Warren Buffett said Monday that President Donald Trump has not contributed much to U.S. economic growth so far. “I don’t think he’s had that much of an effect on the economy yet,” Buffett said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I do not make investment or business decisions based on who is president or who I think is going to be president,” Buffett said. The Trump administration has said proposals such as tax reform and infrastructure spending could grow the U.S. economy at 3 percent or more. In the first

In a pointed speech on Sunday, President Obama took aim at his successor in the White House — and at congressional Republicans who are pushing to repeal his signature health care law. Read more from USA Today:Paul Ryan reacts to claims that health care bill not read before vote27 national monuments under Interior Dept. One reason Obama received the award, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation noted, was for expanding health security to millions of Americans. He noted that the example of JFK and

The Trump administration will name nearly a dozen federal judges as nominees for key posts Monday. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that among the candidates are individuals previously named on President Donald Trump’s list of 21 possible picks for Supreme Court justice. The announcement comes less than a month after Trump’s final pick for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, was confirmed as justice to the nation’s highest court. While the court of appeals tends to have a lower public p

He noted that Flynn’s security clearance was renewed under the Obama administration, adding that “the Fake News seldom likes talking about that.” Trump is correct that Flynn’s clearance was renewed under Obama, but Flynn was removed from his defense intelligence post by the Obama administration in 2014. Critics have asked why the Trump administration didn’t catch possible problems with Flynn during its own vetting process. Obama warned Trump against hiring Flynn shortly after November’s presiden

Friday, 5 May 2017 | 5:24 PM ET | 04:03When executives pay the White House a visit, their shareholders should cheer. Jeffrey Brown and Jiekun Huang found that the share prices of companies whose executives visited the White House saw an average boost of 1 percent in the two months after the visits. The finding was based on White House visitor logs maintained and made public during the Obama administration. Notably, the president himself was not even the most visited member in the White House. Br

Former President Barack Obama warned Donald Trump against hiring Mike Flynn as his national security adviser, three former Obama administration officials tell NBC News. The warning, which has not been previously reported, came less than 48 hours after the November election when the two sat down for a 90-minute conversation in the Oval Office. The revelation comes on a day that former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is expected to testify that Flynn misled the White House about his contacts w

What’s happening: Snap reports earnings for the first time as a public companyWhy it matters: The report will give some clues to whether Snap can hold its own despite tough competition from FacebookSo far Snap’s stock has been on a roller-coaster ride, rising 44 percent on its first day. But then its price started dropping, dipping below its IPO price in early March. Since then, the messaging app which boasts a strong millennial base, has been rebounding. Still, Snap is facing fierce competition

It takes discipline, focus, and a set of core values that guide you around the emotions and stress of daily combat. It’s all too easy to get sidetracked by the latest new strategy for success — like social media or digital marketing or sales automation. When one doesn’t work, you throw it away, quickly adopting another new tactic. One thing successful people know is that getting ahead is as much about what you do as what you don’t do. Here are eight things you have to give up to achieve success.

Given the positive turn of events for the European consensus, investors might wonder why the euro is slipping on Monday. After weeks of relentlessly buying the euro, currency traders took the opportunity to lock in their gains — thus pushing the single currency below the 1.0950 mark by morning U.S. trade. The real buying opportunity for the single currency was two weeks ago, when the first-round results put Macron on the path to the presidency. The capital markets therefore received little new i

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner played no role in his family firm’s decision to recruit Chinese investors with presentations on an “investor visa” program that name-checked both him and President Trump. The so-called “golden visa” program gives foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in U.S. development projects a faster track to pursue green cards for themselves and their families. President Trump signed a spending bill extending the prog

French President-elect Emmanuel Macron told his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump in a telephone call on Monday that he would defend a climate change deal agreed in Paris in 2015, his spokeswoman said. “He is going to protect the climate change agreement, and he is going to make sure he will be vigilant in protecting the French people,” Laurence Haim told CNN. She said the two had also discussed during their 10-minute conversation issues including the fight against terrorism, transatlantic relations

