Constellation Brands on Tuesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that missed analysts’ estimates as beer demand slid and tariffs on aluminum weighed on its profitability.

Still, the brewer reiterated its forecast for fiscal 2026, showing confidence that it can hit its financial targets despite the weaker-than-expected quarterly performance and higher duties.

Shares of the company fell less than 1% in extended trading on Tuesday evening but rose 3% during morning trading on Wednesday after the company’s conference call.

The stock has shed more than 20% of its value this year, fueled by concerns about how the higher duties imposed by President Donald Trump would affect demand for its beer.

Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

The report, which covers the three months ended May 31, includes the start of Trump’s tariffs on canned beer imports in early April. He also hiked trade duties on aluminum to 25% in mid-March and to 50% in early June.

Both imported beer and aluminum are crucial to Constellation’s beer business, which accounts for roughly 80% of the company’s overall revenue. Constellation’s beer portfolio only includes Mexican imports, like Corona, Pacifico and Modelo Especial, which overtook Bud Light as the top-selling beer brand in the U.S. two years ago.

Constellation reported fiscal first-quarter net income of $516.1 million, or $2.90 per share, down from $877 million, or $4.78 per share, a year earlier. Constellation’s operating margin fell 150 basis points, or 1.5%, in the quarter, in part driven by higher aluminum costs.

Excluding items, the brewer earned $3.22 per share.

Net sales dropped 5.8% to $2.52 billion, fueled by weaker demand for its beer and the company’s divestiture of Svedka vodka.

Constellation is still facing softer consumer demand, CEO Bill Newlands said in a statement. He attributed the weaker sales to “non-structural socioeconomic factors.” Constellation’s beer business saw shipment volumes fall 3.3%, caused by weaker consumer demand.

Last quarter, Newlands said Hispanic consumers were buying less of the company’s beer because of fears over Trump’s immigration policy. Roughly half of Constellation’s beer sales come from Hispanic consumers, according to the company.

But on Wednesday, Newlands demurred when asked about Hispanic consumer sentiment, saying that all shoppers are concerned about higher prices.

“When you see a fair amount of change, both Hispanic and non-Hispanic consumers are concerned about inflation and about cost structure,” Newlands said.

He added that consumers aren’t going out to eat as much and hosting fewer social occasions, which means they are drinking less beer. Still, he maintained that consumer interest in drinking beer hasn’t waned; while shoppers’ overall spending on beer has fallen, their relative spend on beer compared with their total grocery bill has held steady.

For fiscal 2026, Constellation continues to expect comparable earnings per share of $12.60 to $12.90. The company is projecting that organic net sales will range from declining 2% to rising 1%.

In a year when the U.S. consumer has been weighed down by economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and inflation, Black entrepreneurs are eager to get to the Essence Festival of Culture to connect with their core customers.

“Essence Fest is like my Black Friday,” said Rochelle Ivory, owner of beauty brand On the Edge Baby Hair. “It is my biggest sales weekend of the year. It’s where I make all the capital I reinvest in my business.”

Essence Fest kicks off on Friday, with roughly 500,000 people attending the event in New Orleans. It generates around $1 billion in economic activity, according to organizers.

“It’s the cannot-miss event for us,” said Brittney Adams, owner of eyewear brand Focus and Frame. She said this year Essence Fest is even more important because she’s seen Black consumers pulling back on spending.

“I would say the uncertainty of just the economic and political climate — that’s giving people a little bit of hesitancy. Should they save the money? Should they buy the things they want?” Adams said.

Ivory said her sales are down roughly 30% year over year, but she’s hopeful people come to New Orleans looking to spend their time and money in the festival marketplace.

“This could make or break some of us,” she said. “It’s one of the few places where Black women, Black founders can really come together and be seen.”

The Global Black Economic Forum aims to bring visibility and create solutions for Black business owners at Essence Fest. This year speakers include Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. Last year, then-Vice President Kamala Harris spoke.

“We intentionally curate a space that allows leaders to preserve, build and reimagine how we can collectively increase economic opportunity to thrive,” said Alphonso David, CEO of the GBEF.

While many Black Americans express economic anxiety, the data is less clear.

