Three years ago, JPMorgan Chase became the first bank with a branch in all 48 contiguous states. Now, the firm is expanding, with the aim of reaching more Americans in smaller cities and towns. 

JPMorgan recently announced a new goal within its multibillion-dollar branch expansion plan that ensures coverage is within an “accessible drive time” for half the population in the lower 48 states. That requires new locations in areas that are less densely populated — a focus for Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon as he embarks on his 14th annual bus tour Monday. 

Dimon’s first stop is in Iowa, where the bank plans to open 25 more branches by 2030. 

“From promoting community development to helping small businesses and teaching financial management skills and tools, we strive to extend the full force of the firm to all of the communities we serve,” Dimon said in a statement. 

He will also travel to Minnesota, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas this week. Across those six states, the bank has plans to open more than 125 new branches, according to Jennifer Roberts, CEO of Chase Consumer Banking. 

“We’re still at very low single-digit branch share, and we know that in order for us to really optimize our investment in these communities, we need to be at a higher branch share,” Roberts said in an interview with CNBC. Roberts is traveling alongside Dimon across the Midwest for the bus tour.

Roberts said the goal is to reach “optimal branch share,” which in some newer markets amounts to “more than double” current levels.

At the bank’s investor day in May, Roberts said that the firm was targeting 15% deposit share and that extending the reach of bank branches is a key part of that strategy. She said 80 of the firm’s 220 basis points of deposit-share gain between 2019 and 2023 were from branches less than a decade old. In other words, almost 40% of those deposit share gains can be linked to investments in new physical branches. 

In expanding its brick-and-mortar footprint, JPMorgan is bucking the broader banking industry trend of shuttering branches. Higher-for-longer interest rates have created industrywide headwinds due to funding costs, and banks have opted to reduce their branch footprint to offset some of the macro pressures. 

In the first quarter, the U.S. banking industry recorded 229 net branch closings, compared with just 59 in the previous quarter, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. Wells Fargo and Bank of America closed the highest net number of branches, while JPMorgan was the most active net opener. 

According to FDIC research collated by KBW, growth in bank branches peaked right before the financial crisis, in 2007. KBW said this was due, in part, to banks assessing their own efficiencies and shuttering underperforming locations, as well as technological advances that allowed for online banking and remote deposit capture. This secular reckoning was exacerbated during the pandemic, when banks reported little change to operating capacity even when physical branches were closed temporarily, the report said. 

But JPMorgan, the nation’s largest lender, raked in a record $50 billion in profit in 2023 — the most ever for a U.S. bank. As a result, the firm is in a unique position to spend on brick-and-mortar, while others are opting to be more prudent. 

When it comes to prioritizing locations for new branches, Roberts said it’s a “balance of art and science.” She said the bank looks at factors such as population growth, the number of small businesses in the community, whether there is a new corporate headquarters, a new suburb being built, or new roadways.

And even in smaller cities, foot traffic is a critical ingredient. 

“I always joke and say, if there’s a Chick-fil-A there, we want to be there, too,” Roberts said. “Because Chick-fil-A’s, no matter where they go, are always successful and busy.” 

Throughout modern history, parents have only had one real option when it comes to disposable diapers: plastic.

The single-use products are typically made with fossil fuels like petroleum and can take hundreds of years to break down, making them the third-largest consumer item in U.S. landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Plus, they’re not as breathable as other materials, which could make incidents like diaper rashes more common. 

Still, plastic diapers from mega brands like Procter & Gamble-owned Pampers and Kimberly-Clark-owned Huggies continue to dominate the market. Amrita Saigal, founder and CEO of Kudos, is looking to change that. 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, mechanical engineer and “Shark Tank” alum developed a sustainable diaper that uses some plastic, but is 100% lined with cotton and incorporates other degradable materials like sugarcane and trees, she tells CNBC. 

Later this month, it’ll be the first diaper of its kind to land in retail stores when it launches in approximately 375 Target locations nationwide. 

