In an interview with CNBC's David Faber, Bezos argued that AI-driven productivity gains will not produce mass unemployment.

Instead, he says, they will produce the opposite problem: a shortage of workers, because demand for human labor will outpace the available supply. He calls it "labor scarcity."

What AI-fueled "labor scarcity" actually means

The mainstream AI jobs debate tends to frame the question as a count. How many jobs will AI eliminate, and how many new ones will it create to offset that loss? Bezos's framing skips the count entirely. His argument is that productivity gains expand the size of the economy itself, generating more total work to be done, not less.

That argument is not new in economic theory. Mechanization transformed agriculture without leaving most of the workforce unemployed, because the productivity gains lowered costs, increased output, and created entirely new categories of work elsewhere in the economy.

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The personal computer and the internet followed similar patterns, eliminating specific job categories while generating far more employment in industries that did not previously exist. Bezos told CNBC he is betting AI follows the same arc, only faster and at greater scale.

What makes his framing notable is the specific adjustment mechanism he describes. Rather than predicting mass layoffs, Bezos has suggested the labor market could adjust at the margins, through more single-income households or reduced overtime, as the same economic output requires fewer total work hours.

That is a meaningfully different picture from either the doomsday automation narrative or the standard "AI creates as many jobs as it destroys" reassurance.

Bezos is not just making the AI-jobs argument; he is funding it

What separates Bezos's comments from similar statements made by other technology executives is that he is one of the few putting personal capital directly behind the bet.

On the same day as the CNBC interview, Bezos and Vik Bajaj, a Stanford professor and former co-founder of Google's life sciences unit Verily, revealed new details about Prometheus, the AI startup they co-lead.

Prometheus, which launched in November 2025 with $6.2 billion in funding, has just raised an additional $12 billion at a $41 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch. The new round was backed by Bezos himself alongside JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, DST Global, and Arch Venture Partners, bringing the company's total funding past $18 billion.

Prometheus describes its mission as building an "artificial general engineer," AI tools designed to compress the time between an engineer's idea and a finished physical product, spanning jet engines, industrial machinery, and drug compounds, according to The Next Web.

Bajaj, in a separate interview with Axios, framed the goal in terms of speed rather than substitution.

"The pace of our physical creation right now is nowhere near the pace of human imagination," Bajaj said.

The Amazon contradiction critics will raise

Bezos's framing on AI and jobs arrives alongside a fact his critics are unlikely to let pass quietly. Amazon, where Bezos remains executive chairman and the largest individual shareholder, employs more than 1.5 million people worldwide and has cut tens of thousands of roles over the past year under chief executive Andy Jassy as the company accelerates automation.

That contrast does not necessarily undermine Bezos' argument. A company-level headcount reduction driven by automation is consistent with an economy-level labor shortage if the workers freed up by automation move into new roles created by the same productivity gains.

But it does mean Bezos is making an argument about the economy as a whole while his own company is currently a visible example of the job losses that argument says will be temporary or relocated rather than permanent.

Why the employment debate matters for how AI gets valued

The stakes in this argument extend well beyond one CEO's opinion. If the dominant narrative around AI shifts from "this technology will eliminate jobs" to "this technology will create a labor shortage," it changes how investors think about which sectors benefit from AI adoption, how policymakers approach retraining and labor market regulation, and how the public perceives the technology's net effect on their own livelihoods.

Prometheus is one data point in that larger argument, not the argument itself. A $41 billion valuation backed by some of the largest banks on Wall Street signals that institutional capital is willing to bet on AI tools that compress engineering and manufacturing timelines.

Whether that compression produces Bezos's labor scarcity or the job displacement his critics warn about is a question that will not be settled by a single funding round or a single interview.

It is, however, a question that more of the AI industry's most influential figures are now being asked to answer directly, and Bezos has given his answer in unusually specific terms.

Related: Jeff Bezos sends stunning message to American workers

The stock remains well below its 52-week high of $97.38, and Morgan Stanley just gave investors a catchy number that measures nicely against current price levels.

In a research note dated June 10, the firm kept its Overweight rating and set a price target of $102, implying about 50% upside from current levels.

That figure looks low next to the $500-plus stock price that hit headlines in April, but it isn’t.

Carvana completed a 5-for-1 stock split on May 7, so $102 today carries the same weight $510 did before the split.

Why Morgan Stanley calls Carvana a “generational compounder”

Morgan Stanley’s $102 figure is the split-adjusted version of the $510 target it set on April 30, after Carvana’s first-quarter results, Investing.com reported.

At least seven major firms raised their Carvana targets that week, according to 24/7 Wall St.

The note calls Carvana a “generational compounder,” tied to one specific number: capital spending below 1% of sales even with revenue growing at roughly 40% a year.

Most auto retailers spend several times that share of sales just to keep up with growth.

Carvana’s ADESA network keeps expansion costs unusually low

That low spending traces back to 2021, when Carvana paid $2.2 billion for ADESA’s U.S. auction business, an SEC filing shows.

The deal handed Carvana dozens of existing properties instead of empty lots.

Morgan Stanley’s breakdown shows why that matters:

Converting an existing ADESA site into a working inspection and reconditioning center costs roughly $2 million to $3 million. A brand-new site costs $30 million to $35 million.

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Blended across the whole expansion, Morgan Stanley estimates Carvana spends roughly $1,450 to add room for one more car a year. Spend $1.45 million, and Carvana can process about 1,000 more cars annually.

As of the first quarter, Carvana had 18 inspection centers and 16 integrated ADESA sites, giving it room for about 1.5 million vehicles a year, with real estate in place to eventually reach 3 million, according to its first-quarter shareholder letter filed with the SEC.

Why Carvana’s inspection centers are the biggest prize

Inspection and Reconditioning Centers, or IRCs, cost more upfront: $45 million to $80 million each, according to Morgan Stanley.

The payoff is what makes them stand out.

Morgan Stanley estimates a mature IRC can generate roughly $228 million in annual operating profit once it reaches full volume.

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Carvana has been adding these conversions steadily.

Its Chicago-area ADESA site recently gained IRC capabilities, a pattern Morgan Stanley expects to repeat through 2026.

That math explains why Wall Street keeps raising targets even after Carvana’s enormous run.

Each new IRC adds a chunk of profit without Carvana needing to win an entirely new set of customers.

What Carvana’s cash flow forecast means for shareholders

Morgan Stanley expects Carvana to convert 65% to 85% of earnings into free cash flow, adding up to roughly $15 billion between fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2030.

The firm says debt reduction comes first for that cash, a legacy of Carvana’s near-bankruptcy in 2022. Growth investment is next in line.

Only when debt comes down meaningfully does Morgan Stanley see room for buybacks or other shareholder payouts, and it frames that as a multi-year process, not a near-term expectation.

For anyone holding CVNA shares, the takeaway is patience. The company's cash flow backs up the valuation, but direct payouts beyond share price gains remain further out.

The risks that could keep Carvana stock below $102

Morgan Stanley’s downside list centers on the auto and auto-credit cycle. A weaker job market or tighter lending could slow used-car sales and pressure Carvana’s loan portfolio.

Competition is also a factor.

CarMax has rattled the used-car market before, and margin sustainability stays on Morgan Stanley’s watch list alongside the chance that Carvana needs more capital before hitting its cash flow targets.

What needs to go right for the bull case:

• Retail unit sales keep beating expectations, not just matching them
• Carvana keeps taking market share from traditional dealers
• Cost cuts continue even as new capacity comes online
• Newer ventures, including any move into autonomous driving, start adding to the numbers

If most of that plays out, $102 starts to look conservative. If even one or two pieces slip, the stock could spend a long time below it.

Related: J.P. Morgan names stock sectors primed for serious growth

For most corporations, the answer has been some version of plugging budget holes or offsetting rising fuel costs. Walmart is choosing a different path, and if customers shop there, they could feel the difference before the year is over.

The nation's largest retailer used its first-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings call on May 21 to reveal it plans to invest recovered tariff payments directly into lower prices for customers.

Walmart says up to $2.4 billion in potential tariff refunds will go to lower prices

Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told analysts that the maximum tariff refund Walmart could receive as the importer of record represents less than half of 1% of its annual United States sales, according to the company's fiscal Q1 2027 earnings transcript. 

With fiscal year 2026 U.S. net sales of roughly $483 billion, the cap amounts to approximately $2.4 billion.

"We think the single best return that we can have on a dollar of capital right now is to invest in the customer and invest in price," Rainey told analysts during the question-and-answer session, Retail Dive reported.

That language frames the tariff refund not as found money to distribute or absorb, but as fuel for a pricing strategy the company has been building since the second half of last year. 

Walmart’s full-year guidance does not factor in any benefit from tariff recoveries, so any refunds it collects would add to existing projections.

Chief Executive Officer John Furner told analysts the company has about 7,200 rollbacks in place, while Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said that figure represents an increase of more than 20% from the prior year.

Those price reductions helped drive the strongest transaction growth Walmart United States had seen in six quarters, with first quarter comparable sales excluding fuel rising 4.1%.

Walmart sees clear signs of consumer stress driving the pricing push

The decision to funnel refund money into pricing did not happen in a vacuum. Walmart is reading real-time signals from its customer base, and those signals suggest lower-income shoppers are under significant financial pressure.

Rainey revealed that customers at Walmart's gas stations have recently begun filling their tanks with fewer than 10 gallons per visit for the first time since 2022, calling it a direct "indication of stress" on household budgets.

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"We see with our customers that the high-income customer is spending with confidence, while the lower-income consumer is more budget-conscious and perhaps navigating financial distress," Rainey said on the earnings call.

The pressure is coming largely from elevated energy costs tied to disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz following the United States and Israel's military conflict with Iran. 

Those increases rippled through Walmart's supply chain, resulting in approximately $175 million in higher-than-planned fuel costs in global distribution and fulfillment operations during the first quarter, according to the earnings call transcript.

How Walmart's tariff refund plan compares to Home Depot, Costco, Apple

The contrast between Walmart's approach and the strategies of other large companies highlights how differently corporate America is treating the windfall. 

Tariff rebates will increase the U.S. fiscal deficit and act as a fiscal stimulus.... With new tariffs coming in, it seems unlikely anyone will rush to lower prices to their customers.

Home Depot's Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail told investors on May 19 that the company expected refunds to provide a "significant offset" to increased fuel, transportation costs, and input costs, Digital Commerce 360 reported.

How major companies plan to spend tariff refund dollars

• Walmart: Plans to prioritize customer-facing price investments and expand its 7,200 active rollbacks, according to the earnings transcript.
• Home Depot: Expects tariff refunds to provide a "significant offset" to rising fuel and commodity input costs, Digital Commerce 360 reported.
• Costco: CEO Ron Vachris confirmed the company plans to return tariff refunds to members "in some form."
• Apple: CEO Tim Cook stated the company would reinvest recovered tariff payments into "U.S. innovation and advanced manufacturing," according to Apple’s earnings call transcript.

Class action pressure and the unresolved question of who deserves tariff refunds

Walmart's pricing commitment arrives alongside legal pressure from shoppers who argue the retailer should not keep tariff refunds at all. 

On April 27, Ohio consumers filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Walmart raised prices by 20% to 30% or more across electronics, food, household items, small appliances, apparel, and health and hygiene products during the tariff period.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York researchers found that roughly 90% of the economic burden from the 2025 tariffs fell on United States businesses and consumers combined, with foreign exporters absorbing only about 10%.

Under existing Customs and Border Protection regulations, refunds go to the importer of record, not the end consumer, and there is no federal mechanism to send rebate checks directly to households.

Walmart's stated intention to channel refund money into lower prices could reduce some legal and reputational risk, though it does not directly address the class-action claims. 

Related: Costco and UPS issue bold message on tariff refunds

The S&P 500 has rallied 8% year to date, after delivering double-digit gains in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

Investors have recently watched Micron reach a $1 trillion valuation, shares of SanDisk and Intel soar, and demand for a potential SpaceXIPO reach a fever pitch. At the same time, the market suffered a sharp pullback on June 5 as investors questioned whether the AI trade had gone too far.

Goldman Sachs believes the recent volatility has not changed the bigger picture.

"The path will remain bumpy, but earnings growth should continue to lift US equities," Goldman analysts wrote in a recent note sent to TheStreet.

The firm expects the S&P 500 index to rise another 8% by year-end, reaching 8,000.

Earnings growth is the fundamental bull engine

While investors debate valuations and AI spending, Goldman says that corporate earnings remain the most important factor.

"Earnings growth should continue to lift US equities," the firm wrote.

Goldman expects S&P 500 earnings per share to grow 24% in 2026 and another 13% in 2027.

The firm pointed to a strong first quarter, when aggregate S&P 500 earnings rose 18% year over year, excluding certain one-time items. The median company posted earnings growth of 14%, making it one of the strongest quarters in roughly a decade.

Goldman also pushed back against concerns that a surge in stock issuance could undermine the rally.

The firm estimates U.S. companies will issue roughly $700 billion of equity this year, equivalent to about 1% of Russell 3000 market capitalization and roughly in line with historical averages.

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Meanwhile, Goldman expects companies to repurchase about $1 trillion of stock, helping absorb new supply.

The firm said IPO activity is increasing but remains far below the levels seen during previous market peaks. Goldman expects roughly 100 IPOs this year, compared with more than 250 in 2021 and nearly 400 during the dot-com era.

Goldman says the AI boom is still accelerating

Artificial intelligence remains at the center of the market's biggest debate. Some investors are concerned that the massive spending by technology companies may not ultimately generate returns enough to justify the industry's soaring valuations.

Goldman acknowledges those concerns but sees little evidence that spending is slowing.

"The AI investment boom shows no sign of slowing," the firm wrote.

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According to Goldman, consensus forecasts call for the largest U.S. hyperscalers to spend more than $750 billion on capital expenditures this year, up 84% from 2025 and roughly $200 billion higher than estimates at the start of the year. The firm expect spending to climb another 20% next year to about $920 billion.

Goldman also estimates that AI infrastructure companies will generate roughly half of total S&P 500 earnings growth this year.

"AI infrastructure stocks will generate roughly half of S&P 500 EPS growth this year and have driven most of the YTD increase in index EPS estimates," the analysts wrote.

Still, investors remain uneasy about how long that dynamic can continue.

"The key question is whether the earnings boost from AI investment fades before broader returns on those investments appear across corporate America. But that question is unlikely to be resolved soon," Goldman wrote.

The June 5 selloff highlighted those concerns.

"Recent volatility is a precursor to more ahead," the firm wrote.

"As investors worried that the market had run 'too far, too fast,' a hot jobs print, renewed concerns about the economics of the AI ecosystem, and reports of hyperscaler equity issuance sparked a pullback."

The bank said narrow market leadership, elevated leverage, retail margin debt, and the growing popularity of leveraged ETFs could all contribute to continued volatility.

The risks Goldman is watching closely

Despite its bullish outlook, Goldman flags risks ahead. "For a bull market powered by earnings, the main structural risk is a weaker outlook for corporate profits," the firm wrote.

Historically, major bull markets have ended amid speculative excess, aggressive Federal Reserve tightening, surging equity issuance, or disappointing earnings growth.

The firm's biggest macro concern is the possibility of a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a development that could drive energy prices higher, pressure corporate profit margins, and complicate expectations for lower interest rates.

Within the AI trade, Goldman said investors remain vulnerable to a sudden shift in either demand for or supply of AI computing power.

Goldman does not believe those conditions are fully in place today, although it noted that each appears somewhat closer than it did several months ago.

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Why we love this deal

Few watchmakers are as widely known or respected as Citizen. The famed Japanese brand has been making high-quality watches for over a century, and we expect it will be doing so for the next one as well. One of its most technologically advanced models is currently on sale at Amazon, and we think it's worth checking out. However, deals on luxury items like this one usually go fast, so we wouldn't recommend taking too much time.

The Citizen Promaster Sea Eco-Drive Watch is available for only $290 at the moment. That's 39% off the original price of $475. Even at the regular price, this watch is an amazing deal, so slashing it so significantly makes it an absolute marvel.

Citizen Promaster Sea Eco-Drive Watch, $290 (was $475) at Amazon

Why do shoppers love it?

As referenced above, the Promaster Sea is a high-tech timepiece that takes watchmaking to the next level. It's powered by the legendary Citizen Eco-Drive movement, which is quite unlike anything else on the market. Most commercially produced watches operate either through a series of mechanical gears that must be wound or a lithium-ion battery that requires regular changing. The Eco-Drive movement collects sunlight through small solar panels hidden underneath the dial and releases it throughout the day with ticks of the watch. The rechargeable battery inside never needs to be changed for the life of the watch.

While the inside of the watch is indeed impressive, the outside is exquisite. The case and bracelet are made from 316L stainless steel. It's durable and rustproof, making it the perfect watch for fun in the sun. Add to that an impressive 200 meters of water resistance, and you have a piece that you can swim with, making it the ultimate go anywhere, do anything watch. A unidirectional rotating dive bezel adds to its dive watch DNA and allows you to keep tabs on your dive time, or anything else you wish to track. It also has a case diameter of 44 millimeters, which makes the watch highly legible underwater.

With so many world-beating tech specs under its belt, you might not expect it to be much of a looker. Nothing could be further from the truth. A matching deep blue dial and bezel insert mimic the color of the deep blue sea, and applied geometric hour markers surround the outside of the dial. The hour markers and handset have generous amounts of luminescent coating, making the watch easy to read in low-light conditions. A small date window at the three o'clock position is the perfect cherry on top of this lovely little sundae. It's available in three colorways as well.

Related: Amazon's $224 Citizen Eco-Drive Luxury watch is a stunning everyday timepiece

Details to know

• Materials: 316L stainless steel case and bracelet.
• Case diameter: 44 millimeters.
• Water resistance: 200 meters.
• Movement: Citizen solar-powered Eco-Drive movement.
• Colorways: Three variants.

Amazon shoppers were very excited about this watch. One praised its "excellent quality and value," before adding, "I absolutely love the way it looks and feels…This is a superior watch to many of the high-end dive watches on the market that command premium prices."

Shop more deals 

• Citizen Classic Eco-Drive Sports Watch, $224 at Amazon
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The Citizen Promaster Sea Eco-Drive Watch may be your best chance for a luxury watch at an affordable price. Currently, it will only cost you $290, but that may not be true for long. Time is ticking on this deal, and you've already done the deep dive on its specs. Now all that's left to do is click the buy button.

The main water entryway to the Italian Riviera, La Spezia is a port stop on multiple itineraries on cruise lines such as Norwegian, Princess Viking, Royal Caribbean and MSC among others.

Given Cinque Terre's fame for its breathtaking beauty, many tourists descending at La Spezia for the day end up using their time in port to come out to the fishing villages.

Trip to Cinque Terre? Remember the flip flop ban that could lead to slips and fines

And as with any places that see large numbers of cruise ship traffic, Cinque Terre sees all kinds of tourist behavior that damages nature and strains local resources. Amid a spike in tourists falling while walking cliff trails in improper footwear, Cinque Terre National Park first launched a public awareness campaign reminding travelers not to wear flip flops or other open-toed shoes in 2019.

Fines followed soon after and, as of June 2026, any tourist caught by local authorities on the cliff trails in flip flops can be hit by a fine ranging from €50 to €2,500 for repeat offenders and those who damage the local trail.

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"Open footwear and/or smooth soles, i.e. not anti-slip are forbidden," Cinque Terre National Park states on its Frequently Asked Questions page about visiting Cinque Terre. "The transgressors will be punished according to Pagraph 2, Article 30, Law 394/91 and SS.MM.II. On the trails it is compulsory to wear closed, waterproof and ankle covering shoes, with an anti-slip sole."

The local law applies only to those hiking on the trails rather than wandering through the fishing towns of Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. The fines were also put in place as a safety precaution given the rising number of travelers who had to be rescued after slipping on the cliffs.

A few other places that launched new clothing rules that apply to tourists

Some local travel and expat groups reported that local officials periodically conduct footwear checks on the trails; news of the fines are also meant to serve as a deterrent and reminder of clothing requirements.

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Another popular tourist destination to recently crack down on the type of clothing worn by tourists is the Portuguese resort city of Albufeira. What eventually earned the nickname of the "bikini ban" can fine anyone caught in "a state of partial nudity" outside designated pool and beach areas up to €1,500 for disrupting public order.

The crackdown came amid rising tourist numbers and incidents of bad behavior, including a viral video of eight British men dancing naked in a bar on Albufeira's party strip that caused a local outcry and put pressure on lawmakers.

As with Cinque Terre, local officials in Albufeira put out annual reminders of the rules around the time that tourist season ramps up.

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Two days earlier, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson sat down with CNBC's "Squawk Box" and described SpaceX as reflecting "the greatest technological change of my lifetime."

That comment, made just ahead of one of the most anticipated debuts in market history, captures the central tension now facing investors.

SpaceX is not simply going public as a rocket company. It is going public as three businesses bundled into one, and the company's own prospectus is unusually direct about how differently those three businesses are performing.

What SpaceX's own filing says about its three segments

SpaceX's S-1 registration statement, filed with the SEC, breaks the company into three segments: Space, Connectivity, and AI. For the first quarter of 2026, SpaceX reported consolidated revenue of $4.69 billion and a loss from operations of $1.94 billion.

For the full year 2025, consolidated revenue was $18.67 billion against a loss from operations of $2.59 billion.

The segment breakdown explains why those headline numbers move in different directions depending on which part of the business is included. Space generated $619 million in revenue but lost $662 million on an operating basis, largely because the segment funded $930 million in Starship research and development during the quarter.

Connectivity, primarily Starlink, generated $3.26 billion in Q1 2026 revenue and $1.19 billion in operating income.

The AI segment, which includes xAI following its February 2026 merger into SpaceX, generated $818 million in revenue and lost $2.47 billion from operations in the same quarter.

Connectivity segment is carrying SpaceX, while AI burns cash

The pattern is consistent across both the quarter and the full year. In 2025, Connectivity generated $11.39 billion in revenue and $4.42 billion in operating income, up 49.8% and 120.4% year-over-year respectively. The AI segment generated $3.2 billion in revenue but lost $6.36 billion from operations across the same year.

For investors, the practical reading of the prospectus is straightforward. Starlink's growth and margin expansion are funding the company's ability to absorb enormous losses in the AI segment while that business scales.

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The subscriber numbers explain why Connectivity carries that weight. SpaceX reported approximately 10.3 million Starlink subscribers as of March 31, 2026, served by a constellation of roughly 9,600 satellites across 164 countries and territories, according to the S-1 filing.

SpaceX's capital expenditures make the scale of the AI bet explicit by comparison: The AI segment's 2025 capital expenditures were $12.73 billion, more than the Space and Connectivity segments combined.

The AI compute contracts Wall Street is watching

The AI segment's losses are the most visible risk in the prospectus, but SpaceX's filing also discloses the contracts it is using to offset them. In May 2026, SpaceX entered into cloud services agreements with Anthropic for access to compute capacity across its COLOSSUS and COLOSSUS II data centers, with Anthropic agreeing to pay $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, according to the S-1 filing.

SpaceX also disclosed a separate arrangement with Cursor, the AI coding company, structured as a compute agreement paired with an option to acquire Cursor at an implied equity value of $60 billion, payable in SpaceX stock.

If SpaceX does not exercise that option, Cursor is entitled to a $1.5 billion termination fee plus an $8.5 billion deferred services fee. The structure signals how SpaceX intends to monetize excess AI compute capacity, sometimes through service contracts and sometimes through equity-linked arrangements with the AI companies it serves.

The launch business behind everything else

The Space segment's operating loss can be misleading if read in isolation, because it is the segment funding Starship development rather than a sign of an unprofitable launch business.

SpaceX has completed approximately 650 orbital launches as of March 31, 2026, with a mission success rate above 99% across its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, according to the S-1 filing. The company describes itself as the primary launch provider for the U.S. government, having launched 11 of 12 National Security Space Launch missions in 2025.

That launch infrastructure is also the foundation for the other two segments. Starlink satellites reach orbit on Falcon rockets, and the company's prospectus frames Starship, still in development, as the vehicle that will eventually carry both next-generation Starlink satellites and the AI compute satellites SpaceX says it plans to deploy starting as early as 2028.

The Space segment's losses today are, in the company's own framing, the cost of building the launch capacity the other two segments will depend on later.

Why Franklin Templeton's framing matters for SpaceX valuation

Johnson's description of SpaceX as reflecting the greatest technological change of her lifetime is notable because Franklin Templeton manages more than $1.5 trillion in assets and has built out significant exposure to tokenized funds and alternative assets in recent years.

When an executive at that scale frames a single company in those terms two days before its public debut, it signals how institutional allocators are thinking about where SpaceX fits in a portfolio.

The framing also lines up with how SpaceX describes its own opportunity. The company's prospectus estimates a combined total addressable market of $28.5 trillion across its three segments: $370 billion in Space, $1.6 trillion in Connectivity, and $26.5 trillion in AI.

Within the AI figure, SpaceX breaks the opportunity down further into $2.4 trillion in AI infrastructure, $760 billion in consumer subscriptions, $600 billion in digital advertising, and $22.7 trillion in enterprise applications, by far the largest single category in the entire addressable market the company has laid out. The Connectivity TAM splits into $870 billion in Starlink Broadband and $740 billion in Starlink Mobile.

The first trading session will not resolve the debate over whether that $1.75 trillion valuation is justified. What the prospectus does confirm is that the bet is not on SpaceX as a single business.

It is a bet that Connectivity's current profitability can fund the AI segment's losses long enough for compute contracts like the Anthropic deal to scale, while the Space segment's Starship investment eventually unlocks the next phase of growth that Johnson's comments were pointing toward.

Related: Morningstar drops bombshell message on SpaceX IPO

I have reported on mortgage rates for years, and my readers were much happier when rates were in the 3% range back in 2020 and 2021. A lot of potential buyers or refinancers wish rates would drop that low again — man, even a 6% rate would be fantastic news for many.

Fannie Mae has released its June 2026 Housing Forecast with expert predictions about various aspects of the housing market. Including mortgage rates.

Unfortunately, Fannie Mae doesn't foresee the 30-year rate dropping to 6% anytime soon.

Fannie Mae's mortgage rate predictions increase

In the Fannie Mae May Housing Forecast, the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) projected that the 30-year mortgage rate would average 6.3% throughout 2026 and the first quarter of 2027. Then, it would drop to 6.2% for the remainder of 2027.

Now, Fannie Mae expects mortgage rates to stay higher for longer.