In the first quarter of this year, according to Federal Reserve data, the median weekly salary for Black workers was $1,192 a 5% increase year over year. Black unemployment stood at 6% in the most recent jobs report, a historically low number, but still higher than the national average of 4.2%.

However, the data doesn’t appear to fully reflect the sentiment for many Black Americans who are concerned about the political, cultural and economic shifts that have taken place since President Donald Trump’s election.

“Never let a good crisis go to waste,” said John Hope Bryant, founder and CEO of Operation Hope, one of the nation’s largest non-profits focused on financial education and empowerment.

Bryant said he sees the concerns of Black Americans as an opportunity in the second half of 2025.

“This president has done something that hasn’t been done since the 1960s, which is unify Black America. Wealth was created in the early 20^th century because Blacks were forced to work together. But instead of Black Lives Matter, let’s make Black capitalist matter,” he said.

Pastor Jamal Bryant of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church has galvanized Black consumers with an organized boycott of Target that began in February in response to the retailer’s decision to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Bryant said he is in discussions with Target but is ready to organize a longer-term boycott if the retailer does not fulfill the promises it made to the Black community after the killing of George Floyd. He is urging Black Americans to use the estimated $2.1 trillion dollars in spending power forecast by 2026 to drive economic and political change.

“I would dare say that ‘pocketbook protests’ are a revolutionary activity,” said Bryant.

“I think we have to be very selective in light of the ‘Big Ugly Bill’ that just passed and how it will adversely affect our community,” he said, referencing Trump’s megabill that passed through Congress this week.

Invest Fest, an event that blends commerce and culture created by financially focused media company Earn Your Leisure kicks off in Atlanta in August.

Co-CEOs Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings said the event will remain focused on financial literacy, but this year they are emphasizing the urgent need for education and entrepreneurship in technology.

“It’s definitely now or never, the time is now,” said Bilal.

“The important thing this year is the way technology is going to disrupt a lot of career paths and the businesses, and we have to prepare for that, which is why AI is at the forefront of the conversation, crypto is at the forefront of the conversations, real estate as always and entrepreneurship,” said Millings.

New this year is a partnership with venture capital firm Open Opportunity and a pitch competition where an entrepreneur can win $125,000 in funding to scale their business.

“We need more businesses that can reach $100 million valuation to a $1 billion valuation, get on the stock market. The pathway to that 9 times out of 10 is technology,” Bilal said.

The National Black MBA Association Conference in Houston in September will have a similar tone. The event is known for its career fair where the nation’s largest companies recruit as well as for networking and vibrant social activities.

This year, interim CEO Orlando Ashford is working to establish artificial intelligence education and financial literacy as pillars of the event.

“Doing business as usual is not an option,” Ashford told CNBC. “AI is something I literally refer to as a tsunami of change that’s on its way. All of us will be forced to pivot in some ways as it relates to AI. Those of us that are out in front, that embrace it and leverage it actually can turn it into a tremendous and powerful opportunity. Those that wait and ignore it will be overtaken by the wave.”

Microsoft said Wednesday that it will lay off about 9,000 employees. The move will affect less than 4% of its global workforce across different teams, geographies and levels of experience, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

The announcement comes on the second day of Microsoft’s 2026 fiscal year. Executives at the Redmond, Washington-based company typically unveil reorganizations at the time of the new fiscal year.

“We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in an email.

Microsoft has held several rounds of layoffs already this calendar year. In January, it cut less than 1% of headcount based on performance. The 50-year-old software company slashed more than 6,000 jobs in May and then at least 300 more in June. As of June 2024 it employed 228,000 people. In 2023, it laid off 10,000.

Perhaps the largest culling of Microsoft workers came in 2014, when the company eliminated 18,000 after acquiring Nokia’s devices and services business.

As was the case with the May layoffs, Microsoft is looking to reduce the number of layers of managers that stand between individual contributors and top executives, said the person who asked not to be named while discussing internal matters.

“To position Gaming for enduring success and allow us to focus on strategic growth areas, we will end or decrease work in certain areas of the business and follow Microsoft’s lead in removing layers of management to increase agility and effectiveness,” Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s CEO of gaming, wrote in a Wednesday memo to employees in that division.

Microsoft reported nearly $26 billion in net income on $70 billion in revenue for the March quarter. The numbers were well ahead of Wall Street’s consensus, keeping Microsoft ranked as one of the most profitable companies in the S&P 500 index, according to data compiled by FactSet.

