Business

(WASHINGTON) — In an effort to beef up protections for consumers against corporations, the Biden administration on Monday announced a handful of policies to crack down on “headaches and hassles that waste Americans’ time and money.”

Through the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the administration will ask companies to make it as easy to cancel subscriptions and memberships as it is to sign up for them, and through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new rule will require companies to let customers cut through automated customer service “doom loops” by pressing a single button to reach a real person.

“For a lot of services, it takes one or two clicks on your phone to sign up. It should take one or two clicks on your phone to end the service,” White House Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden said on a call with reporters to discuss the new policies.

Consumers could see the new rule applied to gym memberships or subscriptions with phone and internet companies.

The administration will also call on health insurance companies to allow claims to be submitted online, rather than requiring insured customers to print out and mail forms in for coverage.

“Essentially in all of these practices, the companies are delaying services to you or, really, trying to make it so difficult for you to cancel the service that they get to hold on to your money longer and longer,” Tanden said. “And what that means is, ultimately, consumers, the American public, is losing out.”

The new regulations were rolled out Monday but will be on varying timelines, with some taking weeks and others taking months to be implemented, administration officials said.

They target a range of industries and companies at a time when Americans feel strapped by high prices and stubborn inflation — an issue that has weighed on President Joe Biden and now Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign as voters continue to rank the economy among their top issues.

As part of an agenda centered around “lowering costs,” the administration has tried to improve voter confidence in the economy through consistent but piecemeal efforts to bring down daily costs, from lowering prescription drug prices to canceling student loan debt.

Volatility in the stock market last week after a lower-than-expected jobs report has increased the pressure for Democrats to prove their economic bonafides to voters. Experts urge caution before drawing any major conclusions from the week, remaining divided over whether the U.S. is headed for a downturn or still on a resilient path of growth.

Other efforts by the Biden administration to reduce daily bills and offset higher prices include targeting junk fees tacked onto tickets and hotel costs, requiring airlines to automatically refund passengers for delayed flights, and banning medical debts from credit reports.

The efforts have frequently pitted Biden and Harris against big companies, as they accuse them of “shrinkflation,” or delivering less product for the same price, and keeping their prices high even as inflation falls. The Biden administration has also been heralded by antitrust advocates for reviving enforcement on companies for the first time in a meaningful way in decades — including with lawsuits against companies like Google, Apple and LiveNation.

Tanden insisted that Monday’s efforts were about creating a better functioning market, not targeting any particular company or “shaming corporations writ large.”

“This is a broad initiative in which we are talking about a whole series of practices across multiple industries, and the real focus is ensuring that consumers and their choices are what is driving decision making in the market, not the practices of companies that make it hard for people to switch,” Tanden said.

“When they want to end one subscription, they can shop for another, but it’s their decision,” she said. “That’s what a free market is really about, empowering individuals to make the decisions they want to make without these practices that get in their way.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — This week, hours after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate in the 2024 election, the website domain “HarrisWalz.com” sold for $15,000. It was a tidy profit for domain owner Jeremy Greene Eche, who bought it for around $9 in 2020.

Eche is what is known as a “domain squatter,” someone who buys up low-cost web addresses with the intention of flipping them for a profit. The New York City trademark lawyer purchased several domains around the time of the 2020 election, he told ABC Audio, specifically focusing on candidates who were likely to run in the future.

“So I just looked up every heartland governor and senator I could think of,” he said. “I got a bunch of midwestern politicians.”

In addition to the Harris/Walz domain, Eche also bought addresses that paired Harris’ name with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzger, and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman. He tried to buy HarrisShapiro.com as well, he noted, in anticipation of Harris picking Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, but it had already been registered and purchased.

“You just have to hope you hit the jackpot when you start buying those names,” he said.

In total, Eche owned more than a dozen domains related to the 2024 election cycle, each of which needed to be renewed yearly for a small fee.

Eche was also the owner of ClintonKaine.com in the runup to the 2016 election, in which Hillary Clinton ran alongside Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine. Once Clinton announced Kaine as her running mate, Eche sold the address for $15,000.