The GSE predicts that the average 30-year rate will hold at 6.4% for the rest of this year and into Q1 2027. For Q2-Q4 2027, it puts the average rate at 6.3%.

Related: Dave Ramsey sends message about mortgage payments

Fannie Mae based its interest rate projections on what rates were doing on May 31. Still, not much has changed since then to make me think the organization's numbers are outdated.

The week of May 28, the Freddie Mac 30-year mortgage rate was 6.53%. So, it was almost exactly the same as the rate on June 11, when Fannie Mae released its forecast.

Why Fannie Mae expects higher mortgage rates

So, why is Fannie Mae predicting higher mortgage rates throughout 2026 and 2027 than it did in its May Housing Forecast?

If the U.S. had made significant progress toward ending the war with Iran, mortgage rates would be lower right now. But there is no clear end in sight, so Fannie Mae can't operate under the assumption that the war will end in a certain timeframe and cause mortgage rates to drop.

There's also the economy to consider. In general, mortgage rates increase when the U.S. economy is doing well. Recent employment reports have been strong, helping to keep rates relatively high.

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• Mortgage rate bets shift after surprising jobs report
• Americans meet unexpected challenge with mortgage news

The next Federal Reserve meeting is June 16-17. It's unlikely that the Fed will cut the federal funds rate at this meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool — or at any of its 2026 meetings. In fact, there are reasons to believe the central bank will hike its rate before cutting it.

The combination of the Iran war, recent economic trends, and federal funds rate expectations are keeping Fannie Mae's mortgage rate predictions high.

Key takeaways for homebuyers

• Waiting for lower mortgage rates may be fruitless. If you've been waiting to buy a house until mortgage rates fall, you're probably out of luck. Fannie Mae doesn't foresee rates dropping below 6.3% until at least 2028. So, if you can still afford a house at today's rates, you may want to go ahead and move forward.
• No one can time the real estate market. This is another reason not to hold out for lower mortgage rates. Similar to the stock market, no one can predict what the housing market will do. These are Fannie Mae's June projections, but a major political or economic event could shift the GSE's expectations by the time July rolls around.
• You can refinance later. No one wants to lock in a relatively high mortgage rate. But remember, you can always refinance into a lower rate when rates do eventually go down.
• Use strategies for getting a lower rate. So, the housing market isn't going to throw you a bone? Take your mortgage rate into your own hands. Consider buying discount points at closing, or search for a lender with a temporary rate buydown program. You can also improve your personal finances to get a better offer from a lender.

Related: Fannie Mae makes bold housing market prediction

Costco members can enjoy massive savings on everything from groceries to cleaning supplies to food court meals. 

Plus, Costco has a way of making members feel valued. From its generous return policy to its inflation-proof hot dog deal, the company does a great job of making shoppers feel like they're getting their money's worth.

Of course, these days, a Costco membership offers even more value given the fact that prices are rising everywhere. 

In May, the Consumer Price Index rose 4.2% year over year. Costs rose across major categories like food, shelter, and medical care services. 

And given that gasoline prices rose 40.5%, the fact that Costco lets drivers fill up their cars on the cheap is a major selling point.

But there's a big trap Costco shoppers tend to fall into. And financial influencer Dave Ramsey warns that despite the potential savings, members risk costing themselves money instead of getting to save it.  

Ramsey issues big warning to Costco members

Financial influencer Dave Ramsey knows how easy it is for consumers to rack up a mountain of debt – especially these days, given how strained budgets are. 

Ramsey is not necessarily against taking advantage of the bulk discount model warehouse club stores like Costco offer. But he does think the warehouse club giant makes it all too easy for members to overspend.

Related: Costco just made a major move to fix a member pain point

And that's actually intentional. 

Costco purposely loads its shelves with exciting new items so that members are tempted to spend more. The company actually owns up to that tactic and isn't afraid to hide it.

During Costco's third quarter 2024 earnings call, CEO Ron Vachris said, "And again, it goes a lot of times with that treasure hunt… You’ve heard the phrase, people come in to spend $100 and walk out with $300. That’s because our buyers and our operators do a great job in making the warehouses exciting.”

Ramsey, however, knows that this is why consumers get into trouble. His advice?

"Don’t get sucked into buying stuff you don’t need," he says. "Even though it might seem like a pretty good deal, if it’s going to derail your budget, it’s not worth it, folks."

Considering that Americans have a collective $1.252 trillion in credit card debt as of the first quarter of 2026, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, avoiding extra purchases at stores like Costco is pretty crucial right now.

Ramsey says even bulk buying doesn't always make sense

Costco members who come to the store for bulk savings and don't make impulse purchases aren't necessarily guaranteed to avoid debt either, though. 

The problem with Costco's model is that it's not particularly friendly to cash-strapped consumers, even though it might seem to be.

To take advantage of the savings offered at Costco, consumers need to shell out the money to buy things in bulk. But for those who don't have the money to buy 32 rolls of toilet paper at once, putting an expense like that on a credit card, carrying a balance, and paying interest often negates the bulk savings.

That's why Ramsey also says, "Don’t feel the pressure to buy in bulk if the up-front cost doesn’t make sense for your budget."

More Retail:

• Costco sees major shift in member behavior
• Retail chain shuts all locations as legal changes hit industry
• Costco makes major investment in online shopping for members

In fact, budget-constrained consumers may be better off avoiding Costco and focusing on dollar stores instead, where smaller package sizes allow them to take advantage of low prices without having to shell out a bundle of money up front.

Maurie Backman owns shares of Costco.

Related: Costco just lowered prices on key items

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Dr. Escalera, it's great to see you. Thanks for joining us in the program this morning.

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

So excited to be here.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Well, I'm excited and I love the fact that you looked at all the Bureau of Labor Statistics data or you and the team, I should say, because it's always it takes a village to do this type of work.

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

Absolutely.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

You know, based on your research and looking at these BLS numbers, there seems to be a significant demographic shift in America's workforce.

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

Absolutely. One hundred percent. What we're seeing is that the workforce is getting significantly older.

And in fact, one in four employees is over the age of 55, which has increased in the last ten years. What we're noticing is that the workforce is getting older and it's bringing up this question of, but why?

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah. So, so, I mean, I know the birth rate is down, I guess, over over the last few decades. But in your estimation, what does this all translate to?

Why are we kind of shifting to an older workforce? And then what are the implications for employers that are looking to hire people who may be in this age range?

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

Yeah, the why is really interesting here. And I think there are some great factors, right? We are living till we are older.

So a lot of individuals are saying, well, if I'm in good health and I can get out there and stay in the workforce, then I want to keep myself busy. I want to keep myself active. And that's absolutely wonderful.

But we also want to look at the flip side of that. We also know that because of inflation, because of cost of living, retirement and savings are things that individuals are having complications and really being able to add to. So we also want to think about this from the standpoint of people might be staying in the workforce because they want to, but also people might be staying in the workforce because they have to.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, I mean, I think we're all feeling it. Gas prices have gone up significantly. The cost of goods, groceries gone up.

That puts a lot of financial pressure on everyone, but especially those on fixed incomes. You know, in terms of, you know, looking at, you know, benefits, are there things that that employers maybe should be thinking about if they're looking to attract this demographic or, quite frankly, other demographics to their to their company, to their organization?

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

Great question. If you're an employer, what you really want to think about is you definitely want to make it comfortable, exciting and fun for your older workers to stay in the workforce should they choose to. One of the things you want to consider is the fact that your older workers have an immense amount of knowledge and experience.

So the great thing that employers can be thinking about is if we do have individuals who want to stay put, who don't necessarily want to transition into retirement, how can we use that institutional knowledge and overall knowledge to support younger workers by thinking about building mentorship programs, for example, or allowing for the older workers to not just mentor, but to support, to sponsor younger employees so that you keep that institutional knowledge moving and you make it a really fun and exciting experience and also a way for the different generations to work together in your company?

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, I want to follow up on that because let's talk about succession planning. And look, contrary to popular belief, I was young. I was a young worker one time.

And, you know, when you're trying to move up in an organization, whether it's a flatter organization or a very layered organization, you always look above and see who's ahead of you. If people are sticking around longer, you know, I would imagine you want to not discourage. You don't want your younger workforce who you were training, you don't want them to kind of walk out the door and go to, especially a competitor.

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

Absolutely. And it's something to really be thinking about is how do we pave the way for younger workers while still maintaining our older workers in the workforce should they want to stay? And I believe that those ways of providing mentorship, new ways of collaboration, especially in the age of AI, can be very helpful.

What we want for our older workers to be able to pass down is not just the institutional knowledge and the technical skills, but even those soft skills as well. They're great at that, being able to have those relationships, build those relationships with key stakeholders. Those are even things that they can transfer over to the younger generation as well.

So it doesn't just have to be about the technical work, but it can also be about developing them in new ways.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

So are those qualitative skills that you were talking about that I would say negotiation, partnership, are those very popular skills so that like if I'm a older worker, mature worker, as we say, looking to find a new employer, those are things that maybe I could put into my resume, I guess, to maybe attract opportunity?

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

Absolutely. And now in the day of AI and AI being more implemented in the workforce, AI is really being implemented for things that are repetitive tasks and automated tasks. When we think about older workers in the older population of employees, these are individuals that have built relationships.

They have an extensive amount of soft skills that they can actually utilize. And so yes, I would agree 100% that they should be leaning into that.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Can you teach an old dog new tricks? So can we reskill? And I mean that tongue in cheek, of course.

I don't consider myself an old dog. But can we reskill people? Maybe they were manufacturing, now they need to go into technology, or maybe they're in, you know, some other vocation, and they've been there for 20-25 years.

Do those skills have marketability and transferability to retool, retrain them?

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

Absolutely, 100%. I don't know that you can teach my old dog new tricks, but you definitely can. And that's something that employers and companies should be thinking about, thinking outside of the box, especially as we start implementing things like AI in the workforce.

How can we be training individuals in new ways so that they can use those skill sets differently? When we think about the older population of employees, millennials, Gen X boomers, these individuals are having to think about how do I repackage what I already know? Whereas Gen Z coming in has to think about, okay, what careers should I be going into that are actually going to exist in the next 10 years?

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, do you think that that's, you know, it's been a while since I've graduated college, but I know people who have children that are just coming out, they just graduated, I guess in May, now they're entering the workforce. They maybe signed up for a major, went through the studies, but all of a sudden, maybe that business, as you were talking about, that vocation may be going away, or maybe AI is kind of gobbling it up. And it probably is denying those people opportunity because you gain skills over time by kind of refining your skills, taking on new opportunities, new projects.

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

Yeah, absolutely. So the younger workforce is definitely thinking about things, they have to think about things very differently in terms of longevity within their career. And what we've been able to find in other studies that we've done is that Gen Z has an immense amount of AI anxiety.

And they're actually thinking about it from the standpoint of, is a college degree even worth it anymore? And should I actually be going into things more like trade jobs and trade opportunities? What our data from this study found was that a lot of those trade roles are the positions that are going to be coming up as available when people start to retire.

So if Gen Z can look forward and say, hey, maybe these opportunities are ones that I should be looking into, they might actually find that a lot of slots will start coming up.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, and you know, I think people in the trades typically a little bit more labor intensive, at least initially tend to retire 55, 65, I guess. And there's also like a pecking order, for lack of a better term of their seniority. So you're right, people probably can come in, you know, as an apprentice, work their way up and eventually get those more, more senior roles.

Let's talk about future research. You know, I don't want to get ahead of you. But, you know, are there things that you're looking at?

I mean, you get you must have mountains of data that you're sifting through based on the platform. Are there other research projects that you're looking at? Maybe that we can you can maybe tease out?

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

Yeah, we're super excited to look deeper into what retirement really looks like. And to be asking individuals, is retirement even something that's possible for you? That's something that's coming down the pipeline for us.

Because we notice that individuals are staying in the workforce longer. But that question around, do they have to is really the one that we're very interested in.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, I think you're gonna be pretty busy. Because I think, you know, for every person, they're going to have their own opinion. And, you know, they're, it's going to be different than than someone else, they're going to have different financial issues, they're going to have different family issues, they may be a caregiver, they may be, you know, needing long term care services.

That's probably going to be pretty interesting. Dr. Escalera, we're going to have to leave it there. Great to see a great research.

And we look forward to having you back on the program again very soon.

Jasmine Escalera, PhD., BOLD

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

In response, anti-immigration demonstrators targeted multiple neighborhoods across Belfast with large immigrant populations by setting fire to multiple houses, cars and buses and throwing rocks at police trying to contain the violence.

The riots entered a quieter phase by the night of Thursday, June 11 as police used a water cannon to disperse rioters and arrested 19 people, including a 16-year-old boy. Additional officers were also sent in from Scotland to help quell the growing unrest.

"We got word that there were going to be protests going through the streets": Oasis Travel

When riots reached a peak on Wednesday night, Belfast-based travel agency Oasis Travel closed all eight of its branches in Northern Ireland at 12:30 p.m. on June 10 before reopening them by Thursday morning.

The travel agency was established in the 1980s and sells cruise packages and organized tours to multiple destinations in Europe, Asia, South America Africa. Along with storefronts in Belfast, Oasis Travel has locations in Bangor, Holywood, Hillsborough and Warrenpoint.

Related: U.S. government changes warning on popular tourist destination

"We got word that there were going to be protests going through the streets and thought it best if we treated each shop the same – so we closed all eight branches early," Oasis Travel Managing Director Scott McCabe said to local outlet TTG.

The decision was made primarily to protect employees who would need to go home as well as any customers who could have wandered in and then found that the situation on the street had deteriorated. Multiple roads leading into the area were blocked throughout Tuesday and Wednesday.

"We've got the technology in place so we're all working from home," McCabe said further.

What is happening with travel businesses in Belfast as of June 12

Oasis said that visitors were coming into the offices up until they shut down at 12:30 p.m. and came back as soon as offices reopened the following day.

Travelmax, another local travel agency based in the northern commuter town of Ballymena, operated throughout Wednesday and Thursday but told staff to "lock up sharp and get out of town at 5 p.m." instead of staying to work late in the evenings.

More Travel News:

• Airline to launch unusual new flight to Cayman Islands from the U.S.
• What you can expect at Disneyland's new 'World of Frozen'
• Unexpected country is most luxurious travel destination for 2026
• U.S. government issues strange warning on Ireland travel

Travelmax founder Maxine Bracewell said that June 10 was "an exceptionally busy day" with many customers coming in to book trips in the afternoon before violence started breaking out in the evening.

The decision to close early mirrors similar ones made by dozens of different businesses operating in and around Belfast while most had begun gradually reopening by June 11 and 12. Still other travel agency and cruise package sellers operated without interruption during the worst of the demonstrations.

"We are a resilient bunch in Northern Ireland and spirits are high," Lynsey Joy, cruise manager at Travel Solutions Belfast, said of the decision not to close to Travel Weekly.

Related: Locals protest for airline to 'stop flights,' cancel certain route

The home base of both flag carrier Lufthansa and German leisure airline Condor Airlines, Frankfurt Airport saw just over 63 million travelers pass through it in 2025. It operates approximately 1,400 flights to 311 cities on a typical day and, given that many of the routes to particular cities or countries only run once per day, those connecting through a transatlantic flight are often left with particularly long layovers of five, 10 or in some cases even 20 hours.

While the 11 million international travelers who came to Frankfurt itself last year mean that only a fraction of those coming through the airport make it out to the city, its smaller size and short distance from the airport provide the perfect opportunity to come out on those longer layovers or even make it an overnight destination to go on to one's travels a little more refreshed.

How long does it take to get to Frankfurt (and what to do in the city)

The central Hauptbahnhof is just 20 minutes away by ride-share or the S8 and S9 train lines running from the airport every 15 minutes. The city itself is known for many things: the birthplace of romantic poet Goethe, total post-World War II reconstruction and its current status as the European finance center with headquarters of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the European Central Bank.

Aside from the renowned historical, nature and art museums that line the riverbanks of the Main River, a particularly quirky stop on a day trip to the old town could be the Struwwelpeter-Museum telling the story of the story of the 1845 children's book created by local Frankfurt psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffman.

The grim fates of beloved child characters who play with matches or refuse to trim their nails may seem too macabre in the modern age but the museum offers a delightful window into what has become some of the most beloved figures in German children's literature (while most of the exhibition is in German, English narrated translations are available through a follow-along app version).

Related: The world's best destination for opera is not where you think

Food is reason enough to turn circumstances into a day trip and, in Frankfurt, one of the most famous dishes is the herbaceous Frankfurter Grüne Soße green sauce that is traditionally served with potatoes and hard-boiled eggs. Other traditional dishes like Handkäse with Music (a hard cheese served with a vinegar-based dressing and chopped raw onions) and Frankfurter sausages eaten with plenty of Apfelwein can be found in one of dozens of traditional pubs and beerhouses in the Sachsenhausen or Bornheim districts.

The Kleinmarkthalle food hall is a particularly fun way to while away a few hours wandering through aisles selling everything from fruits or traditional cheese and sausages to the newly TikTok-viral Inari-San booth selling Japanese tofu pouches.

Those looking for a panoramic snack can find the Meral Imbiss Dönerboot (Kebab Boat) sitting on the southern shore of the Main in a converted river boat while, on the fine dining front, there are classics like the L'Arôme and Carmelo Greco as well as the newly-opened The Dune Restaurant at The Florentin hotel.

Where to stay for a luxurious Frankfurt getaway or recharge layover

For those who want to turn the layover into a particularly upscale break, The Florentin in the Sachsenhausen district in between the airport and the city center is one of the newest additions to the city's luxury hotel scene after Althoff Hotels took over the site of of what during different eras was both Villa Spayer and Villa Kennedy.

The mansion designed in a combination of Gothic and Renaissance styles was built for prominent banking scion Eduard Beit von Speyer and his family in 1907.

More Travel News:

• Airline to launch unusual new flight to Cayman Islands from the U.S.
• What you can expect at Disneyland's new 'World of Frozen'
• Unexpected country is most luxurious travel destination for 2026
• U.S. government issues strange warning on Ireland travel

The castle-like stone and stucco grounds were revamped with a modern interior design made to evoke the feel of Japanese wellness built around a lush garden courtyard. The true star of the grounds, however, is the newly-built 10,000-square-meter spa space including a hammam and two dry saunas at different temperatures, five treatments rooms for procedures developed in partnership with skincare star Dr. Barbara Sturm and a 15-meter pool overlooking another lush terrace.

The reflective turquoise coloring and lighting meant to mimic the waves of the Main are a loving nod to Frankfurt's past and present in an urban escape that, for those who can delay their flight a little longer, is certainly worth the splurge and overnight stay.

Related: An unexpected corner of northern England is getting a new luxury hotel

Your patio or backyard can serve a few main purposes. For some, it's a gathering place. It's somewhere you go to relax and connect with friends and family through barbecues, backyard parties, and lounging on your patio furniture. For those people, it's also a way to express your personal style through outdoor furniture decor and accessories. For others, however, their homes' outdoor spaces have to serve a more utilitarian purpose. With square footage shrinking on single family homes, the backyard has become a place for overflow storage. Whether you keep bikes, tools, or sports equipment in your patio, it's someplace to stow items that don't fit within the confines of your home.

However, your own personal backyard usage doesn't necessarily have to be either or. If you're a smart shopper, your patio can serve at least two purposes, if not more. Some of the best outdoor storage sheds are available at Amazon. The online retail giant has a huge selection of sheds in all shapes, sizes, trim levels, and materials. In fact, we recently found one that we think might just be all things to all people, and the price is incredibly low to boot.

Benefits of an outdoor storage shed

There is so much upside to outdoor storage sheds. For starters, if you don't have a garage, or if your garage is already packed to the brim, a shed is a great way to expand your storage space footprint. You can choose whatever size you want, and even get one that has special features like a convenient side door. There are so many outdoor storage shed variations, that you're sure to find one that's perfect for your needs, no matter how you plan to use it. What's more, you can find quite affordable options as well, even though most are very sturdy and will likely last for years to come if well cared for.

In addition to the convenience of on-site storage, a shed can be money saving as well. That's because in addition to domestic rents going up, commercial rents are on the upswing as well. That includes off-site storage unit rentals, which are a big cost for many people every month. If you get an outdoor storage shed for your backyard or patio, then you don't need to worry about a monthly fee just to store your extra items. With a storage shed, you pay one time for the purchase and then you'll never have to concern yourself with payment again. It's a long-term purchase that offers long-term savings.

Aoxun Cottagecore Storage Shed

Perhaps one of the most impressive and fun outdoor storage sheds we've seen in some time is the Aoxun Cottagecore Storage Shed. As the name suggests, this shed offers not only plenty of storage space, but plenty of style. It's made of galvanized steel which is rustproof and corrosion resistant. The shed also has dimensions of 10 feet long by 6 feet wide, though there are four size options available. It also comes with optional string lights if you want to add visibility for nighttime use as well. Finally, you can get it with or without a built-in floor, depending on your needs.

That said, all of these features are merely window dressing for the…window dressing. This cottagecore style shed also includes a full-length overhang, dual barn doors, and a built-in window. All of these features combine to make the shed look less like a storage unit and more like a small guest cottage in your backyard. In fact, the fully functional opening and closing window as well as the dual doors mean you can actually use this shed as a workspace as long as you have proper ventilation. Additionally, the overhang is great for storing wood and other materials that you want to keep protected from the elements. If you want a storage shed that can add to the look of your backyard decor, then this is the one for you.

More storage sheds

If you think you may want something a little more low key, then many retailers offer alternatives without all the bells and whistles. Amazon, Walmart, and Target all have lots of options when it comes to storage sheds. Whether you want something that has all the extras or you're looking for a stripped-down place to keep your wares, these online shops will have what you seek.

Kullavik Outdoor Storage Shed

Cloudwell Outdoor Storage Shed

Eagle Peak Resin Outdoor Storage Shed

TheStreet Shopping is your guide for shopping insights and advice. We look beyond the price tag to find the best value in home, tech, and wellness gear based on product features and real-world use. Read more about our Editorial Standards and How We Choose Our Shopping Deals. 

This move helped create AWS from Amazon’s own technology infrastructure, turning it into a multi-billion-dollar cloud computing infrastructure. 

Then, it helped turn the company’s warehouses and delivery network into a service for outside sellers. More recently, it has been shaping Amazon’s push to make its supply chain available to other businesses.

TheStreet previously covered that shift in May, when Amazon launched Amazon Supply Chain Services as part of a broader fight with Walmart to turn internal logistics networks into new revenue streams.

Now Amazon is expanding that strategy again.

Amazon enters the freight market

The e-commerce giant on June 10 announced “less-than-truckload freight” offering under its Amazon Supply Chain Services to all U.S. businesses.

It will allow companies to move goods to third-party warehouses, distribution centers, retail partners, and other commercial destinations.

The move pushes Amazon deeper into a freight market long served by carriers, brokers, and third-party logistics companies such as FedEx Freight.

More Wall Street:

• JPMorgan resets S&P 500 price target for the rest of 2026

• Vanguard challenges the S&P 500 as a one-stop strategy
• Goldman Sachs resets Broadcom stock forecast

And Wall Street is noticing this new direction.

In a June 11 note shared with TheStreet, Bank of America lead analyst Justin Post maintained a Buy rating on Amazon and a $310 price target.

Analyst Justin Post stood by a bullish target following the freight launch, implying about 30% upside from Amazon's $238 stock price.

Post said Amazon’s expanded less-than-truckload, or LTL, offering could bring more outside freight into Amazon’s network, though the near-term revenue impact may be limited.

Less-than-truckload shipping is used when a business needs to move freight by pallet but does not need an entire truck.

Amazon said its expanded service is designed for shipments usually ranging from one to six pallets, or between 150 and 15,000 pounds.

The company said the service includes:

• Next-day live pickup for orders placed by 5 p.m. 
• Same-day pickup through drop trailer service 
• Standing daily pickups for high-volume shippers
• Real-time GPS tracking 
• Automated appointment scheduling, and
• Electronic proof of delivery

“Now Amazon LTL can move your freight wherever it needs to go, servicing destinations nationwide for businesses of all sizes. With LTL, shippers get cost-effective freight shipping while still benefitting from the real-time tracking and dependability they expect from Amazon,” said Jim Ruiz, director of Amazon Freight.

The company added that the service is backed by more than 80,000 trailers and 24,000 intermodal containers, highlighting its existing expansive fleet.

And this scale is why the announcement matters beyond one new shipping product.

Amazon has spent years building a logistics network for its own retail business and marketplace sellers. Now it is trying to sell more of that infrastructure to outside businesses.

The move builds on Amazon’s broader push beyond traditional retail, and also comes as Amazon and Walmart continue fighting to turn logistics, delivery, and fulfillment into new revenue streams, a trend TheStreet covered in Amazon doubles down on fast delivery to beat rivals, and Walmart makes quiet move as Amazon delivery threat grows.

Bank of America sees Amazon margin opportunity

Bank of America said the LTL expansion could help Amazon bring more third-party freight into its network.

That could improve network density, reduce empty miles, and better utilize the transportation assets Amazon has already built.

The firm said the service could also support Amazon’s long-term retail margin opportunity, estimating it at 12%, up from an estimated 7% in 2026.

But the firm does not expect the new freight service to become a major revenue driver immediately.

Amazon’s LTL coverage remains limited. Bank of America cited MWPVL, a supply chain and logistics consultancy, estimates that Amazon has roughly 26 LTL terminals, far below the average of about 295 terminals for the top five carriers.

That gap matters because LTL shipping depends heavily on terminal density, cross-dock infrastructure, and national route coverage. 

Simply put, Amazon is still operating on a smaller scale than existing freight carriers like UPS, FedEx, or XPO.

So while Amazon has the brand, technology, and transportation scale to matter, it does not yet look like a full national LTL carrier.

Freight stocks react to Amazon’s move

Despite the scale, investors reacted quickly to the launch.

FedEx Freight fell over 5% after Amazon’s announcement, then rebounded about 4.5% the next day. 

The stock of XPO Logistics also fell around 5% on Wednesday, post announcement, but was up 5% the following day.

The move showed how investors initially feared another Amazon disruption, then reassessed how quickly the company could challenge established freight networks.

Bank of America also noted that the competitive threat may not affect all logistics companies equally.

The firm said Amazon’s model looks more like a third-party logistics coordinator or broker-like platform than a full national LTL carrier. 

That could make the move more directly competitive with asset-light intermediaries such as C.H. Robinson and RXO, which help match freight demand with available capacity.