″I am so excited to partner with Target to make history as the first 100% cotton-lined disposable diaper to hit retail shelves,” Saigal said in an interview with CNBC. “It’s just a really big deal for us, especially because Target does not carry many brands.”

In the three years since its launch, Kudos has raised more than $6 million in funding. It closed a $3 million round last month with investments from Precursor Ventures, Xfund and Oversubscribed Ventures. 

In the last 12 months, it’s sold more than 20 million diapers and grown sales by more than 100%.

Saigal says she’s long been fascinated by consumer packaged goods and has spent her career figuring out ways to redesign everyday products, like sanitary pads and diapers, in her bid to disrupt an industry long dominated by corporate superpowers.

Her goal? Reduce the globe’s reliance on fossil fuels by building out new supply chains and developing sustainable products that are just as effective — if not better — than competitors. 

“I’m not launching a product that is not at par or better than Pampers,” said Saigal. 

“Are there eco-friendly alternatives? Yes, but they don’t perform and when it comes to a diaper, we cannot have something that doesn’t perform. You have one blowout, one leak, your parents are already sleep-deprived. They need things that work. They’re not willing to compromise performance for eco-friendly.” 

After three years of research and development, Saigal developed a diaper that can absorb far more fluid than competitors like Pampers Pure Protection, Huggies Special Delivery and Honest diapers, according to independent testing conducted by Diaper Testing International. 

Pampers didn’t return a request for comment. In a statement, an Honest spokesperson said: “We conduct a wide variety of tests to ensure our products meet our rigorous safety and performance standards. Our philosophy on diaper performance is that in-use testing, which also evaluates comfort, fit and leak protection, is the most accurate indicator of how effective a diaper is at keeping baby comfortable and dry.”

A spokesperson for Kimberly-Clark, which owns Huggies, told CNBC it could not comment because it had not seen the study conducted by Diaper Testing International.

Saigal also developed a proprietary “DoubleDry” technology that brings two layers to the diaper instead of one, which allows it to wick away moisture. 

“If you were just to take out the plastic and replace it with cotton, your diaper would fail miserably, because what would happen is your baby would pee and all the urine would just pool, and then your baby’s butt would be wet,” said Saigal. “How do you quickly wick away that urine and poop and then pull it through the layers of the diaper and then evenly disperse it so your baby’s bottom feels dry. So that’s really what our innovation is.” 

Kudos is far smaller than its mightier competitors, but Saigal said its size has made the business uniquely positioned to build out new cotton supply chains and help suppliers grow alongside the company.

“For a company like P&G to do this, you’re talking … hundreds of millions of dollars in order to reconfigure their equipment to be able to do it … it’s really hard with their existing supply chains to be able to allow natural materials to actually work in their current process,” said Saigal, who worked for P&G as a design and manufacturing engineer after graduating from MIT.

Even sourcing natural materials for use instead of plastics would be challenging for larger companies because of their scale, Saigal said. Suppliers like cotton farmers tend to have buyers and partners locked in before they grow the requested materials, and since there isn’t yet mass demand for cotton from diaper makers, those supply chains don’t really exist yet at scale, she said.

As more and more smaller brands work with natural material suppliers to develop new supply chains, Saigal hopes that big brands will adopt natural materials over plastic more widely, which could reduce the price of those materials and in turn, make plastics more expensive. 

“When do you really get mass adoption of natural materials? The reality is, when natural materials become cheaper than plastic,” she said. 

Kudos faces a daunting landscape of scale.

Buzzy brands that start out by selling directly to consumers and then make their way into retail can face difficulties because of the high cost of inventory and onerous payment terms that come with it. 

Hello Bello, a hypoallergenic, sustainable diaper brand founded by celebrity couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard, filed for bankruptcy in October as it struggled to develop its supply chain after it began selling in retailers like Walmart. 

Over the last few years, a number of other consumer product companies and direct-to-consumer brands have faced similar fates after coming up in a funding environment that prioritized growth over profitability.

