Byron Allen is putting his broadcast TV stations up for sale.

Allen Media Group said on Monday it has retained investment bank Moelis & Co. to sell its group of 28 owned and operated broadcast TV stations, which are affiliated with ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox in 21 markets across the U.S.

In a news release, Allen said the company has invested more than $1 billion into acquiring the stations over the past six years and after receiving “numerous inquiries and written offers” for most of the stations, has decided to explore a sale.

The Allen Media Group stations join others that have recently hit the sale block. Last year, CNBC reported that Sinclair was exploring the sale of more than 30% of its stations. Apollo Global Management is also reportedly exploring a sale of its Cox Media Group portfolio of TV and radio stations.

Allen Media Group said a sale of the stations would significantly reduce its debt load. Earlier this year, the company refinanced a $100 million debt facility. While S&P Global Ratings said it expected the company to maintain sufficient liquidity over the next 12 months, it noted that Allen Media Group still maintained a junk rating and faced future debt risks.

Last year, CNBC reported that Allen Media Group had been consistently late in making payments to its network owners, in some cases as much as 90 days past due, with the payments totaling tens of millions of dollars throughout the year. The reason for the lateness had been unclear, and representatives for Allen Media Group declined to address the details of CNBC’s reporting.

The stations have also reportedly undergone layoffs.

Allen, a former comedian, founded Entertainment Studios, now known as Allen Media Group, in the early 1990s. He later formed Allen Media Group Broadcasting in 2019 and has built up his profile and business ever since with a string of smaller deals.

He has also become known for expressing interest in buying various media assets to bulk up his media empire. In recent years, he has made a $30 billion bid for Paramount Global when it was up for sale in 2024, as well as a $10 billion offer for ABC and other Disney networks, and he reportedly offered $3.5 billion for Paramount’s BET Media Group.

Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC and broadcast network NBC.

While U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs play out in U.S. courts, another one of his proposed laws could weaponize the American tax system.

Investment banks and law firms warn this step could prove to be as significant as the impact of duties on investors.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which passed through the U.S. House of Representatives last week, includes the most sweeping changes to the tax treatment of foreign capital in the U.S. in decades under a provision known as Section 899. The bill must still gain the Senate’s approval.

“We see this legislation as creating the scope for the US administration to transform a trade war into a capital war if it so wishes,” said George Saravelos, global head of FX research at Deutsche Bank on Thursday.

“Section 899 challenges the open nature of US capital markets by explicitly using taxation on foreign holdings of US assets as leverage to further US economic goals,” Saravelos added in the note to clients, under the subtitle “weaponization of US capital markets in to law.”

Section 899 says it will hit entities from “discriminatory foreign countries” — those that impose levies such as the digital services taxes that disproportionately affect U.S. companies.

France, for instance, has a 3% tax on revenues from online platforms, which primarily targets big technology firms such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. Germany is reportedly considering a similar tax of 10%.

Under the new tax bill, the U.S. would hit investors from such countries by increasing taxes on U.S. income by 5 percentage points each year, potentially taking the rate up to 20%.

Emmanuel Cau, head of European Equity Strategy at Barclays, suggested that the mere passage of the tax legislation could make dollar assets less valuable for foreign investors.

“In our view, this is a risk for those companies generating US revenues, and domiciled in countries that have enacted Digital Services Taxes (DST) or are implementing the OECD’s Under Taxed Payment Rule (UTPR),” Cau said in a Friday note to clients.

He highlighted companies such as London-listed Compass Group, which provides catering services to U.S. schools, and InterContinental Hotels, which owns at least 25 luxury hotels in the U.S., are likely to be affected by the proposed law.

“Given US net international investment position is sharply negative, there is indeed scope for capital outflows if indeed S899 passes through the Senate in its current form,” he added.

The impact of the bill won’t be limited to European companies or individuals from those states.

The bill “could significantly increase tax rates applicable to certain non-U.S. individuals and business, governmental, and other entities,” said Max Levine, head of U.S. tax at the law firm Linklaters.