By contrast, asset-based LTL carriers such as FedEx Freight, Old Dominion, XPO, and Saia may be more protected in the near term because they operate dense terminal networks and national cross-dock infrastructure.

Still, Amazon could influence the freight market even without immediately matching the largest carriers.

Bank of America said Amazon’s role as a capacity aggregator and pricing participant could affect lane-level pricing, service expectations, and customer behavior over time.

The firm said Amazon’s current pace of buildout or expansion rate could position it to better compete with national carriers closer to 2028 or 2029.

Bank of America flags Amazon stock risks

Bank of America remains bullish on Amazon, but the firm also listed several risks to its stock forecast.

Those risks include rising competition from offline and local retailers, potential cloud share losses to rivals with advanced artificial intelligence technology, higher AWS investment needs that could pressure margins, and macroeconomic pressures on consumer spending.

The firm also noted that Amazon’s stock has been volatile in the past and that volatility could increase amid economic uncertainty.

Those risks matter because Amazon is investing across several major areas at once.

It is defending retail share, spending heavily in cloud and artificial intelligence, expanding advertising, and trying to build new logistics revenue streams.

The LTL launch fits that larger strategy.

It may not immediately transform Amazon’s earnings, but it shows how Amazon is trying to turn its logistics network from a cost-heavy support system into a platform other businesses pay to use.

And this could create a long-term opportunity for Amazon.

It could also create a long-term warning for freight brokers, third-party logistics companies, and eventually the largest LTL carriers.

Related: Goldman Sachs sends strong message on next Fed rate cut

The company has outpaced the S&P 500 by a huge margin. That is impressive, but what is driving these gains?

AMD is a semiconductor company that makes CPUs and GPUs, and its stock has rallied amid the AI boom.

Key news items for AMD stock:

• Bank of America revised its server CPU sales forecasts in April.
• AMD reported strong earnings on May 5, and Goldman Sachs raised its price target for the stock.
• AMD confirmed investments of more than $10 billion in the Taiwan manufacturing ecosystem.
• The company ramped up production of its next-generation EPYC Processor.

Bank of America recently held its Global Tech Conference, and following the conference, analysts had a lot of information to process, leading to changes in outlook.

In a research note shared with me, Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya and his team have changed their server CPU total addressable market (TAM) forecast again, and tweaked their price target for AMD stock accordingly.

Bank of America raises CPU sales forecast

The team raised its 2030 server CPU TAM estimate to $170 billion or more from $125 billion. This represents nearly five times growth and a 37% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the period from 2025 to 2030.

Analysts divided the estimates into three CPU categories:

• Traditional/on-premise/multi-tenant cloud CPUs TAM of approximately $30 billion.
• AI cluster compute/head node CPUs TAM of approximately $70 billion.
• AI agentic standalone node CPUs TAM of approximately $70 billion.

Analysts said that while custom AI accelerators, based on application-specific integrated circuits, remain critical for AI inference workloads, they believe that, for agentic AI, many orchestration and decision-making functions are better suited to CPUs.

Arya wrote: “We expect head/compute nodes in AI clusters to use higher frequency and stronger but fewer cores, while agentic and traditional applications will rely on higher core counts.”

In their new model, the team believes server CPUs will hit 8% or more of overall data center systems TAM over time.

Bank of America raises AMD stock price target

The team estimates AMD’s market share at 25% to 27% through 2030, due to AMD’s performance lead at the high end, but offset by relatively stronger ramp-ups of ARM-based processors launching in 2027. Analysts noted that AMD’s leading core-count portfolio is an important advantage for the company. Adding that “higher core density within a fixed power envelope increases overall aggregate service throughput.”

More tech stocks:

• Morgan Stanley resets Nvidia stock forecast after key event
• Citi revisits Broadcom stock price target after post-earnings selloff
• Bank of America resets Marvell stock price target after earnings

The team said that AMD’s EPYC Venice, launching in the second half of 2026, is expected to top out at 256 cores, while the previous generation of EPYC topped out at 192 cores. Analysts noted that this is much higher than Nvidia’s upcoming Vera CPU at 88 cores, as well as Intel’s current Granite Rapids, which tops out at 128 cores, and upcoming Diamond Rapids, likely maxing out at 192 cores.

Arya reiterated a buy rating for AMD stock and raised the target price to $560 from $500, based on a 42x multiple of his 2027 non-GAAP EPS estimate.

He noted that AMD’s historical multiple range is 13 to 58, and he believes that his multiple is supported by AMD’s potential annual EPS CAGR of 50% or more, and its AI CPU/GPU share gain potential.

Analysts noted downside risks for AMD:

• Execution on the first rack-scale product (MI400 Series).
• Timing/magnitude of Middle East AI projects.
• The lumpy nature of consumer and enterprise spending could delay the acceptance and success of new products.
• Heavy reliance on a single outsourced manufacturing partner.
• Maturity of the current game console cycle.

Upside potential:

• Greater share-gain potential in the PC and server processor market compared to competitors.

What do other analysts think, and how does Bank of America’s opinion compare?According toMarketBeat, 31 of the 44 analysts covering AMD stock rate it a buy. 13  give a hold rating. The average price target is $419.86.

Related: Bank of America resets Broadcom stock price target after earnings

Why we love this deal

Something about the influx of warm weather signals adventure. Once those temperatures start hitting the 60s and 70s, and we see more of that blue sky and sun than the overcast gray skies we got used to during the winter, we're out the door, ready to take on all kinds of fun. Nothing's better than a camping trip, an outdoor excursion hiking or biking with some friends and family, or a day at the beach soaking up some sun. For fun trips like those and others where you're on the go, a portable grill is a purchase you certainly won't regret. Not only are they a great way to cook and keep everyone fed when you're picnicking, camping, or tailgating, but they're also versatile for small spaces where a regular grill simply wouldn't fit. And thanks to Walmart's latest Flash deal, you can get to grilling no matter where you go without spending a fortune.

The Nicwin Portable Grill is now under $200, so shoppers can get the three-burner grill for $180, just in time for outdoor grilling season. But hurry — as a Flash deal, this sale is only available for a limited time. 

Nicwin Portable Grill, $180 (was $300) at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

Gone are the days where you had to cross your fingers and hope that the local park, beach, or campground area had a grill so that you could cook your burgers and hot dogs as you enjoyed outdoor time with the family. With heavy-duty, high-quality portable options available for reasonable prices, there's no need to rely on your destination providing a grill when you can simply bring one yourself. 

This portable option is certainly not lacking in size, but it is designed in a way that makes it easy to transport even though it is bigger than your traditional portable grills. It has quick-fold legs that make it more compact for traveling while still offering sturdiness and stability when you're actually grilling. It won't fold in or bend thanks to the special lock technology. It also has wheels on two of the legs so that, when it's folded and locked, you can easily drag it behind you as you would a suitcase. No heavy lifting required. 

The grill itself offers 415 square inches of cooking space, with enough of an area and 30,000 British Thermal Units (BTU) of power to evenly cook up to 15 burgers at once. Most grills have between four and six burners on average, so for something this portable to have three, it's quite impressive. The three stainless steel burners quickly heat up once the built-in start up button is pressed. It delivers a great level of heat output, providing consistent high-quality searing and grilling so that you can dish up kabobs, veggies, meats, and other delicious foods in no time. The grates themselves are porcelain-coated steel grates, which are rust-resistant and easy-to-clean. No need to worry about burnt food sticking or marinades and sauces leaving immovable residue. The heavy-duty stainless steel grill frame is strong enough to withstand over 220 pounds. 

Related: Grills, griddles, and smokers to kick off barbecue season

The grill has a built-in thermometer to measure heat output, stainless steel knobs, a seasoning rack, and an additional side area that's great for laying grill tools, plates, and food before and after grilling. There's also a few hook mechanisms that make it easy to hang grill accessories and tools. 

What to expect from a $180 portable grill: Pros and cons

Pros

• Ample space: The two-layer grill area offers 415 square inches of cooking space. 
• Height adjustable: With two height levels, it's easier for anyone to cook comfortably. The one-hand lift to adjust makes it easy to customize so that no one is bending down or reaching up to grill.
• Built for portability: The wheels and folding legs make it easy to transport from one place to another. 
• Heavy-duty: It can support over 220 pounds. 

Cons

• Powered by gas: Although there's nothing wrong with gas power, it does mean when you travel with the grill you also need to remember to bring a gas tank. 

Shoppers call this portable grill a "lifesaver for camping and backyard gatherings." It's lightweight, easy to fold, and very easy to set up. Not only that, but it heats up quickly and cooks remarkably well, delivers consistent heat, and cooks perfectly every time. "A must-have for any outdoor enthusiast," another shopper said. 

Shop more deals 

• Outsunny Outdoor Dining Table for 8 People, $210 at Walmart
• Cowin 21-Piece Grill Accessories Kit, $22 (was $40) at Walmart
• Asofer 3-Piece Patio Bistro Set, $58 (was $100) at Walmart

Why should you sacrifice the fun of summer grilling just because you're not at home? With the Nicwin Portable Grill, you can grill up delicious foods and mouthwatering meals no matter where you are.

More recently, however, the chain’s been experimenting with a shift toward premiumization. From adding high-end and designer brands to warning consumers that higher prices may be on the way, the retailer is slowly working to expand its appeal to wealthier consumers.

Its latest grocery addition, an exclusive line of restaurant-quality beef, is the latest evidence that the retailer is actively positioning itself as a destination for affluent households.

Walmart and McClaren Farms launch Smokehouse

In June, Walmart and McClaren Farms revealed the launch of Smokehouse, a new line of premium Angus beef.

Available exclusively at Walmart locations across Texas, the line is designed to give home cooks access to restaurant-quality cuts for everything from backyard barbecues to romantic steak dinners.

“It’s about creating special moments around the table," Bob McClaren, founder and owner of McClaren Farms, said in a statement. "With our McClaren Farms Smokehouse offerings at Walmart, we're giving customers access to premium Angus beef that brings big flavor and big experience.”

Inspired by the bold flavors and large-format cuts synonymous with Texas barbecue culture and raised with a commitment to responsible care and quality nutrition, the minimally processed lineup includes seven unique products.

• Bone-In Cowboy-Cut Short Ribs, Prime Beef (2-4 lb.)
• Whole Beef Tenderloin, Choice Angus Beef (4.2-8.4 lb.)
• Bone-In Cowboy Ribeye Steak, Prime Beef (0.98-1.84 lb.)
• Brisket Burnt Ends, Choice Angus Beef (1.80-3.25 lb.)
• Bone-In Dino Ribs, Prime Beef (4.2-8.2 lb.)
• Thor's Hammer Bone-In Shank, Prime Beef
• Beef Brisket, Choice Angus Beef (9.50-20.25 lb.)
  Source: McClaren Farms

McClaren Farms first launched in Walmart back in 2021, as the retailer’s first self-developed Angus beef supply chain. Since then, the brand has expanded into 500 locations across the southeastern part of the country.

The exclusive Smokehouse line marks the brand’s Texas debut.

Walmart courts high-income shoppers

Over the past six months, Walmart has seen a notable shift in its core consumer base.

During the company’s fourth-quarter fiscal year 2026 earnings call, CEO John Furner told investors the chain was seeing outsized growth in high-earning households.

“This quarter, the majority of our share gains came from households making more than $100,000,” he said in February.

The trend continued in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, with Furner telling investors Walmart U.S.’s near-50% net sales growth was “fueled by increased engagement with higher-income households.”

Earlier in the year, TheStreet’s Maurie Backman noted that “Walmart wasn’t necessarily trying to target higher earners.”

“Rather,” she wrote, “higher earners seem to be flocking there.”

But that seems to have changed.

In a June interview with Fast Company, Furner said the retailer was actively looking for ways to attract and keep higher earners.

“About a year ago, we decided it was time to go out and start talking about the company differently,” he told the outlet.

This strategy aligns with a larger retail trend. Elizabeth Lafontaine, director of research at Placer.ai, has noted that “high income consumers are critical for retailers to capture and retain in order to offset a drop-off in demand by other cohorts.”

“High-income shoppers' price elasticity has bolstered the industry against rising inflation and price increases,” she wrote in a 2025 report.  

One way the company plans to appeal to shoppers with more disposable income is by offering good, better, best product assortments through many of its categories.

Walmart is betting on premium groceries

The new McClaren Farms Smokehouse line is the perfect illustration of this strategy playing out in real time, but it’s not the first time Walmart has introduced premium products to its existing categories.

In fact, the retailer has already been experimenting with this approach across multiple departments.

More retail:

• Walmart adds service to rival DoorDash, UberEats
• Target's $367 million grocery bet to save shoppers big money
• Walmart scores exclusive Coca-Cola World Cup soda

In April, Walmart added La Roche-Posay, a legacy skin care brand, to its shelves and trained its pharmacists in the benefits and uses of its products. A month later, it added a collaboration with heritage denim brand Lee and country music star Kacey Musgraves to its apparel aisles. 

Other well-known brands, including Gucci, Dior, Levi Strauss, and Reebok, have been spotted popping up at locations around the country over the last several months. Still, the new McClaren Farms lineup marks an acceleration in Walmart’s premiumization strategy. 

Grocery sales make up more than half of Walmart's annual revenue, according to Statista, but high-volume staple items like milk and eggs typically carry notoriously razor-thin profit margins. 

Premium grocery offerings, on the other hand, create opportunities for retailers to increase spending among shoppers who are willing to pay more for specialty products.

Additionally, the addition of premium grocery items could help Walmart compete more directly with traditional, higher-end supermarkets like Whole Foods. 

By bringing its premiumization strategy to the grocery aisle with the Steakhouse line, Walmart is suggesting that it increasingly sees itself as a retailer capable of serving both value-focused shoppers and consumers looking for premium experiences.

Related: Best Buy CEO drops major consumer warning on her way out

The recall includes Honda’s Pilot, Passport, and Ridgeline pickup, along with the Acura MDX. Combined, these vehicles accounted for well over 100,000 U.S. sales between January and May 2026.

Although automotive recalls are not uncommon, the timing of this one is notable. The recall comes weeks after Honda reported a multibillion-dollar loss tied to discontinued EV projects. As it works through these losses, the automaker’s core gas and hybrid models remain crucial for its North American business.

Honda recall hits over 1 million trucks and SUVs

According to information published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the recall specifically applies to the following models and model years:

• 2016-2022 Honda Pilot
• 2017-2023 Honda Ridgeline
• 2019-2023 Honda Passport
• 2014-2020 Acura MDX

Only vehicles sold in states where road salt and other deicing agents are used are affected. This can cause the rear subframe suspension mounting points to suffer corrosion. If these mounting points fracture, the rear control arm or lower arm can fail. Honda traced the problem to subframes with incorrect coatings, affecting paint adhesion. This, together with the road salt, leads to corrosion. If drivers notice unusual rear suspension noises, vibrations, or changes to handling, it could be linked to this recall.

If necessary, dealers will inspect the affected components and install a rear subframe reinforcement kit. Rear subframe components may also be repaired or replaced, free of charge, based on the inspection.

Honda’s suspension recall goes beyond vehicle safety

The Pilot, Passport, Ridgeline, and MDX are core models for American Honda. Over the first five months of 2026 alone, they combined for 117,225 sales. Three of these are midsize SUVs, the biggest vehicle segment in the U.S. behind only compact SUVs, according to a study by S&P Global.

Honda stepped away from multiple planned EV projects earlier in 2026 following weak demand and financial losses, particularly after the federal tax credit for fully electric models was removed in 2025.

Its sole EV in the U.S., the Prologue, saw sales plunge by 74% after this incentive fell away.

In May 2026, Honda recorded an operating loss of around $2.5 billion for the fiscal year that ended in March, reports Nikkei Asia.

Related: Another iconic auto brand is taken down by low EV sales

The automaker’s focus on upcoming products has shifted back to gas and hybrid models, including plans for midsized hybrid SUVs that are roughly the size of the Passport, reports Autoblog.

Furthermore, conventional gas-powered models remain important for the brand’s overall volumes. These segments currently make up the vast majority of Honda vehicle sales.

As the automaker revises its electrification strategy and delays the launch of new EVs, upholding customer confidence in household nameplates like the recalled Pilot and Passport becomes increasingly crucial.

What Honda owners should do next

Honda owners involved in the recall can expect notification letters to be mailed on July 7, 2026.

The automaker’s customer service number is 1-888-234-2138, where more information about the recall can be obtained.

Alternatively, customers with one of the affected models can use their Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) to check if their specific model is involved in the recall; these numbers became searchable on the NHTSA’s site on June 10.

Any unpredictable handling behavior or suspension noises from these vehicles could indicate a fault with the subframe.

As Honda refines its long-term electrification plans, models like the Passport and Pilot remain among its most important. Successfully resolving the recall is important for current Honda owners and maintaining trust in some of the brand’s best-known models.

The daily 30-year mortgage rate has fluctuated throughout the week, according to Mortgage News Daily's rate index. As of June 11, MND's 30-year mortgage rate was 6.60%.

In general, mortgage rates continue to hover a little above 6.5%. In my years of reporting on housing and mortgage rates, I've witnessed how rising mortgage rates can limit potential homebuyers' options. Some want to wait to buy until rates drop, and others get priced out altogether.

You may have heard that the Iran war has been dictating what happens with mortgage rates. However, homebuyers should know — the reality of what affects mortgage rates is changing.

"As the back-and-forth nature of U.S.-Iran peace discussions has become the status quo, the market is shifting its focus back to economic data, which put upward pressure on mortgage rates last week," Jeff DerGurahian, Chief Investment Officer and Head Economist at loanDepot, said in a statement.

The Iran war isn't moving mortgage rates

For weeks, the U.S. war with Iran was the driving factor behind mortgage rates. The week after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, interest rates started increasing. When there were talks of a ceasefire or public sentiment that the war would end soon, rates would inch down.

But the market is getting used to the uncertainty surrounding the conflict in the Middle East. Now the market is shifting its focus to economic data.

"Rates had started to improve, with some pricing dipping just below 6.5%, but stronger payroll data quickly shifted the tone, pushing rates back above that threshold as markets priced out Fed rate cuts and raised the odds of a hike later this year," DerGurahian said.

Related: Zillow reveals major housing market shift

"Unless we see a major flare-up or a clearer path toward a lasting truce, the market will likely spend more time watching the economic data from here," he continued.

This change is new for the 2026 home-buying season, but it's not new for mortgage rates in general. Historically, it's common for mortgage rates to heavily rely on economic factors such as the 10-year Treasury yield, inflation, and unemployment.

Upcoming data that will impact mortgage rates

The next Federal Reserve meeting is June 16-17. It's almost certain that the Fed will keep the federal funds rate unchanged. But if the central bank indicates that they plan to hike the rate sooner rather than later, mortgage rates could rise in response.

Mortgage rates follow the 10-year Treasury yield more closely than the federal funds rate. However, many of the same economic factors that affect the Fed rate also impact the 10-year Treasury yield.

More on mortgage rates from Laura Grace Tarpley:

• Americans face decision after mortgage rate news
• Mortgage rate bets shift after surprising jobs report
• Americans meet unexpected challenge with mortgage news

Recent employment data has helped push up mortgage rates. Various jobs data is released throughout the month, and the U.S. Department of Labor publishes weekly jobless claims numbers every Thursday.

Typically, mortgage rates increase when the economy thrives and decrease when it struggles. If weekly jobless claims continually show that employment is improving, then mortgage rates could inch up.

Housing market trends working in buyers' favor

Mortgage rates may be higher than people would like, but otherwise, it's not a bad time to be a homebuyer.

• Buyers have more power. "Homes are sitting on the market longer, about 60 days on average, giving buyers negotiating power they haven’t had access to," Vishal Garg, founder and CEO of Better Mortgage, told TheStreet. "Sellers are more willing to negotiate on price, concessions, and closing costs."
• Inventory is increasing. Zillow research discovered that annual housing inventory increased by 1% in May. This may seem like a small uptick, but any incline is a win for homebuyers.
• Demand is low. Relatively high mortgage rates are keeping many would-be buyers on the sidelines. If you still want to buy a house, this lack of competition gives you an advantage. You might not have to deal with a bidding war, and you could get a reasonable price on a house.
• Mortgage rates are below historical lows. The average 30-year rate since April 1971 is 7.69%, according to Freddie Mac. "The buyers that are winning are the ones who understand that a 3% rate is no longer a reality and likely won’t be in the distant future," Garg said. "Those were extraordinary conditions."

Related: Dave Ramsey sends message about mortgage payments

It was quick, familiar, affordable, and built around brands that became fixtures in kitchen cabinets for generations, from Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops to Rice Krispies, Raisin Bran, and Corn Flakes.

But the cereal aisle is no longer as simple as it used to be.

Shoppers are paying closer attention to sugar, fiber, protein, artificial colors, and overall nutrition.

Many families are also rethinking what breakfast should look like, turning toward more protein-heavy, less processed, and on-the-go options.

That has left legacy cereal makers such as WK Kellogg trying to do two things at once: keep old brands relevant for modern consumers while making their manufacturing networks cheaper and more efficient.

WK Kellogg Co. is now facing that pressure in Memphis.

Kellogg's lays off more workers after Omaha plant shutdown

The cereal maker filed an official WARN notice with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, notifying state officials of a permanent layoff at its facility at 2168 Frisco Avenue in Memphis.

The layoffs are expected to take place from August 7, 2026, through October 2, 2026, according to the notice viewed by TheStreet.

A total of 117 workers will be affected. The notice says the cuts include both union-represented and non-represented employees.

More Layoffs:

• E-commerce giant shuts down office as layoffs rise
• 87-year-old retail grocery giant lays off 100s in store closings
• Major sector gets hit with surprising job cuts
• Breakfast giant shuts plant, cuts 100s of workers

Union-represented employees will be covered by the applicable collective bargaining agreement, while non-union workers do not have bumping rights, according to the notice.

The Greater Memphis Local Workforce Development Area rapid response team has been notified to coordinate services with WK Kellogg and affected employees.

The cuts also come as Tennessee is seeing steady job cuts across industries. 

According to USA Today’s WARN tracker, 8,758 employees have been affected by layoffs and closures in Tennessee over the year.

WK Kellogg’s Memphis notice adds another household-name employer to that broader wave, showing how restructuring in food manufacturing is becoming part of a larger jobs story in the state.

Kellogg layoffs follow supply-chain overhaul

The Memphis layoffs are not alone and are part of the broader Kellogg’s supply chain overhaul.

The job cuts follow WK Kellogg’s broader supply-chain modernization plan, which the company announced in August 2024 as part of its second-quarter financial results.

At the time, WK Kellogg said it would invest roughly $450 million to $500 million to modernize its supply chain, including capital spending of up to $390 million and about $110 million in one-time cash costs tied to restructuring and other expenses.

The plan included shifting production from older facilities to fewer, more efficient sites.

WK Kellogg said it would close its Omaha, Nebraska, plant by the end of 2026 and scale back production at its Memphis facility.

The company also said it planned to expand production at facilities in Battle Creek, Michigan, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Belleville, Ontario.

TheStreet previously reported that the Omaha shutdown is expected to eliminate 451 positions, with layoffs happening in phases this summer before the plant permanently ceases operations in August 2026.

Now, the new Tennessee WARN notice shows the same supply-chain reset is still moving through, resulting in more job cuts.

Unlike the Omaha filing, the Memphis filing does not describe a full plant closure; it states a permanent layoff.

But the location was already part of the 2024 restructuring plan, making the latest cuts another sign that WK Kellogg is continuing to shift work away from older or less efficient parts of its manufacturing network.

Ferrero now owns WK Kellogg

The latest layoffs also come under a new owner.

Ferrero completed its acquisition of WK Kellogg Co. in September 2025, adding the cereal maker’s North American portfolio to a global food and confectionery business known for brands such as Nutella, Kinder, Tic Tac, and Ferrero Rocher.

The acquisition was valued at $3.1 billion when it was announced in July 2025.

WK Kellogg became a wholly owned subsidiary of Ferrero after the deal closed and is no longer listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Memphis cuts and Omaha shutdown were rooted in a supply-chain plan announced before the acquisition closed. But they are now unfolding under Ferrero ownership, as the new parent company tries to revive and grow WK Kellogg’s legacy cereal brands.

That matters because the company is not only changing where cereal is made, but also how it is sold to consumers.

Kellogg pushes nutrition message as cereal demand shifts

WK Kellogg has been trying to reposition cereal around nutrition as shoppers rethink breakfast.

In May, the company announced a national rollout of its SPOONS on-pack nutrition framework, a new back-of-box guide meant to help consumers understand cereal through attributes such as simple ingredients, protein, fiber, nutrients, and single-digit sugars.

The guide will appear on classic brands including Kellogg’s All-Bran, Corn Flakes, Frosted Mini-Wheats, Raisin Bran, and Rice Krispies.

WK Kellogg said many consumers are looking for more function from their food, especially around fiber and protein.

“As more people are looking for simple, high-nutrition foods – especially when it comes to fiber and protein – this provides a clear and compelling way to reintroduce people to a beloved and trusted food that’s been in Americans’ kitchens for more than a century,” said Sarah Ludmer, Chief Wellbeing and Sustainable Business Officer.

The company said more than 140 of its options are at least a good source of fiber, with 3 to 17 grams per serving. It also said nearly half of its cereals have 10 grams or less of added sugar per serving.

Chief Growth Officer Doug VanDeVelde said cereal is still one of the most popular household staples, with 50 million boxes purchased every week, but said the company has to be “deliberate and disruptive to keep cereal culturally relevant.”

This is the other side of WK Kellogg’s transformation.

On grocery shelves, the company is trying to make older cereal brands feel more modern, functional, and health-conscious.

As part of its operations, it is closing or scaling back older facilities and shifting production to a smaller, more efficient manufacturing network.

For investors and owners, that may help margins and protect legacy brands in a changing breakfast market.

Related: Struggling women's clothing retailer shutters 171 stores

When cloud infrastructure scaled between 2015 and 2020, security spending lagged by approximately 2 years before inflecting from less than 1% of infrastructure spend to more than 3%, according to a Goldman Sachs note shared with me at TheStreet.

Goldman's recent industry conversations suggest the AI enterprise cycle is following the same script, with the inflection expected in the second half of 2026 and into 2027.

The firm's conversations included callbacks specifically with Palo Alto Networks (PANW). 

And the timing of those conversations coincides with a Q3 fiscal 2026 earnings report that CEO Nikesh Arora called "a standout quarter" — one he believes represents a "watershed moment" for the entire cybersecurity industry.

PANW is up 45.56% year-to-date, according to Yahoo Finance. Goldman thinks the real move may still be ahead.

