said that the company will be involved in both “JPMorgan Depositcoin and Stablecoins to understand it, to be good at it.”

He added that although JPMorgan Chase will be looking into stablecoins, he “[doesn’t] know why you’d want a Stablecoin as opposed to just payment.” 

Dimon added to his response that fintech competitors are “very smart” guys, saying, “They’re trying to figure out a way to create bank accounts and get into payment systems and rewards programs. We have to be cognizant of that, [the] way to be cognizant is to be involved.”

He said JPMorgan Chase is “going to be in it and learning a lot.” 

Stablecoins are a type of crypto asset backed by cash, gold, bonds, or other regulated assets, pegged to fiat value, and are used by investors entering the market to convert their dollars. They're a medium to trade for Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

Stablecoins could be a natural bridge between banks and crypto. Banks see them as a way to accelerate international payments. Crypto sees them as a step toward legitimacy, a way to be simultaneously inside and outside the banking system. Several crypto firms are applying for bank charters, according to an April report in the Wall Street Journal (NWSA).

In June, the bank announced its own USD deposit token called “JPMD” from Kinexys, JPMorgan Chase’s blockchain business unit, to be issued for its pilot on the blockchain Base, according to a release. It said that for now, JPMD will be “a permissioned token” and eventually will become available “exclusively to J.P. Morgan institutional clients.”

In May, JPMorgan Chase announced it was letting its customers buy Bitcoin through the bank — a cryptocurrency Dimon has long been critical of. 

—Michael Barclay contributed to this article.

Just months after returning to government service following a controversial resignation, Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer Marko Elez is back in the spotlight — this time for exposing a sensitive API key tied to Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI.

On Sunday, Elez published a GitHub repository containing “agent.py,” a script that inadvertently included a private key granting access to at least 52 of xAI’s large language models (LLMs). Spotted by Krebs on Security, the exposed models, which include the newly created “grok-4-0709,” form the backbone of Grok, the AI chatbot integrated into Musk’s X platform. The key was flagged by GitGuardian, a company that monitors public repositories for credential leaks.

Despite the repository being taken down quickly, the API key remains active, according to security consultant Philippe Caturegli, who first alerted Elez to the exposure. That means anyone who accessed the repository while it was live could still use the key to interface with xAI’s models directly — raising significant concerns about both corporate and government data security.

This is the second such leak involving a DOGE employee in recent months. Back in May, another member of DOGE reportedly exposed a private xAI key that offered access to LLMs trained on internal data from Tesla, SpaceX, and X. These repeated lapses point to deeper issues in operational security and highlight the blurry lines between Musk’s companies and the government agencies now increasingly relying on his infrastructure.

Elez, a 25-year-old with a history of questionable conduct, previously resigned from DOGE after being linked to racist and eugenicist social media posts. Yet he returned to the agency within weeks, aided by lobbying from Vice President J.D. Vance.

Since his retrun, Elez has cycled through roles across multiple high-level agencies, including the Social Security Administration, Department of Labor, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice. He has held access to sensitive databases involving immigration systems, financial records, and national security operations.

The latest leak comes at a particularly precarious time: Just days ago, the Department of Defense awarded a contract worth up to $200 million for Grok, despite the chatbot recently generating antisemitic responses and referencing Adolf Hitler. With trust in AI already fraying, the exposure of private keys that unlock critical infrastructure raises the stakes for both corporate accountability and federal oversight.

Elez’s ability to move freely between government departments — and now be tied to repeated security lapses involving Musk’s AI tools — underscores the growing entanglement between Silicon Valley and Washington. As DOGE’s role expands and xAI’s tools increasingly underpin federal systems, questions about vetting, cybersecurity hygiene, and conflict of interest are likely to grow louder.

So far, xAI has not revoked the exposed key, and neither DOGE nor Elez has issued a public response. But the larger issue may not be this one leak — it’s the system that allowed it to happen again.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the U.S. has clinched a trade agreement with Indonesia that will leave in place a lower tariff than had initially been threatened.

The president said the accord will establish a 19% tariff on Indonesian imports while clearing the way for duty-free U.S. exports to the country. Trump also said the Indonesian government had agreed to purchase $15 billion in U.S. energy products, $4.5 billion in agricultural products, and 50 Boeing jets.