This means it could also ensnare governments and central banks, which are large investors of U.S. Treasuries. France and Germany, for instance, held a combined $475 billion worth of U.S. government bonds as of March.

The proposed tax would lower returns on U.S. Treasuries for those investors as “the de facto yield on US Treasuries would drop by nearly 100bps,” Deutsche Bank’s Saravelos added. “The adverse impact on demand for USTs and funding the US twin deficit at a time when this is most needed is clear”.

“It’s very bad,” said Beat Wittmann, chairman of Switzerland-based Porta Advisors. “This is huge — this is just one piece in the overall plan and it’s completely consistent with what this administration is all about.”

“The ultimate judge for this is not our opinions, it’s the bond market,” Wittmann added. “The U.S. bond market is discounting these developments, and we have seen in the last few weeks, that if there was a safe haven move, investors clearly prefer German bunds.”

Large Australian pension funds with U.S. investments have also been reportedly concerned by the bill, since Australia operates a medicines subsidy scheme that is opposed by large U.S. pharmaceutical companies.

Legal experts at the Mayer Brown law firm suggest that “significant changes” could be made to the bill as it passes through the U.S. Senate before it’s enshrined into law by Trump.

“As such, there may be questions about whether the provisions of the proposal that override tax treaties could be included in the US Senate’s version of the tax bill,” Mayer Brown’s experts said.

Amazon’s devices unit has a new team tasked with inventing “breakthrough” consumer products that’s being led by a former Microsoft executive who helped create the Xbox.

The ZeroOne team is spread across Seattle, San Francisco and Sunnyvale, California, and is focused on both hardware and software projects, according to job postings from the past month. The name is a nod to its mission of developing emerging product ideas from conception to launch, or “zero to one.”

Amazon has a checkered history in hardware, with hits including the Kindle e-reader, Echo smart speaker and Fire streaming sticks, as well as flops like the Fire Phone, Halo fitness tracker and Glow kids teleconferencing device.

Many of the products emerged from Lab126, Amazon’s hardware research and development unit, which is based in Silicon Valley.

The new group is being led by J Allard, who spent 19 years at Microsoft, most recently as technology chief of consumer products, a role he left in 2010, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was a key architect of the Xbox game console, as well as the Zune, a failed iPod competitor.

Allard joined Amazon in September, and the company confirmed at the time that he would be part of the devices and services team under Panos Panay, who left Microsoft for Amazon in 2023 to lead the group.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed Allard oversees ZeroOne but declined to comment further on the group’s work.

The job postings provide few specific details about what ZeroOne is building, though one listing references working on “conceiving, designing, and bringing to market computer vision techniques for a new smart-home product.”

Another post for a senior customer insights manager in San Francisco says the job entails owning “the methodology and execution of concept testing and early feedback for ZeroOne programs.”

“You’ll be part of a team that embraces design thinking, rapid experimentation, and building to learn,” the description says. “If you’re excited about working in small, nimble teams to create entirely new product categories and thrive in the ambiguity of breakthrough innovation, we want to talk to you.”

Amazon has pulled in staffers from other business units that have experience developing innovative technologies, including its Alexa voice assistant, Luna cloud gaming service and Halo sleep tracker, according to Linkedin profiles of ZeroOne employees. The head of a projection mapping startup called Lightform that Amazon acquired is helping lead the group.

While Amazon is expanding this particular corner of its devices group, the company is scaling back other areas of the sprawling devices and services division.

Earlier this month, Amazon laid off about 100 of the group’s employees. The job cuts included staffers working on Alexa and Amazon Kids, which develops services for children, as well as Lab126, according to public filings and people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to confidentiality. More than 50 employees were laid off at Amazon’s Lab126 facilities in Sunnyvale, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filings in California.

Amazon said the job cuts affected a fraction of a percent of the devices and services organization, which has tens of thousands of employees.

Nvidia shares jumped on Thursday after posting a positive set of earnings, sparking a rally in global semiconductor stocks.