The buyer was Brad Parscale, senior adviser for data and digital operations for Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, who used the address to spread negative messaging about the Democratic ticket, Wired reported in 2016. At the time, Parscale told the tech magazine the site was the Trump campaign’s answer to what they said was the liberal mainstream media.

“It allows us a nice playing field to do some opposition research and let it show,” Parscale told Wired. “We want people to see all the truth, and not the sometimes one-sided truth that we get from the media.”

At the time of the sale, Eche wasn’t aware of the buyer’s identity, he said.

It wasn’t the first time a political domain name was used against a candidate. Visiting TedCruz.com in the run up to the 2016 Republican presidential primary didn’t bring users to the campaign website for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Instead, the website, which was owned by an Arizona lawyer also named Ted Cruz, was used to promote the Republican’s potential Democratic political rival, then-President Obama. The campaign ended up using TedCruz.org, Politico reported.

The buyer of HarrisWalz.com wanted to remain anonymous, according to Eche. He acknowledged that he’s already sitting on domains looking ahead to future elections.

“I have a lot of Tim Walz domains because, like Harris was four years ago, Tim Walz now is an obvious candidate for eight years from now for the presidency.”

However, Eche admited that typing in a specific web address isn’t as common as it once was.

“Nobody just types in ‘HarrisWalz.com,’” Eche said. “They Google it.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Mortgage rates this week dropped to their lowest level in more than a year, delivering some long-sought relief for homebuyers.

The average interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage stands at 6.47%, Freddie Mac said on Thursday. That figure marks a drop of more than a percentage point from a peak attained last year after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates in an effort to fight inflation.

The Fed has held interest rates steady at their highest level in two decades, however. So, why are mortgage rates plummeting?

Experts who spoke to ABC News attributed the drop to a widely held expectation that the Fed will begin to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September. A weaker-than-expected jobs report last week bolstered those expectations, triggering a drop in yields for 10-year treasuries, which in turn sent mortgage rates plummeting, they added.

The yield on a 10-year Treasury bond, or the amount paid to a bondholder annually, fell sharply last week after the Fed signaled a coming interest rate cut and a disappointing jobs report days later appeared to affirm such expectations. Mortgage rates closely track the movement of 10-year treasuries.

“These 10-year treasury rates are going to directly translate into lower mortgage rates, part of which we’re observing in the recent data,” Julia Fonseca, a professor at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told ABC News.

The chances of an interest rate cut in September are all but certain, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment. Market observers are split roughly down the middle about whether the Fed will impose its typical cut of a quarter of a percentage point or opt for a larger half-point cut.

“That jobs report made markets reevaluate the path of future interest rate cuts,” Lu Liu, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who studies real estate, told ABC News.

“Because the mortgage rates are priced off of current treasury rates, the treasury rates have already incorporated these expectations for future rate cuts,” Liu added.

Experts disagree about the outlook for mortgage rates, since the trajectory depends on future economic performance and the Fed’s response to it, which can prove difficult to predict, they said.

The economy has been gradually cooling for months, alongside falling inflation. The U.S. has repeatedly defied previous warnings of an impending recession, though economists disagree about whether current conditions pose an impending risk.

Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, a professor of real estate at Columbia University Business School, said he expects the economic slowdown to continue. That will trigger interest rate cuts and falling mortgage rates, he added.

“We’ve reached peak interest rates,” Nieuwerburgh told ABC News. “Mortgage rates are likely to come back down for the next several years.”

However, he acknowledged the difficulty of predicting economic outcomes and the possibility of a reversal that could lead to interest rate hikes. “Never say never,” Nieuwerburgh said.

Liu, of the University of Pennsylvania, said market observers will closely watch incoming data to determine whether the recent jobs report is part of a larger trend indicating an accelerated economic slowdown.

For months, many observers have expected a “soft landing,” in which inflation returns to normal while the economy averts a recession. However, the steeper-than-expected cooldown of the labor market may indicate that the economy is headed toward a downturn after all, Liu said.

“People are concerned that the risk of a hard landing has increased,” Liu said. “Right now, it’s a wait-and-see moment.”