"For the first time ever, our Ranchers, Farmers, and Fishermen will have Complete and Total Access to the Indonesian Market of over 280 million people," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

Indonesia is among the top 25 U.S. trading partners, and U.S. trade totaled $38.3 billion in 2024. Rubber tires, palm oil, electronics, and footwear make up the bulk of Indonesian exports to the U.S. Those products may well get hit with higher prices as a result of the tariff that will take effect sometime in the near future. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the past week, Trump has short-circuited time-consuming trade negotiations and sent letters to dozens of foreign governments dictating their tariff rates starting Aug. 1 if no broad deal was reached. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto was among those who received a letter from Trump threatening a 32% tariff.

It wasn't clear if the Indonesian government had signed off on the agreement. The Indonesian Embassy in Washington, D.C. couldn't be reached for comment.

An earlier trade agreement with Vietnam that Trump had billed as wrapped up still appears to have key details in dispute.

Still, the early sketch of the agreement indicates Trump could be on course to wall off the U.S. economy with steep tariffs more reminiscent of the 20th century.

"A 19% tariff on Indonesian imports suggests we may be landing as substantially higher tariff rates across the board than 10%," Brendan Duke, an economist at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote on X.

If power is everything, President Donald Trump is about to plug America into a multibillion-dollar surge. At an energy and innovation summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, later on Tuesday, Trump is expected to announce one of the most sweeping infrastructure investment packages of his political career: $90 billion aimed at supercharging U.S. AI and energy systems.

The rollout is set to take place at the inaugural Pennsylvania Energy & Innovation Summit, hosted at Carnegie Mellon University by Sen. Dave McCormick, a Republican who made domestic energy and AI development core issues in his Senate campaign. Trump, the keynote speaker, is likely to position the plan as both a national security imperative and an economic growth engine — part of a broader strategy to cement U.S. dominance in AI and rebuild the country’s power infrastructure to support it.

“We’ve got commitments of more than $90 billion of investment in data centers, in energy production, in transmission, in distribution, and in investing in skilled workers,” McCormick told CNBC.

According to reporting from Bloomberg and Reuters, the initiative will combine federal incentives with private-sector commitments from some of the country’s biggest players in tech and utilities. Google is slated to invest $25  billion in data center construction, AI cloud firm CoreWeave is expected to put $6 billion into a new campus, and electric utility FirstEnergy is planning to pour $15 billion into regional grid upgrades. Other expected participants include Meta, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and oil giants such as Chevron and ExxonMobil. CEOs from BlackRock, Anthropic, and Abu Dhabi investment company Mubadala are also expected to attend the energy summit.

While the details of any federal funding or executive actions remain under wraps, this would be the latest in a series of moves by Trump to tie AI innovation to industrial revival. Earlier this year, he signed an executive order dismantling several Biden-era AI restrictions and unveiled an “AI Action Plan” that includes fast-tracked permitting for infrastructure and streamlined approvals for water, land, and power projects tied to AI development. Late on Monday, Nvidia announced that the Trump administration will allow the company’s H20 chips back into China.

With AI training models expected to consume as much as 30 times more power by 2035, the U.S. is facing a looming grid bottleneck. Big Tech is going all-in on domestic infrastructure as the AI boom strains U.S. energy and computing capacity.

Meta plans to spend up to $72 billion this year, building out massive AI data centers — including some experimental “tent” sites — and locking in solar, geothermal, and even nuclear energy deals. In June, Amazon Web Services signed a $650 million, 10-year nuclear power deal with Talen Energy to supply its data center operations from Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna plant — part of a broader $20 billion regional investment that includes two major data campuses. Google just signed a $3 billion hydropower deal — one of the largest clean-energy contracts ever — to supply its U.S. data centers, and is expanding facilities in Ohio and Virginia. Microsoft has said it plans to pour money — $80 billion — into AI infrastructure.

All together, the U.S. infrastructure expansion is a land-and-grid grab that hasn’t been seen since the industrial era. But this time, the factories run on silicon and watts.

For Trump, Pennsylvania makes for a symbolically rich backdrop. The state helped power the first Industrial Revolution with coal and steel; now, it’s angling to become an AI and energy hub, leveraging its shale gas reserves, research universities, and swing-state status. 

That said, the president’s $90 billion plan isn’t without tension. Clean-energy advocates have warned that piecemeal executive orders can’t replace long-term regulatory reform, especially if the Trump administration continues to aggressively roll back climate protections. There is also some irony related to Tuesday’s announcement following Trump’s recent announcement of steep tariffs on copper by August 1 — because copper is critical for both grid expansion and data center construction.