Shares of Nvidia were 6% higher after the company posted better-than-expected earnings and revenue on Wednesday, even as it took a hit from U.S. semiconductor export restrictions to China.

Nvidia has been seen by investors as a bellwether for the broader semiconductor industry and artificial intelligence-related stocks, with its latest strong numbers sparking a rally among global semiconductor names.

Nvidia’s earnings helped boost other chip names, with Taiwan Semiconductor, AMD and Qualcomm all up about 1%.

In Japan, Tokyo Electron closed more than 4% higher, while SK Hynix, which is a supplier of high bandwidth memory to Nvidia, was nearly 2% up at the close of markets in South Korea.

In Europe, ASM International, BE Semiconductor Industries and ASML were all in positive territory.

The semiconductor industry has faced a number of headwinds from uncertainty around tariff policy in the U.S. and chip export restrictions to China.

Companies such as ASML, which makes machines that are critical for manufacturing the most advanced chips, have seen billions wiped off their value as a result.

Nvidia on Wednesday said it wrote off $4.5 billion of H20 chip inventory that it couldn’t ship to China because of export curbs, saying it also calculated $2.5 billion of lost revenue as well.

The restrictions on China do not seem to be going away.

The U.S. has ordered a number of companies, including those producing chemicals and design software for semiconductors, to stop shipping goods to China without a license, according to a Reuters report on Thursday.

Despite this, Nvidia still managed to post financial results for the April quarter that beat market expectations, allaying fears that demand for its graphics processing units, which have become key for training huge AI models, is dwindling.

Boeing’s airplane deliveries to China will resume next month after handovers were paused amid a trade war with the Trump administration, CEO Kelly Ortberg said Thursday, as he brushed off the impact of tit-for-tat tariffs with some of the United States’ largest trading partners this year.

Ortberg had said last month that China had paused deliveries.

“China has now indicated … they’re going to take deliveries,” Ortberg said. The first deliveries will be next month, he told a Bernstein conference on Thursday.

Boeing, a top U.S. exporter whose output of airplanes helps soften the U.S. trade deficit, has been paying tariffs on imported components from Italy and Japan for its wide-body Dreamliner planes, which are made in South Carolina, Ortberg said, adding that much of it can be recouped when the planes are exported again.

“The only duties that we would have to cover would be the duties for a delivery, say, to a U.S. airline,” he said.

Regarding the rapidly changing trade policies that have included several pauses and some exemptions, Ortberg said, “I personally don’t think these will be … permanent in the long term.”

He reiterated that Boeing plans to ramp up production this year of its best-selling 737 Max jet, which will require Federal Aviation Administration approval.

The FAA capped output of the workhorse planes at 38 a month last year after a door plug that wasn’t secured when it left Boeing’s factory blew out midair in the first minutes of an Alaska Airlines flight.

Ortberg said the company could produce 42 Max jets a month by midyear and assess moving up to 47 a month about half a year later.

The company’s long-delayed Max 7 and Max 10 variants, the largest and smallest planes in the narrow-body family, are scheduled to be certified by the end of the year, he said.

Many airline executives have applauded Ortberg’s leadership since he took the reins at Boeing last August, tasked with stemming years of losses and ending reputational and safety crises, including the impact of two fatal Max crashes.

CEOs have long complained about delivery delays from the company that left them short of planes during a post-pandemic travel boom.

“I do think Boeing has turned the corner,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” earlier Thursday. He said supply chain problems are limiting deliveries of new planes overall.

“We over-ordered aircraft believing the supply chain would be challenged,” he said.

Dick’s Sporting Goods said Wednesday it’s standing by its full-year guidance, which includes the expected impact from all tariffs currently in effect.

The sporting goods giant said it’s expecting earnings per share to be between $13.80 and $14.40 in fiscal 2025 — in line with the $14.29 that analysts had expected, according to LSEG.

