BUSINESS

The Atlanta Braves’ superstar pitcher offered a candid response on a veteran teammate headed for free agency.

Deloitte’s annual holiday retail forecast, released today, is predicting holiday sales of $1.7 trillion or more, and year-over-year growth of bw

Costco uses a different rule book than other retailers.

It doesn’t have to be the flashiest, look the fanciest, or sit on the cutting edge of technology. The warehouse club simply needs to keep its members happy.

“Costco’s membership fees contributed some 72% to its operating income last year,” according to Retail Dive.

It’s a business model where success is measured by holding on to members, which the retailer has done very well.

“In the third quarter, the warehouse club reported membership fee income of $1.373 billion, an increase of $133 million or 10.7% year over year. Adjusting for FX, the increase was 9.9%, according to CFO Gary Millerchip, speaking during the company’s third-quarter earnings call.

Costco’s monthly sales aren’t the only barometer of success because membership retention is central to the business model. Still, growing sales show that members are actually using their memberships, and that has actually changed in a meaningful way.

The warehouse club, which does not spend the billions that rivals such as Amazon and Walmart invest in digital sales, has still managed to show massive growth in that area.

Costco’s sales numbers show digital growth

Costco Wholesale Corporation reported net sales of $23.7 billion for the month of August, the four weeks ended Aug. 30, 2026, an increase of 9.9% from $21.56 billion last year.

For the 16-week fourth quarter, Costco reported net sales of $93.9 billion, up 11.3% from $84.4 billion last year. And for the 52-week fiscal year ended Aug. 30, 2026, the warehouse club reported net sales of $297.3 billion, an increase of 10.2% from $269.9 billion last year.

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That, however, wasn’t the most exciting number for the warehouse club.

Costco also reported digital sales growth of 17.9% for August, 19.8% in the fourth quarter, and 20.7% for the full year.

Those numbers show that Costco’s efforts to grow its digital business through clever partnerships, like its deal with Instacart and the recently shuttered Costco Next third-party marketplace, drove sales.

Costco may not be taking sales from Amazon and Walmart, but the strong renewal numbers suggest Costco’s digital shortcomings haven’t become a meaningful reason for members to leave.

That’s backed by its member retention rates.

“In terms of renewal rates, at Q3 end, our US and Canada renewal rate was 92.2%. Up 10 basis points from last quarter. And the worldwide rate came in at 89.7%, unchanged from last quarter,” CFO Gary Millerchip said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call.

Costco has grown its digital sales.Shutterstock

Costco has focused on smart tech investment

When Ron Vachris took over as Costco’s CEO in January of 2024, he made digital sales a priority, but he was not looking to duplicate the infrastructure required by Amazon and Walmart. Instead, he tried to leverage what the company was already doing.

“Our biggest strength on digital e-com is, of course, the merchandise and the value that we have. I mean that’s what works for us in our brick-and-mortar,” he said during the chain’s third-quarter 2024 earnings call.

He believed the chain could grow digital sales by focusing on the basics.

“A lot of the work that’s being done right now is very foundational. So better fulfillment, quicker delivery times, the reliability of the site, those types of things,” he added. “And then following that will come iterative changes of forward-facing improvements that you’ll see in the sites and move forward.”

It was a simple, cash-light strategy that, based on the recent numbers, has worked in driving significant increases in digital sales.

Vachris, during the Q3 call, talked about how its delivery business has improved.

“Average same-day delivery time in the U.S. is now less than 45 minutes, and the average member satisfaction rating is 4.8 out of 5. This part of our business is growing at an even faster rate than our digital business overall,” he said.

Costco is careful with its tech investments

RTM Nexus CEO Dominick Miserandino told TheStreet that Costco has a very simple motive with its tech investments.

“Costco isn’t digitizing for buzz. Its digital and in-store tech is translating directly to faster service and stronger member engagement,” he shared.

When Vachris assumed the CEO job, he talked about improving the company’s digital operations and GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders thought he had the right approach.

“I don’t see this as a radical reinvention of Costco. It’s simply that the new CEO thinks there is an opportunity to use technology better. In my view, he is correct in his assessment. Costco can improve in areas like collect from store, checking what’s in stock at the warehouse, and making the ecommerce process easier,” he wrote on RetailWire.