Still, the current drop in mortgage rates may not rekindle the housing market, experts said, citing a phenomenon known as the “lock-in effect.”

While mortgage rates have fallen, they remain well above the rates enjoyed by most current homeowners, who may be reluctant to put their homes on the market and risk a much higher rate on their next mortgage. In turn, the market could continue to suffer from a lack of supply, keeping home prices at elevated levels, said Fonseca, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

As of March, roughly 60% of homeowners carried a mortgage rate at or below 4%, Fonseca added.

“We still might see those borrowers reluctant to give up those mortgage rates,” she said. “If they’re locked in, we might not see very much movement.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — When customers walk in to shop at Costco Wholesale, they flash a membership card to an employee who typically gives a smile and a nod before they can glide their XL cart into the big box retailer. But now, the warehouse store is cracking down on its entry parameters to avoid non-members from slipping inside under a false pretense.

The company has caught on to friends utilizing someone else’s membership card to access the big box store, so to combat the issue, its adding a new system upon arrival.

“Over the coming months, membership scanning devices will be used at the entrance door of your local warehouse. Once deployed, prior to entering, all members must scan their physical or digital membership card by placing the barcode or QR Code against the scanner,” Costco said in a statement online. “Guests must also be accompanied by a valid member for entry.”

The warehouse retailer said an attendant will be at the door to assist any customers with questions or concerns.

“If your membership is inactive, expired, or you would like to sign up for a new membership, the attendant will ask that you stop by the membership counter prior to entering the warehouse to shop,” the statement continued. “Additionally, if your membership card does not have a photo, please be prepared to show your valid photo ID.”

Members without a photo on their card can also go to the membership counter and get their photo taken to add to the card.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — CosMc’s, a new small-format beverage-led concept from McDonald’s, has officially opened in San Antonio, Texas.

Starting Thursday, patrons in the Alamo City will be among the first to try the new “out-of-this-world beverage experience” from the McDonad’s universe.

“The extraterrestrial experience will continue August 10-11 for the CosMc’s San Antonio official grand opening from 10 am – 4 pm where fans will have the opportunity to try free samples of menu items and receive exclusive merch for the first 100 customers each day,” the company said in a press release.

The first CosMc’s restaurant features “an outdoor patio with eye-catching elements that come alive at dusk.”

There will be a CosMc’s drive thru, kiosks, counter service, walk-up and in-app ordering available to customers at the new location.

With four locations open at launch — in Bolingbrook, Illinois, and Arlington, Dallas and Watauga, Texas — another six are set to open across the Dallas and San Antonio metro areas in the coming months, according to the company.

The expansive menu of drink offerings, all of which can be personalized, includes the Sprite Moonsplash, a sparkling Sprite plus citrus and sweet vanilla flavors that’s served with dried blueberries and a lemon wheel over ice, as well as other items like the Sour Cherry Energy Burst and Churro Cold Brew Frappé.

Customers can opt for add-ons like fruity popping boba or energy shots to an array of menu items.

Other fan favorite options available at CosMc’s include Hazelnut Mocha Cold Brew, Popping Pear Slush, Sour Tango Lemonade and small bites.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — The major party vice presidential nominees — Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance — sharply disagree on a range of issues. The differences in their personal finances are just as stark.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former teacher and member of the U.S. House of Representatives, earns about $127,000 in salary per year, retains no stock holdings and relies on a pension account as his primary asset, financial disclosures show.

By contrast, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, a former venture capitalist, brought in roughly $221,000 in 2022 from salary and book royalties, as well as hundreds of thousands in investment income, a U.S. Senate financial disclosure showed. He also held significant wealth in brokerage accounts and dozens of business investments, according to the financial disclosure.

Here’s what to know about the personal finances of Walz and Vance:

What are Tim Walz’s finances?

As governor, Walz earns an annual salary of $127,629.

In 2019, Walz reported a pension account worth as much as $100,000, as well as a life insurance plan with a value as high as $50,000, according to a financial disclosure that year.

Walz does not invest in any stocks, bonds or other securities, according to a U.S. House disclosure in 2019. As of January, Walz continued to forego ownership of any securities, a Minnesota financial form shows.

