Why we love this deal

Pools can be an expensive long-term investment. In-ground pools certainly are more costly than the above-ground counterparts, but even those that require no digging or cementing can be expensive if you're not providing proper upkeep. Disregarding proper chlorine and pH levels, adding the wrong cleaning chemicals, and letting dirt and debris pile up won't just make your pool a place no one wants to take a dip in. Over time, it contributes to algae and bacteria growth, structural damage, and equipment strain — and whether you paid $30,000 or $3,000 for your pool, no one wants to lose money when they can simply get some help with products like the Syvio Handheld Pool Vacuum to keep that backyard oasis pristine and clean.

Although consistent vacuuming can be annoying, taking 15 minutes every week to clean your pool can help the filtration system perform better, and for longer, as well as ensure that the water quality is safe for anyone who takes the plunge. And although pool equipment, like pools themselves, can be expensive, Walmart's Flash deal can help you get the Syvio Handheld Pool Vacuum on sale for 53% off. Now is your chance to shop the cordless device for $89 instead of $190 for a limited time. 

Syvio Handheld Pool Vacuum, $89 (was $190) at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

Unlike corded pool vacuums, which restrict your mobility, tangle easily, and can be tripping hazards, cordless options like this Syvio model allow you to maneuver and move however you want. They're faster and easier to set up while being safer for both you and those around you who also enjoy the pool.

This cordless option uses a 40-watt robot motor that has a powerful 18.5 gallons per minute (GPM) suction. This means it filters 18.5 gallons of water a minute, sucking up dirt and debris, quickly removing leaves, sand, mud, acorns, and other messes from pool and hot tub floors. The large 11.4-inch cleaning head has built-in side brushes to help increase cleaning coverage, working with the suction to effectively and quickly clean up dirt. That, in combination with the adjustable pole which extends from 27.6 inches long upwards to 86.6 inches long, allows you to cover every crevice, corner, and surface with ease. 

The dirt is sucked up and deposited into two filter bags, one made for larger debris and the other for small, finer particles. When you're done cleaning, simply unzip the bags and empty them before your next vacuuming session. 

Related: Pool products that cut costs and make maintenance easier

Powered by five 2,000 milliampere-hour (mAh) lithium batteries, the pool vacuum gets its power by charging the battery, which can quickly rejuice completely within an hour and a half. Once charged, the vacuum can provide up to 60 minutes of continuous cleaning before it needs to be put back on the charger. You also get a two-year warranty from the date of purchase. 

Details to know

• Dimensions: The vacuum extends from 27.6 inches up to 86.6 inches. The head is 11.4 inches wide.
• Power source: Five rechargeable 2000 mAh lithium batteries. 
• Features: The cordless handheld vacuum has two filter bags where dirt and debris are stored when they are sucked up by the 40-watt 18.5 GPM. They require emptying after each cleaning.  

Shoppers are impressed with the powerful suction power this vacuum has, especially compared to higher-end, more expensive models on the market. Useful in a pool or hot tub, it's very well made, and the wide vacuum head and lightweight feel make it easy to maneuver and hit all the areas you need to. "This vacuum is the real deal," one shopper said. "This is the only item that we have bought in the past few years that hasn't disappointed us."

Shop more deals 

• Talosbo C1 Cordless Robotic Pool Vacuum, $300 (was $700) at Walmart
• Intex Deluxe 800 GPH+ Wall-Mounted Automatic Skimmer, $25 (was $45) at Walmart
• Wybot Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner, $85 (was $177) at Walmart

Pool products can be expensive, but it's far better to invest in them than wait and have to spend far more fixing problems caused by improper upkeep. Thankfully, with Walmart's latest Flash deal, you don't have to sacrifice when it comes to what you spend. Add the Syvio Handheld Pool Vacuum to your cart for only $89 while it's on sale for 53% off. 

Almost nobody shopping for a diamond has the training to price one. So you lean on numbers, and they arrive already packaged, usually inside a headline telling you the market is doing one thing or another.

That works fine when the packaging is neutral.

Here is the route a diamond statistic travels before it reaches you. A producer commissions consumer research, a trade publication writes it up, retail blogs recycle the write-up, and somewhere around step three the chain of custody quietly disappears.

What survives is the number. What gets lost is who paid for it.

That process is running at full speed behind a claim you have almost certainly seen. Natural diamonds are staging a comeback, buyers are trading up to bigger stones, and demand is healthier than the gloomy coverage suggests.

Every version of that claim traces back to a single survey. It was published by De Beers.

Why the diamond market split into two different economies

Start with what nobody disputes. This is now two products with two unrelated cost structures.

Natural diamonds come out of the ground on a schedule a handful of miners control. Lab-grown diamonds come out of a reactor, limited mainly by how many reactors exist.

That gap has widened every year for a decade, as synthetic capacity expanded and production costs fell while natural prices held comparatively firm.

Related: World’s quietest metal just dropped a huge bullish signal

The bridal market has already picked a side. Lab-grown center stones accounted for 61 percent of all engagement ring purchases in 2025, a 239 percent jump since 2020, according to The Knot Worldwide and its survey of more than 10,000 US couples.

Natural diamond engagement rings showed no growth in total or center stone size over the same period, JCK reported.

Supply on the natural side is genuinely contracting, though not for the reason the comeback story implies. Global rough output is forecast to fall below 95 million carats this year, the lowest since 1987, as mine economics force closures, according to independent analyst Paul Zimnisky.

Mines are closing because the economics stopped working. That is a very different thing from a market tightening on strength.

What the De Beers study actually found about diamond buyers

The research everyone is citing is the US Diamond Acquisition Study, and De Beers Group published it on June 11.

More Retail:

• Trump's tariff cuts may make popular luxury items cheaper
• Major retailers have jacked up prices due to tariffs
• Best Buy warns holiday shoppers of updated return policy

The sample is respectable and the findings are real. Here is what the company reported:

• The survey covered 18,500 US women aged 18 to 74, not the "tens of thousands" some write-ups claim, according to De Beers Group
• Natural diamond jewelry ranked first as most-desired luxury gift at 11 percent against 8 percent for lab-grown, per InStore Magazine
• Average spend reached $4,063 in 2025, up from $3,242 in 2023, according to Rapaport
• Gen Z spends $4,080 per piece against $2,250 for Baby Boomers, according to De Beers Group
• Point-of-sale data from 950 independent jewelers showed sales up 4 percent in Q4 2025 and 9 percent in Q1 2026, per InStore Magazine

Now the breakdown that almost never travels with those numbers. The overall acquisition rate, meaning the share of surveyed women who actually bought a natural diamond, was 9 percent in 2025, up from 8 percent in 2023, Rapaport reported.

Among households earning $150,000 or more, that rate went from 12 percent to 15 percent.

My analysis is that the second figure carries the first. The affluent cohort moved three points while the overall market moved one, which means most of the reported growth came from buyers who were already in the category.

That is a real recovery. It is just a narrow one, and "natural diamonds are back" is doing a lot of work to cover the difference.

De Beers also has a reason to want the first framing. Parent company Anglo American (NGLOY) has been trying to sell the business since 2024, posted a $3.7 billion loss for 2025 and took a $2.3 billion writedown on De Beers, its third impairment in three years, Rapaport reported.

The company cut 2026 production guidance to 21 million carats from a prior floor of 26 million, citing "challenging rough diamond trading conditions," according to its own production report.

Independent analysts read the downturn as structural. The industry faces "a more fundamental crisis," not a cyclical dip, senior analyst Joshua Freedman of Rapaport told News Anyway.

None of this makes the survey false. It means you weigh it against the filings, and the filings and the survey disagree.

The lab-grown price gap that costs buyers real money

There is a second number circulating that is out of date, and this one can cost you thousands.

You will still see claims that lab-grown diamonds run 20 percent to 40 percent below comparable natural stones. That was roughly accurate in 2016.

It is nowhere near accurate now. The per-carat gap reached 72.8 percent, up from 26.6 percent in 2019, according to appraisal and insurance data from BriteCo.

Retailers put it wider still. The discount runs 60 percent to 85 percent depending on size and specification, according to comparison-powered retailer Rare Carat, whose own pricing pages undercut the figure the trend pieces keep repeating.

Walk in believing the gap is 30 percent and you will badly misjudge what your money buys. On a $5,000 budget that is roughly the difference between a one-carat stone and a two-carat one.

There is also a tariff variable nobody was pricing a year ago. US duties on diamonds shipped from India reached 50 percent before an interim trade agreement cut the rate to 18 percent in early 2026.

What to check before you spend on a diamond this year

None of this settles the natural versus lab-grown question. That call depends on what you want the stone to do.

But I would run three filters on anything you read between now and December.

Ask who paid for the number. Producer-funded research is not worthless and it is not neutral either, and that matters most when the producer is mid-sale.

Ask how old the number is. The lab-grown discount has moved fast enough that guidance written two years ago is now actively misleading.

Ask whether the number describes your purchase. An average built from every US buyer says almost nothing about a specific stone in a specific quality bracket.

Then verify the stone itself. Free certificate lookup tools let you check a grading report against the listing before you pay, and Rare Carat runs one alongside its comparison pricing.

Watch two things through the back half of 2026. Whether Anglo completes the De Beers sale, and whether the engagement season pulls any middle-income buyers back toward natural stones.

Zimnisky sees the ubiquity of lab-grown rings creating its own counterforce. "People are starting to want the real thing again," he told News Anyway.

He may be right. But the number that proves it will be the acquisition rate outside the $150,000 bracket, not the average ticket, and that is the figure worth hunting for when the next comeback story lands in your feed.

Related: 2 major jewelry brands close hundreds of stores in key market

Why we love this deal

There are tons of storage solutions for the bigger items in your life, but what about the small ones? How do you neatly organize the miscellaneous writing utensils that always seem scattered in your desk drawer? Or the compacts for your foundations, powders, and brushes in your vanity area? What about the plastic bags for snacks and leftovers that always seem to overflow out of your kitchen drawers? It's often the smaller items, knick-knacks, and trinkets that we struggle to find an organized place to store which leads to us feeling overwhelmed with clutter and mess in our homes — but it doesn't have to be that way. 

With the Sindcom Stackable Organizer Bins, every item has a proper storage place. Right now, Walmart is selling the 26-pack of organizers on sale for just $15 — which means that each organizer is just 57 cents.

Sindcom Stackable Organizer Bins 26-Pack, $15 at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

Designed to fit in the small crevices and crannies of your drawers, these bins are perfect for storing all kinds of items. Made of plastic, these organizers are perfect for kitchen utensils, office supplies, cosmetics and makeup brushes, toiletries, and other miscellaneous items that often fall victim to the classic junk drawer. The clear plastic material makes it easy to find what you're looking for by simply opening the drawer, and the durability allows it to withstand your heavier products without cracking or breaking.

The set includes 26 different bins in four sizes, so you can create a unique layout in each drawer that works best for your needs. For $13, it includes three trays each measuring 9 inches long, 6 inches wide, and 2 inches high, along with five trays, each measuring 9 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 2 inches high. You also get nine trays, each measuring 6 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 2 inches high, and an additional nine trays, each measuring 3 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 2 inches high.

Thanks to the included silicone pads, the organizers stay secure and in place, even when there's movement from opening and closing drawers. The organizers are also designed to be stackable, which saves space in areas where space is more limited. 

Related: Walmart’s $73 heavy-duty garage organizer that clears clutter is 55% off

This simple addition does wonders for cleaning up your drawers and cabinets that can succumb to mess quickly. And when they get dirty, a damp wash rag quickly cleans them and makes them look good as new.

Details to know

• Includes: The set includes 26 trays of varying sizes. In the set, you get 9 inch x 6 inch x 2 inch trays (3), 9 inch x 3 inch x 2 inch trays (5), 6 inch x 3 inch x 2 inch trays (9), and 3 inch x 3 inch x 2 inch trays (9). 
• Non-slip: Included silicone pads keep the trays in place and secure.
• Material: Plastic. 
• Easy to clean: Simply use a damp wash rag to wipe down dirty organizers.

Shoppers love the variety of sizes the pack of organizers comes with. The silicone bumpers keep the trays from slipping and sliding when the drawer moves, but they aren't so secure that you can adjust the layout or move them around. Shoppers say they feel very sturdy, and are perfect for drawers, closet shelves, and countertops. One shopper shared that they "make so many things around my home feel less cluttered."

Shop more deals 

• Scidweet Under Bed Shoe Storage Organizer, $19 (was $36) at Walmart
• Phancir Under Sink Organizer Storage, $29 (was $45) at Walmart
• Baodeli Plastic Pantry Organization and Storage Bins, $27 (was $40) at Walmart

It might seem like a small purchase, but these storage trays make a big difference when it comes to home organization. Get your very own pack of the Sindcom Stackable Organizer Bins for just $15 before this great deal is gone!

Rather than reopening stores, the nearly 200-year-old department store is betting on exclusive merchandise as retailers increasingly rely on private-label brands to strengthen customer loyalty, improve profit margins, and stand out in a more competitive shopping environment.

Lord & Taylor revives its private label line

Regal Brands Global's Lord & Taylor is bringing back its private label business with the launch of the Heritage Collection, marking the brand's first in-house apparel line in nearly six years.

The debut collection includes 168 pieces, including dresses, tops, skirts, and women's suiting, with prices ranging from $100 to $1,000. It is available worldwide through Lord & Taylor's online marketplace and select luxury boutiques across Europe.

Related: Former retail giant closes more stores

For now, the collection will remain internally produced while the company searches for a licensing partner that could eventually expand the brand into additional categories, including shoes and socks, according to Regal Brands Global Chief Strategy and Brand Officer Sina Yenel, WWD reported.

"We're expanding the Lord & Taylor name across new categories through a growing roster of licensing partners," wrote Yenel on LinkedIn. "We're building proprietary technology to power a truly global marketplace. And there's more on the way that I can't wait to share."

Lord & Taylor's bankruptcy and turbulent turnaround

Founded in 1826 as a small dry goods store in New York City, Lord & Taylor grew into what is widely recognized as the first department store in the U.S. and became known for its upscale merchandise and iconic Fifth Avenue flagship.

However, years of financial challenges ultimately led to widespread store closures, including the flagship location.

In 2019, fashion rental company Le Tote acquired Lord & Taylor for $75 million, including 38 of its remaining 45 stores. Just one year later, Le Tote filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy following the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the closure of all Lord & Taylor stores and the discontinuation of its private label business.

Saadia Group bought the brand out of bankruptcy in October 2020 for $12 million, but lost control of the intellectual property in 2024 after defaulting on its loan agreement.

Later that year, Regal Brands Global acquired Lord & Taylor and repositioned it as an online off-price luxury retailer.

Why Lord & Taylor is bringing back Heritage Collection

The launch comes as fashion retailers navigate slower industry growth, persistent economic uncertainty, tariff pressures, and more selective consumer spending.

According to McKinsey & Company's State of Fashion 2026 report, industry growth is expected to remain in the low single digits, prompting brands to prioritize strategies that improve profitability while creating exclusive products shoppers can't find elsewhere.

Here's some of my previous coverage of retail strategies:

• After years of store closures, fashion retailer shifts strategy
• After closing nearly all locations, beauty brand gets lifeline
• Former retail giant closes more stores

Private-label brands have become an increasingly important part of that strategy because it gives retailers greater control over product design, pricing, inventory, and brand identity while often generating higher margins than third-party brands.

"Retailers have responded by expanding their private label offerings and investing in premium categories like organic foods, sustainable products, and high-end fashion," said The Supply Chain Source Content Writer and Industry Expert Bekah Tatem. "Private label brands are now a key part of retail strategy, helping businesses differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace."

Related: Ikea closing key U.S. stores

There's no better time to get a new pair of sunglasses than the height of summer. That's because you already have a summer routine and know exactly what to shop for. The summer fashion trends are in full swing, and you can be sure to get a pair that's totally in style, assuming you're able to find something affordable. Luckily, retailers like Amazon regularly offer discounts on some of the most popular sunglass brands, and this summer is no exception. Brands like Ray Ban, Gucci, and Oakley are just a few of the popular names that Amazon has available at a discount right now for summer sun worshipers. Whether you plan to travel for summer vacation or not, there's always an excuse to get a new pair of sunnies for the summer.

One of the first things you need to decide when choosing a new pair of sunglasses is how you plan to use them. There's a big difference between picking a pair of sunglasses used exclusively for driving versus an everyday pair that you plan to wear out every time you leave the house in the summer. Generally, there are two main categories that you can place almost any pair of sunglasses into. Those categories are performance sunglasses and fashion sunglasses. They obviously have very different uses, and which one you plan to buy will have an impact on where you start looking.

Performance sunglasses

While fashion sunglasses are meant to express personal style, performance glasses are all about durability and comfort. Performance sunglasses are what you would use to run a 10K race, hit your favorite fishing spot, or go for a bike ride. They're intended to perform under some level of stress, though most don't necessarily throw style completely out the window. This sector is dominated by brands like Oakley, which has a reputation for toughness and longevity. One of the most popular styles for these glasses is the curved shield type. Not only do they look cool, but they give you a more full range of protection than many other models because they wrap further around the sides of your head, shielding your peripheral vision.

One of the most impressive sunglass deals currently available at Amazon is the Oakley Gascan Prism Polarized Sunglasses. They're currently an impressive 30% off of the original price. These are the ultimate performance sunglasses, and they don't look too shabby either.

Oakley Gascan Prism Polarized Sunglasses

Smith Shift MAG Shield Sunglasses

Maui Jim Kokua Performance Sunglasses

Fashion sunglasses

What we would call fashion glasses cover a relatively broad swath of sunglass styles. From small aviators to oversized square frames, and everything in between, fashion sunglasses are made to be shown off. They come in literally every possible shape, size, and color, and they offer the best way for you to showcase your personal style with an accessory. Lenses in fashion glasses are most commonly gray or brown with the occasional blue, red, or other more brightly-colored hue. Choosing fashion glasses is often all about making a statement and feeling inspired. That said, there are a few options that you'll want to consider. One of these options is whether you prefer polarized lenses. These lenses allow you to see underwater and they also cut down on glare from the sun. However, they also tend to be a little more expensive than non-polarized options, so keep that in mind when choosing.

Michael Kors Edgewater Universal Fit Sunglasses

Ray-Ban Drifter Square Sunglasses

Dolce & Gabbana Transparent Blue Sunglasses

More sunglasses

If you haven't found any sunglasses that suit your current needs in the lists above, there are lots of alternative options available at Amazon. Any style of sunglasses you can possibly imagine are probably available from the retail giant, and there's a good chance they're on sale. Take a look at the options below to see if there's anything that makes you feel like you'll be made in the shade.

Quay High Key Extra-Large Polarized Aviator Sunglasses

Guess Rounded Bottoms Sunglasses

Gucci Black Square Fashion Glasses

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 Clarks shoes are so popular

It can be tough to find shoes that are comfortable and stylish, especially during the summer. Summer-ready shoes should be24[ breathable, as well as supportive. And if there's one brand that checks off most, if not all, of those boxes, its Clarks.

Clarks isn't new to the shoe game. Founded in 1825, the brand has gained a loyal fanbase due to its footwear that prioritizes comfort and durability. It has boots for the winter, heels and dress shoes for special occasions, and an entire line called "Cloudsteppers" with flip-flops, sandals, and sneakers that are widely popular amongst comfort-minded shoppers.

With the summer heat going strong, we know we're not the only ones looking for light, breathable, and comfortable footwear. And luckily, Clarks has plenty to choose from. We rounded up Clarks shoes that are not only popular, but also currently on sale, with prices as low as $28 and discounts of up to 60% off.

Clarks Cloudsteppers Drift Twist Slip-on Sandals, $28 (was $60) at Macy's

Everyday sandals should be classic and comfortable, just like the Cloudsteppers Drift Twist Slip-On Sandals. They have a breathable upper, soft foam footbed, and thick yet light EVA outsole. They come in medium and wide as well, accommodating different foot widths. With 53% off, they're only $28.

Clarks Laurieann Ruby Scalloped Twist Strap Slide Sandals, $50 (was $100) at Macy's

Adjustable sandals can be a footwear game changer. These Clarks sandals from Macy's are 50% off, and they have three scalloped straps, complete with grip tape to customize and adjust the fit. The sandals are paired with highly cushioned insoles, making them great for everything from beach days and weekend brunches.

Clarks Cloudsteppers Solevana Style Lace-Up Sneakers, $57 (was $95) at Macy's

Lace-up sneakers with thick outsoles are a staple in athleisure, and you can get the look with the Cloudsteppers Solevana Style Lace-Up Sneakers for 40% off. They have nubuck uppers with holes for not just style, but also ventilation. With cushion foam layers, shoppers say they're "cloud-like," staying true to their Cloudstepper name.

Related: Walmart's bestselling flip-flop sandals with arch support are on sale for $10

Clarks Cloudsteppers Solevana Weave Slip-On Sneakers, $38 (was $95) at Macy's

If the Solvena lace-up sneakers caught your attention, you're also going to want to check out the slip-on version. The sneakers have a woven pattern made of cooling textile that's nice and breathable, which is much appreciated during hot summer days. As part of the Cloudstepper collection, they're made for all-day comfort with a pillow-soft footbed. And at Macy's, they're currently 60% off.

Clarks Laurieann Cove Sandals, $43 (was $85) at Amazon

Macy's isn't the only place to buy Clarks on sale right now. There are tons of pairs discounted at Amazon, including the Laurieann Cove Sandals. Each sandal features three detailed straps made of leather, with adjustable rip-tape closures to get a secure and comfortable fit. The sandals have cushioned Ortholite insoles, well known for their premium comfort, as well as lightweight outsoles. Plus, they're 50% off.

Shop more deals

• Clarks Merliah2 Belle Flower Leather Wedge Sandals, $50 (was $100) at Macy's
• Clarks Cloudsteppers Arla Kaylie Slip-On Thong Sandals, $38 (was $75) at Macy's
• Clarks Drift Buckle Sandals, $30 (was $70) at Amazon

The gap between strong corporate equity returns and strained household budgets leaves middle-aged workers struggling to reconcile everyday expenses with portfolio growth.

This macroeconomic divergence presents emotional barriers alongside high-yield wealth-building opportunities for retirement account holders attempting to secure their financial futures.

"In forty years as a financial advisor, I have never seen a market this confusing to investors," wrote Kahler Financial Group founder Rick Kahler, CFP, MS, ChFC, CCIMer.

University of Michigan index tracks market split

Measuring household economic sentiment reveals persistent underlying anxiety across broad income groups despite strong broad market returns.

The University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment recorded a reading of 54.4 in July. While reflecting a modest monthly rebound, the index remains down nearly 12% compared to 2025 and sits near historical recessionary levels.

In contrast, broad market equities maintain strong momentum, with the S&P 500 trading near historic record levels on the S&P Dow Jones Indices database.

A leading expert addressed the ongoing inflation pressure on household budgets, despite minor month-over-month sentiment gains.

"With prices remaining frustratingly high, consumers are hardly ebullient about the economy; sentiment is down 12% from a year ago," explained the University of Michigan surveys of consumers director Joanne Hsu.

Fidelity 401(k) savings rates hit new records

Retirement account balances reflect the underlying resilience of broad equity market expansion despite widespread public pessimism regarding economic conditions.

Data from Vanguard's institutional research database indicates that the median 401(k) balance for Americans aged 45 to 54 sits at approximately $60,000, while the average account balance reaches $142,000.

Average total worker retirement contribution rates reached a record high of 14.4%, according to workplace investor data from Fidelity Investments.

More on personal finance:

• Charles Schwab, Fidelity alert workers to forced 401(k) rule
• Dave Ramsey warns Americans on 401(k)s, IRAs (he’s not wrong)
• Congress research arm warns Americans on 401(k), IRA penalty

One expert noted that individual investors are successfully looking past short-term economic anxieties to preserve long-term wealth building.

"While it can be tempting to make changes to retirement savings during market volatility, it is positive to see participants stay the course with their contributions," emphasized Fidelity Investments VP Sharon Brovelli.

Fidelity explains its approach for essential benchmark savings that target necessary requirements for middle-aged workers to maintain financial stability into retirement.

"Aim to save at least 1x your income by age 30, 3x by 40, 6x by 50, 8x by 60, and 10x by 67," urged analysts at Fidelity.

401(k) retirement growth scenarios

As a reporter covering retirement security and consumer economics, I decided to calculate the following wealth projection models to provide real-world context for readers seeking to evaluate the impact of market growth on a late-stage portfolio.

These calculations assume a starting capital base of $20,000 at age 50, a target retirement age of 67, and tax-deferred growth within a traditional 401(k) or IRA framework across 204 monthly compounding periods — representing the 17 years spanning ages 50 to 67.

• Option A (conservative cash allocation): Holding $20,000 in a traditional savings account yielding a 2.0% annual return, accompanied by $500 monthly contributions, yields a total account balance of roughly $151,000 by age 67.
• Option B (moderate fixed-income allocation): Allocating funds into a conservative bond-heavy portfolio generating a 4.5% net annual return with $500 monthly contributions yields approximately $196,000 at retirement.
• Option C (aggressive equity index allocation): Investing in broad stock index mutual funds with an average historic net yield of 8.5% alongside $500 monthly contributions generates a final portfolio value of approximately $311,000 by age 67.
• Option D (maximum catch-up contribution strategy): Utilizing growth stock index funds averaging an 8.5% net return while maximizing monthly contributions at $1,000 per month pushes the total accumulated nest egg to roughly $537,000 over the same 17-year timeline.
  (Source: Jeffrey Quiggle, TheStreet)

Long-term equity exposure overcomes sentiment drag

The mathematical modeling I have outlined here confirms that retreating from equity allocations due to depressed consumer confidence runs the risk of severe long-term wealth loss for late-stage retirement planning.

Maintaining consistent monthly contributions into broad equity growth funds ensures that investors capture essential compound market growth, successfully insulating household retirement security from temporary economic anxiety.

This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute individual financial, investment, or legal advice..