Goldman's core observation is that the AI security lag is about to close

The Goldman framework, outlined in the note shared with TheStreet, draws a direct parallel between the cloud security lag from 2015 to 2020 and the current AI enterprise cycle.

Also Read: More on Palo Alto Networks

In the cloud era, security spending took roughly 2 years to move from below 1% of infrastructure spend to above 3%. Goldman believes a similar 3%-5% benchmark is appropriate for AI security. And Palo Alto Networks itself made comments consistent with that framing, according to the note.

The lag is tied specifically to agentic enterprise adoption. As AI agents move from proof of concept to permanent production deployments, the security requirements become non-negotiable. 

More Wall Street:

• JPMorgan resets S&P 500 price target for the rest of 2026
• Vanguard challenges the S&P 500 as a one-stop strategy
• Goldman Sachs resets Broadcom stock forecast

Agentic containers become persistent rather than ephemeral. Consensus emerges on runtime security tools. Goldman expects this shift to begin moving the needle for enterprise security growth in the second half of 2026, with full acceleration into 2027.

"The latest advancements at the AI frontier have increased the level of urgency around cybersecurity, and redefined the shape of the industry for the coming years," said Palo Alto Networks Chairman and CEO Nikesh Arora on the Q3 earnings call.

Palo Alto Networks' Q3 results showed the inflection is already beginning

Palo Alto Networks reported fiscal third-quarter 2026 results on June 2:

• Total revenue of $3.0 billion, up 31% year over year
• Next-Generation Security Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of $8.1 billion, up 60% year over year
• Remaining performance obligations of $18.4 billion, up 36% year over year
• Adjusted free cash flow of $910 million, up from $578 million in the prior year period
• Trailing 12-month adjusted free cash flow margin of 38.5%, up 430 basis points year over year
• Non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.85, up from $0.80
  Source: Palo Alto Networks Third Quarter 2026 Results

According to an earnings call transcript compiled by Investing.com, Arora framed the demand environment in terms that go beyond a single quarter.

"These results are materializing as AI fundamentally redefines the enterprise tech stack, elevating cybersecurity to a mission-critical priority for every organization," Arora said on the earnings call. 

He added that the events of Q3 "have increased the terminal value of the entire cybersecurity industry."

For Q4 fiscal 2026, Palo Alto guided for NGS ARR of $8.90 billion to $8.95 billion, representing a 59% to 60% year-over-year growth, and total revenue of $3.345 billion to $3.355 billion, up 32% year over year.

The AI security architecture that makes PANW's platform critical

Chief Product and Technology Officer Lee Klarich described the AI security challenge on the earnings call in terms that explain why the inflection Goldman is forecasting is structural rather than cyclical.

AI security spans the entire deployment lifecycle. That’s from model scanning and AI red-teaming before deployment, through real-time runtime threat detection, to Security Operations Center integration. 

The speed requirement is the differentiating factor. Attackers using advanced AI models can carry out attacks from start to finish in minutes. Legacy security architectures with mean time to detection measured in days simply cannot respond.

Related: Cramer flags 2 major winners from AI 'game changer' Mythos

Palo Alto's XSIAM platform, which is designed to ingest data from all sensors, analyze it in real time using AI, and apply automated response, is built for this environment. 

Klarich said proving to customers that XSIAM can achieve mean time to resolution in minutes is "a very powerful proof point" driving platform consolidation.

Arora added that north of 1,200 customers have requested meetings, with 800 already completed in the last six weeks alone. That is a demand signal that is difficult to manufacture.

For investors, Goldman's framework suggests the best of PANW's AI security cycle is still in front of it. The lag is closing. The platform is proven. The urgency is real.

Related: Morgan Stanley resets PANW stock price target on demand trends

Long-lasting, versatile in use, and capable of excellent heat retention, cast iron is the natural choice in material when it comes to your cookware. Although folks can feel apprehensive about the treatment that select cast iron dishes need to undergo to maintain their quality over time, the material lends itself to a lot of great capabilities and makes it a worthwhile investment if you want to make sure that your pots, pans, and other dishware don't need to be replaced year after year.

It can be hard picking the right cookware for your kitchen, especially since many single or multi-piece sets can cost a small fortune. But the great thing about cast iron items is that they're not just highly affordable, costing as little as $20 for a standard skillet pan, but because they are virtually indestructible, whereas other models would get worn out or damaged overtime, you save you money because you don't have to worry about repurchasing new ones. People traditionally think of a standard, black cast iron skillet when you talk about cast iron cookware, but these days there are tons of different types, and not all require that extra seasoning and elbow grease that the stereotypical skillet has been known for. 

What types of cast iron cookware exist?

There are two types of cast iron cookware — traditional or seasoned cast iron and enameled cast iron. The traditional cast iron is the rustic-looking, black metal skillet that comes to mind when you hear think of cast iron cookware. These versions require a seasoning layer, which is typically oil baked into the metal, to create the non-stick surface that cast iron is known for and to prevent rusting. You can purchase them completely bare, where you have to season the pan yourself, or you can purchase them pre-seasoned so they're ready for immediate use. Seasoned cookware requires a bit more upkeep because it requires a light coat of oil for further use after every cleaning. It's ideal for searing proteins, baking cornbread, and campfire-style cooking. The pre-seasoned versions are the most common skillet model purchased, but with other styles of cookware using cast iron more and more, enameled cast iron is the other option seen in dutch ovens, casserole dishes, grill pans, griddles, and more.

Enameled cast iron is cast iron that is coated with a hardened, porcelain-glass glaze. The glaze acts as a protective, non porous seal over the cast iron and doesn't require any seasoning. It's ideal for situations where you are slow-cooking, braising, or simmering liquid-heavy dishes. In comparison of the two, the seasoned traditional cast iron is more indestructible than the enameled since the glass glaze coating can chip or scratch under extreme temperatures, as well as being more affordable. Enameled cast iron cookware is better for highly acidic dishes because the acid from food can strip the seasoning in the traditional cast iron and add a metallic taste to the dish. 

How do they work?

Cast iron is a heavy, brittle metal with a bit of a rough, pebbled texture, and it's used in cookware because of how well it not just holds heat but evenly distributes that heat throughout a pan. The ultimate choice for high-heat cooking methods like searing, frying, crisping, toasting, and browning, although cast iron takes longer to heat up compared to stainless steel or aluminum, it holds that heat extremely well ensuring even cooking, maintaining a stable temperature. Even placing cold food, like a raw piece of protein, doesn't cause the pan to lose heat, which is why it can so effectively do things like sear a steak. Additionally, since you don't need to put your burner up to as high of a heat to effectively cook, it eliminates the risk of burning.

Cast iron is naturally nonstick because of its slightly porous quality, which means your food won't stick or solidify to the pan and it makes for a far easier cleanup. They're also easily typically oven safe, so you can start a dish on the stovetop and transfer it directly into the oven to finish cooking it or keep it warm. 

Utopia Kitchen Premium Cast Iron Skillets (3-Piece Set)

Chefspot Pre-Seasoned Cast Iron Grill and Griddle Pan

Le Creuset Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven

Lodge Cast Iron Baker's Favorite Set

How do you clean them?

For both traditional and enameled cast iron it's best to handwash when cleaning. Enameled cast iron can technically be labeled as dishwasher safe, but most manufacturers strongly recommend against it because the intense heat harsh detergents can dull and ruin the enamel coating. 

To maintain its quality, always wash by hand with warm water and a little bit of mild dish soap. There's long been a myth that you can't use soap or it will strip the seasoning layer on the traditional style, but that has been debunked. A few pumps of some mild soap and a stiff bristle brush can help clean off grease, gunk, and stunk on food and still keep your cookware in pristine condition. Avoid abrasive scrubbers like wire brushes, copper pads, and steel wool and opt for chainmail scrubbers or a nylon scrub brush. You can also use coarse salt and a power towel. Never let your cast iron soak in the sink with water, and once it's cleaned, dry it immediately or it could potentially rust. Seasoned cast iron needs a light coating of oil while the cookware is still warm. Simply use a paper towel to rub a very thin layer of vegetable or canola oil over the surface, let it cool, and store in a dry place. Enameled cast iron can cool before washing, but, like with seasoned cast iron, dry promptly after cleaning. 

Topulors Cast Iron Scrubber

TheStreet Shopping is your guide for shopping insights and advice. We look beyond the price tag to find the best value in home, tech, and wellness gear based on product features and real-world use. Read more about our Editorial Standards and How We Choose Our Shopping Deals. 

Why we love this deal

A new piece of furniture or decor can upgrade the look of a room, but a new bedspread draped across the bed can completely transform the space. Whether your quarters require a splash of color or an aesthetically pleasing pattern, the right bedding will breathe new life into your bedroom. Looks aren't the only thing to consider when investing in a new comforter — you'll also want something cozy and cuddly to help you sleep peacefully each night.

Showcasing a dreamy floral design and all the pieces needed to makeover your bed, the queen-size Regency Heights 7-Piece Zennia Farmhouse Comforter Set is 66% off at Target. Normally, you'd have to pay $263 for this comforter set featuring a reversible bedspread, two pillow shams, two euro shams, a decorative pillow, and a matching throw blanket, but this limited-time deal brings the total cost down to just $90. If the soothing blue shade isn't your preference, there's also a taupe and blush colorway discounted to $90 that's just as lovely. 

Regency Heights 7-Piece Zennia Farmhouse Comforter Set, $90 (was $263) at Target

Why do shoppers love it?

Leafy branches with gorgeous blooms are scattered across this comforter for an appearance that blends with classic decor and more trendy styles. The pattern further pops against a textured seersucker fabric for added visual intrigue and rustic flair. Giving you additional options if you want to switch up the look, the reverse side is dark blue, which also looks great peeking out from underneath when folded. The traditional pillow shams have the same reversible design for more mixing and matching potential, while the euro shams feature the bold blue hue.

"I love how beautiful and delicate it looks," one shopper raved. The comforter is stuffed with a hypoallergenic filling, making it fluffy and lightweight, so it's great for cuddling up with even on warmer nights. The same shopper added, "It’s so comfortable — it feels like clouds."

Related: Walmart’s bestselling $110 boho comforter set is just $30

Shoppers adore this comforter set, with 87% of reviewers giving it a perfect five-star rating. Many applaud the beautiful design with blue bouquets of flowers, but they also appreciate the snuggly microfiber fabric. "It's soft and breathable and just really comfortable," wrote one reviewer. They went on to praise the quality set, "After multiple washes, everything is still in perfect condition." Since the bedding is machine washable, that means no expensive trips to the dry cleaner on laundry day.

Details to know 

• Bedding size: Full/queen.
• Pieces in comforter set: A comforter, two pillow shams, two euro shams, a decorative pillow, and a blanket.
• Material: 100% polyester.
• Is it machine-washable?: Yes.

The $90 comforter deal is specifically for the queen/full-size set. If you have a different mattress, there's also a king/California king size option on sale, discounted to $95 in both colors. 

Shop more bedding deals

• GdfStudio Woolley 7-Piece Comforter Bedding Set, $148 (was $213) at Target
• Balham Trade 7-Piece Comforter Set, $150 (was $300) at Target

Revamp your bedroom without an expensive remodel by adding the Regency Heights 7-Piece Zennia Farmhouse Comforter Set to your cart. This $90 deal at Target won't last long, so don't miss your chance to save.

Electric air taxis were one of those bets, with Archer Aviation (ACHR) being among her biggest.

That changed on Monday, June 8, 2026.

Wood's firm, ARK Invest, sold 2,222,392 shares of Archer Aviation Inc. in a single session across three of its exchange-traded funds, Benzinga reports.

The total sell-off was approximately $12.7 million.

What makes the move notable isn't just the size, it's where the money went immediately after.

Wood rotated the proceeds into DoorDash and Pony AI, two companies with one thing Archer doesn't have yet: near-term revenue from autonomous operations.

ARK's $12.7M exit from Archer Aviation broken down

The divestment was spread across ARK's three flagship ETFs; ARKK, ARKQ, and ARKX, according to Investing.com.

The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) shed 953,336 shares for $5.46 million.

The ARK Autonomous Technology and Robotics ETF (ARKQ) offloaded 866,604 shares for $4.96 million.

The ARK Space Exploration and Innovation ETF (ARKX) sold 402,452 shares for $2.30 million.

More Aviation:

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eVTOL stands for electric vertical takeoff and landing, and it is the technology behind aircraft designed to carry passengers across short urban routes, like a flying taxi.

Archer's aircraft, called Midnight, is one of the leading designs in this category.

Why ACHR stock has been losing altitude all year

Archer Aviation entered 2026 with real momentum, but the stock has lost a significant portion of those gains.

It reached a 52-week high of $14.62 before sliding to roughly $5.05 by June 11, according to Yahoo Finance data. Making a decline of more than 22% year-to-date as of early June, The Motley Fool notes.

Three factors have driven the pressure:

• Cash burn: Archer posted first-quarter revenue of just $1.6 million against a net loss of approximately $218 million, with second-quarter EBITDA guidance pointing to a further loss of $170 million to $200 million, as confirmed in its earnings release.
• Certification timeline: Archer has reached Phase 3 of 4 in the FAA Type Certification process, but the final stage carries real risk of slipping into 2027.
• Share supply overhang: A recent Form 144 filing with the SEC indicated a large holder planned to sell shares, adding potential pressure every time the stock tries to rally.

The company holds approximately $1.78 billion in cash and short-term investments, giving it runway.

But a healthy balance sheet doesn't sustain institutional patience forever when revenue is still effectively zero.

Where Cathie Wood put the Archer Aviation proceeds

ARK's exit moved straight into two autonomous mobility plays generating closer-to-real revenue, according to Stocktwits.

ARKQ and ARKX combined to purchase 4,723 DoorDash (DASH) shares for roughly $740,000.

DoorDash reported first-quarter revenue of $4.04 billion and total orders up 27% year over year to 933 million in May, and is actively integrating autonomous delivery technology.

This makes DoorDash a credible play on the near-term robotics transition.

Related: Cathie Wood says the market just misread the jobs report

ARK also picked up 45,949 shares of Pony AI (PONY) through ARKQ for approximately $412,000.

Benzinga reports that Pony AI is building toward a 3,500-vehicle robotaxi fleet and generating commercial revenue from autonomous operations today. Something Archer can't offer yet.

What ACHR investors should watch

ARK Invest's ACHR dump doesn't mean the eVTOL market is finished.

Morgan Stanley estimates the global air taxi market could reach $1.5 trillion by 2040, and Archer has cleared real FAA milestones, holds a defense collaboration with Anduril, and has reiterated plans to begin U.S. commercial operations this year.

What it does mean is that the market has shifted from rewarding news to rewarding execution. For ACHR to recover meaningfully, a few things likely need to happen first:

• FAA Type Certification completion, moving Archer beyond Phase 3 of 4.
• Visible U.S. commercial launches through the White House's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program.
• Early government revenue from the Anduril defense partnership.

According to Morningstar data, the ARK Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of negative 5.91%, compared to the S&P 500's 12.39% over the same period.

That context makes every portfolio decision Wood makes count more, and rotating out of pre-revenue positions in favor of companies generating operational cash flow is a rational response to investor scrutiny.

Archer Aviation's long-term story still holds.

What matters is if the company can build more credibility in 2026 and avoid missing execution timelines.

Related: Cathie Wood buys $4.3 million of tumbling tech stock

Bloomberg reported on June 10 that SoftBank’s efforts to borrow at least $6 billion through a margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake have stalled.

SoftBank shares dropped as much as 9.7% in Tokyo trading on the news, eventually closing down 8.33% in one of this year’s sharpest single-day declines.

The setback arrives at a difficult time for SoftBank, as it also faces a $40 billion unsecured bridge loan due in March 2027.

SoftBank’s margin loan target shrinks before talks collapse

SoftBank originally sought $10 billion for the margin loan in May 2026, a target it cut by 40% after lender enthusiasm faded, Bloomberg reported.

Even the reduced $6 billion target failed to close the deal, and discussions between the two sides have now paused without a clear timeline.

The company had reportedly secured about $5 billion in commitments before negotiations stopped, though it remains unclear whether those were verbal or written pledges.

SoftBank has made itself into a highly leveraged bet on AI, which carries significant upside as well as risk

SoftBank declined to comment on the development, and its representatives have not elaborated on the company’s alternative fundraising plans.

The loan was designed to provide SoftBank with liquidity to continue funding its AI ambitions without selling any of its prized OpenAI stake.

Lenders struggle to price SoftBank’s OpenAI collateral

The core issue is that OpenAI remains privately held, so banks cannot value the collateral in real time or sell it quickly during downturns, Bloomberg stated.

Margin loans traditionally rely on liquid public assets that lenders can price daily, making private equity stakes far more complex as collateral.

OpenAI was valued at $852 billion in its latest March 2026 funding round, following a record $122 billion raise. The figure comes from a private-market deal without a daily public pricing mechanism, CNBC reported.

More AI:

• Micron sits at the center of a red-hot chip rally
• IBM CEO sends blunt message on AI and quantum computing
• Anthropic CEO makes shocking admission about AI

Richard Windsor, founder of equity research firm Radio Free Mobile, told CNBC that SoftBank’s financing risks are growing alongside its concentration in a single company.

“If OpenAI fails to deliver, there could easily be a liquidity crunch at SoftBank,” Windsor told CNBC.

Competition from rival Anthropic has further complicated the picture, with some investors questioning whether OpenAI’s dominant market position justifies its current valuation, Bloomberg noted.

A $40 billion bridge loan adds urgency to SoftBank’s funding needs

The margin loan setback compounds a more pressing obligation, because SoftBank must also repay a $40 billion unsecured bridge loan by March 2027.

That facility, arranged with JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Mizuho Bank, and other major lenders in March 2026, financed SoftBank’s follow-on investment in OpenAI.

SoftBank has said it will repay the bridge loan through existing assets and other financing measures, but the margin loan setback narrows those options.

S&P Global Ratings lowered its credit outlook on SoftBank to negative in March, citing concerns that aggressive AI investments could strain the company’s liquidity position.

OpenAI’s confidential IPO could reset SoftBank’s AI exposure and financing plans

OpenAI announced on June 8 that it filed confidentially for an initial public offering in the United States, a development that could transform SoftBank’s position.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leading the potential offering, with analysts pointing to a debut window between September and November of this year, CNBC reported.

A successful listing would convert SoftBank’s illiquid OpenAI position into tradable shares, simplifying future borrowing and creating a clearer path to repaying the $40 billion bridge loan.

Hua Cheng, head of Asia credit research at AllianceBernstein, told Bloomberg that the stalled margin loan does not necessarily represent a standalone cause for concern.

“The best-case scenario is an OpenAI IPO this year, with SoftBank offloading part of its stake to pay down debt,” Cheng said.

SoftBank’s broader portfolio offers a cushion despite the financing setback

Despite the margin loan stumble, SoftBank’s portfolio still holds significant assets it could use for future borrowing or to generate cash through strategic sales.

The company holds roughly 90% of Arm Holdings, whose shares have surged 197% in 2026 as global demand for AI chip architecture accelerated.

SoftBank’s annual net profit quadrupled to more than $30 billion in its most recent fiscal year, driven largely by valuation gains on its AI-related holdings.

The company could also issue new bonds or borrow against other listed holdings in its portfolio, though each alternative carries its own tradeoffs, Bloomberg reported.

Related: SoftBank CEO doubles down on AI, stock market message for 2026

Much of the problem comes from rising costs of labor and food products that are passed on to customers, who have begun to balk at dining out because of higher menu prices.

"High-wage states/markets are amongst the hardest in the restaurant industry," Michael J. Ingram, vice president and principal at National Franchise Sales told TheStreet's Kirk O'Neil in an email.

"Franchisees can only raise their menu prices so far to make up for higher expenses, but as they lose customers, it becomes an uphill battle to cover debt they already have in place along with overall higher expenses," Ingram said.

A franchisee of iconic breakfast restaurant chainVillage Inn has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on behalf of three Florida locations, as the restaurant operator's revenue has fallen significantly over the last two years.

Village Inn franchisee files bankruptcy

The 68-year-old restaurant chain's franchisee filed its petitions for Village Inn locations in Land O Lakes, Brandon, and Zephyrhills, Fla., in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida on June 10, according to BKAlerts.

The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based lead debtor VI Land O Lakes LLC listed over $85,000 in assets and over $234,000 in liabilities in its petitions filed on June 10, according to court papers.

The debtor's largest unsecured creditors include Florida Department of Revenue, owed $48,000; First Citizen Bank, owed $47,000; US Foods, owed $41,000; Sysco Food Service, owed $35,000, and the Internal Revenue Service, owed $29,000, court papers said.

The debtor did not give a specific reason for filing for bankruptcy in its petition.

Florida locations are operating

A manager of the Land O Lakes Village Inn location told TheStreet that all three locations in the bankruptcy are operating as normal with no plans for closures.

The franchisee managing member Lloyd Lehan IV did not respond to a request for comment.

The debtor's three Village Inn locations have faced declining revenues over the last two years, dropping from about $2.02 million in 2024 to $1.9 million in 2025 for a 3.45% decline. Revenue is on pace this year for another decline as the company reported over $658,000 earned through June 10, according to the petition.

Hurricanes disrupted Florida Village Inns

Several Village Inn franchisee locations in the Tampa area have also filed for Chapter 11 protection to resolve financial issues related to hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, the Tampa Bay Business Journal reported.

The debtor has not indicated if the hurricanes caused economic issues for its three locations.

Village Inn Restaurants launched in 1958 in Denver and currently has 109 locations in 19 states, according to its website.

Franchisees of chains such as Carl’s Jr., Wendy’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s have all announced recent closings of troubled locations.

Carl's Jr. franchisee divests all locations

Carl’s Jr. franchise operator Sun Gir Inc., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 2, is the most recent restaurant operator to announce closings as it will divest all 59 of its restaurants.

The La Palma, Calif.-based franchisee is selling 49 of its locations, mostly in Southern California, and decided to close its remaining 10 stores after failing to find a buyer for the underperforming restaurants, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Bankrupt Village Inn locations:

• Village Inn Land O Lakes
• Village Inn Brandon
• Village Inn Zephyrhills

Related: 85-year-old popular burger chain franchisee dumps 59 locations

These days, it’s just enough to make you a regular shopper at Dollar General.

As inflation continues to rise and economic headwinds continue to squeeze household budgets, the “value shopper” demographic is undergoing a major shift.

The latest proof of this phenomenon comes straight from Dollar General’s CEO, Todd Vasos, who revealed a bitter truth about the state of today’s economy during the company’s most recent earnings call.

The American consumer is sending mixed signals

For months, experts have been attempting to dissect the health of the American consumer. 

Some data seems to indicate that spending is climbing. For example, in April, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said that real-dollar personal expenditures increased by 0.5% to $111.1 billion dollars. 

While other data indicates that consumers are actually spending, or at least attempting to spend, less. A May report from McKinsey & Company found that shoppers intent to spend was down in almost every category except for gasoline. 

What’s frustrating about this debate for the casual observer, is that much of it feels theoretical. 

Real dollar spending may be up, but are Americans actually spending a higher percentage of their income? Or is that just a product of inflation? Consumers are expecting to spend less, but is that out of necessity? Or is that just tied to anxieties about the state of things?

During Dollar Generals’ first quarter fiscal year 2027 earnings call, we finally got some real, solid answers about the current state of the economy — and they’re not encouraging.

Americans aren’t buying less, Dollar General’s CEO Todd Vasos says, they’re just buying it from less-expensive retailers.

Dollar General sees growing demand from high-income shoppers

When discussing Dollar General’s consumer base, Vasos told analysts the company was seeing a major shift in the type of shopper frequenting its stores.

“We are seeing customer penetration growth across low, middle, and high income segments as customers across all income cohorts seek value at increasing rates,” Vasos said.

“Notably, across these cohorts, the largest increase in customer count came from the highest income segment, which earns more than $100,000 annually, contributing to a significant increase in trade in customer households during the quarter.”

In other words, the customers currently flocking to Dollar General are those who we would have considered comfortably wealthy just a few short decades ago. 

For most of its history, Dollar General has served rural and underserved communities, and the lower-income to middle-income households that make up those communities. 

That's why the company's fastest-growing customer group households earning more than $100,000 is such a notable shift.

New data suggests more Americans are trading down

The shift seems to indicate that shoppers across all income brackets are feeling the financial pinch, and trading down as much as possible.

Vasos confirmed this, telling analysts “what we're seeing is… an accelerated rate of trade-in.” 

“We have seen that the upper end, while all cohorts are trading in, we're seeing that the upper end is trading in the most,” he continued. 

As to why this trade down is happening now, as opposed to a year or two ago? Vasos says it’s the rising fuel costs.

“I believe that the pressures that had persisted prior to fuel costs, so sustained inflation and now those elevated fuel costs [have triggered the shift],” he said. “When that price hits that $4 mark, and then crosses it, and then sustains for a while, you start to see that trade-in come in, and you start to see that our core customer needs us most. That's exactly what's happening.” 

More retail:

• Best Buy bets big on controversial partner
• Dollar Tree gives customers something Costco can't offer
• 131-year-old coffee giant is coming for Keurig's U.S. dominance

Vasos isn’t alone in spotting this trade down effect.

In 2025, 75% of consumers reported trading down in at least one category, according to McKinsey & Company. Even high-income households, those earning $100,000 or more, reported choosing lower-priced brands and retailers and private-label products more often than they had previously.

Median household income in the U.S. is fairly high at $83,730, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Yet consumers continue to report heightened concerns about inflation and affordability.

Walmart, a retailer with fewer locations than Dollar General but much larger revenues, says its also experiencing the effects of these concerns.

"We do continue to see the higher-income customers coming to Walmart," Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner told reporters during a shareholder week event in early June, according to Fox Business. "We're meeting more of them, they're buying more, they're coming more frequently."

While consumer spending may look resilient on paper, comments from Dollar General and Walmart’s CEOs show that in reality shoppers are actually spending quite differently.

Rather than abandoning purchases altogether, consumers across income levels appear to be seeking lower prices, cheaper brands, and discount retailers wherever possible.

And if even households earning more than $100,000 are increasingly turning to stores like Dollar General, it may be a sign that economic pressures are reaching further up the income ladder than many traditional indicators suggest.

Related: Best Buy CEO drops major consumer warning on her way out

"Hitting Iran hard" also included a presidential threat to seize Kharg Island, a coral island in the western Persian Gulf.

That caused military and oil experts to sit up quickly. For good reason.