Still, the scale of Tuesday’s expected commitments signals that corporate America is willing to bet big, especially when the federal government is smoothing the path. With China investing heavily in its own AI infrastructure, the U.S. seems to be doubling down on a new kind of arms race — less about weapons and more about watts.

In the race to determine who will become the next chair of the Federal Reserve, one name keeps rising to the top of the list: Kevin Hassett. The 63-year-old economist and longtime Trump adviser is being floated as a leading contender to replace current Fed Chair Jerome Powell when his term ends in 2026.

Though nothing is final, and the selection process remains fluid, Hassett’s track record offers some clues as to why he’s become a serious candidate — and why his nomination would mark a major shift in central bank leadership.

A familiar face in Trump world

Hassett has held a range of influential roles during and after Trump’s first term, including chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and director of the National Economic Council. His resume is stacked with academic credentials, private-sector experience, and deep connections in conservative economic circles.

More importantly, perhaps, is that he’s remained one of the rare economic figures to retain Trump’s trust across both political campaigns and administrations. That loyalty could prove decisive. Trump has made no secret of his dissatisfaction with Powell, who he recently said was doing a “terrible job,” arguing that interest rates should be three points lower.

The loyalty vs. independence tradeoff

If Trump wants a Fed chair who supports his aggressive push for lower interest rates, Hassett might fit the bill. He has publicly aligned himself with that agenda and recently stepped up his criticisms of Powell’s leadership. Still, that alignment raises questions: Would a Fed under Hassett be able to preserve its independence, or would it bend to political pressure?

That tension — between familiarity with Trump and the expectations of monetary policy independence — will be front and center if Hassett is tapped for the job. He wouldn’t be the only one under consideration, though.

The competition

Several other names are circulating, including former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, current Fed governor Christopher Waller, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Each brings their own strengths: Warsh has credibility with markets and central bank veterans, Waller knows the institution inside and out, and Bessent remains deeply involved in shaping trade policy.

But none has the combination of political loyalty, economic credentials, and communication savvy that Hassett brings to the table.

A market-moving decision

Whoever gets the nod will face intense scrutiny — not just from investors but also from within the Fed itself. The central bank has faced plenty of criticism lately, from the pace of interest rate cuts to the cost of renovating its Washington headquarters. The next chair will inherit those debates and more, with financial stability, inflation, and independence all on the line.

While Powell’s term runs until May 2026, the White House is reportedly considering making a decision as early as this summer. If Hassett is chosen, he could first join the Fed’s board in early 2026, filling an expected vacancy ahead of a formal transition.

Jensen Huang walked into the White House — and walked out with his ticket back into China.

Nvidia said in a company blog post on Monday that it has received assurances from the Trump administration that Commerce Department licenses for the company’s H20 AI chip will be granted, allowing the $4 trillion powerhouse to restart deliveries to China. The announcement comes just days after Huang reportedly made the case directly to President Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

The timing for Nvidia couldn’t be better. Huang is in Beijing this week to meet with senior Chinese officials and speak at a media event, bringing with him both fresh approval from Washington and a new, stripped-down chip tailored for China’s tightly controlled import rules. This is Nvidia’s clearest path yet to salvaging its business in one of its most critical markets.

The H20 was supposed to be Nvidia’s big workaround for restrictions on sales of powerful AI hardware to China. When the U.S. tightened export rules last year, Nvidia responded by launching the chip, a lower-spec version of its flagship GPU designed to fall just under those limits. But in April, the Commerce Department blocked the H20 anyway, leaving Nvidia with billions in stranded inventory and Chinese customers in limbo. 

Now, the U.S. has reversed course — at least partially. Nvidia says it hopes to begin H20 shipments to China “soon.”

Investors cheers the news. Nvidia stock was up about 5% in Tuesday morning trading. Other chipmakers with China exposure also gained, as AMD stock rose 7% and Broadcom added almost 3%.

For Nvidia, the decision cracks open a market that had largely gone dark. Chinese companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba Group, and Tencent Holdings, had reportedly ordered as much as $16 billion worth of H20 chips before the ban. Nvidia ended up writing off roughly $5 billion in inventory; Huang said the restrictions cost the company $15 billion. With the H20 suddenly back on the table, a sizable chunk of that business could be revived.

