Mizuho's Jared Holz: Staying away from UNH is best in near-term after reports of criminal probe
Jared Holz, Mizuho Health Care equity strategist, joins CNBC's 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss outlooks on UNH following reports that the company is facing a criminal probe from the DOJ over alleged Medicare fraud.
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Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Trump-Musk feud could be one of the catalysts for a coming 10% stock correction, former JPMorgan strategist says
Marko Kolanovic predicts a stock market pullback could be in the cards. Kolanovic thinks Tesla's decline on the Trump-Musk feud could be among the catalysts that spark a decline. Other problems he sees for the market include high valuations and economic uncertainty. Former JPMorgan chief market strategist Marko Kolanovic sees a stock market pullback in the cards, and the Trump-Musk feud could be one of the triggers that sets off a decline. Speaking on CNBC on Thursday, Kolanovic predicted a coming correction of 5%-10% that could be set off by a drop in Tesla's stock price. "It's a little bit of a sideshow. It's important for certain companies, and it can spill over," Kolanovic said of the president's fallout with Musk. "Tesla is one of the biggest holdings of retail investors. There's a little ecosystem of stocks around it. I think it could be a little bit of a catalyst." In a post on X on Thursday, Kolanovic pointed to popular retail stocks such as Tesla, Palantir, and Super Micro as potential triggers of a momentum crash. Tesla stock plunged 14% on Thursday as Trump responded to Musk's criticisms of the big GOP tax and budget bill. However, Kolanovic also noted that the Trump-Musk fight would be one possible catalyst for a market pullback among many. Uncertainty in the economy and the trade war are also looming problems. "We're close to all-time highs, but we still have all the problems," Kolanovic said. "We have a trade war, we have signs of an economic slowdown." Valuations are stretched, he said, with the Nasdaq close to record highs even as rates remain elevated, and Kolanovic sees warning signs in the bond market. The risk-reward tradeoff for stocks versus bonds looks unattractive, as the 10-year Treasury yield hovers around 4.4%. That means equity investors aren't getting a great return in excess of the risk-free rate. There's also the lingering concern about Fed independence, with Trump repeatedly pressuring Powell to cut interest rates. Macro risks are mounting as well. Kolanovic pointed to the weak ADP jobs report earlier this week, which reported 37,000 new jobs compared to economists' expectations of 110,000. While the May jobs report showed higher-than-expected job growth, April and March numbers saw significant downward revisions. A correction could present a potential buying opportunity, but that's only if recession risks dissipate, Kolanovic said. Read the original article on Business Insider
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
DOGE just got a green light to access your Social Security data. Here's what that means
Editor's Note: This article, which originally ran on February 19, has been updated to reflect a Supreme Court decision handed down on June 6. When people think of Social Security, they typically think of monthly benefits — for the roughly 69 million retirees, disabled workers, dependents and survivors who receive them today. But efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency this year to access the Social Security Administration's data systems should conjure up thoughts of data on hundreds of millions of people. Why? Because the SSA's multiple data systems contain an extensive trove of personal information on most people living in the United States today — as well as those who have died. While a lower federal court had blocked DOGE's efforts to access such data — which it argued it needs in order to curtail waste, fraud and abuse — the Supreme Court lifted that order on Friday, allowing DOGE to access the data for now. The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented. In her opinion, Jackson wrote, 'The government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now — before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE's access is lawful,' she added. The personal data the Social Security Adminstration has on most Americans runs 'from cradle to grave,' said Kathleen Romig, who used to work at the SSA, first as a retirement policy analyst and more recently as a senior adviser in the Office of the Commissioner. DOGE was created unilaterally by President Donald Trump with the goal of 'modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity,' according to his executive order. To date, the group has caused chaos and intimidation at a number of federal agencies where it has sought to take control and shut down various types of spending. It is also the subject of various lawsuits questioning its legal right to access wholesale the personal data of Americans on highly restricted government IT systems and to fire groups of federal workers in the manner it has. Here's just a partial list of the data the SSA systems likely have about you: your name, Social Security number, date and place of birth, gender, addresses, marital and parental status, your parents' names, lifetime earnings, bank account information, immigration and work authorization status, health conditions if you apply for disability benefits, and use of Medicare after a certain age, which the SSA may periodically check to ascertain whether you're still alive. Other types of personal information also may be obtained or matched through the SSA's data-sharing agreements with the IRS and the Department of Health and Human Services. Information on your assets and living arrangements also may be gathered if you apply for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which is meant to help those with very limited income. As with the IRS data systems to which DOGE has also sought access, the SSA systems are