Stocks have been trading in a narrow range and there really isn’t a catalyst right now to push them higher, expert Nancy Tengler told CNBC on Monday. The market has already digested “fabulous” first-quarter earnings and now the Republican health-care bill may take some time to move through the Senate, the chief investment officer at Heartland Financial explained. The legislation, passed by the House of Representatives last week, faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where several members have

Chamath Palihapitiya, founder and CEO of Social Capital, was bullish Tesla on Monday, recommending convertible bonds from the electric car maker. “The Tesla convertible bonds give us a way to stand shoulder to shoulder with a guy who we think is our generation’s Thomas Edison,” he said. The specific convertible bonds he said he was buying had a 2022 maturity. The idea from the former senior member of the investment team at Facebook was presented at the Sohn Investment Conference in New York. Pal

The luxury handbag maker announced Monday its agreement to buy smaller rival Kate Spade in a proposed transaction valued at $2.4 billion. “I think Coach is buying a customers’ list … that helps penetrate a larger audience,” Nomura Instinet analyst Simeon Siegel told CNBC’s ‘Power Lunch’ in an interview Monday. Instead of focusing on one brand, Coach is creating a “house of modern luxury brands,” which will be operated entirely independent of each other, Siegel said. Coach has made no secret of

The CBOE Volatility index (VIX), Wall Street’s preferred measure of stock-market fear, hit its lowest level in 10 years on Monday, unnerving traders who believe investors have grown too carefree about this bull market. The bank noted that big bull markets can experience very long periods of low volatility. “The current secular bull market has low volatility and a low but perhaps rising US 10-year yield. This supports our view that the current secular bull market is similar to the 1950s secular b

In the 10 sessions through Monday, the S&P 500 has moved in the smallest range ever for such a period, according to a CNBC analysis of FactSet data going back to 1980. While the low volatility that has marked the prior two weeks is certainly anomalous, it is part and parcel of the more general trend of declining market moves. Out of the 9,312 10-session periods the S&P 500 has seen since mid-1980, the S&P has traded in a range smaller than 1 percent in just 10 of them; five of those periods have

Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charlie Munger told CNBC on Monday the U.S. health-care system is “ridiculous” in its complexity. “The amount of waste from overtreatment of the dying is just disgusting,” the 93-year-old Munger said on “Squawk Box,” speaking alongside billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. “There’s a lot wrong with the system.” Munger said the current health system gives U.S. companies a big disadvantage in competing with other manufacturers. “There’s a lot of fraud and abu

The Defense Intelligence Agency didn’t know former director Mike Flynn had been paid nearly $34,000 by a Russian state media outlet when it renewed his security clearance in April 2016, two U.S. officials told NBC News. Flynn had disclosed the December 2015 trip to Moscow to the DIA, but he never told them he was paid by RT, the official said. Flynn’s failure to inform the DIA he had been paid has not been reported previously. The revelation casts new light on the White House assertion Monday th

Hedge fund manager David Einhorn gave a bearish presentation on Core Laboratories, causing shares of the oil and gas stock to drop. The idea from the head of Greenlight Capital was presented Monday at the Sohn Investment Conference in New York. Einhorn cited how the company needs a “V-shaped” recovery in oil prices due to its heavy offshore exposure. “We don’t believe there is a V shaped recovery on oil prices,” the manager concluded. The Sohn conference Twitter feed initially said that Einhorn

Donald Trump’s campaign website swiftly removed a 2015 statement after a reporter asked about it in the daily press briefing. On Monday, a reporter asked White House spokesman Sean Spicer why Trump’s original call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” is still on the campaign site if the administration is no longer referring to it as a “Muslim ban.” Spicer responded that he wasn’t aware of what was on the website, adding that the White House has been “very con