He noted that the chain will continue to be careful in its tech spending and not attempt to match Amazon, Walmart, or any other chain.

“This will all be selective: Costco isn’t going to offer every item for collection because some of its bulky products just don’t lend themselves to that kind of service, and most customers love visiting the warehouse. So, I’d say this is all more of a gentle technology evolution than a massive transformation,” he added.

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Anthropic and OpenAI made this accusation seven months ago. Both AI labs told Washington that Chinese firms were quietly harvesting their models to train rivals, and for months, the claim sat as a private-sector complaint. This week, the U.S. government put its name on it.

The National Security Agency, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a joint advisory on Tuesday, Sept. 8, accusing six China-based AI developers of extracting proprietary capabilities from American models at what the agencies called an industrial scale.

The agencies named DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Alibaba (BABA), MiniMax, StepFun and Z.AI, Bloomberg reported.

Related: Anthropic’s $2 trillion IPO could test the limits of AI mania

The technique is called distillation, where a cheaper model learns from a more capable one, a common and legitimate practice industrywide. What the advisory alleges is different: routing millions of queries through proxies and fraudulent accounts to extract billions of tokens from Claude, GPT, Gemini and Grok since late 2024.

The advisory also took direct aim at DeepSeek’s origin story. Its widely cited $5.6 million training cost for the R1 model excludes the true cost of data it allegedly acquired through distillation, the agencies said.

The other four firms named face similar allegations:

Moonshot AI has extracted Claude and GPT data since mid-2025 to train its Kimi models, drawing specifically on Anthropic’s Fable models, the advisory says.

MiniMax pulled reasoning and coding data from Claude and Gemini models, then tried to convince Claude Code it was a MiniMax product, per the advisory.

StepFun targeted Claude and GPT coding capabilities between late 2025 and early 2026, the same advisory states.

Z.AI extracted billions of tokens from GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus by mid-2026, one of the most active campaigns the agencies identified.

Washington just co-signed a private sector complaint

None of this is new information. I wrote in June about Anthropic’s accusation that operators tied to Alibaba’s Qwen lab generated 28.8 million exchanges with Claude through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts, the largest distillation campaign the company had documented, first reported by Bloomberg.

Anthropic had already named DeepSeek, Moonshot and MiniMax in February for a comparable campaign, according to Fortune.

What changed this week is the source, not the substance. A blog post from a private company carries no legal weight. A joint advisory from the NSA, the FBI and CISA is a formal government finding, and that distinction matters more to investors than facts that were already public.

US intelligence agencies formally accused six Chinese AI firms of copying American models, corroborating claims Anthropic and OpenAI raised months earlier.Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images

Alibaba’s shareholders just gained a key exhibit

Alibaba is the only name on the list that trades on a major U.S. exchange, making this more than a policy story.

A securities class action already accuses Alibaba of calling unauthorized distillation a hypothetical risk in its annual report while the conduct was allegedly ongoing, according to a press release announcing the suit.

Alibaba’s American depositary shares have fallen roughly 45% from their high over the past year, according to the same press release, with most of that decline coming after Bloomberg first reported Anthropic’s letter to Congress in June.

The stock closed at $112.47 on Tuesday, still far from a recovery.

A government advisory that corroborates the same allegation hands plaintiffs’ attorneys something they lacked in June: a federal finding instead of a company’s letter. The lead plaintiff deadline is October 5.

Sanctions talk collides with an industry that disagrees

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in July that the administration could sanction Chinese AI firms and add them to the Entity List if distillation crossed into IP theft, telling CNBC officials that it has “the ability to sanction them because of this theft.” That threat now has an intelligence finding behind it, not just a cable interview.

Not everyone in the industry agrees with the framing. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has called distillation fundamental to intelligence itself, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has argued that labs restricting distillation in their own terms built their models by training on data scraped from the open web, according to SiliconANGLE.

That tension matters for timing. The advisory lands weeks before an expected Trump-Xi meeting, and enforcement could become a bargaining chip rather than an immediate priority.

