China’s dollar-denominated exports and imports were both higher in December, Reuters reported citing data from the General Administration of Customs. In December, dollar-denominated exports rose 7.6% on-year, against a 1.3% drop in November. Economists polled by Reuters had expected dollar-denominated exports to rise 3.2% on-year and imports to rise 9.6% in the same period. December trade surplus was $46.79 billion, against an expected $48 billion. In December China’s trade surplus with the U.S.

Traders work before the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Aug. 14, 2019 in New York City. Many stock markets globally have continued their strong run into the new year — so it’s time to start taking some profits while waiting for another opportunity to reenter the markets, an investor said on Tuesday. Fentham-Fletcher predicted that the S&P 500 could rise by 15% by the end of this year. He said the climb in the stock index will likely be driven by an improvement in corporate earning

European stocks pulled back on Tuesday morning as sentiment lagged despite Chinese negotiators arriving in Washington to sign a long-awaited preliminary trade deal with the U.S. The pan-European Stoxx 600 sank 0.6% in early trade, with chemicals stocks shedding 0.9% to lead losses as all sectors slid into the red. The deal comes after more than 18 months of tit-for-tat tariff hikes between the world’s two largest economies. Stocks in Asia mostly advanced on signs of a thawing in relations, with

Key findingsThe average FICO score in the U.S. hit a record high of 703 in 2019Minnesota residents have the highest average credit score for the eighth consecutive year at 731Mississippi residents have the lowest average credit score at 66759% of Americans have a FICO score of 700 or higher — the biggest percentage ever seen at that levelFICO score rangesCredit score ranges vary based on the credit scoring model used (FICO versus VantageScore) and the credit bureau (Experian, Equifax and TransUn

While there’s no perfect answer to how many credit cards you should have, the 2019 Experian Consumer Credit Review found that the average American has four. CNBC Select breaks down whether four credit cards is too many and the average number of credit cards Americans have in every state, according to Experian’s report. Key findingsAmericans carry an average of four credit cardsNew Jersey residents have the most credit cards, on average 4.1Alaska and Mississippi residents have the fewest credit c

Key findingsAmerican’s average credit card debt is $6,194Alaskans have the highest credit card balance, on average $8,026Iowans have the lowest credit card balance, on average $4,774Top 10 states with the highest credit card balanceWhile the average credit card balance is $6,194, Americans living in certain states carry much more. Alaskans take the top spot with an average credit card balance of $8,026. Iowa: $4,774 Wisconsin: $4,961 Mississippi: $5,134 Kentucky: $5,140 West Virginia: $5,144 Ida

The Seattle City Council passed a bill Monday that establishes new restrictions on corporate donations in local elections, delivering a blow to the likes of Amazon. The bill prohibits companies from spending money on city elections if at least 5% of their stock is owned by foreign investors. Lorena Gonzalez, City Council president and the bill’s author, said the campaign finance restrictions would result in a “big shift” in how corporations can influence local elections. The Seattle City Council

But strategists say stocks could continue higher, any pullback should be shallow, and companies are probably going to handily beat those reduced forecasts. If earnings don’t beat the slightly negative forecast, it would be the second quarter in a row of profit declines, or an earnings recession. According to Refinitiv, earnings declined 0.3% in the third quarter. Companies often beat earnings estimates at a pace of 70% or more. “We think the stocks that turned with all these turns in the fourth

Joe Biden’s campaign chairman privately met with some of Wall Street’s top donors last week in an attempt to rally them around the former vice president’s push for the Democratic nomination. After the meeting, many of the donors appeared ready to join Biden’s cause, the people said. The Biden campaign declined to comment. Progressive candidates Warren and Sanders, who leads the Democratic field in fundraising, have built their campaigns off of largely small-dollar donors. Biden, Sanders, Warren

Amazon is planning to give more data on counterfeit goods to law enforcement in a further crackdown on fakes listed on its e-commerce sites, a person familiar with the program told Reuters. The move comes as Amazon faces public scrutiny over how it polices counterfeits and allegedly unsafe products on its platform. Fakes have long frustrated top labels like Apple and Nike, discouraging some from selling via Amazon at all. In recent weeks, Amazon has held meetings with government authorities and