It’s projecting revenue to be between $13.6 billion and $13.9 billion, which is also in line with expectations of $13.9 billion, according to LSEG.

“We are reaffirming our 2025 outlook, which reflects our strong start to the year and confidence in our strategies and operational strength while still acknowledging the dynamic macroeconomic environment,” CEO Lauren Hobart said in a news release. “Our performance demonstrates the momentum and strength of our long-term strategies and the consistency of our execution.”

Here’s how the company performed in its first fiscal quarter compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended May 3 was $264 million, or $3.24 per share, compared with $275 million, or $3.30 per share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items related to its acquisition of Foot Locker, Dick’s posted earnings per share of $3.37.

Sales rose to $3.17 billion, up about 5% from $3.02 billion a year earlier.

For most investors, Dick’s results won’t come as a surprise because it preannounced some of its numbers about two weeks ago when it unveiled plans to acquire its longtime rival Foot Locker for $2.4 billion. So far, Dick’s has seen a mix of reactions to the proposed acquisition.

On one hand, Dick’s deal for Foot Locker will allow it to enter international markets for the first time and reach a customer that’s crucial to the sneaker market and doesn’t typically shop in the retailer’s stores. On the other hand, Dick’s is acquiring a business that’s been struggling for years and some aren’t sure needs to exist due to its overlap with other wholesalers and the rise of brands selling directly to consumers.

While shares of Foot Locker initially soared more than 80% after the deal was announced, shares of Dick’s fell about 15%.

The transaction is expected to close in the second half of fiscal 2025 and, for now, Dick’s outlook doesn’t include acquisition-related costs or results from the acquisition.

In the first full fiscal year post-close, Dick’s expects the transaction to be accretive to earnings and deliver between $100 million and $125 million in cost synergies.

Macy’s cut its full-year profit guidance on Wednesday even as it beat Wall Street’s quarterly earnings expectations, as the retailer’s CEO said it will hike prices of certain items to offset tariffs.

In a news release, the department store operator said it reduced its earnings outlook because of higher tariffs, more promotions and “some moderation” in discretionary spending. Macy’s stuck by its full-year sales forecast, however.

For fiscal 2025, Macy’s now expects adjusted earnings per share of $1.60 to $2, down from its previous forecast of $2.05 to $2.25. It reaffirmed its full-year sales guidance of between $21 billion and $21.4 billion, which would be a decline from $22.29 billion in the most recent full year.

In an interview with CNBC, CEO Tony Spring said about 15 cents to 40 cents per share of the guidance cut is due to tariffs. He said about 20% of the company’s merchandise comes from China.

Macy’s will raise some prices and stop carrying certain items to mitigate the hit from tariffs, he added.

“You’re dealing with it on both the demand side as well as the increased cost side,” he said. “And so navigating that, we have a series of different scenarios to try to figure out kind of what will be the reality, and we want our guidance to reflect the flexibility of that uncertainty, so that we can react in real time to how we serve or better serve the consumer.”

Spring said the company will be “surgical” with price changes.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of approach,” he said. “There are going to be items that are the same price as they were a year ago. There is going to be, selectively, items that may be more expensive, and there are items that we might not carry because the pricing doesn’t merit the quality or the perceived value by the consumer.”

Here’s how Macy’s did during its fiscal first quarter, compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

In the three-month period that ended May 3, the company’s net income was $38 million, or 13 cents per share, compared with $62 million, or 22 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Sales dropped from $4.85 billion in the year-ago quarter. Excluding some one-time charges including restructuring charges, adjusted earnings per share were 16 cents.

The company’s shares were down more than 2% in early trading on Wednesday.

Economic uncertainty — including President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff announcements — has complicated Macy’s turnaround plans. The New York City-based legacy retailer is more than a year into a three-year effort to become a smaller, but healthier business. It’s shuttering weaker stores and investing in stronger parts of the company, including luxury department store Bloomingdale’s and beauty chain Bluemercury. It has also tried to improve the customer experience, including by speeding up online deliveries and adding staff to stores.