Alongside the H20, Nvidia is also introducing a “China-compliant” chip: the RTX Pro, a lower-performance model designed for industrial and logistics applications that Huang said “is ideal for digital twin AI for smart factories and logistics.” The new chip meets U.S. export rules and was cleared without controversy. The RTX Pro should give Nvidia a legal and diplomatic safety valve, keeping one foot in the Chinese market even if future restrictions tighten (again).

“This is a monster win for the Godfather of AI Jensen [Huang] and Nvidia,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a Tuesday note. “Its also a major bullish tailwind for the tech sector as the green light for Nvidia will propel Street estimates to go up meaningfully over the coming years with China back in the fold.”

Huang has been making the case for walked-back export restrictions. In a recent interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, the Nvidia CEO warned that aggressive export restrictions would only accelerate China’s development of domestic alternatives, ultimately undermining U.S. leadership in AI. “Depriving someone of technology is not a goal, it’s a tactic,” Huang said. “And that tactic was not in service of the goal.” He added: “Our mission properly expressed, in order for America to have AI leadership, is to make sure that the American tech stack is available to markets all over the world so that amazing developers, including the ones in China, are able to build on American tech stack so that A.I. runs best on the American tech stack.”

That argument appears to have landed.

In the meeting with Trump, Huang emphasized that U.S. dominance in AI depends on letting American companies compete everywhere, not just at home. “General-purpose, open-source research and foundation models are the backbone of AI innovation,” Huang told reporters in D.C. “We believe that every civil model should run best on the U.S. technology stack, encouraging nations worldwide to choose America.”  

Nvidia’s presence in China has long been a balancing act. At its peak, the company commanded more than 90% of China’s data center GPU market. But after multiple rounds of export controls, that share has dropped to around 50%. Domestic rivals such as Huawei and Biren have gained ground; Chinese tech giants such as Baidu and Alibaba are testing alternative platforms (including Huawei’s Ascend chips); and smaller players such as Moore Threads, Enflame, and Iluvatar CoreX are rapidly growing, with IPOs planned — totaling almost $1.7 billion and aimed at capitalizing on the West’s retreat.

Still, Nvidia’s technology remains hard to replace. The vast majority of China’s most advanced AI data centers — including close to 40 recently announced projects that will be loaded with more than 115,000 high-end Nvidia GPUs — still rely on Nvidia chips, often stockpiled through intermediaries or legacy contracts. Chinese firms may be building, but they’re still playing catch-up.

Politically, giving the H20 the green light is a calculated move. Beijing has made semiconductors a centerpiece issue in trade talks, and China has pushed for unfettered access to AI chips in summits. Meanwhile, China’s at-home chip play continues full throttle. Whether the White House is making a one-off concession or signaling the start of a broader policy shift remains to be seen. The Trump administration has kept a tight grip on high-tech exports and has said only a small number of licenses will be granted. But this move — timed to Huang’s Beijing trip and aligned with Chinese trade talks — reads like a carefully calibrated exception.

Huang arrived in Beijing with a message that seems to resonate in both capitals: Nvidia wants to win globally, and the U.S. can’t lead in AI if its top companies are sidelined. For now, that message appears to be working. The chips are moving. The licenses are coming. The move to allow Nvidia into China gives the company breathing room — and reopens a vital revenue stream in one of the world’s most AI-hungry markets. And for Huang, who has become the face of the global AI boom, it’s a reminder that silicon strategy now moves at the speed of diplomacy.

Consumer prices ticked up more than expected in June, reigniting concerns that trade policy may be doing what months of wage growth and sticky housing costs couldn’t: pushing inflation out of the Fed’s comfort zone.

The latest Consumer Price Index, released Tuesday morning, showed a 0.3% rise in prices last month — triple May’s 0.1% pace and the largest monthly gain since January. On an annual basis, inflation is now running at 2.7%, up from 2.4% in May — slightly hotter than the 2.6% annual gain that economists had penciled in for June. Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.2% month-over-month and 2.9% over the past year, in line with forecasts.

The details of the report paint a more nuanced — and more complicated — picture. Shelter costs remain sticky and continue to account for over two-thirds of the monthly gain in core inflation. Gas prices ticked up, too. But more significantly, there are early signs of the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs: Consumer goods from toys to appliances are quietly becoming more expensive, potentially foreshadowing what’s to come when the president’s newly promised tariffs on imports take effect starting August 1.

And with Trump threatening a broader tariff escalation, economists will be closely watching July and August’s inflation data for signs of an even broader ripple effect.