He does not invest in real estate, either. Walz and his wife, Gwen, appear to have sold their home in Mankato after gaining access to the governor’s mansion, the Minnesota form shows.

As of 2019, Gwen Walz earned income from a Minnesota public school and law firm Hogan Lovells, according to a U.S. House disclosure.

In all, the couple carried a net worth of between $112,000 and $330,000 in 2019, according to the disclosure. Tim Walz’s pension could add up to an additional $800,000 to the couple’s net worth, the Wall Street Journal estimated.

A disclosure filed in Minnesota in January offers little additional detail about Walz’s finances. Walz does not own a business, earn speaking fees or hold horse racing interests, the form said.

What are JD Vance’s personal finances?

Vance took in more than $1 million in 2022, according to a U.S. Senate financial disclosure form.

Those earnings included roughly $110,000 in salary at venture capital firm Narya Capital Management, as well as about $121,000 in royalty payments for sales of his book “Hillbilly Elegy.” Vance also made hundreds of thousands in investment income from holdings such as real estate rental fees and stock dividends.

Vance holds a host of assets, including brokerage accounts, cryptocurrency, real estate and investments in dozens of businesses.

In 2022, Vance valued his real estate holdings at between $500,000 and $1 million and declared possession of as much as $250,000 worth of bitcoin, the 2022 disclosure form said. A set of mutual and exchange-traded funds held by Vance was worth as much as $3.25 million combined, according to the disclosure form.

Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, earned more than $1,000 in salary from the Washington D.C.-based law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson in 2022, the disclosure form said.

In all, Vance and his wife boast a net worth of between $4 million and $10.4 million, excluding real estate, a Wall Street Journal analysis found.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(Bloomington, Minn.) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, has enacted economic policies in the state on key issues like job creation and taxes.

The track record, stretching back to 2018, indicates how he may approach such issues if granted the nation’s second-highest office.

His positions could also help shape perceptions of the Harris-Walz ticket on the economy, which ranks as one of the most important issues among voters.

Here’s what to know about where Walz stands on key economic issues:

Jobs

During his tenure, Walz has sought to boost employment in Minnesota.

In 2020, he enacted the $1.9 billion Local Jobs and Projects Plan, which invested in construction and renovation projects as a means of restoring employment after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Still, the state has lagged behind the nation as a whole in the number of jobs created since the outbreak of the pandemic. Total nonfarm payrolls in Minnesota have grown by just 0.5% since 2020, which lags far behind a rate of 5.8% nationwide over that period, according to a Reuters analysis of data released by the Bureau of Labor statistics.

Walz has signed into law a series of measures viewed as pro-worker. Last year, Minnesota established paid sick and medical leave, banned non-compete agreements and expanded protections for Amazon warehouse workers. In May, Minnesota enacted a measure providing a raise for Uber and Lyft drivers while averting a threat made by those companies to stop doing business in the state.

The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor organization, praised the selection of Walz as vice presidential nominee. “We know that Gov. Walz will be a strong partner in the Harris White House, fighting every day to improve the lives of workers in communities across America,” AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler said in a statement on Tuesday.

Taxes

Last year, Walz enacted tax reform legislation that included a child tax credit worth up to $1,750 for each child 17 years old and younger in households earning up to about $96,000 a year

In addition, Walz expanded tax exemptions for social security payments as well as income resulting from student loan forgiveness.

To help offset these tax cuts, Walz enacted tax increases for some wealthy individuals and corporations. The state imposed a 1% surtax on capital gains, dividends, and other investment income that exceeds $1 million in a year. He also raised taxes for corporations that bring in a portion of their revenue abroad.

Minnesota is expected to end 2025 with a $3.7 billion budget surplus, according to a projection issued in February by the Minnesota Department of Management and Budget, a state agency.

“Minnesota stands apart from the pack with a moderately progressive tax system that asks slightly more of the rich than of low- and middle-income families,” the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a non-partisan think tank, said on Tuesday.

Tax Foundation, a non-partisan advocacy group focused on tax reform, on Tuesday pointed to Walz’s record of supporting some tax increases.