Executives called for about 14% year-over-year revenue growth in the June quarter, thanks to expected expansion in Azure cloud services and corporate productivity software subscriptions

Microsoft stock closed at a record high of $497.45 per share on June 26. At the start of Wednesday’s trading session, the shares were down about 0.6%, while the S&P 500 was roughly flat.

Autodesk, Chegg and CrowdStrike are among the other software providers that have slimmed down in 2025. Earlier on Wednesday, payroll processing company ADP said the U.S. private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June. Economists polled by Dow Jones had predicted an increase of 100,000.

Apple has accused a former engineer for its Vision Pro headset computer of stealing company trade secrets before starting a new job at Snap, according to a lawsuit filed in California last week.

In the June 24 court filing, Apple accuses Di Liu, a senior design engineer, of downloading thousands of documents in his final days at the Cupertino company last year and saving them to his personal cloud accounts.

This lawsuit is the latest example of Apple publicly going after a former employee for leaking internal information. Apple is an intensely secretive company, and lawsuits like this one highlight how the iPhone maker exercises tight control over its internal information, even if it has to pursue legal action against former staff.

Apple alleges that Liu didn’t inform the company when he resigned late last year that he was headed to Snap, a competitor and maker of smart glasses. As a result, Apple did not shut off his access to accounts and allowed him a customary two-week transition period, which he used to download company files, according to the lawsuit.

“Worse still, the review of Mr. Liu’s Apple-issued work laptop also shows that while maintaining access to Apple’s Proprietary Information under false pretenses, he used his Apple credentials to exfiltrate thousands of documents containing Proprietary Information from Apple’s secure file storage systems,” the iPhone maker’s lawyers said in the filing.

Many of the files downloaded by Liu had codenames for Apple projects and described the company’s technology, product design and supply chain, according to the lawsuit. Apple says that all employees agree to keep Apple files confidential and that Liu broke confidentiality agreements he made when he joined. Liu worked for Apple between 2017 and 2024, according to the lawsuit.

Liu worked on Apple’s Vision Pro headset as a system product design engineer, per the filing. Liu did not respond to a request for comment from CNBC.

Apple lawyers wrote that Liu could use the trade secrets in his work at Snap. Apple is not suing Snap, and the social media company did not respond to a request for comment.

“The overlap between Apple’s Proprietary Information that Mr. Liu retained and Snap’s AR products (for which Mr. Liu is a ‘product design engineer’) suggests that Mr. Liu intends to use Apple’s Proprietary Information at Snap,” according to the filing.

Apple is seeking damages and for Liu to have his devices inspected by a forensic examiner to make sure all the trade secrets are deleted.

The iPhone maker has sued several former employees in recent years for taking files when they left the company.

Apple settled with former engineer Simon Lancaster in 2022 over providing information to a journalist. Apple also sued a former employee, Andrew Aude, in 2024 over leaking details to the media. That lawsuit was dismissed after Aude apologized.

The Cupertino company sued Rivos, a chip startup staffed by former Apple semiconductor employees, over its intellectual property, and settled in 2024.

Additionally at least three former Apple employees have also been arrested and accused by the government of taking company secrets and giving them to China-linked organizations. One pled guilty and was sentenced to four months in prison, and two are still in proceedings.

Love your Costco dupes? Lululemon is coming after them.

Lululemon has filed a lawsuit against Costco, accusing the big box store of selling knockoffs of the athleisure brand’s apparel for a fraction of the price.

According to the complaint filed Friday in the Central District of California, Costco allegedly ‘unlawfully traded’ on Lululemon’s ‘reputation, goodwill and sweat equity’ by selling unauthorized and unlicensed knockoffs and dupes, infringing on the company’s popular patents.

The complaint lists several Costco items that appear to rip off Lululemon’s designs and patents: Costco’s ‘Danskin Half-Zip Pullover’ that retails for just $8. The lawsuit claims it’s a dupe for Lululemon’s SCUBA pullover that sells for $118. Costco’s ‘Jockey Ladies Yoga Jacket’ and ‘Spyder Women’s Yoga Jacket,’ which sell for $22, appear to be a dupe of Lululemon’s DEFINE jacket with a price tag of $128. The ‘Kirkland 5 Pocket Performance Pant,’ sold online for $10, is a dupe for Lululemon’s $128 ABC Pant, the complaint contended.