While a summer of rising gasoline prices and persistent housing costs likely played a role, the key shift appears to be tariff-related. Import-heavy categories such as furniture, electronics, and household goods saw notable increases, a possible reflection of levies being passed along to consumers. Notably, food prices rose 0.3%, with coffee and citrus fruit categories seeing some of the biggest monthly jumps. Services inflation — particularly in areas such as medical care and insurance — remained firm, underscoring the persistent price pressures that the Federal Reserve has been closely monitoring.

The inflation pickup comes at a delicate moment for the Fed. Markets had been pricing in rate cuts as early as September, and political pressure has intensified, particularly from Trump, who has urged the Fed to start easing now. But June’s data could offer little support for that path. With core inflation showing no clear signs of settling back toward the Fed’s 2% target, central bankers may be forced to hit pause on rate-cut hopes — yet again.

Not everything moved in the same direction. Airline fares and lodging dipped in June, and used car prices — a major inflation culprit in 2021 and 2022 — fell another 0.7%, continuing a multimonth slide. But the bigger picture is that headline and core inflation are both drifting in the wrong direction from the Fed’s perspective. The report isn't a blowout one, but it isn’t the cooling trend the Fed was likely hoping for, either.

In public comments, Fed officials have emphasized patience, preferring to see a few more months of clear disinflation before moving on rates. The June data may reset that clock. “We’re not yet at the point where we can say with confidence that inflation is sustainably moving toward 2%,” Fed Governor Lisa Cook said last week. This latest report could harden that view.

For consumers, the data’s implications are twofold: Higher borrowing costs may stick around longer, and everyday goods could get more expensive as trade policy bites. For businesses, especially import-heavy sectors such as retail and manufacturing, tariff-related inflation could complicate margins and supply chains just as many were starting to breathe more easily.

Markets reacted swiftly. Treasury yields climbed on the news, while futures traders dialed back their expectations for a September cut. Looking ahead, July’s data could prove even more telling. The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index — will be released later this month, and it could offer a more comprehensive view of underlying pressures.

“If it’s true that inflation is staying in check, then the Fed can go ahead and cut interest rates — potentially as early as September — but if subsequent reports show a different story, then the Fed is going to have to stay on hold even longer,” said Chris Zaccarelli, the chief investment officer for Northlight Asset Management.

With just three Fed meetings left on this year’s calendar, policymakers are caught in a tightening vise: cut too soon and risk reigniting inflation, wait too long and risk choking a cooling economy. The margin for error seems to be shrinking — fast.

JPMorgan Chase kicked off big bank earnings season Tuesday with stronger-than-expected results, posting over $14 billion in profit for the second quarter — a 9% gain over this period last year once you exclude special items. All in all, it’s a comfortable beat bolstered by a rebound in dealmaking, record trading revenue, and strength in consumer banking.

Let’s look at what the results say about both the bank, and the broader U.S. economy right now.

Jamie Dimon does not think we’re out of the woods

Despite the solid results, Jamie Dimon warned about “a number of uncertain forces,” including “tariffs and trade uncertainty, worsening geopolitical conditions, high fiscal deficits, and elevated asset prices.” That underscores how the quarter was still shadowed by macro unease. Dimon’s tone remains guarded, even as fundamentals look solid.

Markets are humming

The bank posted record trading revenue in the quarter — up 14% in fixed income and 15% in equities — suggesting plenty of investor participation, likely tied to early Q2 dips and tech-led optimism, plus the abundance of sideline cash. This also tracks with the recent record highs in the S&P 500 and strong performance among marquee-name companies like Nvidia.

Upper-income consumers feel fine

The company’s Consumer & Community Banking (CCB) division posted a 23% jump in net income, driven by healthy credit card activity, continued account growth (around 500,000 new checking accounts), and new product launches. That implies continuing consumer demand, despite relatively high interest rates and economic uncertainty, including what economists call “softness” in the white-collar labor market.

JPMorgan’s ability to grow card loans while keeping delinquencies manageable suggests household balance sheets in the prime credit tiers remain solid, though not necessarily unshakeable.

Investment banking is recovering, but not surging

Investment banking revenue rose 9% year-over-year, with strength in advisory and debt underwriting. That signals gradual thawing in M&A and capital markets. Equity underwriting remained a soft spot, suggesting some hesitation or sense of a not entirely favorable capital environment persists in public equity markets despite the major-index rally.

What does the stock market think of JPM results?

At least before the bell, investors don't appear to think the JPM results are worth celebrating. Shares edged down about 0.5% premarket on Tuesday.