Related: Dave Ramsey has these blunt words about your 401(k) and IRA

Why we love this deal

As good as the sun can feel, those strong rays can cause you to overheat quite quickly, and long-term exposure to sun isn't always great for your skin. While a little Vitamin D can help calcium absorption, regulate your immune system, and boost your mood, it's best to take sun exposure in moderation, and ensuring that you have the proper shade to get out of the sun once you soak up a solid 30 minutes is an easy way to make sure you can still enjoy the outdoors even when the sun is at its strongest. Umbrellas are always a good go-to option, but tents, gazebos, and canopies, like the Gojooasis Outdoor Canopy Tent, provide more coverage compared to the standard umbrella and can even be sturdier long term especially with how unpredictable the weather can be.

Although that extra shade coverage can come at a cost, right now, Walmart is selling the $160 Gojooasis Outdoor Canopy Tent on sale for 47% off. The bestselling gazebo is only $85 with a limited-time sale, and with tons of the summer season left as well as an impending autumn where the weather is perfect for relaxing outside, there's no better time to add one to your outdoor area. 

Gojooasis Outdoor Canopy Tent, $85 (was $160) at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

Although umbrellas are more ideal when you're working with a limited yard or deck, canopies are the ideal option when you don't have to worry about space. This tent measures 10 feet by 10 feet and provides 100 square feet of shade coverage. The four-legged frame evenly distributed the weight of the canopy, so no one area is receiving too much strain, and it is that design that provides an evenly shaded area for the folks sitting underneath it.

The metal framework is made with powder-coated steel, which not only ensures sturdiness and strength during windy or rainy conditions, but it provides long-lasting durability that will last you multiple seasons and years. The powder-coating protects the metal from the elements, and makes sure that moisture and humidity don't deteriorate the framework over time. It prevents chipping, scratching, and fading, and it resists rust and corrosion. The canopy overhead itself is made with 160g polyester fabric with a polyacrylate (PA) coating that, although super light and air, is waterproof and UV-blocking, and it's built to withstand wind. It has a special ventilation design that allows wind to flow smoothly in and around the canopy, maintain air circulation so that you stay cool when you're sitting underneath but also providing stability when conditions pick up. It can withstand winds up to 10.8 miles per hour. You won't have to worry about shaking or wobbling thanks to the special ventilation design, and thanks to the extra drainage holes, you don't have to worry about water weighing down the top. Rain quickly drains, preventing an extra pressure or strain on the canopy in wet conditions. 

Related: Amazon's 'easy to set up' 10-foot pop-up canopy tent is on sale for $94

Perfect for patios, pool decks, and large grassy areas, another nice extra feature is the removable sidewalls which provide protection against bugs and insects and also offer more privacy. You can attach them or remove them with easy-to-use zippers. 

What to expect from a $85 outdoor canopy Pros and cons

Pros

• Wind-resistant: The special ventilation design ensures proper air circulation and allows the canopy to remain sturdy and upright in winds up to 10.8 mph. 
• Waterproof and UV-resistent: The fabric canopy top protects against water and UV rays without deteriorating the quality of said fabric. 
• Protects against bugs: The removable side panels provide privacy and protection against gnats, flies, mosquitos, and other insects. 

Cons

• Assembly can be difficult: Some shoppers say that the tent can take hours to put together. 

Many shoppers have found that the canopy exceeds their expectations, and it provides a really relaxing space even when the sun has set and shade is not an issue. The side panels are helpful at keeping flies and mosquitos away, especially when there is food around, and it holds up tremendously well in stormy conditions. 

Shop more deals 

• Clouddwell Wall-Mounted Gazebo, $160 (was $250) at Walmart
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Though the quarter delivered evidence of robust demand, it wasn’t the confirmation Wall Street was hoping for. 

For perspective, Alphabet reported its Q2 2026 earnings on July 22, 2026, and Google stock fell 7.1% to $317.69 on Thursday, July 23, wiping nearly $294 billion from its market value, according to MarketWatch reporting. 

Google Cloud sales jumped 82%, margins expanded sharply, and backlog climbed to $514 billion. However, Alphabet raised 2026 capex guidance to as much as $205 billion, stoking fears that AI returns may arrive more slowly than the bills, as free cash flow turned negative.

Nevertheless, Bank of America kept its Buy rating after the quarter, arguing that the market may be overlooking what Alphabet’s spending is already producing.

Though Search revenue was roughly in line with expectations, Alphabet’s consolidated operating margin expanded to 34% from 32%, while operating income rose 30%.

BofA analysts therefore believed the company had been punished too harshly, as investors overlooked accelerating Cloud growth and other signs that its AI investments are beginning to generate returns.

Alphabet Q2 earnings at a glance

• Q2 revenue reached $119.8 billion, while net revenue excluding TAC came in at $103.6 billion, above the $101.1 billion consensus.
• GAAP EPS was $9.11, compared with Wall Street’s $2.90 estimate.
• Google Search revenue rose 17% to $63.3 billion, while YouTube advertising revenue increased 13% to $11.1 billion.
• Google Cloud revenue surged 82% to $24.8 billion, with operating income of $8.8 billion and a 35.6% margin.
• Alphabet raised 2026 capex guidance to $195 billion–$205 billion, while Q2 free cash flow was negative $5.9 billion.
• BofA maintained its Buy rating and $430 price target, forecasting $553 billion in 2027 revenue and $15.01 in EPS.
  Source: Bank of America post-earnings note on Alphabet stock.

BofA thinks Alphabet’s AI spending is already paying off 

BofA analysts reiterated their Buy rating and $430 price target on Alphabet stock post-earnings, arguing that there’s a clear mismatch between what investors are viewing and what the quarter actually showed.

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The market was clearly looking at Alphabet bumping its 2026 CapEx guidance to $195 billion to $205 billion, along with negative free cash flows and a greater likelihood of elevated spending in 2027.

Those concerns are legitimate, as it’s now forecasting a negative $16 billion of free cash flow in 2026 and another negative $18.5 billion in 2027.

However, the bank believes that’s far from a speculative AI investment, where Alphabet is already seeing measurable revenue, margin, and backlog benefits.

At the same time, BofA analysts believe Google Cloud is effectively becoming Alphabet’s incremental growth and valuation engine.

Cloud sales accelerated 82% year over year to $24.8 billion, compared to the Street’s 65% forecast, while operating margin surged to 35.6%, comfortably above the 31.3% consensus. Typically, with rapid growth, we usually see margin pressure, but Alphabet instead produced faster growth and better profitability, which suggests that AI infrastructure is perhaps generating attractive utilization with stronger pricing.

Moreover, the demand indicators are still healthy and point to a capacity-driven CapEx increase. 

Cloud backlog surged to $514 billion, up $50 billion sequentially; customers are consuming more than 50% above contractual commitments, and Alphabet is winning new Cloud customers at over 2 times last year’s pace.

At the same time, Search remains an important supporting pillar. 

Search revenue grew 17%, which shows that AI products haven’t materially impacted Google’s core advertising engine. However, sales were mostly in line with expectations. which doesn’t exactly validate the thesis that AI Overviews and AI Mode are producing a major Search acceleration. 

How does BofA arrive at its $430 price target?

BofA values Alphabet stock at 27 times the adjusted 2027 core Google GAAP EPS of $15.55. That produces an operating-business value of approximately $419 per share. It then adds $11 per share of estimated year-end 2026 cash, resulting in the $430 target.

Interestingly, the bank, in acknowledging the heightened CapEx, weaker cash flow, and AI spending concerns, lowered its target multiple from 28 times to 27 times.

However, at the same time, the bank’s analysts raised their 2027 revenue estimate by 3% to $553 billion and consolidated EPS estimate by 2% to $15.01. So in effect, the higher earnings forecast offset the lower multiple, leaving the target unchanged.

When the report was released, Google's stock was trading at anafter-hours price of $332, trading at 22 times BofA’s 2027 GAAP EPS, aligning with its 10-year historical average.

BofA considers the stock to be attractively priced, especially with sales expected to ramp up to 27% in 2027, compared to an average of nearly 14% from 2023 through 2025.

Additionally, as we saw with SpaceX, BofA’s sum-of-the-parts analysis added a complicated new layer.

BofA says that once Alphabet’s faster-growing businesses are valued separately, its core Search advertising and Google Play operations trade at just 13 times earnings, versus 20 times for the S&P 500. That opens up the question for investors, who need to know how much value belongs to mature advertising versus newer AI, cloud, and Waymo assets. 

What are the weaknesses in BofA’s argument?

Perhaps the biggest issue with Alphabet’s predicament is that its profit and loss statement is improving more quickly than the cash flow. 

Case in point is its negative $5.9 billion in Q2 free cash flow, which constrained its ability to repurchase shares, and its statement that buybacks are unlikely to resume for the rest of 2026. Alphabet also plans a $40 billion at-the-market equity program, which could create dilution precisely when investors are questioning capital discipline.

Furthermore, BofA expects capex to rise to $200 billion in 2026 and to roughly $300 billion in 2027. That essentially means the Cloud businesses must continue converting backlog into sales at very high rates while maintaining margins near the mid-30% range.

If Cloud growth slows down before depreciation and infrastructure costs peak, Alphabet risks facing simultaneous top-line deceleration, margin compression, and ongoing negative free cash flow.

At the same time, there is also an earnings-quality issue. 

Alphabet’s reported $9.11 EPS, which was heavily influenced by $98 billion of other income, linked to the Anthropic revaluation. That gain doesn’t reflect recurring operational performance, so the headline EPS beat cannot be treated as evidence that the underlying business sped past estimates by a comparable amount.

What Alphabet’s AI spending bet means for investors 

Google CEO Sundar Pichai had a lot to say during the company's Q2 earnings call, with major implications for investors. 

Pichai’s comments suggested that Alphabet is deliberately accepting near-term cash flow and margin pressure to secure longer-duration customer economics.

He said that he was “more bullish on the opportunities ahead” over the past year, describing AI as a secular shift in which enterprises are still “barely scratching the early stages of what’s possible.” 

He elaborated on that long-term theme in a discussion on renting third-party capacity. 

Pichai acknowledged that serving major Cloud customers could carry a “very high” short-term cost, but framed it as accepting a six-month expense to capture a multiyear contract with “very, very attractive” returns. 

That means Alphabet is looking to optimize for customer lifetime value rather than just quarterly Cloud margins, although investors must trust that internal capacity will eventually replace those expensive leases.

Additionally, Pichai also offered a more nuanced view of Google’s AI moat.

He said, "The model is just an ingredient” inside larger cybersecurity, data, infrastructure, and agentic workflow solutions. However, Google’s real moat rests on Gemini, TPUs, proprietary infrastructure, enterprise data controls, and distribution into one integrated system.

Put simply, investors should expect a lot more quarter-to-quarter shocks in CapEx, free cash flow, and cloud margins as Google races to secure AI capacity. 

Related: Bank of America delivers strong Nvidia verdict

Well, the situation has gotten worse. (Or better, depending on your perspective.)

The previous week, weekly pending home sales had decreased by 2.2%. A new Redfin report revealed that week-over-week pending home sales fell again, this time by 1.3% for the four-week period ending July 19.

Not only is this the second straight week of declining pending sales, but it's also the lowest level in three months.

The term "pending home sale" means the seller has accepted the buyer's offer and the listing is no longer active. However, the deal is "pending" because the parties haven't closed yet.

Redfin pointed to several reasons fewer Americans are making offers: rising mortgage rates, economic uncertainty due to the war in Iran, and higher oil prices.

Lower pending sales can be tough for the housing market overall. However, this trend can benefit those who still want to buy a house.

"Falling pending home sales could be a good sign for buyers, as they may be able to gain more favorable terms on a purchase from sellers with fewer options," Michael C. Weiner, a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Warburg, told TheStreet.

Fewer pending home sales give homebuyers more power

How does a dip in pending home sales translate to better deals for homebuyers?

"That could take the form of a lower price, more flexibility on closing timing, or increased seller funding of repairs," said Weiner.

When there are fewer buyers in the housing market, there is less competition. This means homebuyers have more power than sellers — it's a buyer's market.

You may be able to negotiate any of the terms Weiner listed with the seller when making an offer or counteroffer. And when it comes to how much you'll pay for the home, you might not even need to wait until the negotiation process to see a lower price.

If a home stays on the market for too long and the seller wants to appeal to more buyers, they may cut the listing price. The share of property listings with a price cut was 18.8% in June, according to Realtor.com data.

Related: Why homebuyers win despite latest mortgage rate news

Although mortgage rates are relatively high, homebuyers can snag savings in other areas in this sort of real estate market. That can help lessen the blow of mortgage rates over 6.5%.

Don't get too confident, though. You and your real estate agent still need to be strategic about which home you buy and how to craft a strategic offer.

"Buyers should remember that desirable, move-in ready homes can still be competitive because many people don’t want to take on renovation costs while mortgage payments are high," said Redfin Premier agent Vanessa Leimback. "That’s why the biggest bargains are often on fixer-uppers."

Redfin and experts note that you might not find your dream home

The decrease in pending home sales brings plenty of advantages for buyers. But it also introduces unique challenges.

"On the flip side, it also might mean that there are simply not a lot of good choices on the market, and that they may not be able to find what they're looking for," Weiner told TheStreet.

The Redfin study revealed that week-over-week new listings have increased by just 0.4%. This puts new listings at their second-lowest level of 2026.

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"The catch is that new listings are also hovering near their yearly low, so buyers may have more leverage without much more choice," John Walkup, co-founder at UrbanDigs, told TheStreet.

"In practical terms, buyers may be able to secure modest discounts or concessions, while sellers need to stay closely aligned with their direct competition," he continued.

With less inventory, you may struggle to find your dream home. As Leimback mentioned, a fixer-upper could be your key to becoming a homeowner sooner rather than later. Then, you could put any savings from the home purchase toward maintenance projects.

What's next for pending home sales?

Now that we've covered the pros and cons of declining pending home sales for buyers, you might be wondering where this specific housing market trend is headed.

Of course, none of us have a crystal ball to tell us what mortgage rates, pending home sales, or any aspect of the market will do. But after years of reporting on the real estate market, I've picked up on a few clues that provide insight.

I suspect that next week's Redfin data will show that pending sales are down again.

Why? Because the company cited the Freddie Mac mortgage rate of 6.55%, which was an 11-month high, as one reason behind the lower pending sales numbers.

But that was the average 30-year mortgage rate the week ending July 19. Freddie Mac released its updated average rate on July 23 — it increased by 0.03% to 6.58%. This is its highest point in 2026.

Higher rates may mean even more would-be homebuyers decide to take a step back.

There also aren't any signs of the U.S.-Iran conflict dying down anytime soon. This political and economic uncertainty could keep Americans from feeling confident about making such a huge purchase.

It's possible that mortgage rates will inch down the following week. But the war in Iran has a potentially longer-lasting impact on the housing market.

Related: Homeowners face selling decision after housing market shift

Three of the four founding companies have independently committed a combined $450 million to expand workforce training and fund apprenticeship pipelines across 30 states.

Carhartt, the fourth member, contributes through its For the Love of Labor program, which has supported more than 60 nonprofit and community organizations focused on trades training since 2022.

The announcement lands as the construction sector alone posted 298,000 open positions in May, up 32,000 from the prior month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. 

The alliance's founders say skilled trades represent some of the fastest-growing and highest-paying career pathways in the U.S. economy.

Ford commits $300 million to skilled trades as the auto industry faces a technician drought

Ford is the largest single contributor, with $300 million earmarked for skilled trades workforce development and what the automaker calls its Essential Economy initiative in 2026.

The reason for that outsized commitment is visible in Ford's own dealer network.

The U.S. auto industry will need more than 350,000 new technicians by 2029, according to Ford, and CEO Jim Farley has said the automaker alone has roughly 5,000 unfilled dealership service positions with annual wages reaching $120,000 for experienced candidates.

"At Ford, we recognize the skilled trades workforce shortage is a national crisis but also a generational opportunity," Jim Farley said in the alliance announcement.

The automaker separately co-invested $5 million with Bloomberg Philanthropies in June to modernize auto technician programs at two Detroit public schools, targeting 300 new technicians over three years.

BlackRock and Google target infrastructure and data-center build-outs

BlackRock's contribution comes through its $100 million Future Builders program, launched in March 2026, which aims to connect 50,000 workers with training over five years. 

Google committed $50 million to prepare more than 300,000 workers across over 20 states for careers tied to energy and technology infrastructure.

Both companies are pouring capital into physical infrastructure that requires enormous pools of trained electricians and HVAC technicians. 

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Electrician employment alone is projected to expand 9% from 2024 to 2034, triple the national average for all occupations, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

"Building the physical infrastructure for America's future requires significantly increasing the pipeline of skilled tradespeople across the country," Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google, said in the announcement.

The $1 trillion cost of 2.1 million unfilled trade jobs by 2030

The labor shortage driving these investments carries a price tag far beyond the companies involved. 

An estimated 2.1 million skilled trades positions could go unfilled by 2030, according to a JLL research report published in April 2026, with the U.S. Department of Education projecting annual economic losses of up to $1 trillion.

Courtney Brown, chief data and research officer at the Lumina Foundation, said bachelor's programs remain prestigious but two-year schools are winning on cost.

A four-year degree is still the gold standard…community colleges are doing really well with affordability and value…more people gravitate towards that

Nearly 600,000 skilled trades jobs were posted last year, but only about 150,000 new workers entered through apprenticeship programs, the JLL report noted.

Skilled trades wages sit above the median for all occupations

The financial case for entering the trades has shifted over the past decade, with skilled-trades job postings growing three times faster than professional roles between 2022 and 2026, according to a Randstad USA analysis of more than 150 million U.S. job postings. 

Workers in infrastructure-related skilled trades earn above-average wages and frequently have access to employer-provided retirement savings and health care, the alliance's press release noted.

"It is encouraging that more project owners are recognizing the need for greater private as well as public investment in training prospective construction workers," Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, told Engineering News-Record. 

The median annual wage for construction and extraction occupations sits at approximately $58,360, compared with about $49,500 across all occupations, BLS occupational data showed. 

The top 10% of electricians earned more than $106,030 in May 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and industry salary surveys show specialized welders in pipeline, nuclear and aerospace work regularly exceed $100,000.

The alliance plans a national report to track what training programs work

The coalition's first initiative will be a Skilled Trades Report developed with Jobs for the Future and nonprofit research organization Burning Glass Institute, designed to measure workforce gaps and identify effective apprenticeship models as new partners join.

The alliance follows a broader pattern of corporate workforce bets in 2026. 

Meta Platforms announced a $115 million craft-training partnership with Associated Builders and Contractors in June.

Meta President Dina Powell McCormick said at an Axios event in March that artificial intelligence infrastructure growth could require about 500,000 electricians nationwide, Engineering News-Record reported.

"Investment in America's infrastructure will help shape the country's long-term economic trajectory, but its success ultimately depends on the skilled workforce that brings these projects to life," Bayo Ogunlesi, chairman and CEO of Global Infrastructure Partners, a unit of BlackRock, said in the announcement.

The coalition did not disclose a unified enrollment target or detail how the founding members' programs would be coordinated beyond the initial 30 states.

Related: Bank of America doubles down on Google stock ahead of earnings

The backdrop made that harder than it sounds. Investors had spent the prior week watching IBM and Pegasystems blame artificial intelligence spending shifts for wrecking their own software businesses, and the market was primed to punish any sign of the same weakness.

IBM shares fell 25% on July 14, after warning that clients were shifting technology budgets toward AI infrastructure instead of software.

Pegasystems followed on July 22, dropping more than 16% after missing revenue estimates and citing what it called unprecedented disruption from AI competition, according to Yahoo Finance.

Traders had started calling it the "SaaSpocalypse," Forbes noted, a bet that enterprise software growth was about to slow across the board.

ServiceNow (NOW) avoided that fate. Subscription revenue reached $3.9 billion in the quarter, up 24.5% from a year earlier, a ServiceNow press release confirmed.

Shares climbed 5.5% in premarket trading Thursday, July 23, to $100.67, according to Benzinga, as the same release disclosed that artificial intelligence contract value had crossed $1 billion, the number that dominated most of the day's coverage.

A different billion-dollar number tells ServiceNow's real story

That AI milestone was not the most consequential number on the call. ServiceNow’s security and risk business sells cybersecurity and compliance tools bolted onto its main workflow platform.

It had already crossed $1 billion in annual contract value organically back in the third quarter of 2025, according to a ServiceNow press release, before two acquisitions extended the lead.

CEO Bill McDermott put it bluntly on the July 22 earnings call, describing “a 10-figure cybersecurity business that’s growing faster than all the other top cybersecurity companies.”

That is a different kind of claim than the artificial intelligence milestone, since it points to an already profitable, already scaled unit rather than a nascent product line.

ServiceNow's 2 acquisitions built the business in 8 months

ServiceNow paid $7.75 billion in cash for cyber exposure firm Armis in December, its largest acquisition ever, and closed the deal in April.

Three weeks earlier, it had agreed to buy identity security company Veza for roughly $1 billion. Together, the deals were expected to more than triple ServiceNow’s addressable market in security and risk.

Related: ServiceNow gets bearish call before major earnings test

The spending mirrors a broader pattern among software companies. Google parent Alphabet paid $32 billion for cloud security startup Wiz, and Palo Alto Networks spent $25 billion on identity security firm CyberArk, both within the past year, according to CNBC.

Enterprise software companies increasingly treat cybersecurity as the growth engine that core subscription seats can no longer guarantee alone.

The same week, a critical flaw exposed the platform’s own risk

However, buying top-tier security firms does not automatically secure a company's underlying foundation. The timing carries an uncomfortable irony. Nine days before the earnings call, ServiceNow disclosed a critical vulnerability in its AI Platform, tracked as CVE-2026-6875, that let unauthenticated attackers execute code without a username or password, according to SecurityWeek.

Researchers confirmed active exploitation beginning July 17, according to BleepingComputer, and ServiceNow said it had found no evidence the attacks reached instances it hosts, according to Help Net Security.

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That does not undercut the security business as a growth story, but it complicates the pitch. ServiceNow is asking enterprise customers to trust it as their cybersecurity vendor in the same week its own platform needed an emergency patch.

Neither McDermott nor the analysts covering the stock addressed the vulnerability on the call.

Software companies are betting security can outrun AI disruption

ServiceNow’s quarter offers a preview of how mature software companies plan to survive the reallocation of corporate budgets toward AI infrastructure. Rather than compete directly for that spending, they are acquiring their way into categories like cybersecurity, where demand keeps climbing, regardless of the macro environment.

Global spending on information security is projected to grow more than 12% in 2026, to roughly $240 billion, according to a ServiceNow press release.

That strategy worked for ServiceNow this quarter. It depends on integration going smoothly and on the acquired businesses outrunning the disruption that just hit IBM and Pegasystems.

Investors weighing enterprise software stocks may need to ask less about how fast a company is adopting AI and more about how fast it can buy its way into markets AI cannot replace.

Related: Jim Cramer gives his two cents about Netflix stock

Why we love this deal

When revamping your summer wardrobe, the importance of accessorizing shouldn't be overlooked. By adding a simple necklace, wristwatch, or pair of earrings to your look, you give a touch of polish to your overall style, whether you're dressing in a button-up shirt for the office or grabbing drinks with friends in a flowy dress. That being said, finding the perfect accessory isn't the easiest task, especially if you're trying to stick within a budget. 

Nordstrom Rack is making it more affordable to fill your jewelry box, with a massive 90% markdown on the Adornia Clover Drop Earrings and Station Necklace Set. Normally retailing for $210, the gorgeous jewelry set is now available for just $20. This is especially impressive since the earrings and necklace are plated in 14-karat gold for a dazzling, hypoallergenic finish. To put into perspective how remarkable this price point is, you could get one for yourself and nine more as gifts for your loved ones, and still pay less than the original price. 

Editor's note: The original product is no longer on sale. Check out these similar options that are available at various discounts.

• Adornia Textured Petals Y-Necklace, $23 (was $85) at Nordstrom Rack
• Adornia Rose Gold Plated Floral Necklace, $18 (was $80) at Nordstrom Rack
• Adornia Crystal Flower Pendant Necklace, $25 (was $75) at Nordstrom Rack

Adornia Clover Drop Earrings & Station Necklace Set, $20 (was $210) at Nordstrom Rack

Why do shoppers love it?

Featuring an adjustable necklace and dainty earrings with clover stations, this matching jewelry set is versatile, pairing with casual and nicer outfits alike. The clover-shaped adornments are a timeless design, so you won't have to worry about them going out of style anytime soon. For a beautiful luster, the clovers are upgraded with mother-of-pearl embellishments for a shimmery, pearlescent finish. The earrings and necklace also showcase cubic zirconia accents for added sparkle, which look like diamonds to the untrained eye. 

Related: Amazon's fast-selling jelly sandals come in 9 colors for just $45

The little touches make this jewelry set stand out from the competition. The adjustable length of the necklace, measuring from 15 to 18 inches, allows you to wear it with short or long necklines. It has a sturdy lobster-clasp closure, so it will stay securely in place. The earrings are huggie earrings, which fit closely around the earlobe, to follow the fashion trend that's been going strong for several years now. One of the best things about huggie earrings is that the clasp is built in, using a hinge system that closes shut once you have it in place. As a result, you never have to worry about missing the back of your earring.

Details to know 

• Jewelry pieces in set: An adjustable necklace and a pair of earrings.
• Length of necklace: Adjustable from 15 to 18 inches.
• Jewelry finish: The brass jewelry has 14-karat gold plating.

As of writing, this jewelry set has not been rated by any customers at Nordstrom. If you'd like to read reviews, the necklace and earrings are listed on Adornia's website separately, where they're priced at more than $20 apiece. There you'll find several glowing shopper reviews for your perusal.  