Spring told analysts on the earnings call that the tariff impact on Macy’s outlook includes the additional costs of inventory previously imported under the 145% China tariffs, which have since dropped to 30%. He said the outlook does not include a potential increase in tariffs on the European Union or any other U.S. trading partner.

Trump recently threatened to implement, and then delayed, a 50% tariff on the EU.

Macy’s sells a mix of national band private brands, which are sold exclusively at its stores and on its website. Spring told CNBC that the company has reduced the share of its private brands that comes from China to about 27% — a drop from 32% last year and more than 50% before the Covid pandemic.

CFO Adrian Mitchell said on the company’s earnings call that Macy’s has taken action to blunt the impact of tariffs on national brands it sells, too. He said the company has renegotiated orders with vendors, canceled some orders and delayed others.

“We’ve been able to gain some vendor discounts, which has been helpful to us, but we’re absorbing some of that price as well,” he said.

And in some cases, Macy’s is keeping prices the same despite higher costs to appeal to value-conscious customers and gain market share from competitors, Mitchell added.

Spring said on the company’s earnings call on Wednesday that Macy’s sales were stronger in March and April compared to February, attributing some of that to improving weather. So far, sales trends in the second quarter have been above those in March and April, he added.

Macy’s plans to close about 150 underperforming namesake stores across the country by early 2027.

In the fiscal first quarter, Macy’s namesake brand remained its weakest. Comparable sales across Macy’s owned and licensed business, plus its online marketplace, declined 2.1% year over year.

When Macy’s took out the stores that it plans to shutter, however, trends looked slightly better. Comparable sales of its go-forward business, including its owned and licensed business and online marketplace, declined 1.9%

On the other hand, comparable sales at Bloomingdale’s rose 3.8% year over year, including its owned, licensed and marketplace businesses. Comparable sales at Bluemercury climbed 1.5% year over year.

To try to turn its namesake stores around, Macy’s has invested in 50 locations — dubbed the “First 50” — with more staffing, sharper displays and changes to its mix of merchandise. It has expanded that initiative to 75 additional stores, bringing the total to 125 locations that have gotten increased attention. That’s a little over a third of the 350 namesake locations that Macy’s plans to keep open.

Those 125 locations performed better than the overall Macy’s brand. Comparable sales among those revamped stores owned and licensed by Macy’s were down 0.8% compared with the year-ago period.

On Macy’s earnings call in March — before Trump made several sudden tariff moves that baffled companies and investors — Spring said the company’s guidance “assumes a certain level of uncertainty” about the economic outlook. He said even Macy’s affluent customer “is just as uncertain and as confused and concerned by what’s transpiring.”

Earlier this spring, Macy’s announced a few key leadership changes — including a new chief financial officer. Macy’s new CFO, Thomas Edwards, will begin on June 22. He previously served as the chief financial officer and chief operating officer of Capri Holdings, the parent company of Michael Kors. He will succeed Mitchell, who is leaving Macy’s.

As of Tuesday’s close, Macy’s shares are down about 29% so far this year. That trails the S&P 500′s nearly 1% gains during the same period. Macy’s stock closed on Tuesday at $12.04 per share, bringing the retailer’s market value to $3.35 billion.

The once-solid relationship between President Donald Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook is breaking down over the idea of a U.S.-made iPhone.

Last week, Trump said he “had a little problem with Tim Cook,” and on Friday, he threatened to slap a 25% tariff on iPhones in a social media post.

Trump is upset with Apple’s plan to source the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. from its factory partners in India, instead of China. Cook confirmed this plan earlier this month during earnings discussions.

Trump wants Apple to build iPhones for the U.S. market in the U.S. and has continued to pressure the company and Cook.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday.

Analysts said it would probably make more sense for Apple to eat the cost rather than move production stateside.

“In terms of profitability, it’s way better for Apple to take the hit of a 25% tariff on iPhones sold in the US market than to move iPhone assembly lines back to US,” Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote on X.