The lawsuit alleged trade dress infringement, unfair competition under the Lanham Act, patent infringement, and violation of the California Unfair Business Practices Act.

Lululemon seeks to recover monetary damages from lost profits, claiming it suffered ‘significant harm’ to its brands and reputation.

Dupes have surged in popularity, fueled by social media and young people seeking trendy, high-quality clothing without breaking the bank. The suit noted that hashtags like ‘LululemonDupes’ have trended on social media platforms like TikTok, with influencers promoting ‘these copycat products.’

Lululemon, based in Vancouver, acknowledged some companies have replicated its proprietary apparel designs and sold them as ‘dupes.’ The company said it has sent cease and desist letters to such companies, including Costco.

Specifically, the suit claimed Costco sells dupes of Lululemon’s popular SCUBA, DEFINE, and ABC lines, ‘which have earned substantial fame and considerable goodwill among the public.’

Costco allegedly profited off confusion and allowed customers to believe the products are authentic, the lawsuit claimed.

The suit said Costco is known to use manufacturers of popular branded products for its own Kirkland label products.

‘This source ambiguity preconditions at least some consumers into believing that private label, Kirkland-branded dupes are in fact manufactured by the authentic suppliers of the ‘original’ products. Defendant does not dispel this ambiguity,’ the complaint said.

In November, Lululemon wrote to Costco about the infringement, and Costco subsequently removed at least some of the products that infringed Lululemon’s SCUBA mark, but later began selling the Hi-Tec Men’s Scuba full zip, the complaint said.

The suit seeks a jury trial and for the court to order Costco to pay Lululemon damages in the form of lost profits, an order to permanently restrain Costco from making or selling more dupes, and an order to remove any ads or posts displaying the infringing products.

Costco did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment on Tuesday.

Lululemon said in a statement that ‘as an innovation-led company that invests significantly in the research, development, and design of our products, we take the responsibility of protecting and enforcing our intellectual property rights very seriously and pursue the appropriate legal action when necessary.’

Clean energy stocks fell Monday as President Donald Trump’s spending legislation now includes a tax on wind and solar projects using Chinese components and abruptly phases out key credits.

Shares of NextEra Energy, the largest renewable developer in the U.S., fell 4%. Solar stocks Array Technologies, Enphase and Nextracker were down between 1% and 9%.

The Senate is voting Monday on amendments to the legislation. The current draft ends the two most important tax credits for solar and wind projects placed in service after 2027.

“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted on X over the weekend. “Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”

Previous versions of the bill were more flexible, allowing projects that began construction before 2027 to qualify for the investment and electricity production tax credits, according to Monday note from Goldman Sachs.

The change “compresses project timelines and adds significant execution risk,” Bank of America analyst Dimple Gosal told clients in a note Monday. “Developers with large ’25 pipelines, may struggle to meet the new deadlines — potentially delaying or downsizing planned investments.”

The Senate legislation also slaps a tax on solar and wind projects that enter service after 2027 if they use components made in China.

“The latest draft in the Senate has become more restrictive for most renewable players, moving toward a worst case outcome for solar and wind, with a few improvements for subsectors on the margin,” Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco told clients in a Sunday note.

To be sure, the rooftop solar industry is viewed by Wall Street as a relative winner from the bill, with Sunrun shares up more than 13% and SolarEdge trading more than 6% higher on Monday. The legislation seems to allow tax credits for leased rooftop systems to remain in place through the end of 2027, which was not the case in previous versions, according to Goldman Sachs.

And First Solar is up more than 9% as the legislation seems to allow the manufacturer to claim credits for both components and final products, according to Bank of America.

Home Depot said Monday that it is buying GMS, a building-products distributor, for about $4.3 billion as the retailer moves to draw more sales from contractors and other home professionals.

Shares of Home Depot were roughly flat in early trading Monday. GMS shares jumped more than 11%.

As part of the deal, the Home Depot-owned subsidiary SRS Distribution will buy all outstanding shares of GMS for $110 per share, which adds up to about $4.3 billion and amounts to total enterprise value including net debt of about $5.5 billion, the company said.