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The real fight is over who owns a model’s output

Chip export controls tried to slow China’s AI progress by restricting hardware. Distillation enforcement, if it materializes, would restrict something harder to police: a model’s output, generated the instant someone sends it a query.

Anthropic, OpenAI and Google built their businesses on the assumption that access to a model does not mean access to what trained it.

This advisory is the clearest signal yet that Washington intends to treat that assumption as a legal boundary, not a technical one.

Whether it can enforce that boundary against firms it does not regulate, without disrupting a relationship it is actively managing with Beijing, is the question this story leaves open.

Related: The secret letter triggering a U.S.-China AI showdown

Investors may have underappreciated just how strong second-quarter earnings were.

TheStreet aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.

Why we love this deal

Having one main storage shelf for a majority of your items can help keep things organized and easy to find. It prevents you from going around the house remembering which cabinet holds which items, and heavy-duty shelves can hold everything from canned goods to appliances you only use occasionally to outdoor tools and accessories. It can work as a catch-all for small-item totes, heavier items, and everything in between.

The Zeukmxoo 5-Tier Heavy Duty Shelving Unit is truly heavy-duty, supporting up to 1,925 pounds of weight spread across five tiers. It can be used in the garage, basement, laundry room, or in the spare room, and it fits tons of items for just $40.

Zeukmxoo 5-Tier Heavy Duty Shelving Unit, $40 (was $45) at Walmart

Courtesy of Walmart

Shop at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

This shelving unit has a whopping weight capacity of 1,025 pounds, making it a great option for heavy items. The medium-density fiberboard shelves are held together with a steel frame, including middle supports, to offer a durable surface for your items. The Z-beam that supports each shelf offers an enhanced load capacity, ensuring safety and stability. The rolled-edge columns are not only strong, but they also provide rounded edges that can prevent injury. 

Related: Amazon has a 3-drawer mini dresser with a built-in charging station for only $40

The shelves are adjustable, with each column having holes cut all the way up to ensure a wide range of adjustable heights, allowing you to set up the storage you need in order to fit larger tools and appliances, as well as smaller items like thin totes. Set up is easy, and an anti-tip expansion set, dowels, and connectors are all included. It doesn’t need bolts for installation —  the included mallet and gloves are all you need to build this shelf.

Details to know

Size: This rack measures 72 inches tall, 35.5 inches wide, and 16.5 inches deep. 

Weight capacity: With each shelf holding up to 385 pounds, the whole unit can hold up to 1,925 pounds.

Adjustable: The shelves are all fully adjustable and removable when you build the unit.

One shopper wrote, “It’s a great value for a five-tier rack. It fits my garage perfectly and creates a lot more room for storage. The assembly was also easy, and could be done by one person.”Another reviewer wrote, “This rack is very sturdy and well made. I really like the extra support panel in the middle, which helps distribute the weight more evenly and makes it feel very stable. The material feels durable and good quality, and installation was quick and easy.”

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The Zeukmxoo 5-Tier Heavy Duty Shelving Unit offers a heavy-duty storage option for large tools and appliances, while also still working well for smaller items. It allows you to have a main storage area that can help you quickly find items, instead of wasting time searching through drawers and other parts of your home. With a max capacity of over 1,900 pounds for only $40, this shelf is a fantastic deal. 

OpenAI’s newest model just gave Wall Street a fresh reason to debate which chipmakers actually win in the AI race. Jim Cramer weighed in with a clear answer on live television.

His picks reflect two very different roles the same handful of companies now play in building and running the biggest AI models on the planet.

Cramer names Nvidia and Broadcom as GPT-6 Astra’s biggest winners

Jim Cramer identified Nvidia and Broadcom as the two stocks most likely to benefit from OpenAI’s rollout of its GPT-6 Astra model, making the call on CNBC’s “Morning Meeting” on Sept. 8, CNBC reported.

Nvidia’s role centers on training. Astra was built using roughly 100,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell NVLink72 systems, according to CEO Jensen Huang, who also posted on X (the former Twitter) that another 400,000 chips are being brought online.

Cramer read the figure as a genuine demand signal rather than simply a one-time order, according to Huang’s post.