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• Adornia Textured Petals Y-Necklace, $23 (was $85) at Nordstrom Rack
• Adornia Rose Gold Plated Floral Necklace, $18 (was $80) at Nordstrom Rack
• Adornia Crystal Flower Pendant Necklace, $25 (was $75) at Nordstrom Rack

The Adornia Clover Drop Earrings and Station Necklace Set is an unbeatable deal for just $20 at Nordstrom Rack. Don't miss your chance to add it to your jewelry box by adding it to your shopping cart now.

More than a decade later, the event has grown far beyond Amazon.

Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Kohl’s, and other major retailers now routinely launch competing promotions around Prime Day, turning a once Amazon-centric sale into one of the biggest shopping periods of the summer.

U.S. shoppers spent a record $26.4 billion online during Amazon’s four-day Prime Day period from June 23 through June 26, according to Adobe Analytics.

That was up 9.3% from a year earlier.

But beneath the record spending, new data reveals a more complicated picture for Amazon.

Amazon shoppers spent less per order and per household than they did a year earlier, while competing retailers experienced significant increases in store traffic during the same promotional period.

The shift suggests consumers remain willing to spend when discounts are strong, but are increasingly spreading those dollars across retailers rather than concentrating their shopping on Amazon.

That trend is emerging just as Amazon prepares to report second-quarter earnings on July 30.

Amazon shares fell about 4.6% on July 23 to $233.66 as technology stocks came under pressure following Alphabet’s latest earnings report and renewed concerns about the cost of artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The stock has declined 6.35% over the past five days and 8.26% over the past three months, while remaining up about 1.4% over the year.

Amazon Prime Day spending hits record, but growth slows

Prime Day continues to generate enormous consumer spending.

Adobe Analytics said U.S. retailers generated $26.4 billion in online sales during the four-day 2026 Prime Day period, up 9.3% year over year.

That set another record for the summer promotional period. However, the pace of growth was substantially slower than a year ago.

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During the comparable four-day Prime Day period in 2025, U.S. consumers spent $24.1 billion online, according to Adobe, representing 30.3% growth from the comparable four-day period a year earlier.

Although the 2024 comparison should be used within context.

Amazon’s official Prime Day event lasted only two days in 2024, compared with four days in both 2025 and 2026.

Adobe reported $14.2 billion in U.S. online spending during the two official Prime Day days in 2024, up 11% year over year.

The more recent figures nevertheless show that industrywide spending continued to reach records in 2026, even as growth slowed sharply from the previous year.

Amazon shoppers spend less per order

Numerator, a consumer data firm, found that the average Amazon Prime Day order in 2026 was $47.66, down from $53.34 in its comparable year-earlier analysis.

Average household spending also declined to about $143.45 from $156.37 a year earlier.

Nearly two-thirds of households that shopped during Prime Day placed at least two separate orders, suggesting consumers remained engaged with the event.

But they spent less each time they checked out.

In May, Bank of America Consumer Spend Collective data showed U.S. e-commerce spending increased 13% year over year, while online shopping penetration rose 1.8 percentage points to 29.8%.

The latest BofA data suggests that momentum continued into the second quarter.

In a July 22 research note shared with TheStreet, Bank of America analyst Justin Post said aggregated credit- and debit-card data showed online spending growth accelerated by 2 percentage points from the first quarter.

At the same time, the bank said the Prime Day sales-growth bump appeared more modest than in previous years.

The figures point to a consumer who remains willing to spend online but is becoming less loyal to any single promotional event.

Walmart, Target, Best Buy gain from Prime Week

When Amazon held Prime Day from June 23 through June 26, several of its biggest retail rivals launched overlapping promotions.

Placer.ai found that all four major chains it analyzed experienced increased store traffic during the promotional period compared with their typical day-of-week traffic.

On June 23, the opening day of Prime Day:

• Visits to Kohl’s were 18.4% above the retailer’s year-to-date day-of-week baseline
• Best Buy traffic increased 18.1%
• Target visits rose 16.3%.
• Walmart recorded a more modest but still positive increase of 4.7%

All four retailers continued to experience elevated traffic through the promotional period, according to Placer.ai.

Amazon’s competitors are increasingly using the event to capture consumers already in a deal-seeking mindset.

Placer.ai characterized the behavior as evidence of a pressured but engaged consumer who is increasingly willing to wait for promotional events before making purchases.

For Amazon, that creates both an opportunity and a challenge.

Prime Day can stimulate enormous consumer demand, but Amazon no longer has that demand all to itself.

Amazon earnings preview points to stronger retail growth

Despite more modest Prime Day growth, Bank of America expects Amazon’s broader retail business to accelerate when the company reports second-quarter earnings.

BofA maintains a Buy rating on Amazon, with a price objective of $310, ahead of the earnings.

Additionally, the firm forecasts Amazon will report total second-quarter revenue of about $198.8 billion, above the roughly $196.8 billion Wall Street estimate the bank cited.

The firm expects operating income of approximately $24.1 billion, also slightly above Wall Street’s $23.6 billion estimate.

North America could be a strong contributor: BofA expects North American revenue of about $116.3 billion, representing roughly 16% year-over-year growth.

Wall Street is expecting about $113.9 billion, according to estimates cited by the bank.

The stronger outlook reflects continued strength in online consumer spending and Amazon’s decision to move Prime Day from July to June.

This timing gave Amazon an additional sales boost in the second quarter, but the benefit will reverse when the company reports third-quarter results.

BofA expects North American retail revenue to decline by roughly $1 billion sequentially in the third quarter because Prime Day sales were pulled forward into June.

The timing could create an approximately 4-percentage-point headwind to year-over-year North American growth comparisons.

AWS expectations remain high

Investors will also be closely watching Amazon Web Services.

AWS revenue increased 28% year over year to $37.6 billion during the first quarter, its fastest growth rate in 15 quarters.

Bank of America raised its second-quarter AWS growth estimate to 33% from 31%, which would put revenue at roughly $41 billion.

Wall Street is expecting about $40.5 billion and approximately 31% growth, but investor expectations may be higher.

BofA said its conversations suggest investors could be expecting AWS growth of around 34%, meaning Amazon may need to outperform published consensus estimates to impress Wall Street.

The bank expects AWS growth to accelerate further to approximately 36% in the third quarter.

Amazon faces increased retail rivalry and AI costs

Amazon’s growth outlook raises another question: how much the company will need to spend to sustain it.

Amazon has said it expects approximately $200 billion in capital expenditures in 2026, much of it tied to cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Bank of America believes the figure could increase to around $210 billion, partly because of higher memory costs and continued demand for computing capacity.

For the second quarter alone, BofA expects capital expenditures of roughly $49 billion.

That level of spending has increased investor scrutiny across Big Tech, particularly as companies race to expand AI infrastructure before the investments generate clear returns.

For Amazon, however, the upcoming earnings report will also reveal something more fundamental about its original business.

Prime Day still generates record levels of online spending, but shoppers now have more places than ever to chase the same deals.

Amazon’s challenge is no longer simply getting consumers to spend during Prime Day, it's making sure enough of that spending still happens on Amazon.

Related: Mark Zuckerberg backs Elon Musk Silicon Valley decision

The stock fell 6.5% the next morning. Capital expenditures came in at $44.9 billion for a single quarter. Free cash flow turned negative. Most of the net income surge came from a one-time gain on the Anthropic stake. Strip that out and investors were left looking at a company spending at a rate that makes even strong revenue growth feel like it may not be enough.

Microsoft (MSFT) reports July 29 and Meta reports July 30. The next week is effectively a live test of whether the AI trade's math actually works.

What Alphabet's Q2 results reveal about the AI trade's biggest risk

The Alphabet (GOOGL) reaction captures the problem in one quarter. Cloud revenue grew faster than at any point in the company's history. Investors sold the stock anyway, CNBC reported.

The issue isn't whether AI is generating revenue. It's whether the capital required to generate that revenue is sustainable, and whether the returns will ever justify the scale of investment.

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Forty-four billion dollars in quarterly capex is not a small number. Annualized, that's close to $180 billion from Alphabet alone.

When you add Microsoft, Meta (META), and Amazon (AMZN), the combined spending for 2026 is running toward $725 billion, with analysts projecting it could cross $1 trillion in 2027, CNBC reported.

The question the market is now pricing into every print is how long before the revenue catches up, as TheStreet reported ahead of Alphabet's earnings.

The gap between AI spending and AI revenue that investors are watching

The capex-to-revenue gap is the central tension in the AI trade right now. Sequoia analyst David Cahn has calculated that there is roughly a $600 billion annual gap between what hyperscalers are spending on AI infrastructure and what the AI ecosystem generates in actual sales, Forbes reported.

Goldman Sachs has noted that to justify the scale of investment, hyperscalers would collectively need to generate more than $1 trillion in annual profits, more than double current consensus estimates, as TheStreet reported.

According to Allianz Research, the divergence between AI capital spending and revenue growth is running at 46%, already wider than the 32% divergence seen during the 2001 telecom cycle that preceded years of pain in tech stocks.

Michael Heinrich, co-founder and CEO of 0G Labs, which builds decentralized AI infrastructure, described the dynamic plainly in an interview with TheStreet:

"When the capital going into a technology outruns the revenue coming out of it by that margin, valuations are pricing perfection."

Alphabet's results were exceptional. And still, free cash flow went negative. That's what "pricing perfection" looks like in practice: a quarter that would have been a strong earnings beat in any other sector, and a stock that still dropped because the bar for AI spending to produce proportional returns keeps moving higher.

How the AI rally compares to the dot-com era and where it diverges

The comparison to the late 1990s is now coming from serious voices.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said earlier this month that AI spending may not "pay off the way you expect and the timetable you expect."

He drew a direct parallel to the internet boom, where the technology proved transformative but the timeline disappointed nearly everyone who priced it in early.

Heinrich sees both the parallel and where it breaks.

"The similarity is the reflexive bidding up of anything with the label attached, well ahead of proven business models. The difference is that the underlying technology this time is already generating real usage and real cash flows, so this is less a fiction problem and more a physics and economics problem," he added.

The dot-com era was full of companies with no path to revenue. AI has actual enterprise customers paying for actual products. Google Cloud at 82% growth is not a fiction.

The risk isn't that the technology doesn't work. It's that the cost of delivering it at scale may not produce returns proportional to the capital being committed, at the speed the market has priced in.

What Microsoft and Meta need to show for the AI test to pass

Microsoft's July 29 report will be the next data point. Azure guided for 39% to 40% growth in constant currency. If it delivers at or above that, the market will read it as confirmation that cloud AI spending is translating into revenue acceleration. If it misses, questions about the return on $190 billion in annual capex get louder fast, as TheStreet reported.

Meta reports July 30 against its own complicated backdrop. The company has already cut 8,000 jobs this year and moved thousands of employees into AI roles, then acknowledged at an internal meeting that AI-agent progress has not accelerated as expected.

The question on Meta's call is whether $125 billion to $145 billion in AI spending this year is producing the kind of product traction that justifies it.

Three things will tell investors whether the AI trade is facing a healthy correction or something more serious:

• Whether the gap between AI infrastructure spending and AI revenue is narrowing;
• If AI is moving from assistant to agent, meaning systems that complete tasks and get paid for outcomes rather than just answering questions, and
• Whether the unit economics of running AI inference are falling fast enough to make applications viable at scale.

The next two earnings reports will give investors more data on all three than any single quarter has provided yet.

Related: Scott Bessent sends unprecedented warnings to China on AI models

Fidelity Investments published new research showing that the majority of pre-retirees underestimate what Medicare covers, a gap the firm says can leave them exposed to high out-of-pocket costs in retirement.

A 65-year-old retiring in 2026 can expect to spend an average of $185,500 on healthcare and medical expenses throughout retirement, Fidelity reported.

That number jumped 7.5% from the prior year's estimate of $172,500, and the annual increase rate is itself speeding up year over year.

For a married couple retiring at the same age, the combined lifetime projection reaches $371,000 in total out-of-pocket healthcare costs, the firm noted.

Fidelity's healthcare estimate reaches its highest level in 25 years of tracking

Fidelity's projection has gained speed over the last three years, climbing roughly 4% in 2024, 5% in 2025, and 7.5% this year, Bloomberg reported.

When Fidelity first published this annual benchmark in 2002, the estimated lifetime healthcare cost for a 65-year-old retiree stood at $80,000.

The figure has now more than doubled over roughly two decades, tracking a healthcare inflation rate that consistently outpaces the broader consumer price index.

"It definitely is a higher increase than we've had in the past few years," Helen Lloyd-Williams, Vice president of workplace consulting at Fidelity, told CNBC.

Fidelity's estimate assumes enrollment in Original Medicare, covering Part A hospital insurance and Part B medical coverage, alongside Part D prescription drug coverage.

The projection includes premiums, copayments, coinsurance, deductibles, and out-of-pocket drug expenses, but it does not include potential long-term care costs.

Those long-term care expenses can become surprisingly high and would push total retirement medical costs significantly higher for many retirees and their families.

A private room in a nursing home carried a median annual cost of $129,575 in 2025, according to CareScout, a wholly owned subsidiary of Genworth Financial.

More than half of pre-retirees misunderstand what Medicare will cover

One of the most striking findings in Fidelity's research is the disconnect between what people expect Medicare to pay and what the program will cover.

About 54% of pre-retirees incorrectly assume the federal program will cover all of their healthcare expenses once they leave the workforce, CNBC reported.

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Fidelity's cost breakdown reveals where those dollars go: roughly 48% of projected lifetime spending comes from cost-sharing provisions like copayments, coinsurance, and annual deductibles.

Another 45% comes from monthly premiums for Medicare Parts B and D, and the remaining 7% covers out-of-pocket costs for branded, generic, and specialty drugs.

Lloyd-Williams told CNBC that many future retirees have not fully considered how much they will need to pay out of pocket for their care.

She emphasized that Medicare does not automatically cover all costs and is not entirely free, which often surprises new enrollees.

Healthcare inflation is outpacing Social Security's annual raise

The gap between rising healthcare costs and the annual benefit increases designed to offset them continues to widen for Americans living on fixed retirement income.

The Social Security Administration set the 2026 cost-of-living adjustment at 2.8%, translating to roughly $56 more per month for the average retired worker.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services raised the standard Part B monthly premium to $202.90 this year, a 9.7% jump from $185 in 2025.

That $17.90 premium increase alone takes up nearly a third of the average retiree's $56 monthly raise before any other healthcare expenses are considered.

Shannon Benton, executive director of The Senior Citizens League, told The Motley Fool that the persistent pattern of Medicare premium increases outrunning Social Security cost-of-living adjustments is gradually eroding retirees' financial security year after year.

Medicare Part B premiums consistently overtaking Social Security COLAs degrades American seniors' quality of life over time. Our members constantly tell us that they feel like their benefits aren't keeping up, and this is a great example of that experience in action

Over the longer term, the disparity widens further, according to data published earlier this year by retirement healthcare analytics firm HealthView Services.

The firm's 2026 report projected a long-term healthcare inflation rate of 5.8%, compared with a projected long-term Social Security cost-of-living adjustment averaging 2.4%.

HealthView also estimated that 84% of a healthy 65-year-old couple's lifetime Social Security benefits would be needed to cover healthcare costs alone, the report noted.

The cost of health-related care in retirement "still comes with sticker shock," Ron Mastrogiovanni, chief executive of HealthView Services, noted in a statement.

Health savings accounts give workers a way to prepare for rising medical costs 

Qualified medical withdrawals from health savings accounts are tax-free, creating what financial professionals often describe as a triple tax benefit for eligible savers.

The Internal Revenue Service set the 2026 contribution limit at $4,400 for individuals enrolled in eligible high-deductible health plans and $8,750 for family coverage, Fidelity stated.

Workers aged 55 and older can contribute an additional $1,000 per year in catch-up contributions, and balances carry over from one year to the next.

Despite those advantages, 40% of health savings account holders have not yet invested the funds sitting in their accounts, Fidelity reported.

"Financial planning for retirement is about more than reaching a savings target, especially as retirement itself continues to evolve," Shams Talib, head of Fidelity Workplace Consulting, said in a statement.

Healthcare costs consistently remain one of the largest expenses retirees face as they transition away from the workforce, Talib added.

Related: Vanguard reveals health account best for retirement

The bond market's job is to price what a dollar will be worth years from now. A much older market exists to price what happens when that first calculation turns out to be wrong.

Most of the time, the two take opposite sides of the same bet.

When the Federal Reserve looks serious about inflation, Treasury yields climb and gold gets sold. The logic is not complicated.

Gold pays you nothing to hold it. So the higher the interest a government bond offers, the more expensive it becomes to own a metal that just sits in a vault earning zero.

That trade-off has held through decades of tightening cycles. Investors have leaned on it so heavily that a hawkish Fed chair can usually talk gold lower without spending a dollar.

Rising yields are supposed to be gold's problem, not its confirmation.

So when both rise on the same afternoon, something in the usual arrangement has come loose. That is what happened July 22, and Peter Schiff had it flagged before lunch.

Why rising Treasury yields usually punish gold

The relationship runs through what economists call the real yield, which is simply what a bond pays you after inflation eats its share.

When that number goes up, cash and Treasuries get more attractive and metals get less attractive. When it goes down, the reverse happens.

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Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has spent his first two months in the job pushing that number higher through language alone.

His first Federal Open Market Committee meeting in June stripped out the statement language that had signaled a bias toward cuts, and nodded at possible hikes instead. The two-year Treasury yield jumped more than 16 basis points that day, the biggest move on a Fed day since March 2008, according to CNBC.

Speaking at the European Central Bank's policy forum in Sintra, Portugal, on July 1, Warsh said "we've seen that prices are too high," according to CNBC.

That is the tough talk. Whether it converts into an actual rate increase is the open question, and it is one Schiff has been circling for months.

Related: "A ticking time bomb:" Why Peter Schiff says this market rally is a trap

What Peter Schiff sees in the gold and silver move

On July 22, gold and silver both rallied hard while Treasury yields pushed to a two-month high, a combination Schiff read as investors betting the Fed loses this fight regardless of what its chair says, according to a post on X.

His argument is structural rather than technical. A national debt closing in on $40 trillion, deficits near $3 trillion a year and interest costs heading toward $2 trillion leave the central bank unable to raise rates enough to matter.

"I don't believe that he can walk the walk," Schiff said of Warsh, according to Benzinga.

He has put numbers on it, forecasting $10,000 gold and $200 silver over time, according to Mining.com.

On silver specifically, he expects the $50 level that capped rallies in 1980 and 2011 to hold as a floor now. "The old resistance is the new support," he said.

I have covered enough of his calls to know the timing has burned people before.

The mechanism he is describing, though, showed up in July 22's tape whether you like the messenger or not. He has made versions of this argument through the whole rally, and the market keeps handing him partial credit.

The inflation numbers behind the precious metals trade

Here is what the scoreboard actually looked like heading into the Federal Reserve's meeting.

• Gold traded at $4,135.20 an ounce Wednesday, up 1.5% on the day, according to USAGOLD.
• Silver traded at $59.50, up 1.19%, according to USAGOLD.
• The 10-year Treasury yield rose a third straight session to roughly 4.64%, a fresh two-month high, according to Trading Economics.
• Gasoline prices are up 26.7% over 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• Traders assign roughly 61% odds to a rate increase in September, according to Trading Economics.

June's inflation report is the part most coverage got backwards, and it is where my analysis lands somewhere between Schiff and the Fed.

Headline inflation cooled to 3.5% from 4.2%, and the monthly drop was the largest since April 2020, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. That reads like victory.

Pull the detail apart and it isn't. Energy did nearly all the work, falling 5.7% in the month during a brief lull in the Iran war.

Energy is still up 15.7% over 12 months. Gasoline is up 26.7%. Airline fares are up 26.5%.

Then the shooting resumed, oil went back up, and the one input that delivered June's good number reversed.

That is the trade the metals market appears to be making. The disinflation was borrowed, the loan came due in July, and the window to act on a friendly print has probably closed.

When I lined the June detail up against the war timeline, the sequence was hard to miss. Prices cooled during the lull and firmed again the week the strikes restarted.

Bond traders can see the same calendar. That is why yields climbed into a soft inflation report instead of falling after it.

What next week's Fed decision means for your money

The Federal Open Market Committee meets July 28 and 29, with the decision landing at 2 p.m. Eastern on the second day, according to the Federal Reserve. The benchmark rate has sat at 3.50% to 3.75% for four straight meetings.

A hold is widely expected. The language is what moves money.

Before you read any of this as a green light, hold two facts next to each other. Gold is roughly 28% below the record near $5,595 it set in January. Silver sits about 52% below its January peak.

Wall Street has adjusted accordingly. Macquarie trimmed its year-end gold target to $4,300 an ounce from $4,400 and expects prices to drift lower every year through 2030, according to CNBC.

So this is a bounce inside a large drawdown, not a breakout. Anyone who bought metals in January is still deep underwater, and Schiff's $10,000 target says nothing about the next six months.

What July 22 actually gave you was information, not a signal. Two markets that spend their lives disagreeing agreed that the inflation fight is not settled.

If you own a gold or silver fund, SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) or iShares Silver Trust (SLV), your position is a hedge against the Fed being wrong, not a bet on it being right.

If you own neither, the number that matters to you is not the gold price. It is the 26.7% you are paying at the pump, and whether the people meeting in Washington next week believe it is temporary.

Watch the statement language, not the rate.

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A good 45% of parents plan to take on debt to pay for back-to-school shopping this year, according to Credit Karma.

And all told, parents expect to spend a collective $30.4 billion on back-to-school items for K-12 students, according to Deloitte. That amounts to an average of $557 per student.

All of this is coming at a time when broad inflation is up 3.5% year over year, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index.

Given that so many families are struggling financially due to general economic circumstances, a lot of parents will be seeking out deals in the coming weeks. 

That presents a huge opportunity for Costco. Yet it's one the warehouse club giant isn't really taking advantage of.

Costco misses a key opportunity

Members who head to Costco expecting aisles full of notebooks, pencils, crayons, and folders may be surprised.

While the warehouse club offers plenty of products aimed at students, it has never made traditional school supplies a major category. 

Related: Walmart quietly found a way to undercut Costco on gas

A look at Costco's online school supply assortment shows only a limited selection of writing supplies, with just a handful of products available compared to mass retailers that devote entire departments to back-to-school merchandise.

Costco does have more to offer in non-school supply categories, like backpacks, apparel, and electronics. 

But it's missing out on a big share of the $30.4 billion consumers anticipate spending this year. 

Costco's back-to-school shopping strategy is deliberate

Costco's limited school supply assortment may seem like an oversight. But it's actually a reflection of how the company operates.

Costco's merchandising strategy is built around offering a carefully curated selection of products that deliver exceptional value through larger package sizes and high sales volume. 

Rather than stocking dozens of brands and product variations, Costco typically limits shoppers to one or two options in a category.

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That model works well for products families buy in large quantities, such as paper towels, bottled water, snacks, and household essentials. School supply shopping, however, often looks very different.

Many teachers provide highly specific lists that call for exact notebook sizes, folder colors, glue sticks, dry-erase markers, or other individual items. 

Parents frequently need small quantities of each product instead of warehouse-sized multipacks, which doesn't fit Costco's bulk-first approach.

Costco can't compete with discount chains

Costco also has another merchandising principle that shapes its assortment. 

The company generally avoids carrying products unless it believes it can offer members a compelling value. 

If Costco can't negotiate pricing that allows it to sell an item at a better value than competitors while maintaining its quality standards, it often chooses not to carry the product at all.

As Costco CEO Gary Millerchip said during the company's most recent earnings call, "Our goal is to be the first to lower prices where we see opportunities to do so."

Related: Costco vs. Sam’s Club: Memberships, prices & perks compared

That philosophy makes commodity school supplies especially challenging. 

Chains like Dollar Tree and Dollar General have built their businesses around low-priced everyday items, making school supplies a natural fit.

Parents can often buy individual notebooks, folders, pencils, and other classroom essentials for around a dollar or less, allowing them to purchase exactly what appears on a teacher's supply list without paying for larger quantities. 

Competing against deeply discounted promotions on individual items isn't consistent with Costco's business model. Instead, Costco focuses its back-to-school assortment on categories where its buying power and bulk purchasing model can create more meaningful savings, such as the electronics category.

Ultimately, Costco's approach to inventory and product curation makes it difficult for the company to compete on school supplies. That may leave some members disappointed, but it makes sense for the company's business model.

Maurie Backman owns shares of Costco.

Related: Costco makes big investment to keep members coming back

Then on July 22, AMD confirmed a deal with Anthropic worth up to $5 billion. And Rakers put out another note saying the Anthropic deal gave him "further confidence" in estimates that are already above Wall Street consensus. The $615 target stays. The conviction behind it just got stronger.

Wells Fargo holds $615 AMD price target after Anthropic deal

The Anthropic deal was widely expected by investors. AMD had already announced similar arrangements with Meta and OpenAI, each committing to 6 gigawatts of AMD-based infrastructure, with 1GW initial deployments from both expected in the second half of 2026.

Anthropic's deal adds up to 2GW of Instinct MI455X GPUs and Helios rack-scale systems, with the first gigawatt of compute beginning deployment in the first half of 2027. AMD's equity investment of up to $5 billion in Anthropic is milestone-contingent, meaning AMD writes the check as Anthropic hits agreed deployment targets.

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"While an Anthropic deal was widely anticipated, we view this as incrementally positive following this week's Microsoft announcement," Rakers wrote in the note,according to TipRanks. "We have 'further confidence' in our above-consensus AMD data center GPU revenue estimate at $40.6B in 2027. We think this will easily push buy-side expectations to greater than $50B."

AMD shares rose roughly 2% on July 22 in midday trading. The stock has been one of the strongest performers in semiconductors all year. Rakers ranks 8th out of more than 12,000 Wall Street analysts tracked by TipRanks, with a 73% success rate and an average return of 59.4%.

Why Wells Fargo sees AMD GPU revenue doubling Wall Street's expectations

Rakers' $40.6 billion data center GPU revenue estimate for 2027 isn't just above consensus. It's substantially above it. His 2027 EPS estimate of $13.40 runs roughly 3% ahead of the Street. His 2028 estimate of $18.75 is about 8% above consensus. The $615 price target is built on a 33 times earnings multiple applied to that 2028 number.