A key component of Iran's economy

Kharg Island is not just any island in the Persian Gulf. Located about 16 miles off the Iranian mainland, the coral island is Iran's primary oil port. Before this year's Iran War, about 90% of Iran's oil exports were loaded on oil tankers at the oil-terminal complex at Kharg.

Anybody who has thought much about possible armed conflict in the Persian Gulf knows about Kharg Island, as I wrote a year ago.

U.S. planes have attacked the island at least twice since this year's war began, but the attackers were careful to steer clear of Kharg's giant storage tanks and the loading systems.

More on oil prices:

• Jim Cramer drops blunt 7-word verdict on oil prices
• JPMorgan sends another message on strait of Hormuz, oil prices
• Oil’s 4% spike revives Wall Street’s rate-hike fear

Iran needs oil revenue to support its economy. Kharg is the cash register.

Nonetheless, Trump said on Truth Social at 9 a.m., "At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their oil and gas markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America."

Oil prices moved higher on the threat. But not too much higher. Light sweet crude, the U.S. benchmark, hit as high as $93.64, up 4%. Brent crude peaked at $95.50.

The peak prices since Feb. 28 came on March 9, when crude oil peaked at $119.48 per 42-gallon barrel and Brent peaked at $119.50.

Invading Kharg carries huge risks

Oil traders have long thought about and understood the risks of trying to grab targets like oil terminals in the Persian Gulf. It involves

• An invasion and a commitment of sizable numbers of troops. The U.S. has upwards of 20,000 ground troopers deployed in and around the Persian Gulf.
• A commitment of ground equipment.
• A commitment of air cover.

Especially when the invasion is so close to the Iranian mainland.

And, of course, the financial stakes are so big. Time magazine estimated the oil flowing through Kharg was generating around $80 billion a year in oil revenue for the Iranian government. So, an operation to seize the island would almost certainly be greeted with resistance.

Markets react significantly

But traders have also understood that, with President Trump, a threat is not an an attack. In fact, he told Fox News he always wanted to take Kharg Island. But, he added, “You’d make a fortune, but I don’t know that America has the stomach, I think they’d like to see us come home."

So, slowly but surely, oil prices fell back until, finally, at about 2 p.m. ET, another Trump post said the Iranian government has agreed to negotiate and was "on the verge of signing a peace agreement." The attack he had said was coming was cancelled.

Iran has not confirmed the president's statement.

Markets cheered seriously.

Crude oil fell back hard. Brent fell to $90.38 a barrel, a 5.4% drop from the day's highest level, according to Wall Street Journal data. Light sweet crude settled at $87.71, down $2.32 on the day and a 6.3% decline from its high.

Gasoline prices were falling anyway. AAA's price was at $4.129 a gallon, down 0.5% the day. GasBuddy's national average was $4.078, down 0.8%.

Both are down substantially from their mid-May peaks.

Exxon Mobil and Chevron led energy stocks lower.

Stocks overall, however, swung from small losses in the morning to big-time gains. The S&P 500 was up 1.8%. The Dow Jones industrials shot up to a 927-point gain.

Related: Goldman Sachs drops contrarian take on the jobs market

But even as the Fed has started cutting rates from its 2023 peak, inflation remains stuck above its 2% target, raising concerns that heavy cash positions may be quietly losing purchasing power.

In a June 2 weekly bulletin, Citi Wealth Investments warned that investors holding oversized cash positions could face growing opportunity costs.

While cash offers stability and liquidity, the firm's investment team noted that it has historically underperformed other major asset classes during periods of elevated inflation, a pattern that could persist if price pressures remain persistent.

Consumer prices accelerate while cash positions lose ground

Headline inflation in the United States hit 4.2% year-over-year in May, the fastest pace since April 2023, Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed.

The core consumer price index also rose to 2.9% from 2.8% in April, confirming that price pressures extend well beyond the energy sector that has dominated recent headlines.

Citi Wealth noted that inflation remains above target in many major economies, with rising energy costs compounding an already elevated global pricing environment.

The first quarter saw markets digest simultaneous shocks, which increased volatility and led investors to quickly reprice risk. While the U.S. economy remains resilient, elevated inflation risks and tighter policy expectations reinforce our preference for portfolio quality

The firm expects those pressures to persist and sees rising long-end bond yields as a probable result, which would further penalize portfolios overweight in cash.

The bulletin's conclusion was direct: holding substantial cash carries a meaningful opportunity cost relative to assets that generate income or maintain pace with rising prices.

3 roles Citi Wealth says cash should serve in a portfolio

Citi Wealth did not argue that investors should abandon cash entirely. Instead, the firm's analysts outlined three specific roles cash can play within a well-constructed portfolio.

First, it serves as a source of liquidity, helping investors meet capital calls and short-term obligations without being forced to sell other assets at unfavorable prices.

Second, cash can also provide stability, although the team cautioned that it is rarely appropriate as a large, permanent allocation.

Finally, cash offers optionality, providing investors with funds for major purchases or opportunities to buy assets during market downturns, though every dollar held in reserve carries an opportunity cost in forgone returns.

Citi Wealth's bulletin argued that cash is highly sensitive to inflation and that oversized positions risk eroding long-term portfolio value, with the firm's chief investment officer Kate Moore endorsing that view.

The firm drew a clear line between purposeful cash holdings tied to specific needs and positions maintained simply out of inertia from the rate-hiking era.

Citi Wealth's spending-profile framework for sizing cash allocations

For investors trying to determine the right cash balance, the bulletin offered a framework anchored in individual spending patterns rather than a single target number.

Citi Wealth's team recommended that investors base their cash allocations on a 12- to 24-month view of spending obligations, including portfolio income draws and anticipated major purchases.

Citi Wealth's team said that the range should reflect whether an investor draws regular income from the portfolio, needs to fund an upcoming commitment, or has a significant near-term purchase planned.

Lines of credit can also supplement liquidity, ensuring investors are not forced to sell other holdings to meet unexpected short-term obligations, the team noted.

From that baseline, the firm views cash, money market instruments, and short-dated fixed income as one combined group rather than three separate allocation categories.

Short-duration bonds emerge as Citi's preferred alternative to excess cash

For those not yet comfortable shifting into higher-risk assets, Citi Wealth pointed to short-duration, high-quality fixed income as the natural next step from cash.

The firm favors U.S. government debt and investment-grade bonds with maturities in the 1- to 3-year range, reflecting uncertainty about the Federal Reserve's monetary policy path.

More Wall Street:

• JPMorgan resets S&P 500 price target for the rest of 2026

• Vanguard challenges the S&P 500 as a one-stop strategy
• Goldman Sachs resets Broadcom stock forecast

Short-dated bonds have historically outperformed their long-dated counterparts when yields rise, a pattern that aligns with current conditions and elevated nominal rates.

Nominal yields sit above their longer-term historical averages across most maturities, but credit spreads remain near their tightest levels in years, according to Bloomberg data cited in the June 9 bulletin.

Broader market signals reinforce Citi Wealth's warning on cash

The bulletin arrived after a week marked by renewed tensions in the Middle East, a sharp technology sell-off, and economic data underscoring persistent inflation.

The Bloomberg Magnificent 7 Index, which tracks the seven largest technology-related names in the S&P 500, fell 5.8% for the week ending June 5, while the S&P 500 declined 2.6% over the same stretch.

This implies the remaining 493 constituents fell roughly 1% on a market-cap-weighted basis. 

Defensive sectors led the June 5 selloff session, with the S&P 500 Consumer Staples sector up more than 2% and Healthcare up 1.7%, CNBC reported.

With the Federal Open Market Committee entering its blackout period ahead of the June 16-17 meeting, attention has turned to whether policymakers will acknowledge rising inflation risks.

Citi Wealth's bulletin argues that these signals, rising long-end yields, persistent inflation pressure, and rotation into defensives, compound the opportunity cost of remaining overweight cash.

Related: 6 portfolio ‘leaks’ and how to fix them

A different infrastructure gap is now opening up, and most investors have not started pricing it yet.

Why AI agents require a different kind of infrastructure than AI models

The AI systems that have dominated public attention since late 2022 are fundamentally information tools. They answer questions, summarize documents, and generate content.

The user still has to take action. That changes with agentic AI, software that does not simply advise but executes tasks autonomously on behalf of users.

The difference sounds incremental. It is not. When software can act rather than just advise, every action carries legal, financial, and reputational consequences for the person who authorized it.

Related: Sam Altman makes stunning admission about AI

That introduces infrastructure requirements that conversational AI never needed: identity systems, permission frameworks, payment rails, and audit mechanisms that allow humans to review and reverse what happened.

Mau Ledford, CEO and co-founder of Sogni AI, describes the shift plainly: "The key shift is that AI is moving from 'help me think' to 'help me finish,'" Ledford said. "A chatbot suggests a trip. An agent books it."

The first real-world deployments are already appearing. Travala launched what it describes as the first end-to-end agentic AI travel protocol on June 10, enabling autonomous agents to search, reserve, and settle payments across more than 2.2 million hotel properties, including Marriott, Hilton, and IHG.

The system processes transactions at approximately $0.01 per booking with near-instant settlement, according to The Block. Final payment authorization still requires user approval, but everything before that step runs autonomously.

Juan Otero, CEO of Travala, said travel is a natural starting point because the booking process remains one of the most fragmented consumer experiences in existence.

"Agentic AI can do all this for you in one chat," Otero said. "No more tabs, no more forms, no more friction." he added.

More AI:

• Micron sits at the center of a red-hot chip rally
• IBM CEO sends blunt message on AI and quantum computing
• Anthropic CEO makes shocking admission about AI

Travel is only one of the early domains. Experts point to business procurement, customer support, financial management, research, and creative production as sectors likely to follow. Gartner projects that 40% of enterprise applications will embed task-specific AI agents by end of 2026, up from under 5% in 2025, according to Svitla.

Creative production is one area already showing traction: rather than generating a description of an ad, an agent uploads a product photo, produces a storyboard, renders video, localizes copy, and prepares distribution assets, compressing a multi-step workflow into a single instruction. As Sogni AI's CEO said, "The winning products will not be the ones that make agents the most autonomous. They will be the ones that make autonomy feel controlled."

Trust and identity are the hardest problems agentic AI infrastructure must solve

As AI agents move from answering questions to taking actions, the infrastructure gap that matters most is not compute. It is accountability. Booking the wrong flight or executing an unintended transaction carries consequences that conversational AI never had to reckon with.

Every autonomous action needs a clear owner, a clear scope, and a clear audit trail.

The good news is that the problem is not entirely new. Enterprises already use identity and access management systems defining what each employee can access and what requires approval.

Consumers are already familiar with the concept: a parent setting a spending limit on a child's credit card is the same delegation logic agentic systems will need at scale. The engineering challenge is extending those proven frameworks to autonomous software.

Sydney Huang, CEO of Human API, believes that the identity problem is fundamentally one of adaptation rather than invention. "The challenge is not inventing an entirely new security model," Huang said, "but adapting existing identity, permissioning, and governance frameworks to autonomous software agents in a way that remains transparent and easy for people to understand."

The emerging architecture looks like layered controls: a verified identity for the agent, clear delegation from the user, defined spending limits, an audit log of every action, and a mechanism for humans to revoke access at any point. She said the long-term solution combines cryptographic identity, verifiable credentials, and programmable permission systems, so trust is enforced at the infrastructure level rather than relying on any single platform's policies.

Travala's system already implements several of these principles using session keys that ensure payment requests originate from the agent but final signing authority remains with the user's wallet, and a machine-verifiable performance layer that lets agents build reputation from verified completed bookings over time, according to The Block.

But the catch-22 of agentic access remains an unsolved problem. Ran Hammer, VP of Business Development at Orbs, frames it plainly: "To be useful, it needs real access to your stuff, but that much access is dangerous."

The same capability that makes an agent valuable, the ability to act across multiple systems on a user's behalf, is the same capability that makes a compromise or a hallucination consequential in a way that a wrong answer never is.

Why traditional payment infrastructure is not built for autonomous software

Identity solves one half of the agentic commerce equation. Payments solve the other. An agent that can plan and confirm a transaction but cannot execute the payment is only halfway to useful, and traditional banking infrastructure was designed for humans, not for software.

Opening a bank account, completing identity verification, and executing transactions have historically required human intervention. Autonomous software cannot fulfill those requirements the same way.

That friction is pushing agentic commerce toward programmable payment infrastructure that can settle instantly and enforce spending rules automatically. As Travala's CEO put it: "Banking is a bottleneck for agentic AI. Traditional banking rails are fundamentally incompatible with autonomous software."

This is where digital assets become functionally relevant, not as a speculative asset class, but as payment infrastructure aligned naturally with how autonomous software operates. Programmable settlement runs around the clock without a banking intermediary. Spending rules can be encoded directly into the transaction.

The alignment is structural. "Agents and crypto fit naturally because blockchain is part of the internet layer," Hammer said. "An agent paying in stablecoins doesn't care about banking hours or middlemen." The practical evidence: x402 agentic transactions on Base grew from near-zero in mid-2025 to over 100 million cumulative transactions through Q1 2026, according to BitcoinKE.

Ben Goertzel, CEO of SingularityNET, argues the financial infrastructure for agents must be built as open, collectively governed infrastructure. "Crypto is the native financial substrate for AI agents," Goertzel said. "Programmable money, permissionless access, and verifiable state are exactly what autonomous economic actors need." he added.

Key context on the agentic AI infrastructure buildout:

• Travala's Travel MCP protocol is live through Claude Desktop and open to external developers; the company is offering a 10% rebate in Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin for developers building agents that complete hotel bookings through its system, a direct financial incentive to accelerate third-party ecosystem development, according to The Block.
• The long-term solution is a combination of cryptographic identity, verifiable credentials, and programmable permission systems that allow trust to be enforced at the infrastructure level rather than relying solely on platform policies; that distinction matters because platform-level trust can be revoked or gated, while infrastructure-level trust is available to any agent meeting the technical standard.
• His OmegaClaw project at SingularityNET is building agents that do hypothesis-driven financial risk analysis, including decomposing unsustainable yield rates and warning leveraged traders of liquidation cascades below their entry price; it is one of the first deployments of agentic AI specifically designed for autonomous financial risk management rather than general assistance.
• The identity challenge extends to API access as a separate bottleneck; many services simply block agents from accessing them, meaning that even a capable and trustworthy agent can be locked out at the service level regardless of how well the identity and permission architecture is designed, a friction point he expects to ease over time as adoption grows.
• The Travala launch uses ERC-7715 session keys to ensure payment requests originate from the agent while final signing authority remains isolated to the user's secure wallet environment; ERC-8004 adds a machine-verifiable trust layer that tracks agent performance based on verified real-world outcomes, creating a reputation system for autonomous software that mirrors how human track records are evaluated, according to The Block.

What the agentic AI infrastructure gap means for investors

The history of major technology transitions shows that the first phase rewards the companies building the capability and the second rewards those building the infrastructure to deploy it at scale. During the internet era, enormous value accrued not to the websites but to the payment systems, identity frameworks, and cloud services that websites ran on.

Agentic AI appears to be establishing a similar structure. The models exist and the use cases are materializing. IDC projects that 40% of roles in Global 2000 companies will involve direct engagement with AI agents by end of 2026, according to Gartner and IDC research.

What is not yet built at scale is the identity layer, the permission framework, and the payment infrastructure that allows agents to transact safely on behalf of hundreds of millions of users. Those gaps represent the next concentrated infrastructure investment opportunity.

The companies most likely to capture durable value are those solving the identity and permissioning problem with proven enterprise architecture. This is an adaptation challenge, not an invention challenge.

Organizations extending familiar IAM frameworks to autonomous software will reach institutional adoption faster than those requiring the market to accept new trust models. The infrastructure race to capture that value is just beginning.

Related: AI shopping apps could change how Americans find deals

That role required both vulnerability and perfect comedic timing, traits Blunt has seamlessly translated into action films, rom-coms, and even sci-fi and horror, which is why the actor has remained in demand for two decades, amassing a substantial net worth in the process.

Blunt already had a lucrative start to 2026 with the release of The Devil Wears Prada 2, which grossed $665 million worldwide on a $100 million budget. Blunt reportedly took home $12.5 million for reprising her role as Charlton, now head of Dior US.

On June 12, 2026, Blunt again takes center stage, this time starring in Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi thriller Disclosure Day, playing Margaret Fairchild, a Kansas City weatherperson who develops magical abilities and gets swept up in a dangerous world of whistleblowers and government cover-ups.

According to Variety, Blunt took home $15 million for her Disclosure Day role, which places her among the world’s highest-paid female actors.

So, just how much wealth does she have in 2026?

@primevideoaunz

Replying to @user6917725209613 every word out of emily's mouth was iconic 😂 #TheDevilWearsPrada #EmilyBlunt #AnneHathaway #MerylStreep #MirandaPriestly

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What is Emily Blunt’s net worth in 2026?

According to both Parade and Celebrity Net Worth, Emily Blunt has an estimated net worth of $100 million in 2026 — but there’s a catch.

Both publications report that the number is Blunt’s net worth combined with that of her husband, John Krasinski.

Celebrity Net Worth says that both actors have “equally attributable” fortunes, but it estimates that Krasinski’s is slightly higher, which means Blunt’s net worth could be somewhere in the $40 million range.

This makes sense, considering that Blunt didn’t reportedly start earning eight-figure paychecks until 2021, when she made between $12 and $13 million for starring in A Quiet Place Part 2, written and directed by — you guessed it — her husband Krasinski.

Related: Anne Hathaway's net worth: A look inside The Devil Wears Prada 2 star’s fortune

Still largely unknown when The Devil Wears Prada came out, Blunt reportedly did not make as much as her co-star, Anne Hathaway, who was said to have brought home her first million-dollar paycheck for that role, and so it’s safe to say that the past decade is where Blunt has made the bulk of her fortune.

Here’s a look at how Blunt’s earnings have accelerated through the years:

Emily Blunt’s film salaries

Sources: Variety, Parade

Emily Blunt’s early life and acting career

Emily Olivia Laura Blunt was born on February 23, 1983, in London, England. Her mother, Joanna Mackie, was an actress and English teacher, while her father, Oliver Blunt, was a trial attorney. Blunt has three siblings: Felicity, Susannah, and Sebastian.

A self-described “shy and awkward child,” Blunt had a stutter well into her teenage years. “It wasn't the whole part of me; it was just a part of who I was,” Blunt told Marie Claire, adding, “there were certain people who liked to define me by that — it was tough.”

With great foresight, one of her teachers suggested she take part in the school play, using a different accent. “That was a very liberating thing for me as a kid,” she said. "Suddenly, I had a fluency. The removal of yourself from yourself, in some ways, was freeing."

Related: Hayden Panettiere's net worth: A look at the 'Scream' star’s wealth & new memoir

At age 16, she attended Hurtwood House boarding school, where she began to work with acting coach Adrian Rawlins, who also played Harry Potter’s Dad, James Potter, in the blockbuster series.

One of the school’s productions appeared in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Blunt was discovered and signed by an agent.

When she was 18, Blunt was cast in a West End production, The Royal Family, which also starred Dame Judi Dench, who took her under her wing as a mentor. “It doesn't surprise me at all where she is," Dench later proclaimed of Blunt. "I am thrilled that she is a big beautiful star."

The Devil Wears Prada holds a special place in Blunt’s heart: Not only did it establish her stardom; it also defined the roles she wanted to pursue. “[Prada] helped reveal a certain part of me; I wasn't just the ingenue or the English rose,” she told Vulture. “It helped me be seen as a character actor, which is what I'd always wanted."

Emily Blunt’s business ventures

Blunt has been the face of the YSL Opium perfume — and in a twist of fate, the campaign was shot by Patrick Demarchelier, who served as one of her character’s most memorable lines in The Devil Wears Prada. She has also endorsed the luxury Swiss watch brand IWC Schaffhausen.

In terms of charitable ventures, Blunt serves on the board of directors of the American Institute for Stuttering and has also raised funds for the Malala Fund.

@starlightgossip_

😂 Emily Blunt’s Shocked Reaction to John Krasinski! 💖 Emily Blunt’s playful reaction to her husband John Krasinski being named People’s Sexiest Man Alive is a must-see! Watch her tease him and share her honest thoughts on his new title. This adorable couple moment will have you smiling! 🎥 Don’t miss it—subscribe now 👉 www.youtube.com/@StarLightGossip #EmilyBlunt #JohnKrasinski #CoupleGoals #SexiestManAlive #CelebrityBuzz

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Emily Blunt’s personal life

Blunt dated singer Michael Bublé from 2005 to 2008. When that relationship ended, a friend set her up to meet John Krasinski, and she reportedly knew it was love at first sight. The pair became engaged in 2009 and were married at George Clooney’s estate in Lake Como, Italy, on July 10, 2010.

Blunt and Krasinski share two daughters: Hazel (born 2014) and Violet (born 2016).

More on celebrity wealth:

• Jet Li’s net worth in 2026: The action star’s fortune as his new memoir drops
• Jennie Garth’s net worth: The ‘I Choose Me’ author’s wealth in 2026
• Dr. Dre’s net worth in 2026: The business mogul becomes a billionaire

Coincidentally, Blunt’s Devil Wears Prada co-star, Stanley Tucci, fell in love with her sister, Felicity, who works as a literary agent in London.

The two briefly met during the film’s 2006 premiere while Tucci was married to his first wife, Kate. After Kate's death from breast cancer in 2009, Tucci and Felicity met again at Blunt and Krasinski's wedding, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Emily Blunt’s real estate portfolio

Blunt and Krasinski have owned several high-profile residences, including a Hollywood Hills mansion they sold to Kendall Jenner for $6.5 million in 2016 and a 6-bedroom townhouse in Brooklyn, which they also sold for $6.5 million in 2018.

Currently, they live in a Brooklyn Heights condo they purchased by combining two properties together for $11 million. They also reportedly own a home in London.

Related: Stephen Colbert’s net worth after 'Late Show' finale

That has changed. Americans are still eating pizza, but they're increasingly turning away from chains like Papa Johns and Pizza Hut, which are each closing more than 200 restaurants.

"Taste, value, convenience and variety are prime factors in capturing potential pizza customers, according to Technomic's 2025 Pizza Consumer Trend Report. But the research firm's data show that the average price of a pizza is $17.61, up 3% year over year and more than 15% in the last five years," Restaurant Business reported.

Those price hikes, the research showed, have had an impact on pizza sales, with 35% of consumers ordering restaurant pizza less frequently because it has gotten too expensive.

In addition, some consumers have shifted away from restaurant pizza.

“While food-service remains dominant with nearly two-thirds ordering carryout monthly, delivery has declined from 61% in 2022 to 55% in 2025," according to the 2025 Technomic Pizza Consumer Trend Report. "The most telling shift: 25% of consumers report eating more frozen pizza instead of restaurant options due to price increases.”

Those trends have created challenges for pizza chains. Pizza Hut has announced plans to close about 250 restaurants, while rival Papa Johns recently closed 44 locations and expects to shut down more than 250 additional stores.

Papa Johns has seen its sales drop

The pizza industry has been fighting for growth for a couple of years.

“In 2024, the pizza segment struggled significantly, with Technomic’s Top 500 Restaurants data showing 61% of pizza chains experienced declining sales. Only one pizza brand — Fort Worth-based pizza buffet chain Mr. Gatti’s Pizza — managed to achieve double-digit growth,” according to Nation’s Restaurant News.

Papa Johns has been hit hard by that downturn.

"North America comparable sales decreased 6.4% from a year ago as comparable sales from Domestic Company-owned restaurants were down 5.2% and North America franchised restaurants were down 6.7%," the company shared in its first-quarter earnings release.

That followed a full-year decline in 2025.

"North America comparable sales decreased 2% as Domestic Company-owned restaurants were down 3% and North America franchised restaurants were down 2%," the company shared in its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings release.

Papa Johns and Pizza Hut closing hundreds of underperforming locations

Papa Johns has been aggressive in its efforts to return to same-store sales growth. Those efforts include shutting down stores that are not performing.

"We are making progress on our previously announced efforts to address locations that are failing to meet brand standards, lack a clear path to sustainable improvement or represent an opportunity for strong sales transfer to nearby restaurants," CFO Ravi Thanawala said during the company's first-quarter earnings call.

The company defines sites marked for closure primarily as decade-old franchise units whose average unit volume (AUV) is below $600,000 and that predominantly generate negative EBITDA.

More pizza industry coverage:

• Pizza Hut closing 250 stores, faces $100 million lawsuit
• 50-year-old pizza chain closes all restaurants, files Chapter 7

"During the first quarter, we closed 44 of the 300 identified locations," Thanawala added. "Early results are encouraging as we have observed a strong transfer of sales to neighboring restaurants."

Pizza Hut, which is being shopped for a potential sale by its parent company Yum Brands, has a store closure plan similar to its rival's.

“In the first half, in the U.S., we expect approximately 250 targeted closures of underperforming units tied to the Hut forward program, which will result in a decline in global Pizza Hut units in the first half,” Yum Brands CFO Ranjith Roy said during the chain's fourth-quarter earnings call.

Domino's has the answer

"Fast-food pizza used to be the ultimate, cheap Friday night family luxury. When a delivery order for a family of four at a standard chain starts pushing past forty or fifty dollars, it completely breaks the value. Consumers are looking at those prices, realizing they can get a vastly superior product from a local independent shop," RTMNexus CEO Dominick Miserandino said.

Domino's has long accepted that its business revolves around selling acceptable pizza cheaply. That niche gives the company a clear identity in the struggling pizza space.

BTIG analyst Peter Saleh sees Domino's as the clear category winner.

"We think Domino's is executing its domestic strategy brilliantly, gaining market share and driving traffic with all income groups, while the broader industry is struggling," Saleh told Yahoo Finance.

The chain's sales grew in the U.S. by 0.9% in Q1, according to the company's first-quarter earnings release, while they climbed by 3% in fiscal 2025, Domino's shared in its fourth-quarter earnings release.

Domino's CEO Russell Weiner noted that competitors have increasingly embraced value, but remained confident that they can't truly compete.

"Competition within the QSR pizza space also increased in Q1 as the national pizza players offer deals comparable, if not identical, to the renowned value Domino's has made famous. While this created some short-term pressure, we believe Domino's wins in the sustained value environment," he said during the pizza giant's first-quarter earnings call.

He explained how Domino's can offer low prices while still being profitable.

"Our advantage is profit power, the ability to offer compelling ongoing value while driving profit growth for Domino's franchisees. Our industry-leading advertising budget drives the order counts needed to make this value model work profitably over time. Our pizza competitors simply don't have that same capability," Weiner added.