“Gov. Walz’s tax policy record is notable because of how much it contrasts with broader national trends,” the organization said. “In recent years, most governors have championed tax cuts. Walz, rare among his peers, chose tax increases.”

Economic growth and inflation

In recent years, economic growth in Minnesota has trailed the rate of growth in the U.S. overall.

In 2023, inflation-adjusted gross domestic product in Minnesota grew 1.2%, less than half of the 2.5% expansion nationwide, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data showed. The previous year, Minnesota’s inflation-adjusted GDP grew nearly one percentage point slower than the rate nationwide, according to BEA data.

Inflation in a key metropolitan area of Minnesota, meanwhile, is lower than the nationwide average.

As of May, prices in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington area rose 2.6% over the previous year, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed. Consumer prices increased 3.3% nationwide over that period, BLS found.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Stock market gyrations this week came after a disappointing jobs report stoked concerns about an economic slowdown. The uncertainty drew heightened attention as the U.S. speeds toward this fall’s presidential election.

However, the economy has been gradually cooling for months, alongside falling inflation. The U.S. has repeatedly defied previous warnings of an impending recession, though economists disagree about whether current conditions pose an impending risk.

What is certain is that the economic outlook carries murky implications for the contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, experts told ABC News.

A stretch of market turmoil in August will not meaningfully impact the outcome of the election, experts said, nor would a mild economic cooldown over the coming months. However, they added, an acute bout of economic weakness would damage prospects for Harris.

“On balance, it’s a wash in terms of the economic impacts on election prospects,” Stephen Roach, senior fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School, who previously spent three decades working at Morgan Stanley. “It would take a much more severe downturn to begin to have a negative impact on the quasi-incumbency that Kamala Harris brings to the campaign.”

The recent stock market downswing was sparked by a disappointing jobs report on Friday. Employers hired 114,000 workers in July, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs. On Monday, the S&P 500 suffered its worst trading session since 2022. The index has since recovered nearly all of those losses.

The unemployment rate has increased this year from 3.7% to 4.3%, its highest level since 2021. That trend has triggered a recession indicator known as the “Sahm Rule,” which says that a rise of 0.5 percentage points in the unemployment rate within a 12-month period typically precedes a recession.

However, the labor market is still growing and the unemployment rate remains at a historically low level. Meanwhile, U.S. gross domestic product grew at a solid rate over three months ending in June, accelerating from the previous quarter and exceeding average growth in 2023.

“People aren’t micro-focused on what happens during two days in August when the election is in November,” Jon Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University who studies perceptions of the economy, told ABC News. “There’s a lot of reason to say, ‘Let’s not get worked up yet.’”

However, a potential acceleration of the economic cooldown poses a risk for Harris, according to the experts.

Over the past year, the Federal Reserve has held interest rates steady at their highest level since 2001. Those high borrowing costs have weighed on consumers and businesses, slowing price increases while cooling the job market and putting the U.S. at risk of a recession.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell last week indicated that the central bank may cut interest rates at its next meeting in September. Such a move is widely expected by investors.

A sharp rise in the unemployment rate over the coming months could imperil prospects for Harris, Francesco D’Acunto, a Georgetown University finance professor who studies how people understand economic news, told ABC News.

“It’s really important for the Democratic ticket that the labor market is resilient until at least the election,” D’Acunto said, noting that he considers an imminent recession unlikely.

Ray Fair, a professor at Yale University who oversees a model that forecasts elections based on economic conditions, told ABC News that the election outlook has remained largely unchanged since the beginning of the year.

An update of the election forecast last month, only a few days after Harris replaced President Biden on the Democratic ticket, put Harris in a virtual tie with Trump. “From an economic point of view, the election is very close,” Fair said, noting that a mild economic slowdown had favored Republicans while falling inflation had benefited Democrats.

It would take a severe economic downturn over the coming months for that outlook to change, Fair said.

On Sunday, Goldman Sachs economists raised the probability of a U.S. recession in the next year from 15% to 25%.

D’Acunto, of Georgetown University, said enough time remains for economic performance to shift the election prospects for Harris or Trump. But, he added, it is unlikely that conditions will change to the degree that would be necessary.