The GPU numbers are what make the model striking. Rakers projects GPU revenue of $15.6 billion in 2026, then a near-tripling to $40.6 billion in 2027, and nearly $63 billion by 2028. That trajectory reflects his view that AMD is moving from training into inference, where its EPYC CPUs and Instinct GPUs create genuine competitive leverage against Nvidia.

The AMD-Anthropic deal includes a multi-year engineering collaboration. Anthropic will use Claude to optimize workloads on AMD's ROCm software stack and Instinct GPUs. That's the piece that matters beyond the headline number.

AMD's historical weakness against Nvidia has been software, not hardware. A deep technical partnership with one of the world's leading AI labs is a direct attempt to close that gap, as TheStreet reported.

The AMD server CPU story Wall Street keeps underestimating

The June 30 price target raise was actually built primarily on the server CPU story, not GPUs. Rakers raised his server CPU revenue estimates to $16 billion for 2026, $20.5 billion for 2027, and $25 billion for 2028. The 2026 figure represents 68% year-over-year growth. He left his GPU estimates unchanged at that point.

The driver is AMD's sixth-generation EPYC Venice processor, built on 2nm architecture, which began production ramping in late May 2026 with volume shipments expected through the second half of the year. More customers are validating and ramping Venice than any prior EPYC generation, according to Invezz.

Agentic AI is driving a lot of that. As AI inference workloads scale across data centers, the CPU sitting alongside the GPU becomes a more meaningful part of the total system cost and performance equation.

AMD closed June at $580.91, hitting a new 52-week high of $584. The stock is up more than 170% year-to-date. That kind of run typically makes analysts more cautious about raising targets. Rakers isn't cautious. He thinks the earnings growth ahead is large enough to justify the valuation even after the run.

What AMD's Microsoft and Anthropic deals say about its fight with Nvidia

AMD now has announced AI compute commitments totaling roughly 14 gigawatts across Anthropic, Meta, and OpenAI. Microsoft announced plans to expand its Azure cloud with AMD technology earlier in the same week as the Anthropic deal.

That sequence isn't coincidental. AMD has been systematically building relationships with the hyperscalers and frontier AI labs that will determine which GPU platforms get scaled over the next three to five years.

Nvidia's real moat isn't the chips. It's CUDA, the software layer that makes its GPUs easier to build on. AMD has ROCm, which works, but it hasn't had the customer pull to make developers switch.

Getting Anthropic to commit to a multi-year engineering project specifically around optimizing Claude on AMD hardware is a different kind of win than a purchasing agreement. Customers buy things. Engineering partners build things together. That's the gap AMD is trying to close.

Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley called the absence of equity warrants in the Anthropic deal notable, describing it as evidence of "which direction the puck is moving in a supply-constrained world." AMD's prior deals with Meta and OpenAI included equity warrants. Anthropic didn't ask for them.

That's the market telling you something about AMD's negotiating position right now, and it's the kind of signal Rakers is factoring into a $615 target that still implies roughly 12% upside from where the stock was trading on July 22.

Related: Bank of America resets AMD stock price target

The remote control for the television, children's toys, gaming controllers, flashlights, wall clocks, smoke detectors, and plenty of other electronics require batteries to function. Standard AA and AAA batteries aren't a huge expense, but constantly buying them can be a hassle. Even more annoying is disposing of them properly. Not all communities allow them to be thrown out with the household trash, and if you want to protect the planet by recycling them, you may need to take an extra visit to a certified recycler. A better option than single-use batteries, for your wallet and the environment, is rechargeable batteries. 

Main advantages of rechargeable batteries

The biggest reason you should switch to rechargeable batteries is that they're highly cost-effective compared to single-use options. The initial cost will be slightly higher than buying standard batteries from the store, but after using them a few times, you'll recover these upfront fees. Each time you recharge and use these batteries, you've saved a single-use battery from entering the landfill, so you're also making a more environmentally friendly decision. Beyond the affordability and environmental impact, it's just incredibly convenient to have batteries on hand. You might have to wait while they recharge, but you don't have to waste precious gas on a trip to the store. 

In terms of performance, rechargeable batteries are often superior in this regard as well. If you're buying the more affordable batteries, you're likely buying alkaline batteries. As alkaline batteries begin to drain, their voltage output also decreases, so they don't perform as well. Rechargeable batteries, on the other hand, have a consistent voltage whether they're fully charged or nearly drained. 

The cost breakdown for rechargeable batteries

How cost-effective are rechargeable batteries? We've done the math. Currently, you can get four rechargeable AAA batteries for $13 at Walmart, with a weekly Flash deal on the Tenavolts AAA Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Batteries. A four-pack of triple-A batteries from Duracell costs around $5 at the retailer, while the most affordable options are under $4. Based on these numbers, you will make your money back within the third or fourth time you recharge the reusable batteries. Tenavolts batteries are long-lasting and can be recharged 1,000 times according to the manufacturer, which would equate to hundreds of dollars in batteries over its lifetime. 

Since the Tenavolt is one of the most budget-friendly selections, not all rechargeable batteries will be this cost-effective, but they should all save you a pretty penny in the long run. Since it's harder to compare two different brands, let's look at Energizer's rechargeable battery line. The  Energizer Rechargeable Battery Charger costs $24 at Walmart, and works with both AA and AAA battery sizes. This selection comes with four rechargeable AA batteries to get you started. The standard Energizer Max AA Batteries will put you out $5, so for Energizer's line, you'll need to recharge the batteries five times to recoup your costs. 

It's also important to consider how often you need batteries. If you only use batteries in a remote control or alarm clock, it would take you much longer to break even, and disposable batteries might be a smarter financial choice in these cases. If you regularly use a gaming controller, digital camera, kids' toys, or other high-drain devices that require frequent battery changes, you will see your investment pay out much sooner.

Tenavolts AAA Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Batteries

Energizer Rechargeable Battery Charger

More rechargeable battery deals

Batteries come in all shapes and sizes, and that's not even to mention the numerous battery brands on the market. We've rounded up the best deals at Amazon and Walmart to help you get the best possible savings on your purchase. 

If you're a Duracell fan, Amazon currently has a limited-time deal on the Duracell Ion Speed 1000-Battery-Charger with 31% off, bringing the price of the charger and four rechargeable batteries to just $18. Another standout option at Amazon is the highly rated Philips Rechargeable AA Lithium Batteries, which come in a cool and handy charging storage case. Nearly all rechargeable batteries use a charging case to power up, but the Dfito AA Rechargeable Batteries at Walmart have a unique design with a USB-charging port built in, which is quite convenient if you don't want to keep track of a specialty battery charger.

Duracell Ion Speed 1000-Battery-Charger

Philips Rechargeable AA Lithium Batteries (8-Pack)

Dfito AA Rechargeable Batteries

PowerOwl Rechargeable D Batteries and 4-Bay Battery Charger

Ebl 9-Volt NiMH Rechargeable Batteries (4-Pack)

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. 

There's a reason for that. 

Dollar Tree has spent the past few years transforming itself from a true single-price retailer into a chain with merchandise spanning multiple price points. 

The strategy has helped the company broaden its assortment, bring in higher-quality products, and improve sales. But it's also changed one of Dollar Tree's defining characteristics.

It used to be that you could walk into a Dollar Tree and know exactly what each item would cost. Now, it's a crapshoot. 

The company's management team has made clear that the shift is central to its long-term strategy. 

During its first-quarter 2026 earnings call, Dollar Tree CEO Michael Creedon said the company is continuing to "expand and modernize our assortment through multi-price," adding that the expanded assortment "continues to perform well and remains a meaningful growth driver." 

He also called the expansion "a key enabler" that allows Dollar Tree to improve quality and introduce products that wouldn't have been possible under a single price point.

But while the multi-price strategy may be working financially, it's creating a more complicated shopping experience for customers who have long associated the brand with simple, predictable pricing.

Dollar Tree customers grapple with new frustrations

Dollar Tree now carries products priced from its $1.25 opening price to as much as $10 in many locations. 

And while the company says roughly 85% of its sales still come from products priced at $2 or less, higher-priced merchandise has become increasingly common throughout stores.

Related: Target wants rich parents to shop at its stores

That, combined with a lack of price tags in some stores, leaves customers wondering what they're going to pay when they pick up an item to purchase. 

While some Dollar Tree products are clearly marked, shoppers have increasingly complained on social media about inconsistent labels or difficulty identifying prices on merchandise throughout the store. 

And for a chain built around value and convenience, it's easy to see how uncertainty over pricing can quickly become a source of frustration.

To address the issue, Dollar Tree has begun installing price scanners in more stores, USAToday reported. The devices are designed to eliminate guesswork, allowing shoppers to scan items themselves before heading to the checkout.

The rollout, however, has sparked another round of debate online.

Many shoppers view the scanners as evidence that the retailer has drifted too far from its roots. 

Some social media users questioned why a store called Dollar Tree now needs price scanners at all, arguing that the feature wouldn't be necessary if pricing had remained simple.

Others, however, said the scanners are a helpful addition because they can at least help prevent surprises at the register.

A brand caught between growth and identity

The backlash over price scanners highlights a broader challenge facing Dollar Tree as it continues reinventing itself.

From a business standpoint, the multi-price strategy gives the retailer more flexibility to offset rising costs and compete across more categories. Company executives have repeatedly emphasized that the strategy lets them offer higher-quality goods.

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The problem is that Dollar Tree's identity was built on simplicity. For decades, customers walked into stores expecting every item to cost essentially the same amount. That predictability became part of the brand's appeal.

Today's stores offer a wider selection than ever before, but they also require shoppers to pay closer attention to shelf tags and product labels. 

The addition of price scanners may solve a practical problem. But it also serves as a visible reminder that the retailer has fundamentally changed.

As Dollar Tree continues expanding its multi-price assortment, it faces a delicate balancing act. 

The multi-price strategy may strengthen sales. But if longtime customers begin to feel that the chain no longer delivers the straightforward bargain-hunting experience they remember, Dollar Tree risks alienating the loyal shoppers who helped build the brand in the first place.

As one customer told USA Today, “I to this day will not pay for anything in there over $2. It’s not because I can’t, it’s just because I think it’s greed."

Related: Dollar General brings back old prices

According to the report, ServiceNow’s subscription revenue rose 24.5% to $3.88 billion, and current remaining performance obligations (contracted revenue expected within the next 12 months) increased 21% to $13.2 billion. Both measures exceeded Wall Street expectations.

BofA highlighted a less obvious point in the report: ServiceNow’s AI agents may benefit from the workflow history and infrastructure records already stored on its platform.

Analyst Tal Liani said ServiceNow can draw on that context when an agent encounters an enterprise problem that does not have a simple, documented solution.

Because ServiceNow already stores those records, its agents could handle difficult cases with fewer data-integration steps than an outside AI product, according to the report.

BofA says enterprise context can help ServiceNow handle harder cases

A basic service-desk agent can reset a password, classify a support ticket, or approve software access by following a documented process.

An application outage presents a more complicated task. Before taking action, an agent may need to identify which servers support the application, review recent configuration changes, check which other services depend on it, and confirm who has authority to approve a repair.

The product debate is shifting from simple L1 automation ... to broader agentic workflows.

ServiceNow can provide that background through customers’ workflow histories, its Configuration Management Database (CMDB) and newer knowledge tools.

The CMDB records applications, servers, services, and the relationships among them. ServiceNow’s Context Engine adds information about people, roles, company policies, and prior decisions. Those records can help an agent determine which systems could be affected before it changes a configuration or restarts a service.

A customer deploying a third-party AI tool may need to extract records from several systems, explain how those records relate to one another, and return the agent’s output to the software where employees complete the work.

ServiceNow can give an agent access to existing workflows, system relationships, permissions, and approval rules on the same platform. BofA said the setup could reduce deployment costs and complexity while allowing the agent to complete a larger portion of the process.

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The approach could become more useful as companies move beyond repetitive support requests. Poorly documented incidents, unusual security events, and work spanning several departments require agents to interpret company-specific information before choosing an action.

BofA views ServiceNow’s position inside those workflows as its key strategic advantage over third-party AI tools. But the firm also cautioned that the advantage still depends on pricing, the quality of agents’ results, and customers’ willingness to expand their usage.

ServiceNow’s AI products are gaining paid adoption

ServiceNow’s second-quarter results provide early commercial evidence for BofA’s argument.

The company’s AI products surpassed $1 billion in annual contract value during the quarter. The number of customers running ServiceNow’s agentic AI in production increased ninefold over the past nine months.

ServiceNow is also charging more when customers upgrade to packages containing its newest AI products.

CFO Gina Mastantuono said that pricing increases for the company’s established Pro Plus packages remained above 30%. Upgrades to recently introduced AI-native packages produced increases of 20% to 30%, in line with the range ServiceNow had previously outlined.

Related: Bank of America resets ServiceNow stock price target sharply

Security is one example of how ServiceNow can combine enterprise information with an automated response. ServiceNow’s security and risk products appeared in 16 of its 20 largest second-quarter deals, and the company completed 24 security deals worth more than $1 million each, according to BofA.

Products added through Armis and Veza provide information about devices, vulnerabilities, and user identities. ServiceNow can connect those records to workflows that assign a problem, route an approval, and document the steps taken to resolve it.

BofA said traction from AI Control Tower, Armis and Veza helped drive the quarter’s security results.

ServiceNow’s key second-quarter AI indicators

• More than $1 billion: AI annual contract value
• Ninefold: Increase in customers running agentic AI in production over nine months
• 20% to 30%: Pricing increase from upgrades to AI-native packages
• 24: Security deals worth more than $1 million each

The cost of running AI remains the next test

BofA’s argument depends on three unresolved questions: whether ServiceNow’s agents consistently produce reliable results, whether customers expand their usage, and whether the company can charge enough to cover the costs of running AI workloads.

ServiceNow’s second-quarter gross margin fell to 77.9%, down from 81% a year earlier, and came in below BofA’s 79.3% estimate. The firm reduced its fiscal 2026 gross-margin estimate by 45 basis points to 78.9%.

A lower gross margin means a larger portion of ServiceNow’s revenue is being consumed by the cost of delivering its products. BofA expects AI adoption and increased use of hyperscaler infrastructure to remain near-term expenses. The integration of recent acquisitions adds further costs.

The company offset some of that pressure elsewhere in the income statement. Its adjusted operating margin reached 29.5%, about 270 basis points above Wall Street expectations, helped by stronger subscription revenue and the timing of spending.

Management maintained its full-year operating-margin forecast of 31.5%, however, as AI usage and acquisition integration continue to weigh on expenses.

The quarter’s subscription-revenue outperformance also received help from U.S. federal customers. Strong demand shifted some on-premise revenue recognition from the third quarter into the second.

ServiceNow forecast third-quarter subscription revenue of $3.975 billion to $3.980 billion, slightly below the roughly $4 billion that analysts expected. The pull-forward means investors cannot attribute the entire second-quarter beat to AI demand.

ServiceNow has shown that customers will deploy its AI products and pay more for upgraded packages. Sustaining BofA’s bullish view now requires those agents to resolve complex cases accurately and cheaply enough to expand usage without pushing gross margins lower.

Related: ServiceNow gets bearish call before major earnings test

That devotion drove a boom in boat sales during the Covid pandemic, as many Americans turned to the water to escape. After seeing a spike in sales during the crisis, when most other industries struggled, the recreational boating market is now feeling the impact of consumers' discretionary spending cuts. 

In fact, most boat owners make less than $100,000 a year, often purchasing smaller and more affordable vessels. This makes the industry “particularly sensitive to shifts in consumer confidence and credit availability,” according to IBIS World’s Boat Sales & Repair in the U.S. report. 

According to Deloitte’s State of the US Consumer July 2026 report, discretionary spending intentions grew for a third straight month in June; however, they remain below the 2021 baseline. 

The full-year 2025 data from NMMA reveal that new boat retail unit sales dropped 8.8% year over year to 215,237 units, down from 236,070 units in 2024. 

Amid these shifts in consumer behavior, the largest U.S. boating retailer, West Marine, recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed 59 stores. More recently, the boat retailer confirmed an additional wave of closures. 

West Marine closes another 32 stores

West Marine Inc., the largest boating and marine supplies retailer in the United States, recently confirmed plans to close an additional 32 retail locations, bringing the total number of stores slated for closure to 91, reported BoatBlurb. 

The latest 32 closures join the previously announced 59 closures and are part of the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring. 

The company disclosed several factors pushing it into bankruptcy, includingsupply chain disruptions, extreme weather events, and shifts in consumer behavior, according to its official press release. 

West Marine aims for Chapter 11 to help it strengthen its balance sheet, reduce debt, and improve financial flexibility. 

“We recently made the difficult decision to close select store locations. While this change wasn’t easy, our commitment to you hasn’t changed one bit — West Marine is open, stocked and ready to help with everything you need to get back on the water,” the company states on the store closure web page. 

West Marine’s total 91 locations closed: 

• Alabama (1)
  Mobile: 5004 Dauphin Island Pkwy. 
• California (7)
  Chula Vista: 630 Bay Blvd.  Monterey: 2024 Del Monte Ave.   Oceanside: 1719 Oceanside Blvd.  Pittsburg: 4645 Century Blvd.   Redding: 2607 Bechelli Lane   Sacramento: 9500 Micron Ave #116  Santa Barbara: 132C Harbor Wy.
• Connecticut  (2)
  Branford:  33 Business Park Dr. Norwalk: 99 Water St.

• Delaware (1)
  Rehoboth Beach: 18914 Rehoboth Mall Blvd. 
• Florida (18)
  Bonita Springs: 28520 Bonita Crossings Blvd.  Fernandina Beach: 474347 E. State Road 200  Jacksonville: 14180 Beach Blvd.  Orlando: 7478 S. Orange Blossom Trl.  Palm Coast: 250 Palm Coast Pkwy. NE  Port Charlotte: 4265 Tamiami Trail  Venice: 1860 Tamiami Trail S  Winter Haven: 1107 3rd St. SW  Deerfield Beach: 110 N. Federal Hwy.  Cutler Bay: 19407 S. Dixie Hwy.  Miami-Westchester: 8687 Coral Wy.  Pinecrest: 11735 S. Dixie Hwy. Delray Beach: 2275 South Federal Hwy., Ste. 220  Punta Gorda: 700 Tamiami Trail  Melbourne: 1001 W. New Haven Ave. Jensen Beach: 3554 NW Federal Hwy.  Spring Hill: 1279 Wendy Ct. 
• Georgia (1)
  Savannah: 7700 Abercorn St. 
• Illinois (2)
  Fox Lake: 2 W. Grand Ave.  Winthrop Harbor: 1707 7th St. 
• Louisiana (2)
  Lafayette: 2668 Johnston St.  Mandeville: 1803 N. Causeway Blvd. 
• Massachusetts (3)
  Marblehead: 32 Atlantic Ave.   Vineyard Haven: 52 Beach Rd.  Danvers: 139 Endicott St.
• Maryland (5) 
  Baltimore: 2700 Lighthouse Point E   Edgewater: 3257 Solomon’s Island Rd.   Ocean City: 12638 Ocean Gateway  Rock Hall: 21386 Rock Hall Ave.  North East: 475 N. Mauldin Ave. 
• Maine (2)
  Portland: 127 Marginal Way   Southwest Harbor: 11 Apple Lane  
• Michigan (7)
  Bay City: 4128 Wilder Rd.   Grand Haven: 810 Jackson St.   Muskegon: 2492 Henry St.   Petoskey: 105 West Mitchell St.   St. Clair Shores: 25050 Jefferson Ave.   Troy: 789 E. Big Beaver Rd.   Holland: 12513 James St. 
• Minnesota (1)
  Minnetonka: 12350 Wayzata Blvd. 
• Missouri (1)
  Osage Beach: 3872 Osage Beach Pkwy.  
• North Carolina (2)
  Oriental: 1104 Broad St. Ext.   Raleigh: 3027 Capital Blvd.  
• New Jersey (4) 
  Cape May: 791 Route 109   Eatontown: 178 State Route 35 S   Toms River: 213 Route 37 East   Lodi: 100 Route 17 South
• Nevada (1)
  Reno: 2505 Mill St.  
• New York (6) 
  Irondequoit: 1850 Ridge Rd. East   Port Washington: 16 Soundview Marketplace   Watertown: 21214 Pioneer Plaza Dr.  Buffalo: 2192 Niagra St.  Huntington Harbor: 56 New York Ave.  Riverhead: 1089 Old Country Rd. 
• Ohio (4)
  Cleveland: 1577 Saint Clair Ave. NE  North Olmsted: 24781 Lorain Rd.   Sandusky: 207 E. Water St.   Toledo: 6176 N Summit Bldg. F 
• Oregon (2)
  Tigard: 15230 SW Sequoia Pkwy.   Portland: 12085 N. Parker Ave. 
• Pennsylvania (1)
  Bensalem: 2126 Street Rd.  
• South Carolina (5)
  Anderson: 3501-2 Clemson Blvd.    Murrells Inlet: 12078 Highway 17 Bypass   North Myrtle Beach: 1288 Highway 17 N   Port Royal: 1347 Ribaut Rd.   Columbia: 142 Harbison Blvd. 
• Tennessee (1)
  Knoxville: 7812 Kingston Pike 
• Texas (1) 
  Lewisville: 4850 SH 121 
• Virginia (2) 
  Glen Allen: 10819 W. Broad St.  Alexandria: 601 South Patrick St. 
• Vermont (1)
  Burlington: 861 Williston Rd. 
• Washington (7) 
  Bellingham: 3560 Meridian St.   Bremerton: 5971 State Hwy. 303 NE   Everett: 1716 West Marine View Dr.  Port Townsend: 2428 Washington St.   Spokane: 5306 East Sprague Ave.  Bellevue: 13211 Northup Wy.  Olympia: 1530 Black Lake Blvd SW Suite C 
• Wisconsin (1) 
  Greenfield: 4141 S 76th St. Source: Notice of Filing Store Closing List, West Marine 

West Marine Chapter 11 bankruptcy details and canceled auction 

West Marine signaled it is preparing for a potential Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing to restructure its debt and lease obligations, TheStreet Co-Editor-in-Chief Daniel Kline reported in May 2026. 

Since then, the outdoor giant filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, closed 59 stores, and now an additional 32. 

 “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, when the company filed for Chapter 11. 

To support ongoing operations through the Chapter 11 process, West Marine 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. 

Related: Discount grocery chain closing stores

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, which includes meeting employee payroll and benefits. 

The company’s restructuring process faced its first major hurdle when an asset auction was canceled after no qualified bids emerged, reported SGB Media on July 7, 2026. 

The boating and fishing retailer confirmed it plans to continue with its pre-arranged reorganization plan that includes the closure of around one-quarter of its locations and an exchange of debt for equity. 

Under the pre-petition reorganization plan filed in Delaware’s bankruptcy court, lenders will convert roughly $251.2 million in term loan claims into 100 percent of the new equity interests in the reorganized company. The Restructuring Support Agreement (RSA) was backed by 100 percent of its FILO (First In, Last Out) lenders and 96.2 percent of its term loan lenders.  

The document also states that the total outstanding obligations amount to $429.3 million. 

“Under the current reorganization plan, general unsecured creditors face a “death-trap” provision that will result in little to no financial recovery. The total amount owed to these unsecured creditors — which includes major vendors like Garmin International ($8.57 million), Virtual Supply ($5.8 million), and Sierra International ($4.7 million) — ranges between $99.3 million and $109.2 million,” reports SGB Media. 

West Marine confirmed that vendors and suppliers will be paid in full for all goods and services provided after the May 17, 2026, bankruptcy filing date. Only the debts incurred before filing are subject to losses. 

The Combined Confirmation Hearing, initially set for July 30, has been postponed to Aug. 11. 

What West Marine consumers should know regarding closures 

Consumers who own a gift card or placed an order for pickup at one of the stores scheduled for closure should know that they can still use the gift card at the closing store up to the closure date, online, or at any other West Marine location. 

The retailer also noted that all orders placed before June 12, 2026, can be picked up at a closing West Marine store location. 

Consumers can’t return or exchange merchandise at closing stores, as all sales are final at any closing store.

Shoppers can still place orders online and in store, and warranties and product support will be honored. 

Regarding the West Advantage Rewards program, the company shared that members' accounts will remain active, and loyal customers can continue to use their account benefits.

What’s next for West Marine?  

West Marine had more than 200 retail locations across North America before announcing its Chapter 11 filing. This suggests the retailer will soon be left with about 110 operating stores. 

In addition to closing stores with unprofitable leases, West Marine plans to transform and build its business around West Marine Pro, its wholesale and professional division, that drives more than 40% of its total revenue, writes Marine Industry News. 

West Marine Pro provides service to marine technicians, marina operators, fleet managers, boat builders and government organizations responsible for maritime assets.

The boat giant also plans to remodel its remaining stores to better serve professional customers by allocating more space for high-volume marine parts, while scaling back non-essential/discretionary retail products.

The retailer also plans to connect its store inventory to its website and Pro app. This lets commercial clients scan barcodes, view wholesale prices, and check local stock in real time.

Related: Car dealer closes 40% of its stores, shares bankruptcy warning

Why we love this deal

When you're enjoying the outdoors, depending on where you are, you typically have to give up some of the comforts you enjoy in and around your home to take advantage of the adventure. But more and more products are on the market these days that help you bring the coziness of home with you whether you're enjoying the beach, the lake, the mountains, or the campground. Comfortable furniture, multi-functional gear, and state-of-the-art tents have all changed how we enjoy the outdoors, helping get more folks outside and allowing you to enjoy your outside excursions even more. And when you're enjoying an outdoor adventure with a buddy or group of friends, the Arrowhead Outdoor Camping Loveseat is the perfect piece of portable furniture you won't want to travel without.

