CNBC News

Although investing is one of the smartest ways to grow your wealth, it’s not the only way. A lucky few become instant multimillionaires thanks to the lottery. If you want to take a chance on joining them, Tueday’s Mega Millions jackpot is now $1.6 billion, the highest jackpot ever. Lottery winners can choose to receive the money in either an annuity — annual allotments over 30 years — or to get it all at once…

Netflix released the third season of “Daredevil” on Friday, which stars Charlie Cox as the title character and perhaps the most popular “Defender” in an era of Marvel crossover television shows. “Daredevil” is the latest big original launch from Netflix, which is spending billions this year on original productions. But last week the streaming video company started spending in a new way that further reflects its ambitions to match Hollywood studio-level production. Netflix announced the…

After no one hit all winning numbers in Friday night’s Mega Millions drawing, the jackpot has surged to a staggering $1.6 billion — the largest prize in U.S. lottery history. And at some point, someone will get really lucky. As in really, really lucky. Your chance of winning the Mega Millions jackpot is pretty dismal: 1 in 302.6 million. Prior to last October, when changes were made to the game, it was 1 in 258.9…

Swiss bank UBS Group AG has asked its China wealth management staff to reconsider their travel plans to the country after authorities there asked one of its bankers to delay her departure from Beijing to meet with local officials, a person familiar with the matter said. The banker, who is based in Singapore and works in the relationship management team in UBS’s wealth management unit, still has her passport, but was asked to remain in…

The United States is considering a new operation to send warships through the Taiwan Strait, U.S. officials tell Reuters, a mission aimed at ensuring free passage through the strategic waterway but which risks heightening tensions with China. The U.S. Navy conducted a similar mission in the strait’s international waters in July and any repeat would be seen in self-ruled Taiwan as a fresh expression of support by President Donald Trump’s government. The U.S. military declined…

ISTANBUL – When Turkish investigators entered the alleged murder scene inside the Saudi consulate, they were met by the tell-tale aroma of industrial-strength cleanser and fresh paint. However, they were not surprised, having been alerted by Turkish security services that the Saudis had sent an expert team inside to conceal as best as possible their likely crime of two weeks earlier. The notion that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi had himself relayed to the world via…

President Donald Trump called Saudi Arabia’s announcement of arrests in the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi a “good first step.” Yet, he added that considers what happened to the writer to be “unacceptable.” The president also said he would work with Congress on the matter, but that he would prefer not to hurt U.S. companies and jobs by cutting billions of dollars in arms sales to the kingdom. Trump has boasted of $110…

The Federal Reserve isn’t paying enough attention to the jobs being wiped out by technological innovation, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Friday. “Right at the moment when Silicon Valley is laying waste to white-collar jobs and many factory positions — that’s why companies love the cloud, it lets them fire people — the Fed is obsessed with the disaster that is full employment,” the “Mad Money” host said. “Never mind that we’re not at full employment,”…

A quarter of Venmo users are currently using PayPal’s millennial-friendly payments app in a way that the financial technology company can monetize, PayPal Chief Financial Officer John Rainey told CNBC on Friday. “If we look at the most recent quarter, roughly one in four Venmo customers are using Venmo in a way today that we’re able to monetize,” Rainey said in an exclusive interview with “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer. “That could be with using…

The upcoming week of earnings reports may be the “toughest of all,” CNBC’s Jim Cramer warned after Friday’s trading produced “the most treacherous up day” he’d seen in years. “We have more blowups in high-growth stocks, more disappointment in tech, more sadness in health care, and they’re offset by just a fantastic pair of rallies in Procter & Gamble and PayPal,” the “Mad Money” host said. And strong earnings reports aren’t the only things working…