Hoover Institute's Lanhee Chen: Trade talks likely to be in 'limbo' for several months
Lanhee Chen, NBC News contributor and Hoover Institution fellow, joins 'The Exchange' to discuss the trade negotiations taking place, the time table for a deal with the Chinese, and much more.
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Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Prudential Unit Lends $500 Million in Private Credit to Affirm
An investment arm of insurer Prudential Financial will buy up to $500 million of consumer loans from technology-backed consumer lender Affirm Holdings for a period of three years. Most of the loans come due in six months and Affirm will be able to re-lend the investment throughout the life of the deal, allowing it to finance $3 billion of buy-now-pay-later loans. Trump Bill Would Raise Estate Tax Exemption to $15 Million and Make It Permanent Pope Leo Takes On AI Trump Family's New Business Partner Is India's Richest Man How a Chinese-Owned Battery Maker's Bet on U.S. EVs Went Wrong Amazon CEO Says AI Will Lead to Smaller Workforce The deal is part of a growing wave of transactions pairing a handful of large private-credit investors with financial technology companies that are replacing banks as go-to lenders for the American public. Prudential's PGIM Fixed Income also purchased $500 million of Affirm loans in December and made a private investment in a $525 million securitization of consumer loans from SoFi Technologies. Affirm announced a $4 billion partnership with Sixth Street Partners in December and a $750 million deal with Liberty Mutual Investments in January. The insurers and pensions whose money PGIM manages are hungry to own private ABS, or asset-backed securities, because such debt pays a higher interest rate than publicly traded and even private corporate debt. PGIM aims to buy private ABS that returns about 1.5 percentage points more than public variants, said Edwin Wilches, the firm's co-head of securitized products. The company recently hired a new head of private ABS, Oliver Nisenson from private investment powerhouse Blackstone, to expand the business. Nonbank lenders like Affirm are cultivating stables of large financing partners to ensure they have sufficient capital to lend, even when public debt markets freeze up. Affirm focuses on three channels: warehouse loans from banks, public ABS bond sales and negotiated deals from private-credit firms, said Chief Capital Officer Brooke Major-Reid. Insurers, investment firms and nonbank lenders are increasingly teaming up to do lending that used to come from banks. That is creating complex entanglements that are new to regulators. Advocates say the new lenders are more stable than banks because they are disbursing cash from long-term investors rather than from daily deposits. Write to Matt Wirz at If Iran's Oil Is Cut Off, China Will Pay the Price The American Investor Taking On Swatch's Founding Family The Fed's Dot-Plot Predicament: False Precision in Uncertain Times More of Us Are Putting in Extra Hours After the Workday How to Make Sure Information on Your Old Computer Is Really, Truly Deleted
Axios
an hour ago
- Axios
Trump rollbacks, vanishing tax credits to hammer U.S. EV sales
Analysts are slashing estimates for U.S. EV sales in coming years as GOP lawmakers and Trump officials scuttle tax credits and emissions rules. Why it matters: Transportation is the biggest U.S. share of CO2. And dimming sales forecasts show a market that remains tethered to fast-changing policies. Driving the news: Today the research firm BloombergNEF estimated that EVs will be 27% of U.S. passenger vehicle sales in 2030, down from nearly 48% in last year's version of the annual look-ahead. Plans to roll back fuel economy and emissions rules, end the $7,500 consumer credit, cut funding for charging infrastructure, and auto import tariffs are all dragging down the outlook. And BNEF's outlook assumes that California's plans to phase out gas-powered car sales by 2035 — which are under threat — remain in place. Catch up quick: It comes a month after the International Energy Agency revised its future U.S. sales estimates sharply downward. IEA now sees EVs with 20% of light-duty market sales in 2030. That's less than half of IEA's projection in the 2024 version of its annual EV report. Friction point: Both the House and Senate GOP versions of the budget reconciliation plan mostly scuttle IRA purchase credits worth up to $7,500. What we're watching: How Capitol Hill and White House policy changes — which also pare back manufacturing support — change the domestic supply chain buildout. Global sales are slated to hit another record this year, with BNEF estimating 22 million passenger EVs moved, up 25% from 2024. China accounts for two-thirds (!) of the market, with Europe next at 17%, followed by the U.S at 7%. EVs, including plug-in hybrids, are slated to be one in four passenger vehicles sold this year worldwide. Yes, but: The research firm has trimmed its short- and long-term outlook. That's due to the U.S. policy changes, potential nullification of California's rules, and the EU pushing back near-term vehicle CO2 targets. It now sees 39 million passenger EVs sold globally in 2030, compared to 42 million in last year's outlook. Zoom in: The global market is shifting as Chinese automakers ramp up foreign sales. "This challenges a widely held assumption that EVs will start in wealthy countries before spreading further," it states. "Thailand now has higher EV adoption rates than the U.S., while Brazil is ahead of Japan." State of play: A separate new report finds that policy and market uncertainty is starting to cool investment in U.S. battery manufacturing, and risking existing plans. Over $150 billion in manufacturing investments were announced between Q1 2018 and Q1 2025, Rhodium Group and MIT researchers show, fueled largely by the IRA in 2022. But these battery announcements slowed to a "glacial" pace last quarter, and $6 billion worth of projects were canceled from January through March. Threat level: Lots of battery plant construction is underway even as the EV market outlook dims, "raising the possibility of stranded investments if policy and market conditions are weaker than expected," the Rhodium-MIT report finds.
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Trump will sign an order extending deadline for TikTok's Chinese owner to sell app
Trump had told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington early Tuesday from the Group of Seven summit in Canada that he 'probably' would extend the deadline again. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Trump also said he thinks Chinese President Xi Jinping will 'ultimately approve' a deal to divest TikTok's business in the United States. Advertisement It will be the third time Trump has extended the deadline. The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when the ban approved by Congress — and upheld by the US Supreme Court — took effect. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump's tariff announcement. Advertisement It is not clear how many times Trump can — or will — keep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a 'warm spot for TikTok.'