Price is not the only factor in the pizza sales wars

PMQ Pizza Editor-in-Chief Rick Hynum sat down for an interview with TheStreet and said that while price isn't the sole driving factor in the chain pizza space right now, it's huge.

"We're also seeing the leading chains introduce more specialty pizzas lately, like Domino's Parmesan Stuffed Crust and Pizza Hut's Crispy Parm Pan pizza. So the chains are getting out of that menu rut they were in for so long, trying to show that they're more than just cheap fast-food pizza," he said.

Value, he added, isn't just about price.

"It's about perceived quality of the product, too, and speed and convenience — and nowadays you can get cheap, fast pizza just about anywhere, including at that convenience store that's on your way home from work. So the chains have to find a way to stand out in other ways, too," Hynum said.

Domino's, he added, has not just built its model around being cheap.

"But, yes, price is super important, especially for Domino's and especially in this economy. They'll probably keep bringing back their 50% off discount promotion throughout the year just like they did in 2025. But keep in mind, for Domino's, that's more about driving loyalty membership and pulling more and more customers into their orbit so Domino's has top-of-mind awareness with their app on every phone," he said.

Papa John' has not done that as well the pizza publication editor shared.

"That's the real stroke of genius for Domino's. And although we've seen Papa Johns make strides with its own loyalty program, no one can touch Domino's in that respect," he added.

Related: Dave Ramsey warns shoppers to avoid Costco trap

The grocery chain has already been updating its bakery and deli lineup in recent months as it faces slower sales growth in its stores.

For example, in February, it added four new large “Decadent” cookies to its bakery, which rival the viral desserts sold at Crumbl Cookies.

In April, it introduced a lineup of smoked brisket sandwiches at its delis and, in May, rolled out five new chantilly desserts at its bakery. 

Earlier this month, Publix even dropped new limited-edition lemon baked goods, which include cakes, donuts, cheesecakes, and cookies.  

Publix teases viral dessert coming to its stores

Now, Publix is making another bold addition to its bakery, and this time it appears to be a cake that has recently gone viral on TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms. 

In a recent Instagram post, Publix teased the upcoming arrival of the popular “dot cake," which will drop in mid-June. 

“We heard you like a certain type of cake…New Bakery goodness drops June 16,” said Publix in the post. 

Dot cakes first went viral on social media in May, garnering millions of views. The treat originates from The Dotcakes, a bakery in Roslyn, New York. 

Related: Publix faces consumer boycott threat after store policy change

The bakery’s “Dotcup,” its single-serve 8-ounce cake, has specifically gained popularity. It usually sells for $11 each and comes in sponge cake flavors such as red velvet, classic white, vanilla chip, funfetti, and chocolate. 

Each Dotcup is coated with frosting, then topped with a dense layer of crunchy spherical sprinkles, a unique feature that has especially attracted consumer interest.

The Dotcakes bakery reportedly sells 600 of these cakes at its Roslyn location and at Butterfield Market in Manhattan every Wednesday and Saturday, and they sell out within two hours as customers wait in long lines to get their hands on one, according to a report from the New York Post.

Recipes for dupe versions of the dot cake have also flooded social media for those who don’t live near a location that sells it.

Publix faces sales pressures as consumer behavior shifts

Publix’s decision to feature the cake could boost sales, which it needs after facing months of weak consumer demand.

In the first quarter of 2026, the grocery chain, with more than 1,400 stores across the country, saw flat comparable-store sales growth, according to its latest earnings report. 

Also, Publix reported net income of $794 million, down from $1 billion in the same quarter in 2025, a 21.5% year-over-year decrease. 

“Across the grocery and retail industry, recent results have shown a similar pattern: positive but moderate sales growth, margin pressure in some areas, and continued focus on value, pharmacy, and customer traffic,” said Troy Garcia, financial advisor at Allen & Company, in a recent note.

More Grocery News:

• Publix angers customers by removing convenient payment option
• Kroger adds bold offer for customers as gas prices rise
• BJ’s Wholesale makes bold move to lure more shoppers

“Compared with competing grocers, Publix’s flat comparable-store sales were not especially strong this quarter,” he continued.

In its earnings report, Publix cited the new Medicare drug pricing program as one of the main drivers of flat sales during the quarter. The program limits the amount that pharmacies can be reimbursed for 10 select prescription drugs.

However, the company’s weak performance comes as many Americans cut back on grocery spending due to economic pressures such as inflation and a housing affordability crisis, according to a recent A&M Consumer and Retail Group survey.

How Americans are cutting back on groceries:

• About 61% of Americans are reducing grocery visits to cut costs. 
• Between 50% to 60% are shifting to lower-priced retailers to find more affordable grocery prices.
• Also, 35% are buying cheaper brands in stores as financial pressures mount.
  Source: A&M Consumer and Retail Group

In a press release, Chad Lusk, managing director at A&M’s Consumer and Retail Group, said consumers aren’t just spending less money, but are also “making thoughtful tradeoffs.”

“They’re cutting back on volume and dramatically changing shopping routines to stretch their wallets,” said Lusk.

Publix’s move to lean on a viral social media trend to shore up demand also comes after it recently made two major store changes that frustrated customers, further threatening future sales growth. 

In March, it discontinued Publix Pay, angering customers who claimed the contactless payment option made their shopping more seamless.

Also, in May, Publix faced boycott threats from consumers after quietly adjusting its open carry policy, which now asks only law enforcement to openly carry firearms in its stores. 

Related: Publix angers customers by removing convenient payment option

Stepping into the great outdoors to soak up the sunshine is one of the best parts of summer. If you have a yard or patio area, you don't even need to visit the neighborhood park or local beach to make the most of the warm weather and fresh air. Sipping your morning coffee on the deck or playing a game of cornhole on the lawn can be just as rewarding. However, there's one thing that can quickly interrupt this backyard summer fun: those pesky bugs. 

Whether it's mosquitoes or ticks, these common outdoor pests can ruin your day and have you heading indoors sooner than you'd prefer. Itchy bug bites can be irritating for days, but in the worst-case scenarios, these bugs have a risk of transmitting serious illnesses, like Lyme Disease, Zika, or West Nile virus. The good news is, you're not without options. We will break down the three simple steps to protect your outdoor space and keep these bugs at bay.

Maintain and treat your yard

You can make your yard less attractive to pests by keeping up with routine lawn maintenance. Many types of insects love hiding away in tall grass or unmanaged landscapes, so by mowing the lawn, pulling the weeds, and trimming your hedges, they'll have fewer areas to thrive. 

Mosquitoes and gnats flourish in moist environments, making standing pools of water a popular food source and breeding ground for these bugs. By removing unused bird baths and filling in puddles, you can have a big impact on their decline. 

Once you've prepped your lawns and flower beds, you can use a yard spray to help kill and repel common pests, including fleas, ticks, ants, and mosquitoes. Most of these sprays are available for under $25, like the Adams Yard and Garden Spray at Walmart, and will last from four to 12 weeks before you need to respray the yard. To help you find the best formula for your yard, look at the specific bugs it will repel to ensure it combats the pests near you. Also consider how it's applied. Some sprays are ready to go with a built-in hose nozzle, while others use a concentrated formula that's applied after attaching to your gardening hose.

Adams Yard & Garden Spray

Cutter Backyard Bug Control Spray Concentrate

Add repellants and deterrants to your patio

You've likely heard of Citronella candles, an age-old addition to the outdoor tabletop for keeping bugs away. Citronella is an aromatic essential oil that's been used as a natural insecticide since the late 1800s. Citronella is still a well-regarded choice for deterring pests since it is affordable and comes in multiple forms, including candle, essential oil, or incense. The vibrant and grassy scent isn't too harsh either. You can also find citronella blends that use additional essential oils found to naturally deter pests, like lemongrass and peppermint. 

Over the past decade, a new type of repellent from Thermacell has entered the market. These devices work as a diffuser, using heat and an insecticide to create a zone of protection that lasts up to 12 hours. The Environmental Protection Agency has deemed the chemicals it uses safe for people and pets, so you can have peace of mind using this upgraded pest-repelling technology. These types of repellers may be more favorable for those who want a scent-free solution, or something that covers a larger area, with options covering a 20-foot radius. But they do come with a higher price tag than traditional citronella. 

Coleman 70+ Hour Citronella Candle Outdoor Lantern

Murphy’s Naturals Mosquito Repellent Incense Sticks

Thermacell Fuel-ZoneGuard Base Fuel Powered Mosquito Repeller

Thermacell E-ZoneGuard Patio Max Rechargeable Mosquito Repeller

Set up physical barriers 

Bugs can't bother you if they can't physically reach you. Installing an outdoor fan on the porch can create a breeze that smaller bugs can't fly through. If you don't want the hassle of running wiring through your outdoor space, there are actually outdoor ceiling fans with a plug-in design.

You could also plug in a lightweight oscillating fan on the patio or find cordless battery-powered options for when you plan to stay outside. Not only will these keep the flying insects away, but they also come with the added bonus of keeping you cool on hotter days.

It's also quite affordable to add mosquito netting around your patio or gazebo, with large nets starting around $20. You can see mosquito netting, so it will have an impact on the look of your space, but the material is fine enough that it won't obstruct your view of the outdoors.

Lokivas Plug-In Outdoor Ceiling Fan

Shark FlexBreeze Cordless Fan

Rgqsun Mosquito Netting

What's the best way to keep pests out of the patio?

There's no perfect one-size-fits-all solution for keeping bugs from bothering you in the backyard. Depending on the specific insects that are buzzing around and your outdoor setup, certain options may work better than others. But following our three steps of maintaining the lawn, adding repellants, and setting up physical barriers is a solid starting point for keeping your patio pest-free this summer.

TheStreet Shopping is your guide for shopping insights and advice. We look beyond the price tag to find the best value in home, tech, and wellness gear based on product features and real-world use. Read more about our Editorial Standards and How We Choose Our Shopping Deals. 

You realize the upfront price was just the beginning; mooring fees, insurance, fuel, and repairs mean pouring money into a bottomless hole.

During the pandemic, the recreational boating market actually benefited. Americans in lockdowns poured billions into getting on the water, driving sales to pre-2008 financial crisis heights.

“2020 was an extraordinary year for new powerboat sales as more Americans took to the water to escape pandemic stress and enjoy the outdoors safely. For the first time in more than a decade, we saw an increase in first-time boat buyers,” stated Frank Hugelmeyer, president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA).

Now, consumers are no longer ignoring their wallets for the sake of peace and quiet in the outdoors. They are increasingly cutting discretionary spending, including boat ownership.

According to a McKinsey & Company consumer study, American families report an immediate intention to “pull back spending across most discretionary categories,” noting that even higher-income consumers are aggressively cut back on ‘nice to haves.’”

This shift has forced the largest U.S. boating retailer, West Marine, to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and close 59 stores.

West Marine files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy 

Earlier this year, West Marine Inc., the largest boating and marine supplies retailer in the United States, was preparing for a potential Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing to restructure its debt and lease obligations, TheStreet Co-Editor-in-Chief Daniel Kline previously reported. 

“The boat and marine supplies retailer is laying the groundwork for the court-supervised process to address its financial liabilities. As part of the restructuring effort, the company is considering the closure of several store locations,” wrote Bloomberg. 

West Marine has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, the company confirmed in a May 17 press release. 

“West Marine has been a trusted partner to the boating community for decades, and we remain deeply committed to that mission. The actions we are taking today will allow us to optimize our operations and rationalize our footprint, so that we can focus on continuing to serve our customers and community well into the future,” stated CEO Paulee Day. 

The company noted several factors forcing it into bankruptcy, includingsupply chain disruptions, extreme weather events, and shifts in consumer behavior. 

West Marine aims for Chapter 11 to help it strengthen its balance sheet, reduce debt, and improve financial flexibility. 

“Such moves are common for large-scale retailers seeking to reduce overhead and eliminate underperforming assets during financial distress,” Bloomberg added.

To support ongoing operations through the Chapter 11 process, the boat retail giant reached an agreement with its secured lenders to use its cash collateral. The lenders also agreed to provide new financing to support the company’s exit from Chapter 11. 

West Marine confirms 59 store closures across 23 states, plans more 

After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, West Marine also filed customary first-day motions with the Bankruptcy Court requesting authority to continue operations without disruption, including paying employee salaries and benefits. 

However, under its Chapter 11 restructuring, the boat retailer also confirmed the closure of 59 stores across 23 states, reported Power Boat. 

Related: Mall footwear retailer closes 82 stores as shoppers trade up

Court documents filed June 1 with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware identify every location, landlord, and address. 

West Marine also disclosed in the June 1 notice that it continues to analyze its store portfolio and may file additional store closure lists. 

“The consulting agreement with Hilco was written assuming 95 stores closing in total,” points out Power Boat. 

Related: Two giant pizza chains closing over 200 restaurants each

West Marine’s 59 locations closed: 

• Alabama
  Mobile: 5004 Dauphin Island Pkwy. [West Marine Dog River]

• California
  Chula Vista: 630 Bay Blvd. [West Marine Chula Vista] Monterey: 2024 Del Monte Ave. [West Marine Monterey] Oceanside: 1719 Oceanside Blvd. [West Marine Oceanside] Pittsburg: 4645 Century Blvd. [West Marine Antioch] Redding: 2607 Bechelli Lane [West Marine Redding]
• Florida
  Bonita Springs: 28520 Bonita Crossings Blvd. [West Marine Bonita Springs] Fernandina Beach: 474347 E. State Road 200 [West Marine Fernandina] Jacksonville: 14180 Beach Blvd. [WM Jacksonville Beach] Orlando: 7478 S. Orange Blossom Trl. [West Marine South Orlando] Palm Coast: 250 Palm Coast Pkwy. NE [West Marine Palm Coast] Port Charlotte: 4265 Tamiami Trail [West Marine Port Charlotte] Venice: 1860 Tamiami Trail S [West Marine Venice] Winter Haven: 1107 3rd St. SW [West Marine Winter Haven]
• Georgia
  Savannah: 7700 Abercorn St. [West Marine Savannah]
• Illinois
  Fox Lake: 2 W Grand Ave. [West Marine Fox Lake] Winthrop Harbor: 1707 7th St. [West Marine Winthrop Harbor]
• Louisiana
  Lafayette: 2668 Johnston St. [West Marine Lafayette]
• Maine
  Portland: 127 Marginal Way [West Marine Portland] Southwest Harbor: 11 Apple Lane [West Marine Southwest Harbor]
• Maryland
  Baltimore: 2700 Lighthouse Point E [West Marine Baltimore Harbor] Edgewater: 3257 Solomon's Island Rd. [West Marine Edgewater] Ocean City: 12638 Ocean Gateway [West Marine Ocean City] Rock Hall: 21386 Rock Hall Ave. [West Marine Rock Hall]
• Massachusetts
  Marblehead: 32 Atlantic Ave. [West Marine Marblehead] Vineyard Haven: 52 Beach Rd. [West Marine Vineyard Haven]
• Michigan
  Bay City: 4128 Wilder Rd. [West Marine Bay City] Grand Haven: 810 Jackson St. [West Marine Grand Haven] Muskegon: 2492 Henry St. [West Marine Muskegon] Petoskey: 105 West Mitchell St. [West Marine Petoskey] St. Clair Shores: 25050 Jefferson Ave. [West Marine St. Clair Shores] Troy: 789 E. Big Beaver Rd. [West Marine Troy]
• Missouri
  Osage Beach: 3872 Osage Beach Pkwy. [West Marine Osage Beach]
• Nevada
  Reno: 2505 Mill St. [West Marine Reno]
• New Jersey
  Cape May: 791 Route 109 [West Marine Cape May] Eatontown: 178 State Route 35 S [West Marine Eatontown] Toms River: 213 Route 37 East [West Marine Toms River]
• New York
  Irondequoit: 1850 Ridge Rd. East [West Marine Rochester North] Port Washington: 16 Soundview Marketplace [West Marine Port Washington] Watertown: 21214 Pioneer Plaza Dr. [West Marine Watertown]
• North Carolina
  Oriental: 1104 Broad St. Ext. [West Marine Oriental] Raleigh: 3027 Capital Blvd. [West Marine Raleigh]
• Ohio
  Cleveland: 1577 Saint Clair Ave. NE [West Marine Cleveland] North Olmsted: 24781 Lorain Rd. [West Marine N. Olmsted] Sandusky: 207 E. Water St. [West Marine Sandusky]
• Oregon
  Tigard: 15230 SW Sequoia Pkwy. [West Marine Tigard]
• Pennsylvania
  Bensalem: 2126 Street Rd. [West Marine Bensalem]
• South Carolina
  Anderson: 3501-2 Clemson Blvd. [West Marine Anderson] Murrells Inlet: 12078 Highway 17 Bypass [West Marine Murrells Inlet] North Myrtle Beach: 1288 Highway 17 N [West Marine North Myrtle Beach] Port Royal: 1347 Ribaut Rd. [West Marine Port Royal]
• Tennessee
  Knoxville: 7812 Kingston Pike [West Marine Knoxville]
• Virginia
  Glen Allen: 10819 W. Broad St. [West Marine Glen Allen]
• Washington
  Bellingham: 3560 Meridian St. [West Marine Bellingham] Bremerton: 5971 State Hwy. 303 NE [West Marine Bremerton] Everett: 1716 West Marine View Dr. [West Marine Everett] Port Townsend: 2428 Washington St. [West Marine Port Townsend] Spokane: 5306 East Sprague Ave. [West Marine Spokane]

• Wisconsin
  Greenfield: 4141 S 76th St [West Marine Milwaukee] Source: Notice of Filing Store Closing List

Industry data confirm headwinds for luxury boats 

The full-year 2025 data from NMMA reveal that new boat retail unit sales dropped 8.8% year over year, totaling 215,237 units, compared with 236,070 units in 2024. 

“Key economic indicators throughout 2025 reinforced a cautious consumer environment. Interest rates remained elevated, inflation held above historical averages, and consumer confidence and sentiment measures remained relatively subdued compared with long-term norms. These factors continued to influence consumer behavior around large discretionary purchases, including boats,” reads the report. 

At the same time, industry transaction data show a clear bifurcation in buyer affordability. 

As reported by Amra & Elma’s Marine Commerce Analytics Index, recent data from Baird’s Marine Industry Monthly revealed the mid-to-high luxury segment ($100,000 to $200,000) declined by a massive 14.3%, while the sub-$50,000 segment increased 8.7%. 

A recent Deloitte’s 2026 Retail Industry Global Outlook also confirmed an important shift in consumer behavior, suggesting that value-seeking consumers are here to stay. 

“Nearly seven in 10 retail executives surveyed agree that behaviors such as trading down, shopping value channels, or swapping convenience for savings represent a structural change, not a temporary response to inflation,” reads the report. 

As Boat Pass Club summarizes in a February 2026 report: “As we head into 2026, the market story isn't ‘everyone's buying a boat.’ It's ‘everyone's thinking harder.’"

Related: Two giant pizza chains closing over 200 restaurants each

No longer is it enough to rent out computational power.

Customers are now looking for infrastructure that supports faster inference, greater workloads, real-time reasoning and increasingly complex AI agents capable of handling multi-step tasks without continuous human direction.

That change has made chips far more critical to the cloud story.

AMZN, Amazon.com, already derives much of its profit from its cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services. Now, AWS is digging deeper into custom silicon as it aims to deliver clients more performance, better efficiency and cheaper prices at a time when demand for AI infrastructure remains fierce.

The company’s recent step might not garner the same buzz as a new Nvidia GPU, but it could matter a lot for Amazon’s AI ambitions. AWS has made its latest Graviton5-powered EC2 instances broadly available, providing users access to the most powerful CPU Amazon has ever manufactured.

AWS said Graviton5 is “purpose-built for the demands of agentic AI,” including real-time reasoning, code generation and multi-step task orchestration.

Amazon Graviton5 targets the agentic AI boom

The company is also making the Amazon EC2 M9g and M9gd instances powered by AWS Graviton5 available to all customers, extending the chip beyond preview.

Timing is key because AI infrastructure is fast becoming one of the most significant battlegrounds in innovation. Cloud vendors no longer compete just on storage, scale and software services. They are also competing on the underlying hardware.

Graviton5 is Amazon’s latest proprietary CPU designed to accelerate performance for workloads that require high core density, quicker memory, and efficient communication across working units.

The chip contains 192 cores per CPU, a substantially larger cache and and lower inter-core latency than the previous iteration. AWS says the new M9g instances give up to 25 percent better computing performance than the previous generation.

Related: Amazon's bestselling storage shed with lockable doors is just $110

That kind of improvement matters because agentic AI might put different demands on infrastructure than traditional model training. AI agents generally need to do continuous reasoning, reply fast, write code, coordinate steps and manage various environments at the same time.

That makes the CPU more relevant.

GPUs are still important for training and intensive AI acceleration, but CPUs still do a lot of orchestration, data transport and application logic. In essence, AWS is saying that accelerators alone won’t drive the age of agentic AI.

The business also claims that M9g instances powered by Graviton5 can deliver 35% quicker web apps, 35% faster machine learning inference, and 30% faster databases.

M9gd instances are intended at workloads that need high-speed local storage and offer up to 11.4 terabytes of NVMe SSD storage with 30 percent more input/output operations per second than the previous generation.

That gives AWS another tool as enterprise clients hunt for ways to execute AI workloads without letting infrastructure costs spiral out.

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Amazon has the advantage of more control over the stack than many corporations that buy chips from outside providers. AWS can create chips for its own cloud workloads, optimize them for EC2 instances and offer them through conventional customer adoption pathways.

That’s not to say Graviton5 is a replacement for either Nvidia (NVDA) GPUs or Amazon’s own Trainium CPUs. That does mean AWS has yet another method to make its cloud platform more appealing as enterprises reconsider the cost of AI computing.

AWS custom chips sharpen Amazon’s AI strategy

The arrival of Graviton5 is a timely event for Amazon.

AWS continues to be one of the company’s most important earnings engines, and artificial intelligence has become one of the major development prospects inside that sector. Amazon said AWS’s AI revenue run rate is now over $15 billion. In its Q1 2026 results, AWS’s operating income increased to $14.2 billion from $11.5 billion a year ago.

Those stats explain why Amazon continues to pour money on bespoke chips.

The startup hopes to provide consumers more options throughout the AI stack. Nvidia chips are still at the heart of many AI applications. Amazon’s Trainium processors are designed for AI training and inference. Graviton chips, however, are focused on improving price-performance for general purpose and increasingly AI-adjacent applications.

That blend could become increasingly crucial as buyers seek beyond raw performance.

AI infrastructure is expensive. Companies are trying to run more models, deploy more agents and support more real-time apps without letting cloud expenses swamp the business case. If AWS can deliver major speed improvements while boosting efficiency, it gives Amazon a stronger argument against Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet’s (GOOGL)Google Cloud and other cloud competitors.

Key takeaways from Amazon’s Graviton5 launch

• AWS Graviton5-powered EC2 M9g and M9gd instances are now generally available.
• AWS says M9g instances deliver up to 25% better compute performance than the prior generation.
• The chip is designed for agentic AI workloads, including reasoning, code generation and multi-step task orchestration.
• Meta, Uber and Snowflake are among the companies deploying Graviton for agentic workloads, according to Amazon.
• The launch gives AWS another custom-chip tool as cloud providers compete for AI infrastructure spending.

The consumer names are important too.

Amazon stated Meta is fully committed to Graviton at scale, including ambitions for tens of millions of cores for agentic AI activities. Uber and Snowflake are also using Graviton for agentic workloads.

That helps AWS market Graviton5 as more than just a chip upgrade. It’s a customer retention and customer acquisition tool at a time when the companies are determining where to build their AI systems.

The greater question for investors is whether Amazon’s custom-chip plan will help lift the AWS growth story without weighing too heavily on expenses.

Amazon is already spending heavily on AI infrastructure. That can fuel long-term revenue growth, but it also means Wall Street will continue to focus on capital spending, margins and how soon AI demand transforms into sustained profit.

But Graviton5 doesn’t solve all those questions itself.

But it does offer a glimpse of how Amazon wants to compete on AI infrastructure. AWS isn’t just depending on third-party processors or splashy product launches. Instead, it’s attempting to speed up the cloud itself, from the silicon up, making it cheaper and more efficient.

This may be an even bigger plus if agentic AI advances from demos into daily enterprise use.

Related: Amazon's stock buybacks explained

On paper, that is the nightmare scenario that oil market analysts have spent decades warning about. In practice, prices have stayed below their worst-case projections. JPMorgan has a specific explanation for that disconnect, and a warning about what happens next.

Why oil prices have stayed surprisingly calm despite the near-blockade

The answer to the stability puzzle is not that the crisis is less severe than it looks. It is that supply is escaping through routes that do not appear in the visible data. Experts estimate approximately 2 million barrels of oil per day are moving through clandestine flows and alternate corridors, according to the New York Post.

Those hidden flows, combined with inventory drawdowns and Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline running at capacity, have bought the market time.

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The critical word is time. The Brookings Institution published a detailed supply analysis in late May, warning that the shortfall will build as those temporary buffers are depleted.

Brookings projected Brent crude could reach $120 per barrel if the strait does not reopen by the end of June, according to the Brookings Institution. That is not a tail-risk scenario. That is the base-case arithmetic if the current situation holds for three more weeks.

What JPMorgan's specific numbers say about the Hormuz risk

JPMorgan has been among the most specific institutions in mapping what a sustained disruption means for prices. In April, analyst Parsley Ong warned that flows resuming only by July would introduce $15 to $20 per barrel of upside risk, according to Bloomberg.

That was in April, when the assumption was that flows would partially recover by May. They have not.

The bank's updated view is more severe. JPMorgan commodity analysts have warned that Brent could spike to $120 to $130 per barrel near term, with prices potentially overshooting toward $150 if disruptions persist.

"A de facto blockade lasting another full month would be consistent with Brent crude climbing toward $150," said Bruce Kasman, JPMorgan's global head of economics, adding that such a scenario would force constraints on industrial energy users.

The bank separately projected that OECD inventories could hit operational stress levels as early as early June if the strait stays closed, reaching an operational minimum floor by September.

The baseline assumption in JPMorgan's modeling is that the disruption ultimately resolves through negotiations after a period of supply strain and inventory drawdowns. The risk scenario is that it does not resolve quickly enough, and the hidden flows and inventory buffers that have kept prices in check run out before the strait reopens.