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Cramer made his preference plain. “The stock that I think you should be buying is Nvidia,” he said, according to CNBC. “It didn’t do anything wrong at all. If anything, it’s doing the right thing. It’s the reason why OpenAI is doing so well.”

The market split on the two calls that same day. Nvidia shares fell almost 2% to $225.80 during the Sept. 8 session, while Broadcom gained nearly 3% to close at $368.17, CNBC reported.

Broadcom’s Jalapeno chip tells a different story

Broadcom’s connection to Astra runs through inference rather than training. The company developed a custom chip called Jalapeno with OpenAI, designed specifically for the day-to-day work of running finished models rather than building them.

Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes wrote that Astra’s strong reception should improve OpenAI’s odds of a successful 2027 IPO.

Cramer has not always been convinced Jalapeno poses a real threat to Nvidia. Responding to OpenAI’s own benchmark claims about the chip weeks earlier, he dismissed the challenge as “big hat, no cattle,” arguing the real barrier facing any rival chip is displacing customers already embedded in Nvidia’s ecosystem, TheStreet reported.

OpenAI has claimed real performance gains from the chip regardless. The company said Jalapeno delivers 1.5 to 1.9 times more AI work per watt than systems built on Nvidia’s GB200 and GB300 chips, along with meaningfully lower latency across several benchmark models, CNBC reported.

Broadcom’s customer rankings show why Wall Street is watching the relationship closely. CEO Hock Tan has said Anthropic is set to overtake Google as Broadcom’s largest XPU customer in 2027 and hold that position through 2028, with OpenAI expected to rank second among Broadcom’s custom silicon clients that same year, according to CNBC.

Broadcom’s customer rankings show why Wall Street is watching the relationship closelyNurPhoto / Getty Images

Broadcom’s own numbers back up the bull case

Broadcom’s most recent earnings report gave investors a mixed reaction, despite strong underlying growth. AI chip revenue more than tripled year over year to $16.7 billion in the fiscal third quarter, yet shares still slid after Q4 guidance of $21.7 billion came in below the $22 to $23 billion analysts had been projecting.

Tan told investors AI semiconductor revenue should hit $115 billion in fiscal 2027 and roughly double again to $230 billion in fiscal 2028. He also said actual customer demand already exceeds those targets. Supply, not orders, is what is constraining growth right now, according to CNBC.

The gigawatt figures behind those targets are specific. Anthropic plans to deploy 5 gigawatts of Broadcom TPU 8i-designed chips in 2027 and another 10 gigawatts in 2028, while OpenAI is expected to deploy 1.3 gigawatts of Jalapeno capacity in 2027, CNBC reported.

Not every analyst brushed off the risks in Tan’s comments. KeyBanc’s John Vinh kept an Overweight rating on Broadcom but flagged the chance that Google could shift more of its own chip business toward MediaTek-based silicon, naming Nvidia as his preferred stock in the group instead.

What it means for chip investors

Cramer also holds Intel and Micron in his charitable trust alongside Nvidia and Broadcom. Four chip stocks. He is not picking one winner. He is spread across the stack because he thinks the whole wave is real, not just one corner of it.

That view carries real weight for anyone holding these stocks, since so much of the bull case still runs through one customer’s fortunes. OpenAI’s enormous infrastructure commitments have made investors sensitive to its competitive standing against Anthropic and open-source rivals, given how directly the lab’s ability to keep raising capital depends on staying near the frontier of AI research.

Nvidia fell 2% on the same day Broadcom gained 3%. Same customer. Same model launch. Opposite stock moves.

That is the part of this trade most investors do not think about until it happens to them. Being right about the AI buildout does not tell you which supplier in the stack gets paid first.

Related: Jim Cramer has a blunt message for Amazon stock investors

These schools deliver the strongest financial return on investment thanks to graduates’ earnings and either relatively low costs or generous financial aid.

These public universities, seven in California, produce strong academic and career outcomes while charging state residents far lower tuition than private schools.

Years ago, comedian Tiffany Haddish received financial advice from an unexpected stranger, and now, she credits the life-changing words of wisdom as the reason she currently owns 17 properties.