The folding loveseat is designed for travel and is sturdy enough to support more than one person without actually being heavy while you transport it, and lucky for eager outdoorsmen it's on sale on Amazon for 50% off. Originally $80, you can get the chair, which comes with a handy carrying bag, for only $40 right now. 

Arrowhead Outdoor Camping Loveseat, $40 (was $80) at Amazon

Why do shoppers love it?

This folding chair brings the comforts of your couch to the great outdoors. Measuring 56 inches long, 21 inches wide, and 37.5 inches high, this collapsible loveseat can comfortably provide sitting or reclining space. With a weight capacity of 650 pounds, two adults can comfortably sit next to one another, two or three children can squeeze together onto the seat, or you can stretch out and enjoy the loveseat all by yourself. 

The seat itself sits 19 inches off the ground, measuring 40.7 inches long with a backrest measuring 18.5 inches. The soft but heavy-duty 600D Oxford polyester canvas fabric that the seat it constructed out of provides comfort while also being super supportive and sturdy. It's padded with an integrated polyester cushioning along the seat and armrests, while the rest of the loveseat is made with a powder-coated alloy steel. Together, the two create a water-resistant piece of furniture that's made for the outdoors. It won't rust or deteriorate with exposure to moisture and it resists mildew and UV rays, so it won't fade or become gross over time. 

Related: Amazon's 'easy to set up' 10-foot pop-up canopy tent is on sale for $94

Each armrest has an insulated cupholder to keep your drinks cold and there are two mesh compartments along the back for storage. It comes in a wide variety of colors and prints

What to expect from a $40 camping chair: Pros and cons

Pros

• Weight-bearing: The chair can hold up to 650 pounds.
• Easy-to-transport: The chair collapses and folds in easily. Use the carrying case for storage and transporting purposes. 
• Comfortable but sturdy: The loveseat is made with heavy-duty Oxford polyester canvas fabric, polyester cushioning, and powder-coated alloy steel. 
• Additional storage: The cupholders and mesh compartments along the back of the chair provide storage space. 

Cons

• Flimsy seams: Although sturdy, some shoppers find the stitching and seams to be flimsy and fray easily. 

Shoppers love this comfortable chair that's perfect for two, sometimes even three people. It's well-padded and comfortable but doesn't trap heat which is ideal in super warm conditions. "It's so convenient and reliable," one shopper said. "Sturdy and heavy-duty," another shopper said. Folks use it for everything from trips to the beach and mountains or to watch their child's soccer games on weekends. 

Shop more deals 

• Canpsky Lightweight Portable Camping Chairs, $93 (was $110) at Amazon
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The Arrowhead Outdoor Camping Loveseat is the comfortable way to ensure seating wherever you go, even when the destination is the great outdoors. 

Iconic aerospace products manufacturer Magellan Aerospace Middletown Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to stabilize its business, operations, and finances and determine if sufficient changes will allow it to better compete in the market and continue as a stand-alone entity, according to court documents.

Magellan Aerospace Middletown seeks to preserve the business as a going concern, maintain employment, and continue customer relationships, according to a declaration by the company's sole independent director, Michael Goldberg. The debtor will consider all alternatives, including a potential sale or other value maximizing transactions.

The company manufactures jet engine nacelle, exhaust components, and heat-resistant space products for the commercial, military, and space sectors. Among the products the company has produced were heat shields for NASA's Apollo and Space Shuttle space programs.

Aerospace company files bankruptcy

The Middletown, Ohio-based debtor filed its petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Ohio, listing $10 million to $50 million in assets and $50 million to $100 million in debts, on July 22.

Magellan Aerospace Middletown is 100% owned by Magellan Aerospace USA, which has not filed for bankruptcy. Mississauga, Ontario-based Magellan Aerospace Corporation is the parent company of Magellan Aerospace USA,

The debtor has no secured debt and no public debt. All of its obligations are unsecured debt, consisting of over $82 million.

Magellan Aerospace Middletown's largest unsecured creditors include The Reynolds Group, owed over $170,000; Mound Manufacturing Center inc., owed over $113,000; Fidelity 401K, owed over $87,000; Duke Energy, owed over $53,000; MSC Industrial Direct Co., owed over $49,000; CT Security Services, owed over $49,000; and Trimech Enterprise Solutions Corp., owed over $39,000.

Debtor reports net losses

The debtor, which employs 109 workers, reported a net loss of $8.5 million on about $26.3 million in annual revenue in 2025, and a net loss of $2.8 million on $16.8 million in revenue in 2026 through June 30.

Magellan Aerospace Middletown's annual revenue has decreased year-on-year as a result of a winddown of contracts, beginning in 2020. The company had secured jet exhaust systems contracts with Airbus on its A340, A318, and A380, as well as the Boeing 747 and 767 aircrafts.

Production of the A340, A380, and 747 ended, which led to the canceling of those contracts.

Company founded in 1928

Magellan Aerospace Middletown was founded as Aeronautical Corporation of America in 1928 by future Ohio senator, Robert Taft, son of former President William Howard Taft. The company evolved over the years as an aircraft manufacturer and acquired Longden Aircraft Company in the late 1950s, which it sold in the early 1990s.

The original company began manufacturing its first product, the single-seat C-2 Scout personal airplane, in 1929, and two years later launched the two-seat version, C-3, in 1931. By the mid-1930s the company led the U.S. in light aircraft production, according to court papers.

In World War II the company produced products for the military, returned to civilian aircraft production after the war until exiting the light aircraft business in 1951 to focus on high-strength engine and airframe structures for the commercial, military, and space sectors.

The company became a subsidiary of Magellan Aerospace Corporation in the mid-1990s.

Aerospace sector growth projected

Research firm Deloitte expects growth in the aerospace production sector in 2026, according to Aerospace Manufacturing and Design.

"The commercial aerospace sector appears poised to continue growth, aided by rising fleet utilization, continued fleet growth, and steady gains in both passenger and cargo demand," according to Deloitte's 2026 aerospace and defense outlook.

Related: 60-year-old dining chain franchisee files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Why we love this deal

Unlike indoor storage, wherever you store your tools, lawn care equipment, and other outdoor gear needs to be able to withstand the elements. A waterproof storage shed is a go-to option when your garage is overflowing and you need to protect valuable items like pool equipment and your kids' ride-on toys. If you're working with limited space outside, a compact outdoor shed that can fit on your patio or in the corner of your yard works wonders. 

For just $170 right now, you can snag the Lofka Plastic Storage Shed at Walmart, currently on sale for 43% off the usual $300 price. Replacing a lawnmower or bicycle that succumbs to rust isn't cheap, but having a secure spot to store items outdoors can keep that from happening. This storage deal can save you $130 on a sturdy shed that keeps rain, snow, and sun from damaging your things. And the best part is it even includes a floor, so you don't have to worry about building one ahead of time. Even with the $51 shipping fee, you can snag this shed for under $250.

Lofka Plastic Storage Shed and Floor, $170 (was $300) at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

Although it's on the smaller side for an outdoor shed, this 5-by-3-foot shed is spacious enough to serve as a versatile hub for storing tools or seasonal items, such as patio furniture, holiday decorations, or pool toys to keep them safe from moisture, insects, and weather damage. Its sloped roof sheds rain and snow effectively, preventing pooling that can lead to leaks or mold in flat-top models.

Made from recyclable polypropylene resin plastic, it’s eco-friendly, UV-resistant, and waterproof, with a stable floor that prevents ground moisture from seeping in. Unlike metal storage sheds, the reinforced double-wall construction and impact-resistant flooring also resist dents and corrosion. The shed's single door has a slide lock and opens wide for easy access. There's also a small window that allows natural light inside, so you don't need to add a light to the shed unless you plan to navigate the interior at night. 

Related: Walmart has a $240 all-weather outdoor storage shed for just $150

This outdoor shed takes several hours to put together. While shoppers report that it’s not a difficult project, assembly can be time-consuming if you're building it solo. Because the interior doesn't have built-in shelves, some shoppers mention adding freestanding storage shelves inside this shed for better organization.

Details to know

• Dimensions: This storage shed measures 75.98 inches high, 61.81 inches wide, and 38.97 inches deep.
• Material: Made of 100% recyclable polypropylene resin plastic.
• Capacity: This outdoor shed features 101.9 cubic feet of storage space.
• Are there built-in shelves?: No.

Shoppers are highly impressed with the weatherproofing of this storage shed as well as the extra features you get within the compact structure. "The floor is sturdy, and it's very weather-resistant," wrote one reviewer, noting that "the lock feels secure, and the overall quality exceeds expectations." Another shared that this "durable" shed is "perfect for small backyards." 

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Great for homeowners with small yards, apartment dwellers with patios, or families with tons of kids’ gear to store, the Lofka Plastic Storage Shed and Floor is a fantastic pick for year-round outdoor home storage. Check it out while it's still available for just $170 at Walmart before the deal ends.

A hit from the very beginning, Walmart had expanded to 38 stores by 1970, the year it went public. Just one year later, in May 1971, the company announced its first 2-for-1 stock split — a reflection of its rapid growth, rising share price, and management's commitment to keeping shares accessible to everyday investors, just like its low-priced merchandise.

In fact, the company has split its stock 12 times since going public. Along the way, as Walmart continued to grow, it became an early adopter of technology that helped it track inventory by computer, expand into international markets, and ultimately surpass competitors like Kmart and Sears.

More than five decades later, that same willingness to embrace new technology — now in the form of artificial intelligence — continues to shape Walmart's business. AI is helping the world's largest retailer improve everything from inventory management to customer service, while also expanding its razor-thin margins.

The company has also continued splitting its stock. Here's a closer look at Walmart's most recent split, stock split history, and whether another one could be on the horizon.

Walmart stock split quick facts

• Number of splits: 12
• Most recent split: Feb. 22, 2024 (3:1)
• First split: May 19, 1971 (2:1)
• Decade with the most splits: 1980s
• Most common split ratio: 2:1

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#walmart

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When was Walmart’s last stock split?

Walmart announced its latest stock split on January 30, 2024. According to its press release, the company split shares 3-to-1 for the benefit of the 400,000 store associates who participate in Walmart’s Associate Stock Purchase Plan.

“Sam Walton believed it was important to keep our share price in a range where purchasing whole shares, rather than fractions, was accessible to all of our associates,” said Doug McMillon, the then-President and CEO of Walmart. “Given our growth and our plans for the future, we felt it was a good time to split the stock and encourage our associates to participate in the years to come. As Sam said, ‘We’re all in this together. That’s the secret.’”

Shareholders of record as of February 22, 2024, received two additional shares of Walmart stock for each share they previously held. Shortly after the split, Walmart also announced that it would raise its dividend by 9%, its largest increase in over a decade.

Related: Does Walmart pay dividends? Its yield and payouts explained

How many times has Walmart split its stock?

The big box retailer has split its shares 12 times in total — three times in the 1970s, five in the 80s, two in the 90s, and one in the 2020s.

Walmart’s stock splits

Source: Walmart

What would Walmart’s stock be worth if it had never split?

Because Walmart has split its stock 12 times since it went public, an investor who purchased a share of the company’s stock on the day of its IPO would now hold 6,144 shares. At a July 22, 2026, closing price of around $108 per share, one original WMT share from October 1970 would be worth approximately $663,552.

Related: How many employees does Walmart have in 2026? Its workforce, locations & layoffs explained

Is Walmart going to split its stock again?

Walmart has not announced any plans for a future stock split; however, if the past is any guide, it could split shares again when its share price climbs to a level considered “inaccessible” for its store associates.

More on stock splits:

• Nvidia’s stock split history: Everything you need to know
• IBM’s stock split history: Why Big Blue stopped splitting shares
• Home Depot’s stock split history: What you need to know

Around the time of its 2024 split, shares were trading in the $175 range — that level could offer investors a useful benchmark should the company's continued earnings growth push the stock higher.

Related: History of Walmart: Company timeline & facts

The ads compare Lilly’s Zepbound with Novo’s Wegovy, and Novo argues they give consumers a misleading picture of how the blockbuster weight-loss drugs stack up.

At the center of the dispute is Lilly's claim that patients taking Zepbound lost substantially more weight than those taking Wegovy in a direct clinical trial.

Lilly says the comparison is based on a head-to-head clinical trial, which it calls the gold standard for comparing medicines.

Novo says the problem is that the trial did not test a newer, higher dose of Wegovy that is now available to patients.

That disagreement has opened a new legal front in the fierce competition between the two drugmakers in the booming obesity and diabetes market.

Novo Nordisk challenges Lilly’s Zepbound advertising

Novo Nordisk filed a lawsuit on July 21 in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, accusing Lilly of false and misleading advertising involving Zepbound and its diabetes drug Mounjaro.

Novo alleges Lilly’s national advertising campaigns make its medicines appear significantly more effective than competing Novo drugs by relying on clinical trials that did not test doses of Wegovy and Ozempic that are now available.

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One of the Zepbound campaigns cited in the complaint reviewed by TheStreet prominently compares the average weight loss of roughly 50 pounds for patients taking Zepbound with about 33 pounds for patients taking Wegovy.

Those figures come from Lilly’s SURMOUNT-5 trial, which directly compared tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Zepbound, with semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy.

According to the court complaint, participants receiving Zepbound at 10 milligrams or 15 milligrams lost an average of 20.2% of their body weight, compared with 13.7% for participants receiving Wegovy at 1.7 milligrams or 2.4 milligrams.

Novo does not dispute that those were the trial's results.

Instead, it argues that continuing to use those results in broad comparisons became misleading after a higher 7.2-milligram dose of Wegovy became available.

SURMOUNT-5 did not test that dose.

“As new and more effective treatment options become available, people deserve accurate information that reflects the latest scientific evidence and helps them make informed care decisions,” said John Kuckelman, Senior Vice President and Group General Counsel at Novo Nordisk, in a statement to TheStreet.

“Healthcare companies have a responsibility to keep their public claims accurate and current — ineffective, fine-print disclaimers do not fix the misleading impression created by major national campaigns.”

Eli Lilly stands behind Zepbound comparison

Lilly strongly disputes Novo’s allegations and says its advertising is supported by a randomized clinical trial directly comparing the medicines.

“The gold standard for comparing medicines is a robustly designed, well-conducted head-to-head clinical trial — like SURMOUNT-5, which remains the only head-to-head, randomized clinical trial directly comparing tirzepatide and semaglutide in weight management,” a Lilly spokesperson told TheStreet.

“Rather than compete on the merits of its products, Novo is asking a court to stop Lilly from communicating the results of that trial.”

Lilly said it stands behind its advertising.

“It is truthful, it is transparent, and it is grounded in the most direct scientific evidence available — exactly what patients deserve,” the spokesperson said.

“We will continue to focus on the science and defend against this lawsuit vigorously.”

The competing arguments expose the central issue in the case.

Lilly is relying on a trial that directly tested Zepbound against Wegovy.

Novo argues that the comparison no longer fairly represents the products available today because Wegovy now has a higher approved dose that was never included in that trial.

No head-to-head trial cited in the complaint has directly compared Zepbound with Wegovy at the newer 7.2-milligram dose.

Novo points to newer Wegovy data

Novo argues in its complaint that results from a separate clinical trial of higher-dose Wegovy undermine the impression created by Lilly’s advertising.

According to the lawsuit, Novo’s STEP UP trial found that participants receiving Wegovy 7.2 milligrams achieved an average weight loss of 18.8%, or approximately 47 pounds.

Novo compares that result with a separate Lilly trial, SURMOUNT-1, in which participants receiving Zepbound at 15 milligrams achieved average weight loss of 20.9%, or approximately 48 pounds.

The two medicines were not tested against each other in those trials.

Novo nevertheless argues that the separate results show substantially closer weight loss than the 50-pound-versus-33-pound comparison highlighted in Lilly’s advertising.

The company’s complaint argues that Lilly should conduct a new direct clinical trial comparing the currently available doses before making broad claims about product superiority.

Lawsuit also targets Mounjaro and Ozempic advertising

Novo’s lawsuit extends beyond weight-loss drugs.

The company is also challenging Lilly's advertising, which compares Mounjaro, its tirzepatide medicine for type 2 diabetes, with Novo’s Ozempic.

Lilly advertising cited in the lawsuit compares a 2.3% reduction in A1C with Mounjaro at 15 milligrams to a 1.9% reduction with Ozempic at 1 milligram.

Novo argues that the comparison is outdated because Ozempic is also available at a higher 2-milligram dose.

The SURPASS-2 trial underlying the comparison tested Mounjaro against Ozempic at 1 milligram and did not include the higher Ozempic dose, according to the complaint.

Novo alleges that disclaimers acknowledging the limitations of the comparisons are not enough to correct the broader impression created by the advertising.

Lilly says its advertising is truthful and transparent.

Novo seeks to stop Lilly ads

Novo is asking the court to stop Lilly from continuing the comparative advertising and is seeking damages and other relief.

The lawsuit alleges the campaigns could influence which drugs patients ask their healthcare providers about and divert demand from Novo’s medicines to Lilly’s competing products.

Novo says Lilly’s Zepbound campaign has reached a particularly large audience.

According to the complaint, a revised Zepbound television commercial that began airing in late April had generated more than 700 million impressions.

The dispute comes as Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly battle for position in one of the pharmaceutical industry’s fastest-growing markets.

And the lawsuit adds a new question, not simply which drug works better, but what evidence a company needs before it can tell millions of consumers what its drug does.

Related: Popular breakfast chain sold, 16 locations shut down

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

All right, welcome back to the program. Philip Snyder, he is the senior vice president with the Warner Companies and for full disclosure, he's also my dad.

Dad, great to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning.

Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies

Once again, Jeff, it's my pleasure always. Good to see you.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, it's good to see you as well. Let's talk about life insurance, Dad. You know, I think it's interesting because I've seen life insurance studies come out.

Usually, Limbra, other associations put out the information. And generally speaking, I think people understand the concept of life insurance. But what I've seen happening is a trend towards people like not being satisfied with all the benefits of a life insurance policy.

I want to get your reaction to that.

Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies

Well, I mean, fundamentally, life insurance is designed to pay a benefit when one dies. But you could limit that definition to term insurance, obviously, because term insurance has no intrinsic value, generally provides few, if any, additional benefits other than a death benefit. And it's typically inexpensive and continues for a term of years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and so forth.

So that fulfills to me a specific need. I have an obligation, a mortgage, whatever, a business obligation or something like that, that's relatively short term or over a known duration. So that's the purpose of term insurance.

But I think what you're leading toward is what else can people buy in the way of life insurance that can deliver other benefits?

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

And do you think the expectation, Dad, has changed? And if you're a product manufacturer out there, I mean, you're actually interacting with the product manufacturers. In some cases, you're actually helping to construct unique products.

But is that expectation that people have, like they're paying into something that, candidly, if you're paying in for yourself and you die, you're never going to see anything, but you're going to lose out on all the premium. So is that expectation a real expectation?

Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's but I think it is. And I think it is if people knew more, they'd know how to fulfill that expectation because there's more to a permanent life insurance policy than the death benefit.

You can build cash value in a policy or investment value, depending on the nature of the policy. And those monies can be available at any time throughout the duration of the policy. They can be used to pay educational expenses.

You could pay down a mortgage. You could take a vacation with those funds. Or you can use them to supplement your retirement.

They're just money sitting in a policy. The advantage to creating cash in a life insurance policy is the growth on that money, in effect, the earnings on that money is not taxable so long as the money stays in the policy. And if you take it out later on, there are ways without getting too deep in the weeds here and time limitations to get that money out, in many cases, with no income tax.

Can't get it all out without income tax, but you can get a large percentage out via withdrawals and or loans from the insurance policy. So there are ways to create value in a favorable basis, in effect, create a separate asset class, as it were.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Sorry to interrupt you. My apologies to you. I think we kind of did it to each other.

We're both excited here. But with permanent life insurance, it's almost analogous to like a 401k or a retirement plan where you're putting money away and then there's certain reasons you can get it out early, some of it without tax penalties, et cetera. So when you're looking at permanent life insurance and you're trying to decide between term life and permanent life, when you're working with a broker or advisor, I'm hoping that they explain those differences and intrinsically, you kind of get, as a holder of the policy, you get an understanding about what you really get.

Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies

Exactly. Well, that's all part of the discovery process, as it were, when you're talking to someone. You can put out all the ideas you want to put out in front of them.

But until you really know what their thought process is or what they don't know that you can help them to understand, you really can't describe and build the proper solution. You have to have the kind of information. And there are other things that can be added to permanent policies.

For example, you can add a long-term care rider to a policy and that rider will distribute a fixed percentage of the face amount of the policy if and when you incur the cost of long-term care services. That typically wouldn't happen until retirement years, although obviously there are exceptions to that. But that's a feature.

You could add a a critical illness benefit. A critical illness benefit pays out a fixed sum. They're not huge payments, but a fixed sum in the event you contract cancer or heart disease or a whole list.

Typically, that varies company to company, but a list and it kind of pays you a tax-free sum of money, maybe $25,000, maybe $50,000 to help offset the cost. That's a feature that could be included. You could add a benefit that would insure a spouse under the same policy and maybe even children.

So these things exist in the insurance world. Whether people know about them is a different story. Whether they're properly informed, excuse me, what's available, but those things exist.

In terms of what's on the horizon, I don't know. There are some limitations because it is an insurance policy. It has tax-favored advantages when the death benefit is paid under a life insurance policy.

It's paid income tax-free to the name beneficiary or beneficiaries. So there are specific advantages to buying life insurance and particularly permanent life insurance.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

What's the difference in premium if you buy permanent life versus term life? And this is going to vary by individual because they're all rated based on the individual behaviors and then you do an extensive workup. But generally speaking, for a 50-year-old male in relatively good health who's paying for term life, what is the comparable?

Is it five times, 5x, 10x? What can you expect to pay more than you would for a term policy and still get the features that you're talking about?

Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies

Probably five to 10x is a good estimate. Probably something greater than five, maybe closer to 10. Because remember, a permanent policy is permanent.

You can keep it until death. You just have to make sure you're funding it properly and it works. A term policy runs out.

You can convert a term policy to a permanent policy within certain time limitations prescribed by the insurer. So it's in effect an exchange, as it were, without having to go through medical underwriting. But by and large, term insurance typically might be 10% to 20% of the cost of permanent insurance.

And those are real broad parameters.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah, I don't think anyone's going to hold you to that. It just seems to me that people don't really understand that. It seems that there's a lack of education about what the two categories of products are, what they mean.

And one of the benefits, I think, of the permanent life insurance policy is it's a financial instrument where you're actually invested in things that look like mutual funds. So you have an asset allocation, right?

Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies

Yeah, but that depends on the product. I'm sorry to interrupt you again, but we're squeezed for time a little bit. That depends on who the buyer is.

Because those kinds of products where you have investment choice within the product, you have to be a qualified investor and you have to have pretty extensive experience in investing money. Obviously, most people don't fit that bill. So those kinds of products may not be available, but there are other products, for example, index products that provide a return based on the performance of an external index, like the Standard and Poor's.

And there's typically a cap and there's typically a zero floor. Those kinds of products, you have no potential for loss in any given year, even if the market collapse, but you do have some upside. So those kinds of products might be better suited for people who don't have the investment acumen.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Let me just go back to the decision between permanent and I'm going to say term. There are certain actual terminology, but that decision is an important one. But let's talk about the employer for a second.

So people can certainly go to someone like yourself, a broker, an advisor, a fiduciary or whatever to buy products. They go through the process. Does the employer have the ability to offer either a term or a whole life, excuse me, permanent product?

Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies

Sure, sure. Employer, we call them voluntary benefits. Effectively, we do that in our practice.

We communicate things for the employer and we offer coverages that the employer and the employees collectively feel might be beneficial, could be pet insurance. It could be whole life insurance. It could be additional term insurance.

And normally, most of those products come with some level of guarantee issue. So they're not underwritten. In most cases, they're portable.

So if you leave the employer, you can take them with you. So sure, those products exist, but they don't exist in very small employers because you can't get guarantee issue with a very small group of employees.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah. And what would be the threshold? Is it 100 lives or less?

Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies

Certainly less than 100. But if you're an employer and you have two or three employees, if you're able to get any kind of guarantee issue, it's going to be very minimal. You're going to need 25, 50 employees to make it worthwhile at least.

And every product is different and every company has different rules. So people who are in that business know where to go to find the most suitable, most favorably priced and most accessible product for that group of employees.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Let me close out. I'll just give you my understanding and then you kind of take it away and you close out and then we'll close the show. So the way I think of term life is a way to mitigate risk, meaning I'm going to pay in if I have a loved one, a spouse, children, cats, responsibilities.

I'm paying premium. I'm going to get something back if I pass away. So I'm mitigating the risk.

The way I think about permanent life insurance, though, is mitigating risk, but it's also building its investment. So it's an instrument that I can build a cash value with. And that may be in addition to or above the premiums that I pay.

And therefore, it's not only a risk mitigation strategy, it's also a investment strategy. I'll let you close out the show, Doug.

Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies

But generally, I'd say term insurance is a death benefit only for the most part. And so if you need a death benefit and you want to spend as little as you can or need to or have the ability, then you buy term insurance. There's nothing wrong with it because you're covering things that the lost income and lost future assets that you would have otherwise accrued during your working lifetime will be replaced by the life insurance.

Certainly, everybody would try and pay for their home and their education if they live, but if you don't, you create the funds for that. Permanent insurance offers a much broader array of choices. Doesn't mean it's perfect for everyone.

And then you have to be somewhat knowledgeable or work with someone who is knowledgeable to figure out what's the right type of product for you. There are various products.

Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement Network

Yeah. Well, Dad, we're going to have to leave it there. Obviously, you didn't get through the different products.

Maybe next time we'll do that. I don't know. There's lots of things that always come up in the life insurance world.

Great to see you as always. Thanks for joining us. And we look forward to having you back again very soon.

Phillip Snyder, CLU, The Warner Companies

My pleasure. Take care. Have a good afternoon.

In recent years, that's changed. Messy aisles, empty shelves, and disorganized inventory have wreaked havoc on the big-box giant's reputation.