What a $120 to $150 oil scenario means for the US economy and the Fed

The reason this matters beyond energy markets is the impact on inflation.

US CPI rose 4.2% year-over-year in May, the highest reading since April 2023, driven in part by energy price increases accumulating since the war began. A second leg higher in crude would flow directly into gasoline, transportation, and manufacturing costs within weeks.

Goldman Sachs removed its 2026 Federal Reserve rate cut calls entirely in June, now forecasting the first cut in June 2027 at the earliest.

Fed Governor Lisa Cook said in early June that she is prepared to hike rates if inflation data warrants it.

An oil shock pushing Brent toward $130 or $150 would land directly into that debate and strengthen the case for the rate hike that markets have been reluctant to fully price in.

The connection is direct. Higher crude pushes gasoline higher, higher gasoline pushes headline CPI higher, and higher CPI makes it harder for the Fed to stand pat, let alone cut.

Every week the strait remains at 15% of normal capacity is a week that risk accumulates in the inflation outlook. That accumulation is not linear , it accelerates as inventories fall.

What investors should watch and why JPMorgan says the risk is underpriced

JPMorgan's core argument is not that catastrophe is inevitable. It is that markets are pricing a benign resolution with more confidence than the underlying supply data justifies.

Visible tanker traffic at 15% of pre-war normal is not a situation that typically produces calm oil markets. The relative price stability is a function of hidden flows and inventory draws that cannot continue indefinitely.

The data points investors should be tracking are specific: whether Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline can continue absorbing rerouted flows, whether the 2 million barrels per day of clandestine traffic holds, and whether OECD inventory levels hit the operational stress threshold JPMorgan flagged for early June.

Whether diplomatic progress materializes before the September operational minimum arrives is the variable that determines which scenario plays out.

The short answer from JPMorgan is that the market has bought itself time but not solved the problem. If the strait does not substantially reopen in the next several weeks, the gap between current prices and what the supply math implies will close, and it will close quickly.

Related: Exxon CEO delivers blunt message on oil prices and the economy

What are blackout curtains, and how do they work?

These curtains are specially designed window coverings that are made to block outside light from entering a room. Unlike standard curtains, which usually let sunlight and heat through, blackout curtains use tightly woven fabric and layered materials that dramatically reduce light and heat permeation. The front-facing side of blackout curtains is usually made from polyester, cotton blends, velvet, or linen materials, while the back layer contains dense foam, coatings, or thermal linings that prevent sunlight from shining through. 

These curtains are available in a wide variety of colors and can even be used behind your favorite non-blackout curtains. They can be hung with curtain rods, or you can use different adhesives to stick them to the wall. Some of them feature suction cups or Velcro pads, while others have curtain rod rings for hanging. Depending on the type of installation you use, they may block different amounts of sunlight. They even have portable ones you can take with you on vacation to make sure you're getting good sleep when you’re not home, while also offering better privacy. 

What are the benefits of blackout curtains?

One of the biggest benefits blackout curtains offer is to help keep energy costs down. During summer, especially, the heat from the sun can make it difficult to cool down your house, which results in high energy costs and a constantly running air conditioner. By closing the curtains during the day, it cuts down on the amount of heat that can enter, making it easier to keep your home cool during scorching days. 

Another big benefit of these curtains is improved sleep quality. While the temperature-regulating effect of these curtains can make your living space more comfortable during the day, it also makes it quicker to cool down in the evenings, offering better sleep conditions. When the sun is up at 6 am and doesn't set until 9 pm, some people may find it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep while it's still light outside, or may find the heat from the day makes it difficult to cool the house down in the evening to promote a good night's sleep.

While using the sun as a natural wakeup call can help keep your circadian rhythm on track, it can be difficult to get enough sleep when the sun is out so late and so early. Blackout curtains can help block out the sun in the evenings if you go to bed earlier, and they can also help shift workers, light sleepers, or those who live in urban areas with lots of street lights. 

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Who can benefit most from these curtains?

Blackout curtains appeal to a wide range of consumers because they help solve several common household problems. Shift workers can get a ton of value from blackout curtains. Nurses, emergency responders, factory employees, and overnight workers frequently need to sleep during daylight hours, and natural sunlight can make sleeping during the daytime more difficult. People who live in densely populated cities may also find them extra helpful. Streetlights, car headlights, billboards, and nearby shops all contribute to nighttime light pollution, which can be super bright during the night. 

People who stay in apartments or rent houses can also benefit from blackout curtains as they require no permanent change to the space, and can help muffle outside sounds from neighbors. They reduce sunlight, increase privacy, and can help cover unattractive views of parking lots or other apartments. Travelers can also benefit, especially those who stay in hotels or even sleep in their car or van, as there are portable options that can be trimmed down to fit any size of window. 

Ultimately, blackout curtains are a useful option that addresses multiple lifestyle needs at once. Whether you need to sleep better, save energy, reduce noise, or improve privacy, blackout curtains offer a flexible, easy, and affordable solution.

TheStreet Shopping is your guide for shopping insights and advice. We look beyond the price tag to find the best value in home, tech, and wellness gear based on product features and real-world use. Read more about our Editorial Standards and How We Choose Our Shopping Deals. 

That agency is the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and its scorekeeping follows a rhythm.

Each month, it publishes a review of what the government actually collected and actually spent. Twice a year, it projects the decade ahead. Officials can argue with the framing. They cannot argue with the arithmetic for long.

Usually, the gap between official optimism and the ledger is a matter of degree. The official says the deficit will shrink briskly. The data say it will shrink slowly. Everyone shrugs and moves on.

Every so often, though, the gap becomes a matter of direction. That is the uncomfortable spot where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sits right now, five days after the government's own scorekeeper published a report that quietly dismantled the most repeatable line in his congressional testimony.

A deficit pledge with a three in front of it

Bessent appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on June 3 and the House Ways and Means Committee the same week.

In both rooms, he committed to shrinking the federal deficit to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) by the end of President Donald Trump's term, telling lawmakers the administration could deliver "something with a three in front of it," according to The Center Square.

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He went further in the House hearing, claiming the deficit had already fallen to 5.5% of GDP. Treasury has not explained how that squares with the CBO's 5.8% projection for fiscal 2026.

The 3% figure is not arbitrary. It is roughly the level at which debt stops growing faster than the economy, which is why a bipartisan group in Congress has rallied behind it. It is also a threshold Washington has not actually hit since 2015, The Center Square reported.

The 3% target is the last surviving leg of the "3-3-3" agenda Bessent campaigned on for the Treasury job.

What the new CBO numbers actually show

On June 8, the CBO released its Monthly Budget Review for May, and the headline figure initially looks like vindication for the secretary.

The deficit for the first eight months of fiscal 2026 came in at $1.248 trillion, which is $116 billion less than the same stretch a year earlier, according to the CBO.

I pulled the agency's underlying tables rather than stopping at that summary line, because calendar quirks can manufacture progress that does not exist. This one mostly did.

Related: Treasury issues urgent warning on a growing threat to your bank account

June 1, 2025, fell on a weekend, so billions in federal payments slid into May 2025 and inflated last year's baseline. Strip out that timing shift and the improvement collapses from $116 billion to $19 billion, a 2% change, based on the same CBO report.

May alone was worse than it looked. The month produced a $294 billion deficit, and on a timing-adjusted basis, that is $76 billion deeper than May 2025, the CBO data show.

Here is where the broader deficit math stands:

• The fiscal 2026 deficit is projected at $1.9 trillion, or 5.8% of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office's February outlook.
• Deficits never fall below 5.6% of GDP at any point in the next decade under that same baseline, according to the CBO.
• Debt held by the public has reached 101% of GDP, the highest level since World War II, The Center Square noted.
• Reaching a 3% deficit by 2036 would require roughly $10 trillion in deficit reduction over the decade, according to Fortune.

Interest costs are eating the improvement

What struck me when I compared the spending tables was how lopsided the pressure is. One line item is doing most of the damage, and it is the one no Treasury secretary controls.

Net interest on the public debt hit $742 billion through eight months, up $68 billion, or 10%, from a year earlier, according to the CBO. In May alone, interest costs jumped $28 billion, a 32% increase driven by higher long-term rates.

The government is on track to spend more than $1 trillion on interest this fiscal year, which is more than all discretionary defense spending, The Center Square reported.

For readers, that interest bill is not an abstraction. Every dollar spent servicing old debt is a dollar unavailable for tax relief or anything else, and the heavy Treasury issuance behind it helps keep long-term rates, and by extension, mortgage rates, pinned higher than they would otherwise be.

The revenue side is not cooperating, either. Corporate tax receipts fell $88 billion, a 30% decline, because the 2025 reconciliation act let companies take larger deductions on certain investments, the CBO noted.

Tariffs were supposed to plug part of that hole. Customs duties did surge $107 billion through April, a 132% jump from executive action on rates. But net tariff collections "declined sharply" in May as Treasury began paying refunds tied to the Supreme Court's February 20 ruling against certain tariffs, according to the CBO.

So the one revenue source growing fastest is now running in reverse, while the fastest-growing expense compounds daily.

Related: Scott Bessent’s net worth in 2026: From hedge fund manager to Treasury chief

The 3% deficit goal keeps drifting further away

At roughly 6% of GDP, the current deficit is about double what Bessent says he will deliver. The watchdogs who track this full time are not gentle about it.

The fiscal 2026 shortfall is on pace for roughly $2 trillion, and "it's beyond scary that $2 trillion deficits are now the norm," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, in a May 6 statement.

None of this means the pledge is impossible. It means the pledge requires policy that does not currently exist, and the administration's own fiscal 2027 budget projects deficits above 5% of GDP through 2029.

Bessent has floated creative answers before, including a plan leaning on stablecoins and money-market funds to absorb federal borrowing, as highlighted by TheStreet. Demand for the debt, though, is a different problem than the size of it.

The next grade arrives in mid-July, when Treasury's June statement shows whether tariff refunds keep draining receipts.

The fiscal year closes September 30, and the bond market will mark the final exam. If long-term rates stay elevated, interest costs alone could push the 3% promise from ambitious to arithmetic fiction.

Watch the interest line, not the testimony. That is where this pledge will be kept or broken.

Related: Trump’s top economic adviser issues surprise verdict on latest jobs report

Why we love this deal

One of the stalwarts of the luxury watch game is Seiko. The brand has been making incredible watches at almost every price point since 1881, and its watchmaking has only gotten better. Not only do Seiko watches meet the strictest of accuracy standards, but the company's many mechanical offerings are some of the most sought-after luxury pieces in the watch-collecting world. That's why we thought we'd share a Seiko offering that's currently available at Amazon to scratch the luxury watch itch for you.

The Seiko 5 US Exclusive Gold-Tone Automatic Watch is an amazing option as a first luxury watch or as an addition to your current collection. It costs just $300. That's an incredible bargain for a timepiece of this pedigree and quality. Just the sight of this watch screams luxury, and that's before you hear the specs.

Seiko 5 US Exclusive Gold-Tone Automatic Watch, $300 at Amazon

Why do shoppers love it?

This watch has all the hallmarks of a classic luxury timepiece, except for the exorbitant price. For starters, it's made from 316L stainless steel, which is incredibly strong as well as rustproof and corrosion resistant. The steel is covered in a rich gold-toned PVD coating that makes it even more durable. The gold tone has a beautiful luster to it, making the watch look exponentially more expensive than it actually is. While the gold case and bracelet are immaculate, the dial is no slouch either.

The deep black watch face is nicely complemented by circular applied hour markers. The markers are filled with luminescent material to improve low-light visibility. What's more, each marker also has a gold tone outline that's a beautiful and subtle callback to the color of the case and bracelet. The handset follows the same color pattern as the hour markers, and there is a nicely-finished day date function at the three o'clock position on the dial.

The beating heart of the watch is the beloved Seiko automatic movement inside. Automatic movements like this one require no winding and no batteries. They function based solely on the movement of your wrist and keep highly accurate time. Because this is one of Seiko's traditional sports watches, it even has an impressive 100 meters of water resistance. That means you can feel totally safe to take it swimming in the pool or even the ocean, and you'll have no water damage to the watch. This model is made exclusively for the U.S. market and is not available in any other parts of the world.

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Amazon shoppers were thrilled with this watch. One review claimed, "the gold exudes a slight sense of luxury, making it a nice diver." As you might expect, the gold color of the watch is the real star of the show with most shoppers.

Details to know

• Material: Gold-tone PVD-coated 316L stainless steel.
• Movement: Seiko automatic movement.
• Water resistance: 100 meters.

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The Seiko 5 US Exclusive Gold-Tone Automatic Watch is a great first entry into the luxury watch market. If you're someone who likes a little flair in your collection but doesn't want to spend a fortune, this is the watch for you.

U.S. comparable-store sales jumped 7% last quarter, transactions are increasing across all income groups, and operating income is inflecting for the first time in two years.

But behind the momentum, Chairman and CEO Brian Niccol is quietly making moves that could reshape what Starbucks (SBUX) looks like beyond American borders.

The company is now weighing major structural changes in one of its most important international markets, and the decision it makes could have real implications for investors.

Starbucks eyes a $2.5B stake sale in Japan

According to Bloomberg, Starbucks has held early-stage talks with investment banks about its options for its Japan business, which currently operates around 2,100 stores, most of them company-owned. 

• One scenario under discussion: a partial stake sale valued somewhere between ¥400 billion and ¥500 billion, which works out to roughly $2.5 billion. 
• An initial public offering of the Japan business is also on the table, Bloomberg reported.
• No final decision has been reached, and a Starbucks spokesperson declined to comment.
• Late last year, Starbucks sold a 60% stake in its China retail operations to Boyu Capital for approximately $4 billion. 

CEO Brian Niccol called the China deal a milestone in the company's strategy to pursue disciplined, sustainable international growth.

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Japan would be a natural next step in that same direction.

Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Catherine Lim and Peter Tang described the potential Japan move as part of a broader pivot toward asset-light joint-venture models outside the U.S., a structure that frees up capital to reinvest in the brand, product innovation, and digital capabilities. 

Analyst Michael Halen added that the approach could help Starbucks surpass its operating margin target of at least 13.5% by 2028.

Why Japan matters is key for Starbucks

Japan has always been a cornerstone of Starbucks' international story.

Bloomberg reported that the coffee giant entered the market through a joint venture with Sazaby League in 1995 and took the local unit public in 2001.

By 2015, it had brought the whole operation back under corporate control.

CEO Niccol noted in April that the Japan business delivered "outstanding" results last quarter, driven by strong New Year's sales, healthy tourism, and successful new product launches.

So why consider selling a piece now? The answer lies in the direction Niccol is steering the overall business.

Niccol's turnaround is real

At the Evercore Consumer & Retail Conference earlier this month, Niccol broke down where the business stands today.

His message: the foundation is fixed, and the company is now building on its strengths.

Niccol stated:

"For any turnaround, you have to get the operational foundation healthy. That's really where we spent our time."

About 70% of stores now score 4 shots or better on Starbucks' internal performance scorecard. The U.S. morning daypart is recovering, with roughly 50% of sales occurring before 10:00 a.m. 

And the afternoon daypart, long a weak spot, is starting to develop real momentum through Matcha, Energy Refreshers, and the coffeehouse uplift program.

Starbucks has completed around 700 coffeehouse uplifts so far, spending roughly $150,000 per store, a fraction of what old remodel programs cost. The goal is to reach at least 8,000 stores by 2028.

Related: Starbucks CEO sends blunt message on consumer spending

At the Bernstein conference in May, CFO Cathy Smith highlighted the $2 billion cost-saving program as a key lever going forward, split roughly evenly among cost of goods sold (COGS), operating expenses, and general and administrative (G&A) costs. 

The G&A savings are largely done, while COGS and operating expense savings are next in line.

Global comparable-store sales rose 6.2% year-over-year last quarter, as Starbucks' broader recovery takes hold.

What a Japan deal means for SBUX stock

The strategic logic here is fairly straightforward: Starbucks has deep brand equity in Japan and a strong market position.

By monetizing part of that equity, whether through a stake sale or IPO, the company raises capital without sacrificing the business itself.

That capital can then be recycled into the areas Niccol has flagged as still needing work: technology, supply chain, store development, and the afternoon daypart.

It also shifts Starbucks away from being a capital-heavy operator of international real estate, and toward being a brand that earns licensing fees and royalties from well-capitalized local partners. 

That's a model that tends to carry higher margins and less operational risk.

For investors watching the turnaround, it signals that Niccol isn't just fixing the U.S. business. He's rethinking how Starbucks earns money everywhere else, too.

Related: Jim Cramer has bold new message for Starbucks investors

Now, the company is trying to make that massive delivery system leaner through its Network 2.0 transformation project to reduce costs and eliminate operational complexity.

For investors, this will mean fewer duplicate routes, lower costs, and a more efficient network. For workers, it can mean facility closures, job cuts, and the possibility that more locations could be next.

That tension is now showing up in Arizona.

FedEx closes Phoenix facility

Federal Express Corporation, in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) viewed by TheStreet, noted that it will close its LUFA facility at 4475 N. 43rd Avenue in Phoenix, effective August 3, 2026.

The closure will primarily impact 101 courier employees, according to the WARN notice filed with the Arizona Department of Economic Security.

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FedEx said affected workers will be offered options, including transfers to new locations, severance, or a leave of absence, while they pursue other jobs within the company. 

The employees are not represented by a union and do not have bumping rights.

The reason listed in the notice is a business reorganization tied to Network 2.0, FedEx’s multi-year effort to change how it picks up, transports, and delivers packages.

“This closure is related to Network 2.0, FedEx’s multi-year network transformation, announced in 2022; to improve the pickup, transport, and delivery of packages as we deliver more efficiently for our customers,” FedEx said in the filing.

FedEx says Network 2.0 will close hundreds of sites

The Phoenix closure is not happening in isolation.

FedEx executives have told investors that Network 2.0 will shrink the company’s facility footprint as it combines parts of its legacy Express and Ground operations into one more unified delivery network.

During FedEx’s Feb. 12 Corporate Investor Day, Scott Ray, chief operating officer for U.S. and Canada surface operations, said customers do not need both an Express truck and a Ground truck in the same neighborhood on the same day.

They also do not need to separate Express and Ground packages for two different pickups.

That shift is designed to reduce duplicate routes, improve stop density, and lower pickup-and-delivery costs.

FedEx has already optimized more than 360 stations and closed more than 200 locations, Ray told investors. 

By the end of 2027, the company expects to optimize more than 900 stations and close about 475 locations, representing about a 30% reduction in its facility footprint.

This makes the Phoenix layoff part of a broader restructuring. 

The Phoenix closure appears to be part of a larger plan still moving through FedEx’s network, especially as the company enters the final phase of Network 2.0 in fiscal 2026 and calendar 2027.

FedEx said completed Network 2.0 markets are already seeing about a 10% reduction in pickup and delivery costs, higher stop density, and fewer duplicate routes.

For investors, the plan spells efficiency. For workers, it means more facilities and jobs may be exposed as FedEx removes existing overlaps from its delivery system.

FedEx has also tied the network overhaul to a broader cost-cutting program called DRIVE. 

At its Corporate Investor Day, the company said it had delivered $4 billion in structural savings from fiscal 2023 through fiscal 2025.

And expects Network 2.0 and related One FedEx initiatives to deliver another $2 billion in savings by the end of 2027. 

Of these savings, “pickup and delivery optimization is the primary driver,” accounting for the majority of FedEx’s savings. The other savings will come from facility closures.

FedEx WARN notices appear in several states

The Arizona filing is not the only recent WARN notice tied to Federal Express Corporation.

USA Today’s WARN tracker shows multiple recent FedEx notices this year:

• Maryland: 25 employees impacted in Salisbury.
• New Jersey: 50 impacted in Union.
• Pennsylvania: 63 people impacted by a facility closing in Pittston.
• New York: 43 impacted in the Capital region.
• Arizona: 101 impacted by the closing in Phoenix.

Total: 282 cuts.

The Maryland, New Jersey, and Arizona cuts are set to take effect on August 3, 2026. The Pennsylvania and New York cuts already took place on May 2 and Jan 31, respectively.

Not every filing cites Network 2.0 directly. But together, the notices show FedEx cuts across multiple states as the company prepares to close hundreds of locations under its broader network plan.

FedEx has spent the past several years trying to reduce costs after the pandemic delivery boom faded and demand patterns changed.

In 2023, the company announced plans to consolidate FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Services, and other operating companies into Federal Express Corporation. It also reduced its officer and director team by more than 10%.

In 2024, FedEx said it planned to cut 1,700 to 2,000 back-office and commercial jobs in Europe as part of efforts to reduce structural costs.

The latest WARN notice also comes just as FedEx completes another major corporate shift.

On June 1, FedEx completed the spin-off of FedEx Freight, creating a separate publicly traded company under the ticker FDXF. 

The Freight separation is not listed as the reason for the Phoenix layoffs, but it adds to the broader picture of a company reshaping itself.

FedEx is separating a major freight business, consolidating delivery operations, lowering structural costs, and shrinking its facility footprint.

That may make the company more efficient. It also means workers are feeling the direct impact of a transformation that is still not finished.

Related: Struggling women's clothing retailer shutters 171 stores

Summer is prime time for grilling. With summer vacations, long weekends, and sunny weather, taking to the grill can not only give you tasty meals, but also be the center of outdoor gatherings and entertainment. 

Whether you're just starting out or are an experienced griller, chances are you've heard of Weber. As one of the biggest names in the grilling industry, the brand has a number of highly coveted grills, from charcoal to gas. And if you've been waiting for a good time to buy the latter, now is the time to do it. Ahead of Amazon Prime Day — which starts on Tuesday, June 23 — Weber is slashing the prices of some of its popular gas grills. Before the four-day sales event kicks off, you can get up to $150 off, thanks to select early Prime Day deals.

Why Weber is a trusted brand

Weber first entered the grilling scene in the early '50s when founder George Stephen crafted a dome-shaped grill from a metal buoy, now known as the iconic Weber Kettle Charcoal Grill. The brand successfully elevated the charcoal grilling experience, with a massive following for the Kettle alone. In fact, there's even a Facebook group dedicated to the grill with over 322,000 members. 

It may be best known for its charcoal grills, but it has expanded over the years to include gas grills, wood pellet grills, electric grills, and griddles. Weber grills are known for their durability, heat distribution, versatility, and value, with a range of options for both beginners and experienced grill masters. The brand also has a solid warranty and customer service, with select models having up to 15 years of coverage.

Weber Spirit E-210 Liquid Propane Gas Grill

Weber Spirit E-325 Liquid Propane Gas Grill

Some of Weber's most popular gas grills are from the Weber Spirit Series, like the E-210 and E-325 that are currently on sale with early Prime Day deals. These grills are beginner-friendly, offering both a durable build and quality grilling with consistent heat, but with more affordable prices compared to other Weber lines. Weber Spirit grills are more compact, with two- and three-burner options available that work well on small to medium patios or backyards, or anyone who prefers a grill with a smaller footprint. They're great for everyday meals, as they heat up within minutes and are easy to maintain, thanks to their Grease Management Systems that have removable trays for easier cleaning.

Both the two-burner E-210 and three-burner E-325 have durable cast-aluminum cook boxes and porcelain-enameled, cast-iron grates for solid heat retention. Along with 450 square inches of total cooking space, they offer a standard mid-size that can fit burgers, hot dogs, chicken, and more. They feature Snap-Jet Ignition that lights burners with ease using just one hand and Stainless Steel Flavorizer Bars that catch drippings, boost flavor, and prevent flare-ups. They also have built-in tool hooks for easy access to grilling accessories and compartments to hide away propane tanks. Plus, they each have a limited 10-year warranty. However, the E-325 has a Sear Zone with two Boost Burners that amp up the thermal power by 40% and more BTUs.

The convenience of a gas grill

Gas grills are some of the easiest options out there, making them great for both beginners and advanced grillers. For starters, they light up and heat up quickly, and you can control the temperature with ease. They're also easy to clean and maintain, especially compared to charcoal grills. The convenience alone makes them a great choice for everyday grillers. 

Liquid propane gas grills can have their downsides, though, particularly because of the propane tanks. With a propane tank, you not only run the risk of running out in the middle of cooking (though a backup tank can be helpful in preventing this), but also have to deal with the upkeep. Propane tanks need to be refilled or exchanged, which can cost you up to $4 per gallon and require heavy lifting to do so.

More gas grills

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TheStreet Shopping is your guide for shopping insights and advice. We look beyond the price tag to find the best value in home, tech, and wellness gear based on product features and real-world use. Read more about our Editorial Standards and How We Choose Our Shopping Deals. 

For a generation of office workers, that paycheck felt safe. A degree, a desk, and a few years of experience were supposed to be a moat that machines could not cross.

Artificial intelligence (AI) spent the last two years draining that moat. Companies now blame software for layoffs out loud, and entry-level hiring in the fields that were once the surest bet has gone quiet.

The numbers are not subtle. AI was the single most cited reason for planned United States job cuts in May, tied to 38,579 of them, according to CNBC. That is the first time the technology has topped the list.

So when the person who builds the engines of that disruption tells you to relax, it lands strangely.

That person is Nvidia (NVDA) Chief Executive Jensen Huang, and his verdict on the fear sweeping white-collar workers was two words. The idea that AI is destroying jobs, he said on June 1, is “complete nonsense,” according to Bloomberg.

What Huang actually argued

Huang’s case is not that nothing changes. It is that productivity creates work rather than destroying it.

His logic runs like this. When one engineer armed with AI can produce far more value, a company does not want fewer engineers. It wants more of them, because the output per person just got cheaper and bigger.

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He points to his own industry as proof, noting that the number of software engineers is rising even as the doomsayers insist coding jobs should be vanishing, according to Bloomberg.

He also reaches back through history. Every major leap in automation, from the assembly line to the personal computer, ended with more total work and higher pay rather than less, and he expects AI to follow the same path.

There is an obvious asterisk. Huang sells the picks and shovels for the entire AI gold rush, so a world that hires more AI-equipped workers is a world that buys more of the chips driving Nvidia’s boom.

Not every chief executive shares his confidence, and one of the loudest doubters runs an AI lab himself. For the darker view, see our read on the Anthropic CEO’s blunt admission about AI and jobs.

Related: AI jobs apocalypse reaches a new high

Why the jobs data complicates the story

The trouble for Huang is that the early data points the other way, at least for the people just starting out.

Employment for software developers ages 22 to 25 has fallen nearly 20% since 2024, even as headcount for their older colleagues grew, according to Stanford HAI. Those young workers did exactly the boilerplate coding that AI tools now handle.