Home Depot said it expects the acquisition to be completed by early 2026.

Home Depot’s announcement also concludes a potential bidding war between the big-box retailer and billionaire Brad Jacobs. Jacobs’ building-products distributor QXO had offered about $5 billion in cash to acquire GMS and said it would press forward with a hostile takeover if the company’s management rejected the proposal.

As Home Depot chases growth, it’s gone after a steadier and more lucrative piece of the home improvement business: electricians, roofers, home renovators and other professionals who tackle large projects year-round and need a lot of supplies. Home Depot said it’s speeding along that strategy with the GMS deal.

Home Depot bought SRS Distribution — the subsidiary that’s acquiring GMS — last year for $18.25 billion, in the largest acquisition in its history. Texas-based SRS sells supplies to professionals in the landscaping, roofing and pool businesses and it has bought up many other smaller suppliers as it’s grown.

Home Depot’s focus on selling to professionals is well-timed. Sales from do-it-yourself customers have slowed as higher mortgage rates have decreased housing turnover and dampened homeowners’ demand for larger projects because of higher borrowing costs.

The company said it expects total sales to grow by 2.8% for the full fiscal year and comparable sales, which take out the impact of one-time factors like store openings and calendar differences, to rise about 1%.

Google on Monday announced a partnership with Commonwealth Fusion Systems, or CFS, a private company spun off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which marks the tech giant′s first commercial commitment to fusion.

The company unveiled plans to buy 200 megawatts of clean fusion power from what CFS describes as the world’s first grid-scale fusion power plant, known as ARC, based in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

ARC is expected to come online and generate 400 megawatts of clean, zero-carbon power in the early 2030s, which is enough energy to power large industrial sites or roughly 150,000 homes, according to CFS. The agreement also gives Google the option to purchase power from additional ARC plants.

Google, which has invested in CFS since 2021, said it also increased its stake in the Devens, Massachusetts-based company.

Google and CFS did not disclose the financial terms.

“We’re excited to make this longer-term bet on a technology with transformative potential to meet the world’s energy demand, and support CFS in their effort to reach their scientific and engineering milestones needed to get there,” Michael Terrell, head of advanced energy at Google, said in a statement.

Fusion is a process that takes light atomic nuclei and heats them to over 100 million degrees Celsius. At these temperatures, the fuel becomes a plasma, which eventually causes the nuclei to fuse and release significant amounts of energy. The energy is then captured to create carbon-free electricity.

CFS is one of many firms racing to achieve commercial-scale fusion energy and Google has invested in others. Earlier this month, Google announced continued funding for TAE Technologies, a California-based fusion energy company.

Apple Thursday made changes to its App Store European policies, saying it believes the new rules will help the company avoid a fine of 500 million euro ($585 million) from the EU for violating the Digital Markets Act.

The new policies are a complicated system of fees and programs for app makers, with some developers now paying three separate fees for one download. Apple also is going to introduce a new set of rules for all app developers in Europe, which includes a fee called the “core technology commission” of 5% on all digital purchases made outside the App Store.

The changes Apple announced are not a complete departure from the company’s previous policy that drew the European Commission’s attention in the first place.

Apple said it did not want to make the changes but was forced to by the European Commission’s regulations, which threatened fines of up to 50 million euros per day. Apple said it believed its plan is in compliance with the DMA and that it will avoid fines.

“The European Commission is requiring Apple to make a series of additional changes to the App Store,” an Apple spokesperson said in a statement. “We disagree with this outcome and plan to appeal.”

A spokesperson for the European Commission did not say that Apple was no longer subject to the fine. He said in a statement that the EC is looking at Apple’s new terms to see if the company is in compliance.

“As part of this assessment the Commission considers it particularly important to obtain the views of market operators and interested third parties before deciding on next steps,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The saga in Brussels is the latest example of Apple fiercely defending its App Store policies, a key source of profit for the iPhone maker through fees of between 15% and 30% on downloads through its App Store.

It also shows that Apple is continuing to claim it is owed a commission when iPhone apps link to websites for digital purchases overseas despite a recent court ruling that barred the practice in the U.S.