Now, Target is on a mission to win back shoppers by rebuilding trust in the areas that matter most — product quality, value, and a better overall shopping experience.

After years of pressure from changing consumer habits, economic uncertainty, and questions about its merchandise assortment, Target has been focused on improving key categories where it believes it can stand out.

The baby category is especially important because it gives Target an opportunity to become a destination for one of the most valuable groups of shoppers — new and expecting parents.

These customers often need a wide range of products, from everyday essentials to clothing to toys. Winning their trust can create years of repeat business, which is why Target's newest investment makes a lot of sense.

Target wants baby to become a bigger destination

Target is making another major investment in the baby category with the launch of Picolette, an exclusive collection created with entrepreneur and new mom Olivia Culpo.

The 60-item collection includes baby apparel, accessories, mealtime products, keepsakes, and gifts. 

Related: Target customers lose a big perk in August

Target says the assortment combines elevated design with practical features for families, with prices starting at $4.99 and most items priced at $18 or less. The collection launches on July 26 in about 1,400 stores and online, with additional drops planned throughout the year.

"We know that parents are looking for trusted solutions that combine style, quality, functionality and value," said Amanda Nusz, senior vice president for merchandising. 

"Picolette is a beautiful example of how we're combining elevated design, meaningful storytelling and real-life solutions in one affordable assortment to make it easy for families to celebrate some of life's early milestones." 

The launch of the new line fits into Target's bigger plans. During its most recent quarter, the baby and kids category experienced a more than 5% increase in comparable sales trends, the company said.

"We know the value we can deliver by helping busy new parents find the products they want and need to keep their baby happy, healthy and safe," Chief Merchandising Officer Cara Sylvester said. "So we're investing to do just that with a thoughtfully curated assortment of trusted owned and national brand products."

Why baby is a smart bet for Target

Investing in baby products makes sense because it aligns with several of Target’s biggest priorities.

First, it gives the company an opportunity to strengthen relationships with younger families. Parents who have a positive experience shopping for their first child may continue turning to Target as their children grow.

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Second, this is a category where shoppers value convenience. Parents often want a retailer where they can find essentials, clothing, and household items in one place. Improving the assortment and experience can encourage larger baskets and more frequent visits.

Finally, baby products fit Target’s broader identity. 

The company has long tried to position itself between discount retailers and higher-end specialty stores, offering products that feel more stylish and thoughtfully designed without luxury pricing.

The challenge for Target is turning those improvements into lasting customer loyalty. But focusing on the baby category gives the retailer a chance to showcase the combination of value and design that it believes can separate it from rivals.

For a company trying to rebuild its relationship with shoppers, winning parents over may be one of the most important steps it can take.

Maurie Backman owns shares of Target.

Related: Target wants rich parents to shop at its stores

One of the biggest names in luxury watches is Omega. The Swiss brand has been making world-class timepieces well over a century ago, and it's one of the most beloved luxury watch brands if you ask any watch nerd. Not only do Omega watches ooze class and quality, but they've even been the choice of James Bond for over two decades. You honestly can't go wrong with shopping for an Omega watch. That's precisely why I'm wearing one right now.

With that said, buying a mechanical Swiss luxury watch is a serious investment. The luxury market as a whole is going through a rough patch at the moment as well. Swiss luxury watches typically cost multiple thousands of dollars, even on the secondary market. That's why me and my ilk were so thrilled when Omega collaborated with Swatch to release a series of quartz-powered Speedmaster-themed watches. Now you can have that iconic Speedmaster look on your wrist without taking out a second mortgage on your home. It's the perfect way to get a little luxury without breaking the bank. 

What is a MoonSwatch?

If you're not familiar with the vaunted Omega Speedmaster, then allow me to illuminate you. First released in 1957 as an auto racing chronograph, Omega submitted a Speedmaster model to NASA in the 1960s, with the hopes of being the space agency's preferred timepiece of its astronauts. A chronograph watch is important for space travel because it's used to time burns, stirring of oxygen tanks, and other technical tasks on-board. Ultimately, the Omega Speedmaster beat out brands like Rolex and Bulova to be the very first watch on the moon. That was in 1969, and the watch's legend has only grown since then. 

Omega sells tens of different Speedmaster models with different colors, features, and aesthetics. I myself own a vintage 1974 Speedmaster with a square 1970's-style "TV dial." It's a rare model and I couldn't love it more than I already do. That said, there are many times when I don't feel like taking an expensive and delicate vintage chronograph out of my watch box because it's just not the right time. That's when I pull out my MoonSwatch. The MoonSwatch is manufactured by Swatch using the aesthetics and basic features of an Omega Speedmaster. The collab caused quite a stir when first released, and they immediately began selling for thousands on the secondary market.

Thankfully, the retail price remains reasonable, and they're easy to buy these days. In fact, Swatch continues to release new models and special editions every few months. Two of the most popular models leverage Omega's history with the Snoopy character, and they're my personal favorites. That's why some weeks I wear mine more than I even wear the aforementioned vintage Speedmaster.

Omega X Swatch Mission to the Moonphase New Moon

This watch, inspired in part by the Omega Silver Snoopy commemorative Speedmaster, has an all black case made from Swatch's proprietary bioceramic. It's lightweight and relatively durable, making this and every MoonSwatch incredibly comfortable to wear. In addition to the standard chronograph function, there is a small moonphase feature that includes a Snoopy character. As the moon comes out, so does Snoopy, adding a fun little touch to an otherwise serious-looking watch. 

I get constant compliments on the watch when I wear it out. Some of those come from people who think it's an authentic mechanical Speedmaster and others who know exactly what it is and want to show their appreciation. With a retail price of just $320, this is your best entry into the world of luxury watch collecting, and the watch world will respect you for it.

Omega X Swatch Mission to the Moonphase White

There is another version of this same watch in all white. I actually have the white one on my buy list as well, though I need to wait a little longer, lest my wife decides to commandeer my collection and sell it for scraps. As with the black model, this one is made from lightweight bioceramic and includes a velcro-attached NATO-style strap. This is exactly the type of strap used by the astronauts during the Speedmaster's first journeys into space. As it is with the New Moon model, Snoopy peeks out from behind a panel as the moonphase progresses. 

While these are two of my favorite MoonSwatch models, there are plenty more to shop. They're available in a variety of colors and finishes, and Swatch has done an amazing job of infusing its fun and modern design elements into a traditional powerhouse watch model. I can't recommend these watches enough for seasoned watch collectors, and those who are looking to get started as well. 

More Swatch models

If Snoopy isn't your thing, there are many other Swatch looks that may suit you, whether that's within the MoonSwatch family or not. I recommend browsing through each one and picture it on your wrist in different scenarios. I tend to opt for more neutral colors, but you may want a little more personality in your watchbox.

Omega X Swatch Mission to the Moon

Omega X Swatch Mission to the Moonphase White

Omega X Swatch Mission to the Moon 1969

Swatch Skin Irony Casual Watch

Swatch Biosourced Casual Watch

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

Closets collect everything from sweaters to bedding to accessories, making it easy for everyday essentials to disappear into the clutter. Whether you need to organize a small apartment, set up a dorm, or make better use of your walk-in closet, adding flexible storage can make it easy to keep your items organized and find what you need when you need it. Using vertical space is a great way to add extra storage space, allowing you to take advantage of unused space to prevent piles of clothes and shoes on the closet floor. 

The X-cosrack 5-Piece Closet Organizer offers an easy and lightweight option for any closet. The layered design allows them to be stacked, hung, or used separately, and five storage baskets plus connection hooks are on sale for just $36 at Amazon.

X-cosrack 5-Piece Closet Organizer, $36 (was $40) at Amazon

Why do shoppers love it?

The wire storage baskets offer an open and easy-to-see option for clothes and shoes while also providing good airflow to prevent musty smells. The wire mesh is sturdy and made of powder-coated iron to prevent rusting, warping, and snagging, and the baskets feature a ramp lip at each one to keep clothes in place while also making it easy to slide items out. The sturdy hanging hooks attach to the baskets to hold them together, allowing you to hang them off the closet bar or fixed closet racks, or even on thinner doors, offering a flexible modular design. They can also be individually placed on fixed shelves to help keep items separate, or they can just be stacked and placed on the floor. These baskets can hold jeans, sweaters, shoes, handbags, hats, toys, and much more.

Related: Amazon's 5-tier bookshelf is on sale for only $40, and it's 'the perfect size for a smaller space'

These organizer baskets fold flat when not in use, allowing you to save room when needed. This also makes them easy to travel with, offering an alternative to living out of your suitcase when staying in hotels or acting as a trunk organizer, offering a spot to keep jackets and hats in your trunk while on road trips. The included S-hooks can also be used to hang wallets, necklaces, and other accessories. These baskets are also easy to clean with a damp rag when they get dusty in the closet or dirty in the trunk, and offer a multitude of convenient configurations for any setup.

Details to know

• Size: The baskets measure 12.4 inches wide, 11.8 inches deep, and 8.8 inches tall. 
• Material: The powder-coated iron wire basket can hold up to daily use without warping or rusting in humid conditions. 
• Uses: While these closet organizers are great for clothing, they can also be used in the pantry to hold fruits and vegetables, in the entryway closet for mail and keys, in the office, and more. 

One shopper said, "These are incredibly sturdy and well made. I wish I would have discovered this sooner. I ordered the stack of five and split them up. There are choices as to how to set up and use; I found them to be versatile. They screw onto one another to ensure they stay in place. They are very easy to assemble."

Another buyer said, "It looks clean and works great. I highly recommend these."

Shop more deals

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Adding organization to your life is easy with the X-cosrack 5-Piece Closet Organizer. They're simple to set up and hang, and offer storage for a variety of items for just $36 at Amazon.

Why we love this deal

Style might be subjective, but there are certain accessories that always impress no matter who wears them, and any piece designed with diamonds is one of them. Something about a simple strand around the neck or wrist has a way of transforming whatever you're wearing, and catches the eye of anyone who even glances at you. They're a timeless classic that's long-lasting and super versatile, so when you are going to drop a chunk of change on a stunning piece of jewelry, you can't go wrong investing in a diamond necklace or bracelet. But lucky for you, even if you were prepared to pay the often expensive price tag attached to such a stone, Macy's current sale is giving you the chance to score some sparkle for a fraction of the cost. 

The Macy's Diamond Bolo Bracelet is on sale for 75% off. The stunning bracelet, which usually retails for $250, is only $63 — but hurry, because this sale is for a limited time. 

Macy's Diamond Bolo Bracelet, $63 (was $250) at Macy's

Why do shoppers love it?

The sales price might seem too good to be true, but it isn't. This originally $250 diamond bracelet is only $63, and it might just be one of the best jewelry deals we've seen recently. Unlike other bracelets that have a lobster or spring ring clasp where one part of the bracelet "hooks" onto the other for a secure fit, this bracelet has a bolo clasp closure, which uses a central sliding bead to tighten or loosen the two ends of the bracelet. It's a one-size-fits all clasp that allows more customized fit around your wrist. Plus, it's much easier to put on and remove on your own — no extra additional person required to help.

The front half of the bracelet features a row of round diamonds, in total weighing 1/10 ct., in a straight line that, when on, would cover the top portion of the wrist. The diamonds have a color rating of J-K, meaning they are near-colorless to faint, providing a mostly white appearance to the naked eye. They also have a clarity rating of 12-13, which, although alludes to inclusions, still doesn't take away from the overall sparkling sheen the bracelet has under artificial or natural lighting. 

Related: Macy's is selling a $699 sterling silver diamond necklace for 82% off

Although the bracelet comes in three colors, they all have a sterling silver base, so you can be sure that this bracelet is super durable and built to last. No rusting or turning green after lots of wear to worry about. The basic silver option is just sterling silver, while the other two are 14-Karat rose gold-plated or 14-Karat gold-plated sterling silver. 

Details to know

• Material: Diamond, and sterling silver. 
• Carat: 1/10 ct. t.w.
• Shape: Round.
• Color: Sterling silver, 14K rose gold-plated sterling silver, and 14K gold-plated sterling silver.
• Clasp: Bolo clasp closure. 

This Macy's exclusive is a favorite for everyday wear among shoppers. The adjustable closure makes it more unique than other bracelet options, and shoppers appreciate that you can easily adjust the fit of the bracelet thanks to the bolo clasp. "Simple and dainty," one shopper said. Although the diamonds are small, it makes it a great piece of jewelry to layer among other bracelets. "Beautiful bracelet, excellent quality, will enhance the wrist of any woman," another shopper said. 

Shop more deals

• Macy's Diamond Stud Earrings, $240 (was $901) at Macy's
• Macy’s Diamond Baguette Cluster Pendant Necklace, $150 (was $699) at Macy’s

The Macy's Diamond Bolo Bracelet won't be on for long — it's only a one-day sale! Don't wait too long to take advantage of this limited-time price of $63. We know we wouldn't want to miss out on it. 

The move comes at a time when competition across the athletic apparel industry is intensifying. Established rivals and fast-growing activewear brands have gained momentum by responding more quickly to changing consumer preferences, putting pressure on longtime market leaders to modernize their products, shopping experiences, and operations.

As a result, one of the industry's most recognizable brands is making significant operational changes in response to those industry pressures.

Founded in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports before adopting its current name in 1971, Nike has grown into the world's largest sportswear company. The company owns globally recognized brands including Nike, Jordan, and Converse, and its products have been worn by generations of elite athletes, including Michael Jordan and LeBron James.

Nike closes stores nationwide

Nike (NKE) has closed multiple stores during July 2026 alone, including locations in:

• San Jose, California: 333 Santana Row, Suite 1000
• Tampa, Florida: 1520 W Swann Avenue
• Atlanta, Georgia: 675 Ponce De Leon Avenue NE, Suite E-184
• Alpharetta, Georgia: 7110 Avalon Boulevard
• Naperville, Illinois: 217 S Main Street
• Louisville, Kentucky: 7900 Shelbyville Road, Suite E15a
• Kansas City, Missouri: 450 Nichols Road
• Bethesda, Maryland: 7117 Arlington Road, Space U
• Hoboken, New Jersey: 222 Washington Street
• Cary, North Carolina: 4 Fenton Main Street, Suite 140
• The Woodlands, Texas: 9595 Six Pines Drive, Suite 885

Nike has not disclosed how many additional stores it plans to close or which remaining locations could be affected later this year.

Why is Nike closing stores?

The closures are part of Nike's Global Operations Changes announced in April 2026, a restructuring initiative designed to strengthen the company's foundation, improve competitiveness, and support long-term profitable growth.

As part of the plan, Nike said it would realign its global operations to better meet future business needs by optimizing its supply chain footprint, accelerating technology deployment, investing in employee training, and strengthening relationships with manufacturers and retail partners.

The restructuring is also expected to eliminate approximately 1,400 Global Operations positions.

Since announcing those changes, Nike has continued streamlining its business. The company discontinued its Nike Fitness Studios venture, which launched with FitLab in 2023, and closed technology offices in three locations while consolidating operations into two hubs.

Nike faces continued business declines

The operational changes come after another quarter of declining sales across several key business segments, underscoring the challenges Nike is working to reverse.

During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026:

• Revenue declined 1%.
• Footwear and equipment both posted negative growth.
• Nike Direct revenue fell 9%.
• Nike Digital was down 12%.
• Revenue from Nike-owned stores decreased 7%.
• Converse revenue dropped 32%.

"We know we're not living up to our full potential," said Nike President and CEO Elliot Hill during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call. "We're operating in a more complex macro environment, where we're seeing added pressure on traffic and discretionary spending across our geographies. But we're focused on what we can control, bringing each sport together across product, brand, marketplace, and operations and deepening our connections with athletes, consumers, and partners."

Here's some of my previous coverage of store closures:

• Former retail giant closes more stores
• Popular beverage chain closing multiple locations nationwide
• After years of store closures, fashion retailer shifts strategy

Despite the recent setbacks, Hill said Nike will continue investing in both its online business and brick-and-mortar stores. The company plans to modernize 50% of its Nike Direct company-owned retail fleet by the end of the fiscal year, creating a more consistent shopping experience across its physical and digital channels.

Related: Ikea closing key U.S. stores

Why we love this deal

If your backyard or front porch is empty, you're wasting valuable square footage. Transforming your patio space into an outdoor oasis starts with the right furniture. There are countless styles to consider, like bistro sets or a classic Adirondack chair, but we love a matching set that's perfect for stretching out and taking cat naps in the sun. The MF Studio 3-Piece Rattan Patio Conversation Set fits the bill with a cozy love seat and chaise lounge that can be configured multiple ways, and it's currently 50% off with a Walmart deal. 

Normally, you'd have to pay $510 to score this gorgeous patio set that's glamorous enough to sit on the balcony of a high-end boutique resort, but the limited-time deal brings the price down to just $255. A 3-piece furniture set with a sectional couch and a generously sized coffee table like this one is rarely available at the price point, especially when the design looks so polished. With this deep discount, the patio set is an even more popular pick, with over 100 sets sold in the past 24 hours alone, so you won't want to snag it for yourself.

MF Studio 3-Piece Rattan Patio Conversation Set, $255 (was $510) at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

Featuring a loveseat and chaise lounge topped with cozy cushions, this patio set has room to comfortably seat up to four guests. The third piece is a matching coffee table, which has a handy two-in-one design, allowing you to use it as a convenient surface to place your snacks and beverages or as an ottoman for kicking up your feet. The versatility of this set doesn't end there. With options to set them up in over seven different configurations, the seat and table can adapt to a variety of layouts and floor plans.

"I love the look of this patio set and the different configurations you can make," one shopper raved. They also appreciated the plushness of the cushions, writing that they're "very comfortable and thicker than other sets I looked at." As a bonus, these cushions come with a water-repellent fabric that's to keep them fresh and clean after splashes or storms.

Related: Walmart’s bestselling 4-piece patio set with soft cushions is on sale for $109

Designed to withstand all types of weather, this patio set is made from a durable synthetic rattan. It has the same earthy tan hue of natural rattan, but offers more resilience for outdoor use. The appearance of the set is further elevated with solid acacia wood on the feet, armrest, and table of the patio furniture, giving it an extra touch of luxury. Overall, the build of this patio furniture is solid and sturdy, which is proven by the couch's weight capacity that exceeds 700 pounds.

Pros and cons of the $255 MF Studio patio set

Pros:

• It's a gorgeous design. Natural materials like rattan and acacia wood have a timeless look, but it's also a popular choice for current interior decor trends this season.
• It comes with cushions: Many times more affordable patio furniture sets will come without cushions, but you don't have to buy them separately with this deal.
• It allows for multiple configurations: If you have a small balcony or porch, this patio furniture can be arranged multiple ways to best fit your setup.

Cons:

• Assembly is required: If you're not handy, you'll want to ask someone for help with the assembly process.
• It only comes in one color: We love the beige seats and light-hued rattan, but it's also the only color available, limiting your options.

Shop more patio furniture deals

• Alpha Joy 3-Piece Wicker Patio Set, $300 (was $460) at Walmart
• Lausaint Home 3-Piece Patio Outdoor Conversation Set, $185 (was $330) at Walmart
• Lazzo 3-Piece Patio Outdoor Conversation Set, $166 (was $200) at Walmart

Upgrade your outdoor space with the MF Studio 3-Piece Rattan Patio Conversation Set while it's on sale for $255 at Walmart. This limited-time deal won't last long, and it's going fast, so we suggest adding it to your cart ASAP.

The string of recent travel company bankruptcies includes British firms Great Little Escapes, Salamander Voyages, and Jetline; French cruise operator Expedis Exploration; Boston-based GoPlay Sports Tours; and Australian tour-booking giant AVG Travels.

While not selling any trips or tours, travel consulting firm Govassist LLC just became the latest to file for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Puerto Rico on July 22.

Travel company Govassist files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Puerto Rico

The company was founded out of Guaynabo in northern Puerto Rico in 2010 and provided consulting and assistance to travelers needing non-immigrant tourist visas to the U.S.

The report from Bondoro shows that the company reported $1.1 million in assets and $15.9 million in liabilities, but had no ability to cover these debts to its creditors.

Juan C. Bigas of Juan C. Bigas Law is representing the company in the bankruptcy proceedings.

Related: Another airline will be dissolved, all flights canceled

On its website, Govassist positions itself as a "personal visa consultant" offering assistance with the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), required of travelers from countries with visa-free entry to the U.S., and full visa applications for citizens of countries without it.

Particularly for the ESTA, any "consulting" help that a private company can provide would be very limited in scope, given that travelers can simply go to the CBP website or mobile platform and enter their personal details and passport information, paying $40.27 USD for a two-year period if the electronic authorization is approved. (If it is not, the money is refunded, minus a $10.27 processing fee.)

Govassist sold these kinds of visa consultation services

Govassist charges $129, comprehensive of the application fee, to assist travelers with ESTA, stating that it powers part of this process through AI.

The company could not be immediately reached for comment on the bankruptcy filing, so it is also not immediately clear whether it will restructure or close down.

More Travel News:

• Airline to launch unusual new flight to Cayman Islands from the U.S.
• There is a very cool Irish version of swimming pigs in the Bahamas
• Unexpected country is most luxurious travel destination for 2026
• Low-cost airline launches easier way to get to Sri Lanka

Some recent travel agency bankruptcies in 2026:

• AVG Travels: The Melbourne-based travel agency selling cheap vacation packages to travelers in Australia and New Zealand sent more than 200 travelers an email saying that the trips were canceled before entering bankruptcy in May 2026.
• GoPlay Sports: In April 2026, the men’s basketball team of the University of Dallas was left without a planned trip to compete in the United Kingdom after Boston-based GoPlay Sports Tours LLC accepted two payments of $30,000 and then went unreachable.
• Havantur: Havantur was forced to shut down its main European office in Franceat the start of 2026 after tourist numbers to the Caribbean country plummeted due to U.S. military actions in Venezuela and threats against the country.
• Vegas Vacations and North America Destinations: Two travel agencies in the Canadian province of British Columbia, Vegas Vacations and North America Destinations, were shut down by regulators within a few days of each other in January 2026 after multiple travelers complained of buying trips with invalid plane tickets and hotel bookings.

Related: Another airline cancels 3 flights to U.S., offers refunds

Danielle Retski, an ETF capital market specialist at Northern Trust, described that demand as a search for “goal-driven solutions.” In the first half of the year, fixed-income ETFs took in 29% of all ETF flows despite representing 16% of ETF assets under management, she said. The mismatch suggests that investors are seeking a more deliberate role for bonds alongside risk-taking elsewhere in their portfolios.

A distributing bond ladder is built around that scheduling problem. The underlying bonds mature in staggered calendar years, or rungs, and Northern Trust’s ladder ETFs return monthly interest while distributing principal when bonds mature rather than automatically reinvesting it. The design is notably different from a perpetual bond fund, where proceeds are generally rolled forward into new holdings.

The Spending Date Is Becoming Part of the Investment Choice

The practical attraction is not limited to retirees. Retski cited college tuition, philanthropy, home improvement, travel and private-school payment plans as situations in which investors may want predictable outlays. In each case, the issue is not merely generating portfolio income; it is avoiding the need to decide, year after year, which investment to sell when an expected expense arrives.

Any time that you would want consistent cash flows, our ladder ETFs take that federally tax-exempt income and put it in a way where in practice, investors are getting monthly interest income and also annual principal return to them so they can manage their spending needs with their income.

That framing makes bond ladders a household-planning tool as much as an interest-rate instrument. For a retiree delaying full Social Security benefits, Retski offered a five-year ladder as an example of a bridge for expected cash-flow needs. For a family setting aside money for education or a renovation, the same structure can tie a future payment to a maturing rung rather than to an uncertain sale of a longer-lived fund.

Returning Principal Solves One Problem but Narrows the Use Case

The annual return of principal is also the feature that makes a ladder unsuitable as a catchall bond allocation. Retski said the products are designed for investors using goal-based investing, cash-flow management or budgeting tools. Someone whose primary objective is ongoing exposure to bonds, rather than a defined stream of future cash, is confronting a different portfolio question.

The trade-off is especially relevant when rate expectations are changing. Retski said holding bonds to maturity and returning principal each year can minimize interest-rate risk and give investors duration control. But that benefit follows from a time-defined structure: cash is being paid out rather than simply remaining invested in a perpetual strategy.

Tax and Inflation Concerns Are Being Folded Into the Same Plan

The product menu also shows how investors are trying to address several planning concerns in one decision. Northern Trust offers municipal bond ladder ETFs, MUNA–MUND, intended to provide federally tax-exempt income, and TIPA–TIPD TIPS Ladder ETFs, which use Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. Retski said municipal bonds can be useful where tax-exempt cash flow is a priority, while TIPS are meant to help with inflation that exceeds what markets have embedded in the breakeven rate.

TIPS illustrate why a spending plan still needs an inflation lens. Their principal rises with inflation and falls with deflation, Retski said, whereas a nominal Treasury’s yield includes a fixed market expectation for inflation. She pointed to shocks such as the war in Iran and a global pandemic as examples of events that can produce short-term inflation pressure not fully reflected in that expectation.

The growing use of fixed-income ETFs, then, is not simply a referendum on yields or the Federal Reserve. It reflects a preference for making portfolio cash flows legible against real household obligations. A bond ladder cannot remove the need to decide whether a particular fund, tax feature or maturity schedule fits an investor’s circumstances. Its narrower promise is more concrete: for money earmarked for a known purpose, the timing of income and principal can be designed to matter as much as the return.

Millennials got theirs somewhere between the 2008 layoffs and the third round of student loan paperwork.

You graduated into a broken labor market. You rented for years longer than your parents did. You watched housing costs detach from wages and stay detached.

That script hardened into something closer to a diagnosis, and it followed the generation into its 40s. It also shapes how you read your own account statement.

So the annual benchmark reports land in a predictable way. You open one, hunt for the average balance for your age group, find yourself somewhere underneath it, and close the tab feeling the same as you did before, only with better documentation.

That reflex is worth interrupting this particular year, and the reason sits in an annual report that most people never read past the first page.