“Of course, it’s very hard to predict what will happen,” D’Acunto said.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — After several of its brightest stars declared support for former President Donald Trump last month, Silicon Valley has now come out in force for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Though Silicon Valley remains a stronghold of support for Democrats, the Biden’s administration’s hawkish approach to tech has alienated many in the industry, and in recent months a number of high-profile entrepreneurs and investors including Elon Musk have backed Trump. But Harris, a Bay Area native with ties to the industry, could forge a stronger relationship with the Valley and has already received pledges of support from a new group called VCs for Harris — representing hundreds of prominent venture capitalists.

Leslie Feinzaig, the venture capitalist who started VCs for Harris, said she recently wrote a pledge and bought a URL to host its site without expecting much.

Within days, billionaire entrepreneur and television personality Mark Cuban and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman joined the group.

“I basically haven’t slept since,” Feinzaig said.

Feinzaig’s efforts have resulted in more than 700 pledges of support for Harris, and could signal a friendlier relationship between the vice president and the Valley than Biden has had.

“Silicon Valley had no friends in Washington during the Biden administration,” said Georgetown Law Center professor and technology regulation expert Anupam Chander. “You have the Department of Justice, which has filed those antitrust lawsuits. You have the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative, who have been retreating from efforts to ensure free flow of data across the world.”

And, of course, Chander said, you have Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who has gained an army of fans — and detractors — for leading an ambitious effort to regulate giants such as Amazon and Meta.

The Biden administration did, however, work to pass the CHIPS Act, which allocated billions to onshore the production of semiconductors used in many electronics — an achievement celebrated by the leading tech industry advocacy group as “a major victory.”

Still, leading venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the co-founders of investment fund Andreessen Horowitz, cited concerns about Biden’s policies in a podcast episode announcing their support for Trump.

“The future of our business, the future of technology, new technology and the future of America is literally at stake,” Horowitz said.

Despite continuing frustrations with the Biden administration, according to industry insiders, Democrats appear to retain the support of most in Silicon Valley.

“Many of us are frustrated with Biden administration’s sort of anti-technology, anti-business stance,” said Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur Merci Grace.

Grace said voting against Trump would be “pretty easy” for her and most of her peers, 70 or 80 percent of whom she estimates will ultimately support Harris.

Feinzaig said some of the high-profile figures in the industry who have come out in support of Trump “weren’t speaking for the full industry.”

Still, Trump has made inroads in certain corners of Silicon Valley. In June, a fundraiser hosted by tech billionaire David Sacks in coordination with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance — a former venture capitalist with ties to another prominent conservative tech mogul, Peter Thiel — raised $12 million for the former president’s campaign.

Trump has also received endorsements from a number of prominent entrepreneurs in the cryptocurrency sector, promising in his 2024 platform to “end Democrats’ unlawful and unAmerican Crypto crackdown.” Also, he spoke at the annual Bitcoin Conference in late July.

The former president has taken a stern stance on big tech companies, calling them “too big” and “too powerful” in a July interview with Bloomberg, but saying “I don’t want to destroy them.”

Some expect Harris, meanwhile, to assuage concerns in the Valley by taking a more dovish approach than the Biden administration, though they say her policy views on tech remain an open question.

“I would expect to return to a more technocratic stance,” said Rob Merges, a law professor at U.C. Berkeley who spent several decades working in the tech industry. “A traditional Clinton, Obama — you know, friendly to the benefits of technology, reasonable in regulation, and cautious to not go too far in any one direction.”

Chander said he thinks Harris is “someone who recognizes the importance of innovation, but also worries about some of the harms that might follow.”

But, he noted, “because Harris didn’t go through a regular primary, we haven’t seen her stake out positions on some issues.”

Since Biden announced he would not seek reelection on July 21, Harris has not mentioned the tech industry in public campaign remarks and her campaign declined to comment on whether she would keep Khan at the head of the FTC (high-profile donors including Hoffman have recently urged her to do the reverse).

But the Valley needs no introduction to the vice president.