“In the heyday of DTC, it was like, ‘Don’t worry about the unit economics now, right?’ Like, just top-line growth, top-line growth, top-line growth, and then once you’re at $100 million, $200 million in revenue, then let’s figure out how to make this profitable,” said Saigal, who founded her company in 2021 and secured funding from “Shark Tank” host Mark Cuban and guest Shark Gwyneth Paltrow in 2023. 

“I don’t think that model works anymore,” she continued. “It’s like grow slower, but have the unit economics work from day one. I think the brands that are going to be successful now have to have a very, very tight lock on their numbers and their unit economics from the beginning.” 

In the year ahead, Saigal’s No. 1 priority for her business is to reach profitability and to get there, she’s keeping her team lean and being strategic with the capital she’s using to pay for inventory ahead of her launch into Target. She’s also had to toe a fine line when it comes to pricing. Her products are more expensive to make than her competitors’, but if the price is too high, she risks alienating potential buyers. 

Currently, parents can buy Kudos for between 41 cents and 70 cents per diaper, depending on the size. That compares with a box of Pampers Pure Protection, which runs between 34 cents and 75 cents per diaper, according to a listing on Target.com. 

“We are a little bit more expensive just because our raw materials are more expensive, but I’ve tried to keep it as minimal as possible,” said Saigal. “I care so much about being premium, but accessible. That is like exactly what I want to do, so that we are accessible to as many people, and cleaner materials are not out of reach.”

Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank,” which features Mark Cuban as a panelist.

DETROIT — Tadge Juechter’s first “taste” of Corvette working at General Motors was to research whether there were enough Americans who could afford a new high-performance model of the famed sports car, known as the ZR1, back in 1985.

Nearly 40 years later, not only are there enough people to afford such a vehicle, but GM’s new 2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 stands as something of a coup de grace for Juechter, who retired Wednesday after roughly 47 years with the Detroit automaker.

The so-called “godfather” of the modern Corvette retired roughly a week after helping to introduce the new 2025 Corvette ZR1 — the most powerful and fastest version of the car ever produced.

“One thing all the great Corvettes of recent years and decades have had in common is you. Your knowledge, your skills, your hard work, your passion,” GM President Mark Reuss told Juechter when revealing the vehicle. “Thank you for making Corvette the glorious American sports car it remains. Thank you for making our company better.”

Reuss announced last month that all 2025 Corvettes and beyond will feature a silhouette profile of Juechter’s head etched in window locations and the front tunnel reinforcement panel beneath every Corvette 

CNBC interviewed Juechter, 67, ahead of his retirement, touching on his career as well as the business of Corvette, including plans for an all-electric version and the potential of spinning off the brand and for an SUV.

GM has said an all-electric Corvette is coming, but it hasn’t given a time frame. Last year, the automaker introduced a hybrid version of the car called the E-Ray.

Juechter wasn’t inclined to disclose any details of an upcoming Corvette EV, but he believes the E-Ray proves GM can successfully electrify Corvette.

“Electrification can be a wonderful contributor to cars. I embrace efficiency. … We’re passionate about efficiency in everything that we do,” he said. “Efficiency makes a good sports car, too. So, I think electrification is just another technology, and we have to figure out how to play that technology in a way that resonates with our customers.

“E-Ray is the first step. We think long term, you know, decades long term. Yes, General Motors committed to 100% electrification, and it’s our job as engineers to figure out what’s the way to get there. We’re businesspeople, too. We have to bring our customers with us.”

Juechter said there’s been some “natural push back” to electrified Corvettes from the sports car’s fan base.

“We’re hoping maybe the E-Ray warms them to maybe this electrification thing’s not so bad,” he said.

Wall Street analysts have said GM could better leverage the Corvette brand by expanding models and, to an extent, sales. In late 2019, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said a Corvette sub-brand could be worth between $7 billion and $12 billion.

That has raised questions around whether Corvette would be better spun off from parent GM.

But Juechter doesn’t necessarily believe that’s the way to go.

“I don’t know if we need to spin off. I mean, Corvette’s at the heart of Chevrolet. It’s a pure business play. If you’ve got this brand equity, you can just keep it at home or you can choose to try to monetize it and put it outside.