old, complex, interconnected and run on programming language developed decades ago. If you make a change in one system, it could trip up another if you don't know what you're doing, said Romig, who now is director of Social Security and disability policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And, just as at the IRS, there are concerns that if DOGE team members get access to the SSA systems and seek to make changes directly or through an SSA employee, they could cause technical errors or base their decisions on incorrect understandings of the data. For example, multibillionaire CEO Elon Musk, a driving force at DOGE, had incorrectly claimed that SSA is making payments to millions of dead people. His claim appeared to be based on the so-called Numident list, which is a limited collection of personal data, Romig said. The list includes names, Social Security numbers, and a person's birth and death dates. But the Numident list does not reflect the death dates for 18.9 million people who were born in 1920 or earlier. That's a known problem, which the Social Security inspector general in a 2023 report already recommended the agency correct. That same report, however, also noted that 'almost none of the 18.9 million number holders currently receive SSA payments.' And making any decisions based on mistaken interpretations could create real-world problems for individuals. For example, Romig said, there are different types of Social Security numbers assigned — eg, for US citizens, for noncitizens with work authorization and for people on student visas who do not have work authorization. But a person's status can change over time. For example, someone on a student visa may eventually get work authorization. But it's up to the individual to update the SSA on their status. If they don't do so immediately or maybe not even for years, the lists on SSA systems may not be fully up to date. So it's easy to see how a new entity like DOGE, unfamiliar with the complexity of Social Security's processes, might make a quick decision affecting a particular group of people on a list that itself may not be current. Charles Blahous, a senior research strategist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, has been a leading proponent of addressing Social Security's long-term funding shortfall. And he is all for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. But, Blahous noted, 'best estimates of improper payments in Social Security are less than 1% of the program's outlays. I've been concerned that this particular conversation is fueling profound misimpressions about Social Security and the policy challenges surrounding it.' SSA's data systems are housed in locked rooms, and permission to view — never mind alter — information on them has always been highly restricted, Romig said, noting that she was fingerprinted and had to pass a background check before being allowed to view data for her research while at the agency — and it could only be data that had no personally identifiable information. Given the variety of personal data available, there are also a number of federal privacy and other laws limiting the use and dissemination of such information. Such laws are intended to prevent not only improper use or leaks of the data by individuals, but abuse of power by government, according to the Center on Democracy and Technology. DOGE's arrival at the SSA resulted in a number of seasoned employees leaving the agency, including Michelle King, a long-time career service executive who briefly served as acting commissioner from January 20 until February 16. She resigned after DOGE staffers attempted to access sensitive government records. In her place, SSA employee Lee Dudek was named acting director. Dudek put out a statement on SSA's 'Commitment to Agency Transparency and Protecting Benefits and Information' when he came on. In it, he noted that DOGE personnel: a) 'cannot make changes to agency systems, benefit payments, or other information'; b) 'only have read access' to data; c) 'do not have access to data related to a court ordered temporary restraining order, current or future'; and d) 'must follow the law and if they violate the law they will be referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution.' CNN's Alayna Treene and John Fritze contributed to this report.
CNBC
3 hours ago
- CNBC
Tesla Optimus robotics vice president Milan Kovac is leaving the company
Tesla's vice president of Optimus robotics, Milan Kovac, said on Friday that he's leaving the company. In a post on X, Kovac thanked Tesla CEO Elon Musk and reminisced about his tenure, which began in 2016. "I want to thank @elonmusk from the bottom of my heart for his trust and teachings over the decade we've worked together," Kovac wrote. "Elon, you've taught me to discern signal from noise, hardcore resilience, and many fundamental principles of engineering. I am forever grateful. Tesla will win, I guarantee you that." Tesla is developing Optimus with the aim of someday selling it as a bipedal, intelligent robot capable of everything from factory work to babysitting. In a first-quarter shareholder deck, Tesla said it was on target for "builds of Optimus on our Fremont pilot production line in 2025, with wider deployment of bots doing useful work across our factories." During Tesla's 2024 annual shareholder meeting, Musk characterized himself as "pathologically optimistic," then claimed the humanoid robots would lift the company's market cap to $25 trillion at an unspecified future date. In recent weeks, Musk told CNBC's David Faber that Tesla is now training its Optimus systems to do "primitive tasks," like picking up objects, open a door or throw a ball. Competitors in the space include Boston Dynamics, Agility Robotics, Apptronik, 1X and Figure. Kovac had previously served as the company's director of Autopilot software engineering. He rose to lead the company's Optimus unit as vice president in 2022. Musk personally thanked Kovac for his "outstanding contributions" to the business. Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment.