Under the Digital Markets Act, Apple was required to allow app developers more choices for how they distribute and promote their apps. In particular, developers are no longer prohibited from telling their users about cheaper alternatives to Apple’s App Store, a practice called “steering” by regulators.

In early 2024, Apple announced its changes, including a 50 cent fee on off-platform app downloads.

Critics, including Sweden’s Spotify, pushed back on Apple’s proposed changes, saying that the tech firm chose an approach that violated the spirit of the rules, and that its fees and commissions challenge the viability of the alternative billing system. The European Commission investigated for a year, and it said on Thursday that it would again seek feedback from Apple’s critics.

“From the beginning, Apple has been clear that they didn’t like the idea of abiding by the DMA,” Spotify said last year.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company successfully changed Apple’s steering rules in the U.S. earlier this year, accused Apple of “malicious compliance” in its approach to the DMA.

“Apple’s new Digital Markets Act malicious compliance scheme is blatantly unlawful in both Europe and the United States and makes a mockery of fair competition in digital markets,” Sweeney posted on social media on Thursday. “Apps with competing payments are not only taxed but commercially crippled in the App Store.”

The European Commission announced the 500 million euro fine in April. The commission at the time said that the tech company might still be able to make changes to avoid the fine.

Apple’s restrictions on steering in the United States were tossed earlier this year, following a court order in the long-running Epic Games case. A judge in California found that Apple had purposely misled the court about its steering concessions in the United States and instructed it to immediately stop asking charging a fee or commission on for external downloads.

The order is currently in effect in the United States as it is being appealed and has already shifted the economics of app development. As a result, companies like Amazon and Spotify in the U.S. can direct customers to their own websites and avoid Apple’s 15% to 30% commission.

In the U.S., Amazon’s iPhone Kindle app now shows an orange “Get Book” button that links to Amazon.com.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday proposed easing a key capital rule that banks say has limited their ability to operate, drawing dissent from at least two officials who say the move could undermine important safeguards.

Known as the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio, the measure regulates the quantity and quality of capital banks should be keeping on their balance sheets. The rule emanated from a post-financial crisis effort to ensure the stability of the nation’s largest banks.

However, in recent years as bank reserves have built and concerns have grown over Treasury market liquidity, Wall Street executives and Fed officials have pushed to roll back the requirements. The regulations targeted treat all capital the same.

“This stark increase in the amount of relatively safe and low-risk assets on bank balance sheets over the past decade or so has resulted in the leverage ratio becoming more binding,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a statement. “Based on this experience, it is prudent for us to reconsider our original approach.”

The Fed board put the proposal open for a 60-day public comment window.

In its draft form, the measure would call for reducing the top-tier capital big banks must hold by 1.4%, or some $13 billion, for holding companies. Subsidiaries would see a larger drop, of $210 billion, which would still be held by the parent bank. The standard applies the same rules to so-called globally systemic important banks as well as their subsidiaries.

The rule would lower capital requirements to range of 3.5% to 4.5% from the current 5%, with subsidiaries put in the same range from a previous level of 6%.

Current Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman and Governor Christopher Waller released statements supporting the changes.

“The proposal will help to build resilience in U.S. Treasury markets, reducing the likelihood of market dysfunction and the need for the Federal Reserve to intervene in a future stress event,” Bowman stated. “We should be proactive in addressing the unintended consequences of bank regulation, including the bindingness of the eSLR, while ensuring the framework continues to promote safety, soundness, and financial stability.”

On the whole, the plan seeks to loosen up banks to take on more lower-risk inventory such as Treasurys, which are now treated essentially the same as high-yield bonds for capital purposes. Fed regulators essentially are looking for the capital requirements to serve as a safety net rather than a bind on activity.

However, Governors Adriana Kugler and Michael Barr, the former vice chair of supervision, said they would oppose the move.

“Even if some further Treasury market intermediation were to occur in normal times, this proposal is unlikely to help in times of stress,” Barr said in a separate statement. “In short, firms will likely use the proposal to distribute capital to shareholders and engage in the highest return activities available to them, rather than to meaningfully increase Treasury intermediation.”

The leverage ratio has come under criticism for essentially penalizing banks for holding Treasurys. Official documents released Wednesday say the new regulations align with so-called Basel standards, which set standards for banks globally.