“General Motors historically hasn’t done that. We embrace our important franchises, and this is a really important franchise,” he said.

Regarding leveraging the brand for future products such as an SUV, which has been under consideration for several years, that’s a little different, Juechter said, declining to confirm that any such plans or considerations exist.

“How you leverage it. That’s a question for the future. You see the models we’re rolling out. We’re making the maximum of this mid-engine architecture. And, you know, I’ve made no secret I work on EVs, too, and trying to bring some of the performance spirit into the EV space. How that gets applied in the future and how it gets branded, that’s a story for another day,” he said.

The concept of a performance car brand producing a SUV or crossover would have been blasphemous years ago, but several brands such as Porsche, Lamborghini and even Ferrari have done so as consumer preference has moved away from the traditional car model.

Juechter has been a part of four separate generations of Corvette — from the fourth-generation ZR1 to the new mid-engine, eighth-generation of the sports car.

The first Corvette he purchased for himself was the sixth-generation 2006 Corvette Z06.

“It’s hard to pick a favorite. It’s like what’s your favorite child. Actually, it’s harder than who’s your favorite child. Anyway, I won’t get into parenting, but every one of these cars we pour our heart and soul into and they all have their specialness about them.

“I don’t know. I can’t pick one. If I’m forced to pick one, I say money talks. I bought that Z06. I put my own money down on that car. … That car was very special to me,” Juechter said.

Juechter said he wasn’t planning on purchasing the Corvette, but he saw a “fully decked out one” coming off the line at the Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and said that he had to have it.

He has since sold that car and last year purchased an eighth-generation Corvette Stingray convertible as a “retirement car,” given he won’t be getting any free Corvettes for testing.

“I’ve never been a convertible guy, but it’s my wife and my touring car — like cross-country touring car. I’m not going to track it. It’s going to be my daily driver,” he said. “If you just have a daily driver, a cruiser, a Stingray is pretty sweet.”

Stocks saw a dramatic pullback — their third in as many trading days — as a confluence of factors including ongoing fears of an economic slowdown and repositioning on Wall Street sent shares tumbling.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,034 points, or 2.6%. The Nasdaq Composite lost 3.4%, and the S&P 500 slid 3%. The blue-chip Dow and S&P 500 were on track for their biggest daily losses since September 2022.

The rout on Monday was sparked by a massive sell-off in Japanese stocks. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 12.4%, its worst day since the 1987 ‘Black Monday’ crash rattled investors around the world.

Japan and other Asia-Pacific markets appeared to recover on Tuesday, however, with the Nikkei rebounding as much as 10%.

The Japanese drawdown on Monday was partly in response to the worse-than-expected jobs report published Friday that showed U.S. unemployment rising to 4.3% and just 114,000 jobs added in July.

Yet, while the jobs report caused some market commentators to argue that the Federal Reserve should have cut rates sooner — it held them steady again at 5.5% last week as it sought to further dampen inflation — other analysts pushed back on that idea. That latter group gained support when the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) published data later Monday showing services businesses were still seeing healthy demand.

As soon as that report was published, stocks started erasing some of their earlier losses, while bond purchases, which had surged as investors sought safe-haven assets, faded.

Instead, some observers placed some of the blame for the global stock sell-off on the winding down of the so-called ‘carry trade,’ which had seen investors borrow money at lower interest rates denominated in Japan’s yen currency in order to buy higher-yielding assets elsewhere.

The profitability of that trade rapidly drew to a close in recent days, however, after the Bank of Japan signaled its intention to raise interest rates, while the U.S. Federal Reserve said it would soon likely lower them.

As a result, the value of the yen soared against the dollar, erasing all the gains the greenback had made this entire year.

There were other reasons for the stock retreat. It was led by tech shares, and especially ones concentrated in the bet on artificial intelligence. Nvidia, the leader of the group thanks to its specialized GPU computer chips, and rival Intel both closed down 7%. Microsoft, which has also been at the forefront of large language model (LLM) investments, fell more than 3%. And Google’s parent, Alphabet, another firm seeking to pivot to AI, declined almost 5%.