Harris dealt with the tech industry as California’s attorney general and has headed some of the Biden administration’s efforts surrounding artificial intelligence, working with top AI companies to agree on voluntary guidelines for the responsible use of generative AI. The vice president’s brother-in-law, Tony West, also serves as chief legal officer for Uber, headquartered in San Francisco. In remarks about AI in November, she said she and Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.”

Grace said she gets the sense that Harris is “a reasonable person who is very intelligent, and we can have a discussion with her.” She added that Trump “is just someone who you can’t trust.”

“It’s not worth the temporary alignment to make a little bit more money on top of the billions that you already have — to get in bed with someone who you can’t trust,” Grace said.

Feinzaig also shared her trust in Harris.

“I feel like we have a candidate that is listening,” Feinzaig said.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Stock prices worldwide seesawed dramatically this week, forcing investors to keep up with sudden turns in the market and weather fears of an economic slowdown.

The S&P 500 on Monday suffered its worst decline in a single trading day since 2022. In early trading on Tuesday, the index recovered more than half of those losses.

Japan’s main Nikkei 225 stock index on Monday dropped more than 12%, its worst trading session since 1987. On Tuesday, the index soared 10%.

Market analysts who spoke to ABC News urged investors to be patient despite pressure to either join a selloff or buy a downturn. The market typically experiences temporary periods of decline, they added, noting the strong performance for stocks this year prior to the recent losses.

Broad losses may offer investors an opportunity to buy low on a high-quality stock that they’d been eyeing anyway, some analysts said, but they advised seeking out stocks viewed as long-term investments.

“I wouldn’t be panicking in this environment,” Ed Yardeni, the president of market advisory firm Yardeni Research and former chief investment strategist at Deutsche Bank’s U.S. equities division, told ABC News. “It could be a roller-coaster ride.”

Recession fears and the unwinding of a ‘carry trade’ in Japan

The stock market downswing was set off by a disappointing jobs report on Friday. Employers hired 114,000 workers in July, falling well short of economist expectations of 185,000 jobs. The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3%, the highest level since October 2021.

The lackluster jobs data fueled concern about a potential recession and calls for an interest rate cut.

The heightened worry about an economic cooldown coincided with interest rate hikes imposed by Japan’s central bank. Those rising rates prompted an unwinding of a so-called “carry trade” in which investors borrowed Japanese yen at low interest rates and used it to purchase assets, including U.S. stocks.

When Japan hiked rates, investors sold off some of those assets and sent stock prices falling.

“There are a lot of things that have happened here in the past three business days. There are a lot of headlines flying around,” Bret Kenwell, an investing analyst at eToro, told ABC News. “It’s important for investors to remember the long-term trends in the market. They should have a lot of caution.”

Between 1980 and 2023, the S&P 500 posted a positive return over the calendar year 82% of the time, Wells Fargo Investment Institute told clients in a note on Tuesday. The market experienced a drop-off of at least 10% in nearly half of those years, Wells Fargo said, adding, “The data shows that a market downturn does not necessarily mean markets will perform poorly for the year.”

Market analysts advised caution as investors weigh opportunities to take advantage of the volatility. Still, they added, some traders may find a chance to obtain stocks that were previously too expensive.

Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at investment firm Wedbush, said the tumult roiling markets offers investors an entryway into major tech stocks at discounted prices.

“​​It’s a white-knuckle moment that we view more as an opportunity to own big tech and the AI revolution, which is not going away,” Ives told ABC News.

Nvidia, a chipmaker that had helped catapult market gains so far this year, dropped as much as 14% on Monday before recovering some of those losses. The stock climbed nearly 5% in early trading on Tuesday.

Shares of Apple fell as much as 10% on Monday, in part because Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett sold half of his holdings in the company. Apple recovered some of those losses by the close of markets but inched downward in early trading on Tuesday.

“Any global jitters and fears of market turmoil are going to be an overhang for tech stocks,” Ives said. “We stay calm and focused on the tech winners.”

Kenwell said investors should calmly evaluate their asset allocation, risk tolerance and long-term goals.

“When volatility is spiking and markets are selling off, it’s really easy to open your portfolio and panic,” Kenwell said.

“Follow your long-term plan,” he added. “That’s why it’s there.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.