Legendary composer John Williams has broken his own record for most Oscar nominations earned by a living person. The maestro on Monday received his 52nd nomination, this time for his work on “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” Williams follows just behind the late Walt Disney, who had 59 Oscar nominations, for the most Academy Award nominations of all time. Williams received his first Oscar nomination for 1967’s “Valley of the Dolls” and his first win for 1971’s “Fiddler On the Roof.” He’s also

More than 700 pages of documents authorities removed from Parnas’ home have also been turned over. Parnas and Giuliani were business associates, and Parnas served as Giuliani’s translator, advisor and fixer in Ukraine. Bondy declined to reveal to CNBC what was in the new Parnas documents, but if it is compelling enough, then it could potentially be incorporated into evidence presented at Trump’s Senate trial. Parnas initially refused to comply with the subpoena on the advice of his then-lawyer,

Alphabet is close to joining one of the most elusive clubs on Wall Street, but CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Monday that he is skeptical of the progress. Shares in Alphabet, the tech giant that owns Google, rose almost $10 to an all-time closing high of $1,440.03, pulling within 1% of reaching $1 trillion of market capitalization. Alphabet was worth about $992.7 billion as of Monday’s close, a couple of slots away from being the most valuable company on Wall Street. Three other tech behemoths have cros

This 1998 frame from video provided by C-SPAN shows George Nader, president and editor of Middle East Insight. George Nader, a key witness in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, pleaded guilty Monday to charges of shipping an underage boy to the U.S. for sex and possessing child pornography. Federal prosecutors agreed dismiss a much more recent indictment against Nader on similar charges that was returned in July 2019. Nader had already bee

You may want to think twice before you go mining for precious metal ETFs. “Gold miners always outperform about two to three times whatever the underlying commodity does, and that’s both up and down,” Grasso said. “So, if gold underperforms and trades down, the gold miners are going to go down about two to three times more. It’s just an anomaly that always happens and you’ve got to be aware of it when you’re investing around a metal.” Gold prices slipped Monday as the potential for a U.S.-China t

Data software company Cloudera named Rob Bearden as its new CEO on Monday. Bearden was previously the CEO of rival Hortonworks, which merged with Cloudera last year in a stock swap that valued the combined companies at $5.2 billion. The two companies’ stocks moved lower as they competed with each other, as well as better-capitalized cloud infrastructure providers like Amazon and more traditional database software companies like Oracle. Cloudera’s CEO following the merger, Tom Reilly, resigned in

Fridays, which is known for being the original singles bar, is planning to revamp its bar business as the company prepares to be publicly traded again for the first time in decades. Fridays bar,” CEO Ray Blanchette said at the ICR Conference in Orlando, Florida, on Monday. About 30% of Fridays’ $2.1 billion in systemwide sales come from its bar. Besides bringing the chain back to its roots, revamping its bar business also means sales with higher profit margins. “When I returned, the thing that w

The stock market has picked up 2020 pretty much where 2019 left off, thanks in large part to two key Federal Reserve moves that could keep the rally going, at least until something goes wrong. “That’s a really big message that I can’t think of another Fed really delivering.” Friedman said the change means the Fed has gone from considering 2% a ceiling for inflation to perhaps a floor. The Fed since implemented its own repo operations on an as-needed basis, then decided to extend its operations t

Big U.S. banks J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup will benefit from a rebound in trading revenue in the fourth quarter, but that might matter less than what executives say about this year’s guidance. Last month, executives at the three banks all cited increased trading results in the final three months of 2019. The rebound comes from banks’ fixed-income trading operations, projected to rise 25% on average, versus a 3% bump in stock trading revenue, KBW analyst Brian Kleinhanzl wrot

Sometimes the stars of ABC’s “Shark Tank” disagree on what makes a great entrepreneur. On Sunday’s episode, Shark Barbara Corcoran turned down a founder because she was still being financially supported by her father, while Mark Cuban and Daymond John told Corcoran her thinking was wrong. I just graduated from NYU,” Bartow told the Sharks. After the deal, Corcoran told the Sharks she insulted Bartow to determine whether she would have a strong response. “Barbara’s got the best people skills,” he