The 25th edition of How America Saves, the retirement study Vanguard has published since 2001, landed in June, carrying age-bracket detail that cuts hard against the script in a way the summary coverage skipped past almost entirely.

Why the average 401(k) balance keeps making you feel behind

The number that travels is the average, and the average is close to useless for this particular job.

Average participant balance hit $167,970 at the end of 2025, while the median, the midpoint where half of savers sit above and half below, was $44,115, according to Vanguard.

More Personal Finance:

• Fidelity discloses wealth move that triggers hidden IRS tax
• Market pivot point is here - how Investors should get ready
• Dave Ramsey shares strong warning on 401(k)s, IRAs

That spread is not a rounding error. It is the whole reason benchmark stories make people feel worse than the underlying data warrant.

Average balances are "more representative of the results experienced by longer-tenured, more affluent, or older participants," the firm wrote. Vanguard puts its own average at roughly the 75th percentile, meaning three out of four participants hold less than that figure.

One in four participants had less than $10,000 saved, while 35% held more than $100,000, and 18% held at least $250,000.

None of it is wrong. It is just the wrong comparison for anyone trying to judge their own account.

What Vanguard's new Millennial 401(k) numbers actually show

Millennials now span the 25-to-34 and 35-to-44 brackets, and both of them moved hard last year.

The younger bracket's median balance reached $18,732, up from $16,255 a year earlier. The older bracket's median hit $46,919, up from $39,958. Both gains outran the 16% move in the all-participant median, Vanguard reported.

Markets did most of that work rather than virtue. The average one-year participant return was 19.3% in 2025.

Related: Vanguard warns of Social Security traps costing retirees

Two behavioral readings matter more for what happens next. Participants under age 45 held roughly 90% of plan assets in equities at the median, the heaviest allocation of any age group. And when the first quarter of 2026 turned choppy, only 5% of Millennials touched their allocation while 18.4% raised their savings rate, "in large part due to auto increases," according to Fidelity.

Positioned correctly and not trading. That pairing is rarer than it sounds.

The tax positioning tracks, too. Roth adoption ran at 20% for the 25-to-34 group and 19% for the 35-to-44 group, the two highest rates of any age band, Vanguard found.

Paying tax now on a balance with three decades of compounding ahead of it is the right trade when you are early.

The generation is not maxing out, to be clear. Only 10% of the younger bracket and 15% of the older one hit the statutory limit last year.

Here is the Millennial ledger in one place:

• Median balance for ages 25 to 34 reached $18,732, up from $16,255, based on Vanguard's 2026 and 2025 editions.
• Median balance for ages 35 to 44 reached $46,919, up from $39,958, according to the same two reports.
• The average one-year participant return came in at 19.3% for 2025, Vanguard noted.
• The total 401(k) savings rate hit a record 14.4% in the first quarter of 2026, according to Fidelity.
• The employee deferral ceiling "increased to $24,500, up from $23,500 for 2025," the IRS confirmed. 

Running the millionaire math on a median Millennial saver

I ran the projections myself rather than trusting the round numbers that circulate every summer.

Start with a 30-year-old sitting exactly at the median, $18,732, contributing at the 11.3% combined employee and employer rate Vanguard reports for that bracket, applied to the $90,000 median participant income.

Thirty-five years at a 7% annual return produces about $1.6 million. Drop the assumption to a grim 6%, and it still clears $1.27 million.

The 40-year-old is the harder case. Starting at $46,919 with an 11.8% combined rate, 25 years at 7% lands near $926,000.

Short of the milestone, and that is exactly where the pessimistic version of this story usually stops.

What my analysis turned up is the size of the shortfall. Closing it takes a 13.1% total contribution rate instead of 11.8%. On a $90,000 income, the difference is $97 a month.

Vanguard already recommends a 12% to 15% total contribution rate. The median 40-year-old saver is not short by a lifestyle or a windfall. They are short by 1.3 percentage points, sitting inside a band the firm publishes every single year.

I checked the top of that band, too. At 15%, the same 40-year-old lands near $1.11 million. Push to this year's $24,500 ceiling, and it is roughly $1.8 million.

The distance between the median outcome and the good one is measured in single-digit percentage points of pay.

What a seven-figure 401(k) balance will actually buy in 2051

Now for the part that gets left out of the cheerful version.

Compounding runs both directions. At 2.5% annual inflation, a million dollars in 2051 buys roughly $539,000 in today's money. The 30-year-old's $1.6 million in 2061 works out to about $677,000.

The milestone, in other words, is the wrong finish line. Millionaire is a headline. Your replacement income is the actual question.

The more durable read on this year's data is that the system is carrying weight the individual saver used to carry alone, through automatic enrollment, automatic escalation and target-date defaults. That machinery does not care how the generation feels about its own script.

It also has a leak. Hardship withdrawals reached 6% of participants in 2025, triple the 2021 rate, at a median of $1,900.

A $1,900 withdrawal is not a retirement problem. It is an emergency fund problem showing up in the wrong account, and it is the most fixable item here.

Expect next year's snapshot to look worse on balances alone. Total 401(k) assets slipped to $9.9 trillion by March 31 from $10.1 trillion at year-end 2025, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Watch the deferral rate instead of the balance. One is weather. The other is the only variable on the page you actually control, and the 2026 numbers say Millennials are already moving it.

Related: Vanguard sounds alarm on growing housing market problem

The stock that once traded like it was unstoppable is now down more than 40% over the past year, and it sank again after the company's latest earnings report.

However, Jim Cramer is stepping in to defend it.

On the July 20 episode of CNBC's Mad Money, Cramer told viewers that Netflix has fallen far enough and deserves a fresh look.

His message was blunt: "This is not a broken company."

That single line captures the tension surrounding NFLX right now, as the business keeps growing and the stock continues sliding.

Why Jim Cramer is defending Netflix stock

Cramer's case starts with Netflix's valuation.

After its long retreat into the high-$60s, Netflix trades at roughly 19 times forward earnings estimates, its cheapest level since 2022, 24/7 Wall St reported.

For a company still posting double-digit revenue growth, that is a valuation normally reserved for slower, more mature businesses.

More Netflix Coverage:

• BofA trims Netflix stock target while betting on a rebound
• Netflix just made its slowdown harder to measure
• Netflix chases Letterboxd in a telling move for NFLX stock

Cramer's point is that the market has punished the stock far harder than the underlying numbers justify.

He conceded that the recent quarter was a disappointment with weakening content, but he pushed back hard on the idea that Netflix has lost its footing as a business.

What actually spooked investors after Netflix's earnings

To understand Cramer's call, you have to understand why the stock fell in the first place.

Netflix's second-quarter report on July 16 delivered earnings of $0.80 per share on revenue of $12.56 billion. That's up 13.37% from last year, according to the company's SEC release. 

Growth was spread across every region. The problem was the outlook, not the quarter itself, and Cramer laid out the bear case that has weighed on sentiment:

The concerns dragging NFLX lower

• Slower guidance. Netflix trimmed its full-year revenue growth outlook, a signal that reaccelerating sales growth is getting harder.
• A softer content slate. The recent pipeline has not been strong enough to keep viewers from canceling.
• Less disclosure. Netflix moved its "What We Watched" viewership data to an annual release, on top of already dropping quarterly subscriber counts. That reduced visibility unsettled Wall Street.
• A missed deal. Cramer argued Netflix passed on a chance to lock down Warner Bros. content before walking away from talks.

The disclosure change stung the most. When a company gives investors less data to measure, uncertainty rises, and uncertain investors sell first and ask questions later.

Netflix shares slid more than 10% on July 17 before closing near $68.95, erasing roughly $35 billion in market value at one point.

The bull case Cramer says the market is ignoring

Cramer argues that the same report that scared investors also shows a company using its cash aggressively and expanding into higher-margin businesses.

Netflix repurchased $4.7 billion of stock during the second quarter, its largest quarterly buyback ever, with about $27 billion still authorized.

Related: Netflix's Roku loss points to bigger streaming risk

Buying back stock during a sell-off lowers the share count and lifts per-share earnings over time. It also signals that management believes the stock is cheap. 

As Cramer put it, there is a reason these executives are buying at the fastest pace in the company's history.

Where Netflix still has room to grow

Cramer pointed to three aspects that remain intact:

• Advertising. Netflix expects ad revenue to roughly double to $3 billion this year. The company's management says the gap between its ad tier and ad-free plans is narrowing.
• Scale. The company captures only about 5% of global television viewing time, leaving a long runway across live programming, gaming, and sports.
• Reach. Netflix is approaching an audience of nearly 1 billion people, with household penetration still under 45% of its addressable market.

Bank of America made a similar argument. Analyst Jessica Reif Ehrlich kept her Buy rating even while trimming her target, saying the stock fell faster than the business behind it.

How Netflix stock stacks up against the market

The disconnect becomes clearer when you compare NFLX to the broader market over the same period.

While the S&P 500 has held up through 2026, Netflix has moved the other way sharply:

Netflix vs. the market in 2026

• Past week: NFLX down about 8%
• Past month: NFLX down roughly 13%
• Year over year: NFLX down about 40%, versus the S&P 500's 16.58% gain.

That gap is the main point of Cramer's thesis. A stock can fall for valid reasons and still become heavily oversold, and he believes Netflix has done exactly that.

What Cramer says investors should do next

Cramer's advice comes with a clear warning.

He does not expect a fast rebound and cautioned that the weakness "could stick with us for a while." So his strategy is deliberately cautious.

Rather than buying a full position at once, he recommends starting small and adding gradually on further price dips. 

That approach lowers your average cost of entry if the stock keeps falling.

For the bull case to pay off, a few things still need to happen:

What has to go right for NFLX

• Netflix has to actually double its ad revenue toward the $3 billion target.
• Engagement growth needs to stabilize after the recent slide.
• The company must hit its third-quarter guidance to rebuild trust.

None of that is guaranteed. If ad growth stalls or content doesn't improve, a cheap stock can stay cheap for a long time.

The practical takeaway is to separate the two stories. 

Netflix as a business is still profitable, growing, and buying back stock. Netflix stock, on the other hand, is caught in a confidence problem that may take several quarters to resolve.

Cramer's bet is that patient investors who slowly buy the dip will be rewarded when confidence returns, and it depends on whether Netflix can prove its growth engine still has room to run.

Related: Netflix stock shows recovery signs after bombshell takeover report

Revenue exceeded expectations. Profits outpaced sales growth. Investment banking bounced back, wealth management revenue hit a record, and the firm bought back $177 million of its own stock.

But Stifel CEO Ron Kruszewski gave investors a more meaningful takeaway.

The company previously said it would have to hire fewer staff due to its artificial intelligence adoption. But Stifel is finding that the technology is helping advisers, bankers, and analysts discover more opportunities, making talented professionals more valuable rather than replacing them.

That’s important because wealth-management stocks have occasionally fallen on expectations that AI may automate financial advice and squeeze fees.

Stifel’s results suggest a different outcome: AI may wipe out regular jobs but make trusted advisors more productive.

Shares jumped 2.2% to $79.31 on July 22 following the release.

Stifel’s earnings beat came from more than one business

Stifel's net revenue came in at $1.45 billion in the second quarter, up 13% year over year and about $20 million above consensus estimates.

Adjusted earnings jumped 25% to $1.42 a share, above the $1.33 projection, Investing.com reported. GAAP net income available to common shareholders climbed 49% to $217.2 million, while diluted EPS rose to $1.34.

Related: Stifel resets AMD price target for rest of 2026

That makes a difference.

The adjusted number excludes merger-related and other specific costs, while the GAAP number is the company’s reported bottom line, according to Business Insider. Both metrics demonstrated meaningful profit growth, driven by higher revenues and lower expense ratios.

Global Wealth Management posted record net revenue of $956.5 million, up 13%, Business Insider noted. Client assets were $580.1 billion, and fee-based assets climbed to $239.8 billion, up 16%.

Those data don't show advisers have unlimited pricing power. But they do reflect clients still trusting human advisers with sizable investments as automated investing and generative AI get more sophisticated.

“AI is making information more abundant. That only increases the value of judgment, trust, and relationships,” Kruszewski said during the earnings call.

Investment banking drove Stifel’s immediate earnings upside

The AI story provides the intrigue, but investment banking drove much of the financial acceleration in the quarter.

Revenue from Stifel’s Institutional Group rose 15% to $480.7 million. Investment-banking revenue increased 42%, with advisory revenue up 24% and equity capital raising up 121%.

Pipelines for investment banking remain healthy across health care, industrials, technology, energy, and financial services, management said.

That diversification is important, since Stifel's advisory business is sometimes viewed too narrowly as a gamble on bank mergers. Management said bank deal activity remains weak, while other industry groups are gaining better momentum.

More Wall Street:

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• Wall Street’s $200 billion IPO wave threatens sell-off
• Wall Street flees software plays for triple-digit chipmaker boom

Higher revenue also resulted in operating leverage.

Stifel’s adjusted pretax margin increased to 21.7% from 20.3%, and its adjusted compensation ratio dropped to 57% from 58%. The annualized return on tangible common equity was 23.6%.

There, the thesis of AI has to come out eventually.

The technology story only matters from a financial perspective if advisers get more clients, bankers consider more opportunities, and compliance teams work harder without costs scaling at the same rate.

Stifel’s buyback reveals management’s capital-allocation preference

In the quarter, Stifel repurchased 2.4 million shares for $177 million at an average price of $73.20. The corporation still has the authority to purchase an additional 7.8 million shares.

Kruszewski said similar financial services and advisory firms typically trade at 15 to 18 times adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, compared with Stifel, which trades at about eight times that measure.

That comparison is a management assessment, not an independent market consensus.

It does explain the corporation's choice, after all.

If management believes the market is undervaluing the business, it can buy back stock, borrow more, invest in its advisors and technology, or make acquisitions at higher valuations.

At quarter end, the company had $480 million of expected excess capital, based on a 10% Tier 1 leverage target, after supporting $2.6 billion of loan growth and the buyback.

Key takeaways for Stifel investors

• Revenue and adjusted earnings topped estimates on Wall Street.
• Wealth management revenue and client assets were at all-time highs.
• Investment banking fees increased 42 percent.
• Stifel views AI as an aid to productivity, not as a replacement for advisers.
• Lower expense ratios mean better operating leverage.
• Buybacks were preferred by management at high acquisition values.

Stifel’s quarter doesn’t end the AI and financial advice debate. It does change the standard of proof, however.

Automation can build portfolios, compile market summaries, and process huge amounts of financial data. But wealthy clients often pay advisers for their judgment, accountability, and decision-making guidance during stressful times.

Stifel believes that relationship will be enhanced with AI taking on lower-value tasks.

The corporation needs to translate those productivity benefits into adviser production, margins, and organic asset growth. If the stock’s reaction is to hold water, then you need enough earnings momentum, which means investment banking has to hold up.

For now, Stifel’s findings reveal a blind spot on Wall Street.

Artificial intelligence need not replace costly professionals to revolutionize financial services. It can provide plenty of value simply by making it harder for the best ones to compete with.

Related: 6 Signs You've Outgrown Your Financial Advisor

Ford announced it had partnered with Apple to embed Apple Maps directly into its next generation of electric vehicles. Ford is the first automaker in the world to use Apple's brand new MapKit for Automotive software development kit, and the partnership goes well beyond putting a navigation app on a dashboard screen.

What the Ford Apple deal actually means and why it's bigger than it sounds

Apple Maps has been available in Ford vehicles through CarPlay for years. This is different. MapKit for Automotive lets Ford build Apple Maps natively into the vehicle itself, separate from CarPlay and separate from any iPhone. The maps are there whether or not a phone is connected. They're baked into the vehicle's operating system, the New York Times reported.

"Apple Maps delivers the best map experience in the world, and we're excited to bring the power of Maps' navigation technology to Ford's innovative Universal Electric Vehicle Platform," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Services and Health.

Related: Ford's SUV profits are fueling its future

Ford CEO Jim Farley was equally direct. The first vehicle on the new platform is a midsize electric truck priced around $30,000, launching in 2027. After the truck comes a sedan, a crossover, a three-row SUV, and small commercial vans, all on the same platform, all with Apple Maps built in.

What drivers actually get is turn-by-turn directions with natural language, real-time traffic, and EV routing that knows where chargers are. It also does battery preconditioning, warming or cooling the battery before you pull into a charger so it's ready to accept a fast charge the moment you arrive. And it can do things like open the garage door and turn on the lights when you get home, because the vehicle knows where you are and what you usually do when you get there.

How Ford is using Apple Maps to go after Tesla's Full Self-Driving

Navigation is only part of the story. Ford is feeding road-level data from Apple Maps into its next-generation BlueCruise hands-free highway driving system, which already runs on more than a million Ford vehicles today.

The upgraded BlueCruise arriving in 2027 will handle a complete highway journey including entrance and exit ramps. After that, Ford has said the system will progress to what it calls "point-to-point autonomy," explicitly comparing it to Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software. The final milestone is eyes-off Level 3 driving, targeted for 2028, according to TechCrunch.

More Automotive:

• Uber changes key rule for drivers amid rider safety lawsuits
• Volkswagen may cut 100,000 jobs in brutal reset
• Honda CEO withstands investor backlash after $9B EV misstep

That's a direct roadmap comparison to Tesla. Ford's autonomous system will run on Apple Maps data. Tesla runs on its own proprietary mapping and camera stack. Whether the Apple partnership gives Ford a genuine technical edge is still an open question, but it's a credible answer to the software gap that has kept buyers in Tesla's ecosystem even when competing hardware has been comparable.

Why Tesla's software advantage is the real target of this Ford deal

Tesla has spent years building an EV experience that other automakers couldn't match on software. Full Self-Driving, Autopilot, over-the-air updates, seamless Supercharger routing. That ecosystem is sticky. Owners who go deep into it tend to stay. Ford has been trying to close that gap for years, and the Apple deal is the most significant move it's made toward that goal.

Tesla's own competitive position has been under more pressure in 2026 than at any point in recent years. Pricing competition has intensified, EV demand growth has slowed, and the stock has underperformed through much of the year, as TheStreet reported. Tesla's bull case increasingly rests on Robotaxi and Optimus rather than core EV sales. The core EV business is the one Ford is targeting.

A Ford EV running Apple Maps natively, with intelligent EV routing, battery preconditioning, and a BlueCruise system targeting Tesla FSD-level capability by 2027, is a meaningfully different product than what Ford was selling two years ago. The $30,000 price point puts it within reach of buyers who can't stretch to a higher-trim Tesla Model 3 or Model Y.

The Ford Universal EV Platform and what it means for the broader EV race

The Apple integration is built on Ford's Universal Electric Vehicle Platform, or UEV, which the company designed from scratch by abandoning its traditional manufacturing approach. The UEV uses single-piece aluminum unicastings to reduce parts and speed assembly. It runs a zonal electrical architecture that makes software updates easier to deploy across the fleet.

The $30,000 midsize truck is the first vehicle on the platform. Ford's strategy with the UEV is specifically about affordability. CEO Farley has been explicit that Ford is looking at BYD's approach to cost-competitive EVs rather than trying to compete with Tesla on premium positioning, as TheStreet reported.

The Latitude AI team, a group of 600 machine learning, robotics, and software specialists working inside Ford, is developing the autonomous driving stack. Apple Maps is the data foundation they're building on.

What Apple gets from the deal and where MapKit goes next

Ford is Apple's first partner on MapKit for Automotive, but the press release hinted at more automakers to come. For Apple, this is the automotive strategy that replaced Project Titan. Rather than building its own car, Apple is embedding itself in cars that everyone else builds. Getting its mapping engine into the navigation and autonomous driving stack of the world's leading automakers is a more scalable version of that original ambition.

The Apple-Ford Maps relationship goes back to March 2022, when Apple Maps EV routing first arrived on the Mustang Mach-E and later expanded to the F-150 Lightning. The UEV integration is that relationship taken to a completely different level. Apple Maps isn't the navigation option anymore. It's the foundation.

Tesla's response to competitive pressure usually involves a software update or a price cut. Both have happened in 2026. But Ford isn't trying to beat Tesla on every dimension. It's trying to be close enough on software and better on price. The Apple deal is the most credible argument it has made yet that it can pull that off.

Related: Tesla rival forced to make big changes amid EV shift

That's exactly what she's doing with Tempus AI (TEM) after the healthcare technology stock tumbled 14% over the past week.

In 2025, the flagship Ark Innovation ETF gained 35.49%, far outpacing the S&P 500’s return of 17.88% in the same period. But so far this year, Wood’s flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) is down 4.87% as of July 23, while the S&P 500 surged 8.26%, Yahoo Finance data shows.

Wood gained a reputation after the Ark Innovation ETF delivered a 153% return in 2020. But her style also brings painful losses in bearish markets, as seen in 2022, when the Ark Innovation ETF tumbled more than 60%.

Those swings have weighed on Wood’s long-term gains. As of July 22, her Ark Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of -8.83%, while the S&P 500 has an annualized return of 11.42% over the same period, according to data from Morningstar.

Cathie Wood flags “the deflationary impact” of tech innovation

Wood focuses on high-tech companies across artificial intelligence, blockchain, biomedical technology, and robotics. She thinks these businesses have strong growth potential, though their volatility often causes fluctuations in the Ark’s funds.

From 2014 to 2024, the Ark Innovation ETF wiped out $7 billion in investor wealth, according to a March 2025 analysis by Morningstar’s analyst Amy Arnott. That made it the third-biggest wealth destroyer among mutual funds and ETFs in Arnott’s ranking. The analyst hasn’t updated her ranking.

Wood believes investors have been focusing on the wrong signals as they assess the outlook for inflation, interest rates, and stocks.

In a June post on X, Wood said the bond market is increasingly reflecting the deflationary impact of technological innovation, particularly artificial intelligence, rather than the inflation risks many investors still fear.

Wood pointed to the continued flattening of the Treasury yield curve despite a sharp rise in oil prices over the past year. In previous cycles, she noted, an energy shock of that magnitude would have pushed long-term yields higher. 

Related: Cathie Wood buys $22.8 million of surging tech stock

Wood believes the bond market is "discounting something much more powerful: the deflationary impact of technological innovation, particularly artificial intelligence, which is beginning to increase productivity across broad swaths of the economy.
"

She also said easing tensions with Iran and a decline in oil prices could push inflation even lower.

"The next phase of this cycle could be characterized by accelerating growth, declining inflation, falling interest rates, and a strengthening U.S. dollar," Wood said. "That combination would create a remarkably supportive backdrop for innovation-led equities and the technologies driving the next productivity boom."

But not all investors agree with Wood’s optimism. Over the past 12 months through July 17, the Ark Innovation ETF saw roughly $1.42 billion in net outflows, according to data from ETF research firm VettaFi. 

Cathie Wood buys $8.7 million of Tempus AI stock

On July 20, Wood’s Ark funds bought 188,785 shares of Tempus AI, Inc. (TEM), according to Ark’s daily trade information. Based on the latest trading price of $45.95, the shares are valued at about $8.7 million.

Tempus AI is a healthcare tech company that provides AI-driven diagnostic tools that help doctors make treatment decisions. It also sells the data generated from its tests to pharmaceutical companies for drug development.

Tempus AI was once a Wall Street darling, drawing attention from high-profile investors including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After soaring to a record high of $104.32 in October 2025, the stock has since tumbled nearly 56% from that level.

Related: Cathie Wood sells $11.7 million of tumbling semiconductor stock

Over the past five trading days, shares of Tempus AI are down roughly 14% , bringing its year-to-date loss to 22%, according to Yahoo Finance data.

This week’s drop occurred after Tempus AI announced acquisition of Personalis for $1.5 billion, a deal that sent both stocks sinking.

The healthcare technology company said Monday it will acquire all outstanding Personalis shares for $16.25 per share, a 5.6% premium to Friday's closing price. The deal will be paid primarily in Tempus stock, although up to 50% of the consideration could be paid in cash.

Tempus AI already owns about 20% of Personalis after investing in the company in 2023. 

The deal will expand Tempus AI's capabilities in minimal residual disease (MRD) testing, which helps detect lingering cancer after treatment.

"MRD is a large and rapidly growing market with the potential to truly transform how cancer patients are monitored, helping clinicians make faster and more informed decisions when cancer recurs,” Tempus AI’s chief executive Eric Lefkofsky said in a statement. “We have already demonstrated the strength of combining highly sensitive MRD technology with our commercial infrastructure."

The stock decline after the news was mostly due to the acquisition’s stock-based structure, some analysts said, as Barron's reported. Needham has downgraded Personalis to Hold from Buy following the acquisition announcement.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley said the acquisition "makes sense," despite the current financials being "somewhat harder to digest," according to The Fly. 

Morgan Stanley said the acquisition strengthens Tempus AI's position in precision oncology by adding Personalis' NeXT Personal MRD test to its portfolio. The firm also expects a smooth integration, noting the companies have worked together for years and about 80% of Personalis' clinical testing volume already comes through Tempus AI's sales channels.

Tempus AI went public in June 2024, and Wood had actively bought its stock since the IPO.

On May 5, Tempus AI reported first-quarter results that topped Wall Street expectations and slightly raised its full-year revenue outlook.

The company posted adjusted earnings of 13 cents per share, better than analysts’ expectations for a 20-cent loss, while revenue rose to $348.1 million from estimates of $345.4 million. Tempus also raised its fiscal 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $1.59 billion to $1.6 billion and maintained its adjusted EBITDA forecast of about $65 million.

Tempus AI is to report its second-quarter earnings on July 30.

Wood has been bullish on the healthcare sector, saying it is "the most profound application of AI" in a March interview with Bloomberg.

"It includes the convergence of sequencing technologies, AI, and gene editing... We have 35 to 40 trillion cells in our body generating data, and AI is a data project," she said.

Tempus AI is now the second largest holding in the Ark Innovation ETF.