That is the catch Huang skips past. AI may expand the work over time, but it is compressing the entry-level rung that people used to climb first.

The mechanism is simple and a little brutal. A senior engineer can now use AI to finish the routine tasks that a junior hire used to handle, so the junior never gets brought on to learn them.

The pain is showing up at the top of the org chart, too. Meta (META) cut roughly 8,000 jobs in May as it leaned harder into AI, a reminder that even profitable giants are trimming.

“The labor market is being reshaped by technology in real time,” said Andy Challenger of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, according to CNBC. His firm tracks the cuts every month.

What the AI jobs debate looks like in numbers

The gap between the optimist and the data is the whole story, so here is where each side stands.

The AI jobs split at a glance

• AI was the top cited reason for May job cuts, linked to 38,579 of them, according to CNBC.
• Employment for software developers ages 22 to 25 has dropped nearly 20% since 2024, according to Stanford HAI.
• Anthropic’s Dario Amodei has warned AI could cause an “unusually painful” hit to jobs, according to CNBC.

Amodei, who runs the lab behind the Claude AI models, has gone further than most, warning the technology could erase up to half of entry-level white-collar roles within a few years. He and Huang cannot both be right about the next 24 months.

My analysis is that the truth sits between them, and the timing is what matters most. Huang may be correct that AI eventually creates more jobs than it kills, the way past technologies did, while Amodei is correct that the transition arrives faster than workers can retrain.

That middle ground is cold comfort if you are the one whose role gets compressed before the new jobs show up.

What Huang’s claim means for your money

Strip out the corporate optimism, and there is a usable lesson in what Huang said. The winners will be people who use AI, not people who hide from it.

So the career move is to become the coworker who wields these tools, not the one they replace. That means learning the AI systems in your own field now, while it is still a differentiator rather than a baseline expectation.

The money move sits right beside it. A job that suddenly looks less certain is a reason to rebuild the unglamorous parts of a financial plan, starting with an emergency fund that covers more months than it used to.

The usual rule of thumb is three to six months of expenses set aside in cash. In a field that keeps showing up on the layoff lists, I would aim for the higher end of that range and build it before the headlines hit my own employer.

If your industry shows up on the layoff lists, I would treat that as a signal to raise your cash cushion before you need it, not after. The cheapest time to prepare for a gap in income is while you still have the income.

Huang is telling workers the fear is overblown, and he may be proven right in the long run. The next jobs report and the next round of layoff announcements will tell you whether the long run is close enough to plan around, and your savings rate is the part of that answer you actually control.

Related: Cathie Wood says the market just misread the jobs report

Goldman Sachs analysts, though, say that might not tell the whole story.

In a fresh note shared with me, the firm argues that the labor market is softer than the headline 4.3% unemployment rate suggests.

They argue that the job market is losing strength in ways that aren’t showing up cleanly in the one number most fixated on.

For the most part, the latest government jobs report looked solid on the surface.

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 172,000 in May, and the unemployment rate stayed unchanged at 4.3%.

However, Goldman’s point is that ‘stability’ is not the same thing as strength.

The firm’s updated slack tracker, which weaves together 10 labor-market indicators, sits at 4.8%. 

That is significantly higher than the official unemployment rate, suggesting more weakness beneath the surface than the headline number shows.

May jobs report shows steady hiring 

• Payrolls rose 172,000 in May.
• Unemployment held at 4.3%.
• Leisure and hospitality added 70,000 jobs.
• Local government added 55,000; health care added 35,000.
• Financial activities lost 22,000 jobs.
  Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2026 Employment Situation.

Goldman Sachs says the jobs market is weaker than it looks

The unemployment rate is the clearest number in the jobs report, but Goldman Sachs argues it may not be the most complete.

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The firm lays out the case that the labor market is softer than the 4.3% unemployment rate suggests. 

However, Goldman isn’t being apocalyptic about it either.

The firm says the market has shown signs of stabilization, with trend job growth running at or above its breakeven pace estimate. But the broader dashboard tells a more cautious story.

Goldman’s updated slack tracker now stands at 4.8%, above the official unemployment rate. The tracker pulls in 10 measures of labor-market tightness, including the quits rate, median unemployment duration, involuntary part-time work, discouraged workers, the prime-age employment-population ratio, and the gap between job openings and unemployed workers.

So in essence, Goldman is saying the labor market can feel weaker before layoffs surge.

That is especially true in what the firm calls today’s “low-hire, low-fire environment". Workers may not be losing jobs in large numbers, but they may also have fewer good options if they want to switch roles or re-enter the workforce.

Moreover, Goldman Sachs analysts expect unemployment to rise only 0.1 percentage point further this year, peaking at 4.4%.

A softer jobs market could change the Fed’s calculus

Goldman’s job-market warning lands in the middle of a messy Fed debate.

Naturally, with a stronger surface-level report, things get remarkably tricky.

A tighter jobs market can keep wages elevated because companies must compete harder for workers. 

Higher wages are not bad for households, but they can keep service-sector inflation sticky if businesses pass those labor costs on to customers. 

That gives the Fed a reason to hold rates higher for longer.

A softer labor market points in the other direction.

When hiring slows, quits fall, and job seekers have a harder time finding work, wage pressure can ease even if unemployment has not jumped. 

That gives the Fed more room to cut because inflation risks look less threatening. Goldman’s point is that some of that softening may already be happening beneath the surface.

Hence, the current scenario leaves the Fed in a difficult spot. 

If it waits for unemployment to spike, it may be too late. But if it cuts too soon while inflation remains sticky, it risks reigniting price pressure. 

That soft-under-the-surface view would normally support rate cuts. But the problem for the Fed is inflation. Goldman recently pushed its expected Fed cuts into 2027, citing stronger activity, job growth, tariff risk, higher oil prices, and the need for core PCE inflation to move closer to the Fed’s 2% target. 

Reuters reported that Goldman now expects cuts in June and December 2027, rather than in December 2026 and March 2027.

Other firms are also leaning hawkish. J.P. Morgan Global Research sees the Fed holding rates steady through 2026, with the next move more likely a 25-basis-point hike in the third quarter of 2027.

So Goldman’s jobs note suggests that the Fed’s cushion may be thinner than unemployment suggests. 

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That's something Kroger did earlier this week, with a deal that allows shoppers to save up to $35 on a fill-up, while Costco has made always offering low prices at the pump a core part of its business model. Now, Circle K has entered the fray with a major promotion for members of its Inner Circle Rewards program in eight states.

That's a well-timed move, given where gas prices stand, even though they have come off their recent highs.

"The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is down 18 cents since last week to $4.24. This marks the second straight week of decline. Pump prices are cooling off as the price of crude oil remains below $100 per barrel," according to AAA data.

United States gas prices

• Today’s (June 4) national average: $4.241 
• One week ago: $4.426 
• One month ago: $4.457 
• One year ago: $3.144 

Circle K offers a big deal on gas

Circle K has lowered prices, but you have to act quickly.

"Get ready for our Inner Circle celebration you won't want to miss. On Thursday, June 11, Circle K is hosting Circle K Inner Circle Fuel Day at select locations! This means all Inner Circle members will get 40 cents off every gallon ALLDAY, simply by entering the phone number linked to their account directly at the pump," the retailer shared on its website.

The promotion only applies in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

A visit to my local Circle K in Port St. Lucie, Florida, confirmed that the chain is not offering the discount in Florida, the biggest state by store count for the convenience store brand.

To get the promotion, members must be fully registered and enter their associated phone number at the pump, or register before the transaction. Once the phone number is entered, the discount will instantly apply.

The one-day promotion ends at midnight on June 11.

Circle K did not immediately return a request for comment regarding when it will run this promotion again and why it did not offer it in Florida.

Kroger offers a longer-term gas deal

Kroger’s fuel promotion comes as Costco reports record gas volume.

Kroger shared a new 4X Fuel Points promotion on June 8.

“Customers can earn 4X Fuel Points on every dollar spent every Friday from June 12 through July 24, as well as July 1-4, when they clip the digital coupon in the Kroger app or on Kroger.com and shop in-store, through pickup or via delivery,” the company shared in a press release.

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Customers earn one Fuel Point for every $1 spent on groceries, but under the 4X promotion, they will earn four points for every dollar spent.

Every 100 points saves you $0.10 per gallon, up to $1 per gallon with a maximum of $35 in savings.

You do not need to be a member or pay to join Kroger’s program, but you do have to register for it.

Kroger's program takes aim at Costco

Kroger's efforts follow Costco reporting record gas volume during its third-quarter earnings call. Costco CEO Ron Vachris made it clear that gas sales at drive traffic to its stores.

“The high consumer price sensitivity, which fueled these record volumes, also drove many members to use our gas stations for the very first time in the third quarter. We believe this will drive even greater loyalty with these members in the future as members who use our gas stations typically spend more with us in the warehouse,” he added.

RTMNexus CEO Dominick Miserandino thinks Costco’s gas proposition will beat out Kroger’s.

“Wall Street looks at Kroger’s headline ‘Save up to $35’ fuel promo and thinks it’s a direct threat to Costco, but that completely misjudges the psychology of the modern consumer,” he said. “Costco wins because its value proposition is completely frictionless: you show your card, and you get the lowest price in town immediately.”

The grocery chain has too many steps in its process, he explained.

“Kroger’s model requires digital coupon clipping, tracking specific calendar windows like ‘4X Fridays,’ and monitoring point balances. In a tight economy, convenience-fatigued consumers eventually reject complex loyalty gamification,” he said.

Americans are wary about gas prices

Consumers are increasingly focused on saving money on gas, and a Numerator survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers shows many are adjusting spending in other categories. Key findings included:

• 93% of drivers are trying to save money on gas.
• 36% choose stations based on price over convenience.
• 61% say gas prices are impacting ability to afford other expenses.

Location, of course, matters, and that's an area where Kroger and Circle K have and edge over Costco.

Kroger also has a massive size advantage, since the grocery chain operates more than 1,700 gas stations, according to an SEC filing.

As of late May 2026, Costco operates 931 warehouses worldwide, including 639 in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Costco also reported operating 747 gas stations at the end of fiscal 2025, according to Costco investor relations.

Circle K has roughly 6,846 U.S. stores across 47 states and territories, with Florida leading at 934, according to the company's website. It operates around 2,000 in the eight states covered by the promotion.

Kroger fuel centers’ proximity to the company’s supermarkets helps Kroger draw in shoppers and provide robust fuel benefits as part of its loyalty program, Ken Fenyo, a former Kroger executive who is now managing partner of Pine Street Advisors, told C-Store Dive.

“I think the various incentives they have make you more likely to go to a Kroger fuel center, but then also really [provide] an incentive to spend more with Kroger because you’re going to get that fuel discount on the back end,” Fenyo said.

Over the past three years, Kroger has tripled the number of gas stations it operates, according to its annual report.

Related: Dave Ramsey warns shoppers to avoid Costco trap

That framing is missing something important right now. Morgan Stanley reiterated its Overweight rating on Coca-Cola (KO) and kept its $89 price target in a note shared with me at TheStreet on June 10.

The firm reaffirms the stock as its top pick in North American beverages. But the note's headline argument wasn't about the flagship soda. It was about Fairlife.

That’s a business most investors barely think about, yes it's one Morgan Stanley believes is quietly becoming one of the most underappreciated growth engines in the entire consumer sector.

Reiterate OW: Moo-ving the Needle; Fairlife Capacity Ramp on Top of Pricing Strength Drives Sustained OSG Outperformance.

KO is up 20.48% year-to-date compared to the S&P 500's 6.42% gain, according to Yahoo Finance, trading around $83 on June 10.

Also Read: Coca-Cola Company (The) (KO) Latest News

Why Morgan Stanley is calling Fairlife the most underappreciated driver in Coca-Cola's portfolio

Fairlife now represents 4% to 5% of Coca-Cola's total corporate sales, according to Morgan Stanley's note. 

That sounds small until you factor in the growth rate. Morgan Stanley models Fairlife growing at a 20% to 25% organic sales growth pace, contributing 100 to 125 basis points to Coca-Cola's total corporate organic sales growth annually.

The near-term data is what makes the timing of this note significant. Fairlife had been supply-constrained, limiting growth for several quarters. A 30% capacity addition in 2026 is now flowing through, and the US scanner data has already responded. 

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In the most recent six-week period, Fairlife sales were up 10% year over year, accelerating sharply from the 2% growth rate of the prior 12 weeks, according to Morgan Stanley's note.

My read of that reacceleration is that Coca-Cola is not capturing a one-week spike but converting constrained demand into actual revenue as the new capacity comes online. Fairlife's competitive positioning — built on a proprietary ultra-filtration process and stronger brand equity than peers — makes the demand durable rather than promotional.

The pricing power argument that makes KO different from every other consumer staples stock

Morgan Stanley's broader thesis on Coca-Cola rests on a structural pricing advantage that separates it from its consumer packaged goods peers. And the note makes the case in specific, quantifiable terms.

In the most recent four-week and 12-week scanner data, carbonated soft drink pricing at Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Keurig Dr Pepper is running at 3% to 4% year over year, according to the note, rational and sustained. 

Related: Coca-Cola quietly stops selling an iconic soda flavor

This contrasts with an average of 0% to 1% pricing across large-cap household and personal care peers. Beverages as a category offer structurally higher pricing power because private label penetration is low, channel concentration is limited, and competitive intensity is contained.

Coca-Cola's competitive position versus PepsiCo is also shifting in Coke's favor, according to Morgan Stanley. 

PepsiCo's North American snacks business is declining — down 1.5% in the most recent four-week scanner data, approximately 490 basis points below Coke. That snack's weakness is forcing PepsiCo to lean on CSD pricing for results, which the firm views as a structural tailwind for rational pricing across the category.

Related: History of Coca-Cola: Timeline, facts & milestones

The Q1 2026 results and emerging market resilience that complete the bull case

Coca-Cola's most recent quarterly results, reported April 28, reinforce the foundation underlying Morgan Stanley's target:

• Net revenues grew 12% year over year
• Organic revenues grew 10%
• Global unit case volume grew 3%
• Operating margin expanded to 35.0% from 32.9%
• Comparable EPS grew 18% to $0.86
• Free cash flow of $1.8 billion
  Source: Coca-Cola First Quarter 2026 Results

The impact of the Iran conflict on Coca-Cola's business has been limited, particularly in emerging markets, which are "holding up well" based on CPG company feedback, according to Morgan Stanley. 

That resilience matters because Coca-Cola derives 33% of its revenue from emerging markets — above the 24% peer average — giving it a structural growth advantage as those populations continue trading up into branded beverages.

Also Read: History of Coca-Cola: Timeline, facts & milestones

Morgan Stanley's $89 price target is based on 25 times its 2027 EPS estimate. That's a low-single-digit premium to peers like Colgate, Procter and Gamble, and Church and Dwight, despite Coca-Cola's materially higher long-term organic sales growth potential. 

At the current price, that framing makes the risk/reward straightforward: a premium business trading at a modest premium multiple, with an accelerating hidden growth driver that the market has not fully priced.

Related: Coca-Cola brings an exclusive Sprite pack to Walmart rival

One of the challenges of having a backyard or patio that gets lots of use is finding storage space for all of your various accessories and tools. Whether you want someplace to store solar lights or candles for nighttime entertaining or you need to stash a few pool toys in case of bad weather it's not always easy to maintain an organized space. If you don't have a backyard storage shed to keep everything nice and tidy, then you may want to consider other alternatives. That's why shoppers are turning to patio furniture that has hidden built-in storage to solve this age old problem. 

If you've never owned a patio set or backyard bench with interior storage space then you've been missing out. As of late, retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target have begun to sell various outdoor furniture pieces with cleverly designed built-in storage for maximum efficiency. While many patios and backyards have limited space, these pieces make the most of whatever square footage you have available to increase seating options as well as storage space. They do this all while making your patio look amazing and feel cozy for your friends and family. There are sectional patio sets, patio benches, and patio tables and seats, all with hidden storage. Which one you choose will depend on your specific needs for your outdoor space.

Sectional patio sets with hidden storage

For those who have the space, a full-sized section patio set is optimal. We found a few sets from Amazon that offer seating for many people, while at the same time, making lots of cubic feet of storage available for all your stowing needs. One has a large coffee table with a swinging door on the side. When you open the door, the entire inside of the rattan-framed table can be used to store throw pillows, couch cushions, or whatever else you want. Another offering from Amazon has an even larger square side table with a hinged tabletop. Opening the top reveals a spacious interior that's perfect for pool toys and sports equipment.

Krofem 8-Piece Hidden Storage Patio Set

Super Patio 8-Piece Secret Storage Patio Set

Patio benches with hidden storage

Walmart also has many patio furniture options with secret storage compartments. Its most convenient options are actually outdoor bench designs. One is made from a beautiful hand-woven rattan. It has a hinged top seat cushion with a hydraulic arm. When you lift the cushion, a large open interior cabinet is revealed. It's the perfect undercover bench to add to your larger wicker patio set. The second bench from Walmart is a thick resin bench with a medium-height seatback. Its seat bottom is also hinged, but doesn't have hydraulic support. The entire inside is available for storage, just like the rattan option. 

Hommoo Rattan Storage Bench

Devoko 82-Gallon Storage Bench

Patio tables and seats with hidden storage

Some of the most interesting hidden storage patio furniture is available from Target. These might be considered slightly less traditional than the above options, but worth considering nonetheless. The first pick is a small teak table with matching stools. Each of the small stools has a removable lid that can be taken off to stow small items inside. Though this set offers less storage space than most of the others, it's also the most compact, and the stools can be stored underneath the table for added convenience. The final option from Target is a tall wicker bar table and tool set. The bar has a horizontal swinging door in the base that reveals a large cabinet with built-in shelf. This is a good option for anyone who may want to separate the items they're storing.  

Costway Wooden Table and Storage Stool Set

Costway Rattan Wicker Storage Table and Stool Set

How to choose the right hidden storage patio furniture

If you want some added storage to your outdoor space but don't know quite which way to go with your furniture selection, there are a few things to consider. The first of these is your available space. If you have a large area you want to fill, then a full-sized sectional patio set is probably the best option. Another consideration is how much storage space you need. If a moderate mix between seating and storage is what you need, then a storage bench is probably optimal. Finally, if you want something that's very versatile and can meet your changing hosting and storage requirements, then a small table and stool set works great. These are relatively mobile and offer storage that can change with your needs. No matter what you choose, Amazon, Walmart, and Target have something for everyone.

TheStreet Shopping is your guide for shopping insights and advice. We look beyond the price tag to find the best value in home, tech, and wellness gear based on product features and real-world use. Read more about our Editorial Standards and How We Choose Our Shopping Deals. 

The chipmaker’s shares fell 4.86% on June 10 to close at $452.40, stretching the loss over the past five trading days to 12.15%.

The selling was not an AMD problem, as a wave of profit-taking and Middle East tensions hit nearly every major semiconductor stock.

While that selloff played out, AMD CEO Lisa Su stood on a stage in London delivering an interesting message.

She announced a commitment that ties AMD to one of the world’s most ambitious national AI programs for the next five years.

AMD pledges £2 billion to expand AI computing in the UK

Speaking at London Tech Week on June 8, Su said AMD will invest up to £2 billion, about $2.7 billion, in the United Kingdom over the next five years, according to the company’s press release, also carried by the Globe and Mail.

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The money funds advanced computing, scientific research, and workforce training, with AMD’s Instinct GPUs and EPYC processors at the center of each project.

What AMD’s £2 billion covers

• A research partnership on healthcare, climate modeling, and AI infrastructure, Imperial College London confirmed.
• A project with London startup Oriole Networks to build what is expected to be the world’s first large-scale AI system running on a pure photonic network, which moves data with light instead of electrical signals, Converge Digest reported.
• Support, alongside Dell Technologies, for the University of Cambridge’s new Zenith AI supercomputer and the Sunrise system dedicated to fusion energy research.

The United Kingdom has the talent, research excellence and ambition to help lead the next era of AI

Why AMD wants a bigger seat at Britain’s AI table

The bet centers on sovereign AI, which means a country building and controlling its own AI computing infrastructure instead of renting it from foreign cloud providers.

Governments now treat that capacity as a strategic resource.

The UK government has made the buildout an official policy through its AI Opportunities Action Plan, and AMD’s investment plugs directly into that program.

Lisa’s pledge in London is also indicative of a clear AMD pattern.

Just five days earlier, AMD announced a quantum computing research collaboration with Oxford Quantum Circuits and JPMorganChase in the UK, a sign that the company is methodically stacking British partnerships.

AMD was not the only one to make a financial commitment.

On June 8, Cloud provider Nebius pledged about £1.7 billion to expand UK AI capacity built on Nvidia hardware, according to the company’s newsroom, so competition for Britain’s AI budget is already fierce.

The announcement landed in the middle of a brutal chip selloff

The timing was rough.

Semiconductor stocks shed a combined $1 trillion in market value on June 5 after Broadcom’s guidance disappointed investors, and renewed conflict between Israel and Iran knocked the Nasdaq lower again this week.

AMD’s UK announcement briefly broke that pattern.

Related: AMD CEO Lisa Su drops rare message on AI careers

AMD shares rose in premarket trading on June 8, Stocktwits noted, as the Nasdaq staged a small comeback.

The stock was up 1.94% at $461.18 in the premarket session of Thursday, June 8, a sign that buyers are stepping back in.

How AMD stock compares with the S&P 500 in 2026

Even after the pullback, AMD has crushed the broader market:

• Year to date: AMD up 111.24% versus an 6.16% gain for the S&P 500
• One year: AMD up 267.09% versus 20.34% for the S&P 500
• Three years: AMD up 454.68% versus 71.42% for the S&P 500
  Source: Yahoo Finance Data

What still has to happen before the UK bet pays off

The £2 billion commitment is not, on its own, sufficient to significantly improve AMD’s near-term income statement.

The company generated $10.25 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2026, up 37.85% from a year earlier, so the UK plan averages out to a small fraction of one quarter’s sales per year.

For shareholders to feel the payoff, the Cambridge systems need to come online and prove AMD’s chips can run national-scale science.

The Oriole project must show that photonic networking can cut the energy cost of inference, the operational phase where trained AI models answer real requests.

Most importantly, those research developments need to convert into commercial orders across Europe.

What the London pledge means for AMD investors

In the short run, AMD stock will keep trading on the chip selloff, Middle East headlines, and the ramp of its MI450 GPUs rather than on a five-year government program.

However, the £2 billion commitment still matters.

Governments are becoming a new class of AI customers, and AMD has positioned itself as the leading chip supplier for one of the largest national AI programs outside the United States, reducing its dependence on Big Tech buyers.

The risks are also real.

Nvidia hardware is competing for the same UK budgets through deals like the Nebius buildout, and the broader market just erased 12% of AMD’s value in a week.

But for patient investors, Su’s London move widens where AMD’s next decade of growth can come from.

Related: Anthropic sounds the alarm on AI danger

One of the EV maker's biggest issues was in Europe, where the company experienced major declines in the world's second-most-mature EV market.

More than 50% of Tesla’s revenue in 2025 came from the U.S., according to data compiled by Bull Fincher. China accounted for 22%, and the rest is attributed to “other regions,” of which Europe is the most significant.

But as bad as 2025 was for Tesla, 2026 has been a bounce-back year so far for the company in one of its most key regions.

On Wednesday, June 10, the company received more good news from the region when regulators in Belgium announced that its Full-Self Driving (supervised) technology was now officially authorized in the country.

Tesla gets Belgium approval for FSD tech

On Wednesday, Annick De Ridder, transport minister of the Flanders region, announced on X that the country was moving forward with authorization for Tesla FSD.

"The Tesla community has been keeping a close eye on this for quite some time regarding the approval for FSD technology on our Flemish and Belgian roads," said De Ridder. "In appreciation of your unwavering interest (and encouragement), you get the scoop here: I just signed the approval!"

Now, her decision will go to the country's homologation department, which will notify the RDW, the country's transportation authority. Authorizations granted in one of Belgium's three regions are valid across all three of its territories.

This gives Tesla the green light to flip the digital switch that allows Belgian Tesla drivers to use the advanced driver assistance software.

Belgium joins the Netherlands, Estonia and Lithuania in approving FSD in Europe.

Tesla is on the road to recovery in Europe

Tesla has pulled out all the stops to turn its European sales around, including offering new, cheaper versions of the Model 3 and Model Y. After a full year of declines in 2025, the strategy appears to be paying off in 2026.

In January, Tesla sales in France reportedly declined 42% year over year. They were up in 655% in May, Reuters reported, citing AECA data. Norway, long one of the strongest EV markets with a large Tesla customer base, saw sales jump nearly 30%.

Tesla’s May European resurgence

• France – sales +655% to 5,446
• Norway – sales +29% to 3,345
• Denmark – sales +136% to 1,750
• Spain – sales +113% to 1,690
• Sweden – sales +71% to 858
  Source: Reuters

Overall, electrified vehicle registrations, which include battery-electric, plug-in hybrid and hybrid models, rose about 21% in Europe and made up more than two-thirds of the region’s total registrations in April, according to the ACEA.

Battery-electric cars accounted for 19.7% of the EU market through April 2026, a 15% increase from the year prior, the ACEA says. The EU registered nearly 747,000 new BEVs through the first four months of the year, driven by strong growth in Italy, France and Germany.

Which European countries have approved Tesla FSD?

Last month, Tesla had some good news for its fans in the small European country of Estonia: Tesla FSD has been approved.

Estonia, which is sandwiched between Latvia to the south and the Gulf of Finland to the north, became the third European country to authorize use of the driver assistance tool after its Transpordiamet (Transport Administration) granted the tech approval by recognizing the same type of certification issued by the Netherlands, its fellow European Union member.

Related: Elon Musk’s net worth as SpaceX goes public

According to Teslarati, along with their approval, Estonian officials emphasized that FSD (Supervised) is classified as a Level 2 autonomy system, meaning drivers should maintain full attention, keep their hands on the wheel, and be ready to intervene.

As soon as FSD was approved in the Netherlands in April, that set the stage for the company and the Netherlands to petition the EU to make the technology legal across all member states.

A month ago, EU members heard from Dutch officials about their decision to approve FSD’s use in their country and why the rest of the EU should do the same. For FSD to be approved, committee members representing 55% of member states and 65% of their populations must vote in favor of the measure.

Tesla FSD proved popular in the Netherlands, with Tesla owners surpassing 10 million kilometers (6.2 million miles) driven using the system less than a month after its approval.

Related: Tesla gets double dose of good news from key region