Only a month ago, shares in those companies had led much of this year’s rally, and the Nasdaq had hit an all-time high. But those were the first to see investors hit the proverbial exits Monday as traders increasingly believe the gains from AI bets will not materialize in the short term.

Apple also tanked 5% on the day. Over the weekend, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed it had sold almost half its Apple holdings.

But analysts say that decision was likely less a vote of no-confidence in the iPhone maker than simply Berkshire and Buffett raising cash in what observers have concluded was an increasingly overbought market.

And therein is perhaps the upshot of the sell-off: It was simply time to take profits from a market that had been on a tear all year.

“This is the confluence of a very high market that has been soaring and riding on a lot of sentiment and emotion. For several months now, the momentum trade has been the successful trade,” said Michael Farr, CEO of Farr, Miller & Washington, a wealth and investment management firm.

“While folks make fundamental arguments that give them comfort, everybody in the back of their minds knows stuff doesn’t go up 30% in six months,” he added. “So, when you’re in a period of huge profits, it’s very easy to take profits. It’s a much easier decision to say I want to take my chips and go home here.”

WICHITA FALLS, Tex. — Elon Musk’s social media platform X has sued a group of advertisers, alleging that a “massive advertiser boycott” deprived the company of billions of dollars in revenue and violated antitrust laws.

The company formerly known as Twitter filed the lawsuit Tuesday in a federal court in Texas against the World Federation of Advertisers and member companies Unilever, Mars, CVS Health and Orsted.

It accused the advertising group’s initiative, called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, of helping to coordinate a pause in advertising after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and overhauled its staff and policies.

Musk posted about the lawsuit on X on Tuesday, saying “now it is war” after two years of being nice and “getting nothing but empty words.”

X CEO Linda Yaccarino said in a video announcement that the lawsuit stemmed in part from evidence uncovered by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee which she said showed a “group of companies organized a systematic illegal boycott” against X.

The Republican-led committee had a hearing last month looking at whether current laws are “sufficient to deter anticompetitive collusion in online advertising.”

The lawsuit’s allegations center on the early days of Musk’s Twitter takeover and not a more recent dispute with advertisers that came a year later.

In November 2023, about a year after Musk bought the company, a number of advertisers began fleeing X over concerns about their ads showing up next to pro-Nazi content and hate speech on the site in general, with Musk inflaming tensions with his own posts endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Musk later said those fleeing advertisers were engaging in “blackmail” and, using a profanity, essentially told them to go away.

A federal U.S. judge ruled Monday that Google has illegally held a monopoly in two market areas: search and text advertising.

The landmark case from the government, filed in 2020, alleged that Google has kept its share of the general search market by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance. The court found that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which outlaws monopolies.

The ruling marks the first anti-monopoly decision against a tech company in decades.

“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in the decision.

The Department of Justice and a bipartisan group of attorneys general from 38 states and territories, led by Colorado and Nebraska, filed similar but separate antitrust suits against Google in 2020. The suits were combined for pretrial purposes, such as discovery of evidence.

Attorney General Merrick Garland called the decision a “historic win for the American people.”

“No company — no matter how large or influential — is above the law,” Garland wrote in a statement. “The Justice Department will continue to vigorously enforce our antitrust laws.”

In its ruling, the court homed in on Google’s exclusive search arrangements on Android and Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices, saying that they helped to cement Google’s anticompetitive behavior and dominance over the search markets.

General search services, according to the court, applies to Google’s core search engine, where it traditionally competed with Yahoo. General search text advertising refers to the text ads that run alongside search results. The court ruled that in both of those areas, Google has operated as a monopoly. However, the ruling found that general search advertising is not a market so there can be no monopoly control.

Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said in a statement that the company plans to appeal the ruling. He highlighted the court’s emphasis on the quality of Google’s products.

“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Walker wrote. “As this process continues, we will remain focused on making products that people find helpful and easy to use.”

Alphabet shares fell more than 4% on Monday, dragged down by a broad decline in stocks worldwide.