Top 10 Holdings in the Ark Innovation ETF by Portfolio Weight as of July 23, 2026:

• Tesla (TSLA) – 10.03%
• Tempus AI (TEM) – 4.89%
• CRISPR Therapeutics (CRSP) – 4.47%
• Coinbase (COIN) – 4.43%
• SpaceX (SPCX) – 4.41%
• Robinhood (HOOD) – 4.36%
• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) – 4.32%
• Shopify (SHOP) – 4.32%
• Circle Internet Group (CRCL) – 3.67%
• 10x Genomics (TXG) – 3.35%

Other than selling Tempus AI shares, Wood's latest trades included buying Meta Platforms (meta), SpaceX (SPCX), Archer Aviation (ACHR), Pony AI (PONY), and WeRide (WRD). She also trimmed positions in Robinhood Markets (HOOD), Brera Holdings (SLMT), Strata Critical Medical (SRTA), and Iridium Communications (IRDM).

Related: Popular breakfast chain sold, 16 locations shut down

Why this would make a great outdoor addition

Summer is the time to spend your evenings outside. Enjoying time with friends, relaxing during a backyard barbecue, or just enjoying some peaceful moments after work — any time spent in the backyard is made better when you have comfortable accommodations. Whether you're with friends or relaxing by yourself, rocking chairs offer a comfortable alternative to the typical outdoor patio chair, especially when they have cushions. The only thing that could make it even better is finding a rocking loveseat that allows you to stretch out and change positions, making it easy to spend hours enjoying your patio or balcony. 

Originally $400, the Ainfox Outdoor Rocking Chair Loveseat is on sale and offers relaxation anywhere in your backyard for just $130. The rocking movement helps relieve stress and offers a change from the traditional chair, while also providing room for you and a loved one to relax together. Shoppers can save 68% at Walmart on one of its bestselling items. 

Ainfox Outdoor Rocking Chair Loveseat, $130 (was $400) at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

This chair is made for low-maintenance living. With durable, quality cushions that withstand the rain, it can put your mind at ease during the pop-up afternoon summer rainstorms. The cushions also feature a removable cover for easy cleaning, and double-stitched fabric that offers long-lasting use. The back cushions measure six inches thick, and the seat cushions measure three inches thick of high-density sponge. The polyurethane wicker design can fend off sun, rain, and harsh weather, allowing you to spend more time relaxing and less time worrying. The wicker rattan is hand-woven around a powder-coated steel frame that offers up to a 360-pound weight capacity, while also resisting rust and everyday wear. 

Related: Amazon is selling a $700 UV-resistant 7-piece patio set for 54% off

Offering three color choices — beige, brown, or gray — this loveseat matches a variety of outdoor decor. The wicker adds a sophisticated touch, and the cushions offer a soft look and comfort. The anti-slip strip on the bottom ensures safety, while the armrests make a good spot to prop yourself up or set a pillow to lie down and relax. The loveseat measures 48 inches wide, 32 inches tall, and 28 inches deep, with an 18-inch seat height. 

The pros and cons of this deal

Pros

• Material: The steel frame and wicker design are both weather-resistant, offering an easy option. 
• Cushions: The 6-inch thick back cushion and 3-inch thick high-density sponge are comfortable and easy to remove and wash.

Cons 

• Size: This loveseat can only fit two adults, but it's affordable enough to buy a couple and make your own set.
• No way to attach the cushions: Some reviewers wish the cushions had ties to attach to the bench. 

"I'm amazed at the price, as it is way more budget-friendly," said one shopper. "The sofas are pretty strong and durable, and weatherproof. The cushion cover is beautiful and bright enough to catch the eye. They're easy to assemble and make your place more vibrant."

Another reviewer said, "I like everything about this set. It's attractive with washable cushion covers and a good price. My nephew put the entire set together for me in about 30-35 minutes."

Shop more deals

• Westintrends 9-Foot Umbrella, $50 (was $120) at Walmart
• Brafab Outdoor Hanging Egg Chair, $130 (was $200) at Walmart
• Costway Wicker Loveseat, $130 (was $230) at Walmart

The Ainfox Outdoor Rocking Chair Loveseat offers a place to relax that can easily fit on a smaller balcony or be used alongside other sets. For a $270 savings, it's affordable to grab a couple of these to make your own seating arrangement. Shoppers can get this rocking loveseat for just $130 at Walmart.

Sectional sofas are a popular seating choice for many homes. They provide comfort, room to lounge, and can be strategically placed to create cozy areas in an open space. While their benefits are mainly applied to indoor usage, primarily in a living room, outdoor sectionals can offer the same advantages, but in your own backyard. 

Why an outdoor sectional is a smart outdoor upgrade

Outdoor sectionals are great options for both big and small outdoor spaces. There are more compact outdoor sectionals (that usually come with chaises or a movable ottoman) that are ideal for small patios, and there are also outdoor sectionals with multiple pieces that are fantastic for larger decks and backyards. 

Whichever configuration works best for your space, they instantly create a welcoming environment, much like you'd get in a living room. Rather than a couple of chairs and a table in a corner, a patio sectional has a cozy feel that can make your outdoor space feel more like a true extension of your home. 

Outdoor sectionals also make the most of an outdoor area, maximizing the seating capacity. With more space and seats, they're a smart choice for people who like to entertain outdoors. Many patio sectionals have modular designs, too, which makes them versatile pieces of furniture that you can reconfigure as your needs change. 

Patio sets with outdoor sectional sofas

When we think of patio sets, we usually think of smaller options with two, three, or sometimes four pieces. They often include armchairs, a side table or coffee table, or maybe a small loveseat. But there are also patio sets that come with outdoor sectionals, and there are a lot of advantages to investing in them.

You can easily get a nice patio sectional on its own, but a patio set that comes with an outdoor sectional can be a purchase worth making. As a set, you get multiple pieces that match perfectly, cutting down the time and effort it would take to source outdoor furniture individually. You can also get a great deal on patio sectional sets that can sometimes be even cheaper than buying a patio sectional alone. 

If you're looking for an affordable patio set with a sectional, Walmart, Amazon, and Target are fantastic places to start. We rounded up a few cart-worthy finds, starting at just $150.

Aiho 3-Piece Patio Sectional Set

Yodolla 7-Piece Patio Sectional Set 

Aoxun 5-Piece Patio Sectional Set

Captiva Designs 6-Piece Outdoor Sectional Patio Set

Hera's House 3-Piece Boho Wicker Patio Set

Sophia & William 6-Pieces Patio Sectional Set

Poteban 6-Piece L-Shaped Outdoor Sectional Set

Costway 7-Piece Patio Rattan Sectional Sofa Set

Udpatio 7-Piece Modular Patio Set

Are outdoor sectionals worth it?

Outdoor sectionals (especially when they come in a patio set) can be affordable upgrades to your outdoor area. They create the feeling of a true outdoor living space, providing comfort and space to lounge. They're also great investments for people who like to host during the summer months.

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.

In the span of a few weeks, one of the market's best-performing sectors flipped into a bear market. 

Micron (MU), Samsung, and SK Hynix (SKHY) all fell more than 20% from their late-June highs, and the Roundhill Memory ETF went down with them.

Then Morgan Stanley told clients that the selling had gone too far, and it looks like there is a chance to buy. 

The firm's verdict deserves a closer look before taking your next investment decision.

Why Morgan Stanley calls the memory selloff a buying opportunity

Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore laid out the case in a July 20 note.

He described the recent decline as a "compelling entry point," Investing.com noted. Moore argued that the fundamentals driving memory demand never actually broke.

The selloff came from somewhere else. It was driven by soft demand signals from PCs, smartphones, and other consumer electronics, which spooked investors. 

Moore treats those as false alarms and misleading indicators for the overall sector, which is mainly driven by AI data center demand.

Moore's team checked in with data center buyers the week before the note. They found that shortage intensity shows no signs of slowing.

What the data center shortage means for prices

Memory prices for data centers are set to rise at least 25% from the second quarter to the third quarter.

That is above both Morgan Stanley's own estimates and third-party forecasts, according to Yahoo Finance.

That matters because rising prices in a supposed downturn tell you the shortage is real. When buyers keep paying more, it signals that supply is not catching up.

Related: Wall Street flees software plays for triple-digit chipmaker boom

High-bandwidth memory, or HBM, sits at the center of it. 

HBM is a stacked, ultra-fast memory that works alongside AI processors to move huge amounts of data quickly, which makes it essential hardware for training and running large AI models.

Demand for HBM is the constraint, and Morgan Stanley expects the shortage to deepen, not fade.

How long the memory shortage could last

A short-term price bump is one thing. A multi-year structural gap is another. Morgan Stanley made it clear that it sees the second. 

The firm said concerns about memory shortages intensifying in 2027 and 2028 remain "as strong as ever," according to Investing.com.

Other analysts had the same outlook. 

KeyBanc's John Vinh recently raised his Micron target to $1,750 and estimated shortages lasting through 2027.

More AI Memory Stocks:

• Micron stock jumps as investors look beyond GPUs in AI chip trade
• Nvidia stock remains Morgan Stanley's top pick despite headwind
• Veteran analyst drops massive Micron valuation prediction

The demand backing this up is real. Micron reported $22 billion in memory supply commitments from 16 strategic customers, Reuters reported. 

These commitments come with take-or-pay clauses and pricing floors included.

Customers are locking up supply years in advance. That is what a durable shortage looks like.

What the broader chip cycle signals about demand

The memory cycle is not alone. It aligns with a broader chip market recovery identified in a recent Morgan Stanley distributor survey

Analog, microcontroller, and power components have all moved to shipping above natural demand. 

That is a sign the broader chip cycle is healing even if the pace is slower than past recoveries.

A few signals stood out in the survey:

• Analog sequentialgrowth expectations climbed to 75%, with the cycle indicator up 9.7 percentage points from its June 2024 bottom.
• Power chips are seeing a modest supply buildup, driven by AI and data center server demand.
• Pricing stayed firmacross analog and microcontroller lines, with zero survey respondents reporting weaker pricing.

Firm pricing across the board suggests demand, not just hype, is holding the recovery together.

Where the caution still lives

None of this makes memory stocks a risk-free trade.

Morgan Stanley called memory stocks crowded and warned that sharp pullbacks will keep happening. It treats those dips as tactical entry points rather than reasons to abandon the thesis.

There is also a real ceiling on prices. According to Moomoo, a separate Morgan Stanley team flagged that pricing momentum may be nearing a peak. 

Quarterly memory revenue now tops $200 billion, up from about $46 billion a year earlier. Push prices that far and demand eventually starts to break.

Memory is still a cyclical business, and if supply catches up faster than expected, the same pricing power lifting these stocks now can reverse just as quickly.

Why Texas Instruments shows the other side of the trade

Not every chip name has the same optimism, and Texas Instruments (TXN) makes the difference clear.

According to Yahoo Finance, Morgan Stanley raised near-term growth and price estimates for the analog maker, pointing to strong analog, industrial, and data center trends. 

It lifted its price target to $230 from $221. Yet the firm kept an Underweight rating on the stock.

The reason is a big increase in spending on new plants that Morgan Stanley expects to pressure near-term earnings and free cash flow. 

Strong demand does not automatically mean a strong stock, and TXN is an example.

What this means for investors watching memory stocks

For readers weighing the sector, here are a few key notes.

• The AI data center shortage is the core driver, and Morgan Stanley sees it lasting into 2027 and 2028.
• Firm pricing during a selloff shows that demand is holding even as sentiment swings.
• Volatility is the cost of entry. Expect more sharp drops, and size positions accordingly.
• Not all chip names are equal. Memory and compute leaders like Nvidia and Broadcom carry the strongest cases, while big spenders face a tougher near-term path.

Micron sat around $865 on July 20, well off its June 25 high near $1,213, according to Macrotrends.

The pullback gave patient investors a lower entry into a trade Morgan Stanley still believes in. Whether it pays off depends on one thing: how long AI keeps outrunning the world's memory supply.

Related: Citi sends warning on semiconductor and hyperscaler stocks

The national average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose 0.03% to 6.58% the week of July 23, according to Freddie Mac.

This is the third straight week of increases. The last time the 30-year rate was this high was August 2025, when it held at 6.58% the weeks of Aug. 14 and Aug. 21.

"The tug-of-war between inflation and the renewed conflict between the U.S. and Iran is reflected in today’s rates, as higher oil prices raise concerns that elevated energy costs could filter into future inflation readings," Jeff DerGurahian, chief investment officer and head economist at loanDepot, explained in a statement shared with TheStreet.

This may seem like 100% bad news.

I'm not trying to spout toxic positivity. But in my years covering mortgage rates and the housing market, I've seen how complex it is. High mortgage rates can actually deliver some benefits to homebuyers.

Don't get me wrong, increased mortgage rates can definitely make it harder to buy a house. But if you can still afford a house in general, they can work in your favor as you craft an offer.

Reality check: How a 6.58% mortgage rate affects monthly payments

The national median housing price is a little over $400,000, according to Redfin data. So, let's say you take out a 30-year mortgage loan for $400,000.

I'm using the Bankrate mortgage calculator to compare the monthly payment toward the mortgage principal and interest based on the current 6.58% interest rate versus other recent rates. This way, you can see how the rate increases affect your monthly affordability.

First, let's look at how a 6.43% rate would affect your monthly payment. This was the 30-year mortgage rate the week of July 2, before the run of weekly increases began.

Related: Is the American starter home officially dead?

With a 30-year mortgage of $400,000, a 6.43% rate would result in a monthly payment of $2,510.

Now we'll look at the rate from the week of July 16, which was 6.55%. This leads to a slightly higher monthly payment of $2,541.

And now for the annual high rate of 6.58%. The new monthly mortgage payment would be $2,549.

With a 6.58% rate, you'd only pay $8 more per month than the rate from the previous week. And you'd still pay just $39 more monthly than the rate from a month prior.

Small weekly rate increases aren't necessarily make-or-break situations for whether you can afford monthly payments on a house. The more significant cost difference is what you'll pay in interest over the entire 30 years. But remember — you can always refinance into a lower rate if market rates drop later.

A factor that's just as important (if not more so) than your mortgage rate is the home price.

Higher mortgage rates keep home prices tame

Relatively high mortgage rates are keeping many homebuyers on the sidelines in 2026. Pending home sales hit their three-month low during the four-week period ending July 19, according to a Redfin report.

If you can still afford a home, this is actually good news for you.

More Mortgage Rates:

• Fannie Mae predicts shift in mortgage rates, housing market
• Why mortgage rates are spiking again and what to do
• Real estate giant updates mortgage rate, home price predictions

"The buyers who are in the market have more leverage than they’ve had in years," said Vanessa Leimback, a Redfin Premier agent in Seattle. "Homes that have been sitting on the market for longer than a few weeks often come with room to negotiate on price and seller concessions."

When there is heavy buyer demand, you have to deal with more competition from fellow buyers. This can lead to bidding wars that result in one of you paying above asking price.

But higher mortgage rates have led to less competition. This means you can probably avoid a bidding war. If you negotiate on the price or seller concessions, you'll actually spend less than you would otherwise.

And if their house stays on the market for a long time? They might even cut the price.

Related: Boomers have unfair edge over younger homebuyers

In the southern Maine town of Kittery, the new Foreside Inn boutique hotel will operate under a 24/7 digital concierge service. Guests with a booked reservation open the door to one of the 24 rooms through their access code while workers will be available remotely through text, email, or phone at any hour that the guest contacts them.

The hotel's management is positioning this type of service as creating the ability to "‘provide a stress-free and effortless stay" and offer "a surprising level of luxury at an exceptional value."

Rooms during the summer months start at $260 per night.

Foreside Inn in Maine opens with fully virtual check-in and concierge

Kittery is both the southernmost and oldest town in Maine with a permanent population of just over 11,400 people. It is located across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth in New Hampshire and often serves as a stop for those exploring the New England coast and local food scene.

With traffic numbers to this part of Maine and New Hampshire remaining highly seasonal, the remote concierge service is a natural option for a part of the country that will see significantly more isolated visitors at some points of the year. Cleaning staff also get called on site based on booking patterns to prepare for guests' arrivals and clean the rooms after they check out.

Related: Luxury hotels are increasingly betting big on Rwanda travel

Previously, entirely staff-free models have largely been reserved to airport hotels and certain youth hostels with an entirely digitalized "check-in, check-out model."

In recent years, more and more high-end chains have also been offering digital check-in. The city of Dubai has been working with hospitality technology provider Houdini to eventually roll it out to all of the 820 hotels within the city.

The same company provides the technology for staff-free check-in at Nobu hotels around the world but in each case the goal is to minimize staff rather than eliminate them entirely; employees are on hand to greet guests and help out with any questions that may arise on site.

Staff-free hotels have started popping up in these cities

The fully digital hospitality experience seems to be seeing the most uptake in New England.

In the New Hampshire city of Portsmouth, just a bridge away from the Foreside Inn in Kittery, the historic Treadwell Mansion built in 1818 has also eliminated the traditional front desk for a staff-free experience.

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• There is a very cool Irish version of swimming pigs in the Bahamas
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Guests who booked one of the 38 apartment-style hotel rooms inside the converted mansion open the door through an access code created through a partnership with Mews digital access platform that then blocks the room once the reservation is over should the guest not extend the reservation or check out.

This type of staff-free experience is hugely beneficial to hotel operators as it significantly reduces the number of needed staff while, even in the luxury sphere, guest preferences will vary: Some prefer a faster and sleeker check-in process while others still like the human touch of being welcomed and greeted as special guests.

Related: Disney World shuts down part of legendary resort

As the company grew in popularity and its share price increased, it conducted stock splits to signal its confidence in its continued growth and keep its per-share price low enough to be accessible to individual investors

Here’s a closer look at Netflix's stock splits since it went public in 2002.

Netflix stock split quick facts

• Number of stock splits: 3
• Most recent stock split: November 17, 2025
• First stock split: February 12, 204

When did Netflix conduct its first stock split?

Netflix implemented its first stock split less than two years after it underwent its IPO. Two shares were issued for every one held, as of the record date of February 2, 2004, and the post-split trading date was February 12, 2004.

Related: Intel’s stock split history (& prospects) explained

When was Netflix’s latest stock split? 

Netflix’s latest stock split was on November 17, 2025, affecting stockholders of record on November 10, 2025. Stockholders were given 10 shares for each one owned. 

How many times has Netflix split its stock?

Netflix has conducted a total of three stock splits: February 2004, July 2015, and November 2025. In 2015, it implemented a 7-for-1 stock split. 

Netflix’s stock split history at a glance

Is Netflix going to split its stock again? 

Netflix last held its stock split in 2025. Given the time between stock splits, which averaged about 10 years, it’s not likely — as of mid-2026 — the streaming company will split its shares anytime soon.

More on stock splits:

• Does Sandisk pay dividends? Will it split its stock?
• Has Meta conducted stock split? What sets this ‘Mag 7’ stock apart
• Boeing’s dividend & stock split history explained

What would Netflix’s stock price be in 2026 if it hadn’t conducted any stock splits?

Netflix’s share price, had the stock not been split three times, can be calculated by multiplying the current stock price by the cumulative stock split ratio, in this case, 140: 

Current Netflix stock price x (10 × 7 × 2) = Netflix stock price had the stock never been split

Current Netflix stock price x (140) = Netflix stock price had the stock never been split

Had Netflix not conducted stock splits, the share price would be $9,613.80 as of late July. That’s based on Netflix’s closing price of $68.67 on July 21, 2026.

How has Netflix’s stock performed?

Netflix went public in 2002, with shares priced at $15 during its IPO. Since then, the stock has had a 640-fold gain through mid-July 2026. That compares to an almost sixfold increase for the S&P 500 Index in the same timeframe. In other words, Netflix has outperformed the market massively since its debut in the early oughts.

Still, Netflix’s stock was down 25% year-to-date as of this article's latest update and was down by almost half from its record high set in June 2025, amid concerns about slowing subscriber growth.

Related: AMD’s stock split history (& prospects) explained

Two days earlier, AMD’s Azure deal with Microsoft sent shares up as much as 5%. This time, AMD shares fell 2.5% in premarket trading, according to Seeking Alpha.

The reaction says more than the deal itself. Jefferies analysts had already predicted an Anthropic announcement at AMD’s Advancing AI event this week, according to TipRanks. Investors priced that in before the companies confirmed it.

Anthropic’s deal goes beyond a chip order

Anthropic will deploy up to 2 gigawatts of AMD’s MI450 accelerators starting in the first half of 2027, according to the press release.

That capacity runs through AMD’s Helios racks, which pair MI455X GPUs with EPYC Venice CPUs, Pensando networking, and ROCm software.

Related: AMD just landed its biggest AI deal yet

AMD will also invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic. That detail matters more than the chip order itself.

It turns a customer into a financial stakeholder, tying AMD’s balance sheet to Anthropic’s growth instead of just its purchase orders. This isn't the first time something like this has happened.

AMD is also in discussions to backstop some of Anthropic’s future data center leases, according to Seeking Alpha, which cited a person familiar with the matter. That kind of arrangement lets Anthropic secure computing capacity without carrying the full financial risk on its own books.

We are thrilled to deepen our partnership with Anthropic and deploy AMD Helios at gigawatt scale.

The companies added an engineering partnership on top of that. AMD will use Anthropic’s Claude models to improve its own chip design, CEO Lisa Susaid.

A chipmaker using an AI lab’s own models to build better chips is a feedback loop few competitors can offer.

The market is grading AMD on a tougher curve now

Wall Street had already raised the bar before July 22. Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Rosenblatt lifted their AMD price targets after the Monday, July 20, Microsoft news, with targets running as high as $700, as AMD’s earlier deal showed.

A deal that analysts already expected does less to move a stock than a surprise would.

More AMD news:

• AMD just landed its biggest AI deal yet
• AMD stock gets a new reason to watch from Bank of America
• AMD’s hidden AI weapon may finally be exposed

That is the cost of a winning streak. Every new customer raises the bar for the next one. AMD cleared the Anthropic hurdle on Wednesday, but it had already built that hurdle for itself two days earlier.

That dynamic will only intensify as more hyperscalers weigh similar agreements. Investors who bought AMD ahead of the July 20 rally already captured the upside from expectations. Anyone buying now is betting on execution, not on rumor.

AMD is filling the customer list Nvidia once had alone

Meta, OpenAI, Oracle and Microsoft had already adopted Helios before July 22. Anthropic makes five major AI labs and hyperscalers running AMD’s rack scale system within about a year.

Nvidia still controls more than 95% of data center GPUs, according to CNBC, a dominance built in part on the absence of a credible alternative supplier.

AMD’s Venice server chips have also drawn more early customers than any earlier EPYC generation, according to my earlier reporting. That suggests the diversification away from a single vendor extends beyond GPUs alone.

Anthropic benefits most directly from the July 22 deal. It gains guaranteed capacity and financial backing from the same company supplying its chips.

AMD benefits, too, locking in years of demand that justifies its own spending on manufacturing capacity.

More on AMD stock:

• Does AMD pay dividends? How the chipmaker spends its money
• AMD’s stock split history (& prospects) explained
• AMD’s stock buybacks explained: History, balance & outlook

The bigger shift here is not about one chip deal. It is about how AI companies and their suppliers now share risk.

When a chipmaker invests billions directly into the customer buying its hardware, the relationship stops looking like a vendor contract and starts looking like a joint venture.

That structure may become the norm as AI infrastructure spending climbs into the hundreds of billions.

The question worth watching is not whether AMD keeps signing customers. It is how many of them become financial partners too, and what that means for who controls the next generation of AI hardware.

Related: Bank of America doubles down on Micron stock after AI bombshell

Why we love this deal

Home organization is a national pastime this time of year. When you're trapped inside because the weather is bringing the drama, there's no better way to make use of the time than by getting organized. That task is far easier if you have the right tools for the job, like small organizers or mini dressers. Amazon is selling the latter for a price that we can hardly believe, so we thought it was worth a share. We think you'll love it as much as we do.

The Sagenest Mini Dresser is only $24. How can you really go wrong spending so little for something that can be such a huge help?

Sagenest Mini Dresser, $24 (was $30) at Amazon

Why do shoppers love it?

Whether you plan to use this as a small dresser for clothes, a toiletry holder for the bathroom, or even a nightstand, it's an amazing deal. Speaking of nightstand usage, this little piece is so inexpensive that you could buy one for each side of your bed and still have money left over for a couple of lamps. One of the biggest selling points of this dresser, besides the price, is its versatility. Because of the classic and simple design, it looks great in just about any room in the home. It has a neutral blue color and modern, squared lines, making it an unassuming piece for any corner of the house.

The frame is made from durable powder-coated stainless steel that's both corrosion-resistant and rustproof. That also means that it's incredibly lightweight and easy to move around the room, adding to the versatility. The two drawers have a tri-layer design with firm MDF sandwiched between two soft panels of fabric. The entire dresser measures 18 inches long by 11.8 inches wide by 20 inches high. It's large enough that you can fit plenty inside, but small enough that it's unobtrusive, no matter where you place it.

Atop the dresser sits an engineered wood countertop that's waterproof and easy to clean. It's the perfect place for the aforementioned bedside lamp as well as your phone, keys, etc. At the opposite end, the four legs have adjustable feet so that it can remain stable, even on an uneven surface.

Related: Walmart's bestselling space-saving 2-pack of mini dressers is on sale for $30

Details to know

• Dimensions: 18 inches long by 11.8 inches wide by 20 inches high. 
• Materials: Powder-coated stainless steel, MDF, polyester fabric, and engineered wood.
• Colors: Four colors — Blue, Ink Green, Khaki, and Light Green.
• Purchase options: Single or double.

Amazon shoppers were very pleased with this little dresser. One called it "beautiful" and "sturdy" before adding, "Absolutely perfect and unbelievably cheap for how great they look!" Like many other buyers, this customer claimed that the dresser was "very easy to assemble," and they "can't believe the price for such quality!"

Shop more deals 

• Sweetcrispy Tall Nightstand and Charging Station, $38 at Amazon
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The Sagenest Mini Dresser might be one of the best tools you can buy for getting your house in order. At just $24 each, you may want to get a few for just about every room in your home.