UBS analyst David Vogt said that the potential 25% tariffs were a “jarring headline” but that they would only be a “modest headwind” to Apple’s earnings, dropping annual earnings by 51 cents per share, versus a prior expectation of 34 cents per share under the current tariff landscape.

Experts have long held that a U.S.-made iPhone is impossible at worst and highly expensive at best.

Analysts have said that iPhones made in the U.S. would be much more expensive, CNBC previously reported, with some estimates ranging between $1,500 and $3,500 to buy one at retail. Labor costs would certainly rise.

But it would also be logistically complicated.

Supply chains and factories take years to build out, including installing equipment and staffing up. Parts that Apple imported to the United States for assembly might be subject to tariffs as well.

Apple started manufacturing iPhones in India in 2017 but it was only in recent years that the region was capable of building Apple’s latest devices.

“We believe the concept of Apple producing iPhones in the US is a fairy tale that is not feasible,” wrote Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a note on Friday.

Other analysts were wary about predicting how Trump’s threat ultimately plays out. Apple might be able to strike a deal with the administration — despite the eroding relationship — or challenge the tariffs in court.

For now, most of Apple’s most important products are exempt from tariffs after Trump gave phones and computers a tariff waiver — even from China — in April, but Apple doesn’t know how the Trump administration’s tariffs will ultimately play out beyond June.

“We’re skeptical” that the 25% tariff will materialize, wrote Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers.

He wrote that Apple could try to preserve its roughly 41% gross margin on iPhones by raising prices in the U.S. by between $100 and $300 per phone.

It’s unclear how Trump intends to target Apple’s India-made iPhones. Rakers wrote that the administration could put specific tariffs on phone imports from India.

Apple’s operations in India continue to expand.

Foxconn, which assembles iPhones for Apple, is building a new $1.5 billion factory in India that could do some iPhone production, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

Apple declined to comment on Trump’s post.

President Donald Trump on Friday cleared the merger of U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel, after the Japanese steelmaker’s previous bid to acquire its U.S. rival had been blocked on national security grounds.

“This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel, which will create at least 70,000 jobs, and add $14 Billion Dollars to the U.S. Economy,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

U.S. Steel’s headquarters will remain in Pittsburgh and the bulk of the investment will take place over the next 14 months, the president said. U.S. Steel shares surged more than 20% to close at $52.01 per share after Trump’s announcement.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro applauded the agreement, saying he worked with local, state and federal leaders ‘to press for the best deal to keep U.S. Steel headquartered in Pittsburgh, protect union jobs, and secure the future of steelmaking in Western Pennsylvania.’

In his own statement, Lieutenant Gov. Austin Davis called the announcement ‘promising,’ but added: ‘I want to make sure everyone involved in the deal holds up their end of the bargain. I look forward to seeing the promised investments become a reality and the workers receive everything they’ve fought for.’

President Joe Biden blocked Nippon Steel from purchasing U.S. Steel for $14.9 billion in January, citing national security concerns. Biden said at the time that the acquisition would create a risk to supply chains that are critical for the U.S.

Trump, however, ordered a new review of the proposed acquisition in April, directing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to determine “whether further action in this matter may be appropriate.”

Trump said he would hold a rally at U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh on May 30.

United Airlines reached an “industry-leading” tentative labor deal for its 28,000 flight attendants, their union said Friday.

The deal includes “40% of total economic improvements” in the first year and retroactive pay, a signing bonus, and quality of life improvements, like better scheduling and on-call time, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said.

The union did not provide further details about the deal.

United flight attendants have not had a raise since 2020.

The cabin crew members voted last year to authorize the union to strike if a deal wasn’t reached. They had also sought federal mediation in negotiations.

U.S. flight attendants have pushed for wage increases for years after pilots and other work groups secured new labor deals in the wake of the pandemic. United is the last of the major U.S. carriers to get a deal done with its flight attendants.

The deal must still face a vote by flight attendants, and contract language will be finalized in the coming days, United said.