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Qualcomm shares have missed out on the chip sector’s big rally this year. The company is now working on various chip projects with Amazon.

Costco has one of the most generous return policies in all of retail.

The chain calls it a “Risk-Free 100% Satisfaction Guarantee” and explains its merchandise return policy as follows: “We guarantee your satisfaction on every product we sell, and will refund your purchase price.”

There are, of course, exceptions, and those are listed on the warehouse club’s website.

It’s not uncommon for me to order something and then not use it for months. That has, on occasion, left me with clothes that don’t fit or items that don’t meet my needs, which are no longer returnable.

That’s why Costco’s no-time-limit-on-returns policy is particularly useful for me. At the warehouse club, I could walk in with the item, and while it helps to have a receipt, they can often process a return many months later without one. It’s a very member-friendly policy that consumer advocates applaud.

“In general, Costco’s return policies are as good it gets,” according to Consumer Reports.

Unfortunately, its generous return policy leaves Costco with merchandise that may be opened, used, or otherwise unsuitable for resale in its warehouses.

That problem is compounded by the fact that the chain carries a rotating selection of merchandise, so by the time some items get returned, they may no longer be something the chain stocks on its shelves.

Costco has a solution for its returns problem, but it’s not one that members can participate in.

Costco holds liquidation auctions

Slashgear, a technology and car reviews and news website, detailed how Costco handles its returned and unsold merchandise.

“As it turns out, thousands of those returned items then head to the retailer’s liquidation process. There, Costco sells them in bulk to approved businesses through Costco Wholesale Liquidation Auctions: the company’s official business-to-business liquidation marketplace,” Slashgear shared.

The auctions give Costco a way to recover some value from merchandise that it may no longer be able to sell through its regular warehouses.

“Operated through B-Stock, the marketplace sells everything from apparel to electronics, major appliances, furniture, toys, food, and sporting goods. That’s not to suggest it’s all open-box stuff, either. Costco’s B-Stock auctions get their inventory from several sources beyond customer returns, including overstocked merchandise,” Slashgear added.

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These auctions, however, have strict requirements for participation.

“In order to view and bid on Costco auction listings, you must be an approved buyer. To successfully apply to the marketplace, you must provide A) a valid state-specific resale certificate for U.S. buyers OR B) a Proof of Business for international buyers, when applying for marketplace approval. Please ensure that you provide a valid U.S. address, as shipment must be accepted in the U.S.,” B-Stock explained on its website.

Costco accepts online returns in its warehouses. Shutterstock

Costco’s return policy is among the most generous

Consumer Reports researched 24 retailers that sell small electronics and found that it remains at the top of the pack.

“Costco’s return policy is the most flexible. There’s no time limit for returns, and the highly rated warehouse store covers return shipping costs for items purchased on Costco.com,” the magazine shared.

The warehouse club even teaches its employees about its return policy in its orientation documents.

“Costco offers a ‘Double Guarantee’ — 100-percent satisfaction guaranteed on allmerchandise and membership fees. If members are dissatisfied with anything theypurchase at Costco, including their membership up to the 365th day, they mayreturn it for a full refund,” the chain shared with new employees.

Costco’s return policy does have limits

There are, however, limits to Costco’s generosity, at least when it comes to members who try to take advantage.

“Costco allows returns on most items with no official deadline, but the company does track return history and can flag shoppers for excessive returns,” Consumer Affairs reported.

The chain does not share its criteria for flagging a member for abusing its return policy.

“The exact percentage that gets you banned from returning items is not known, but one employee said that members who return at least 50% of their purchases will get flagged. This is especially true for shoppers who appear to use products temporarily and then bring them back after heavy use,” Consumer Affairs added.

The magazine shared a list of examples that employees often complain about, including:

Returning mattresses years later because they became “uncomfortable”

Returning patio furniture after summer

Bringing back a dead Christmas tree after the holidays

Returning large TVs the day after the Super Bowl

Consumer Affairs shared what it called a “Pro Tip” for not running afoul of Costco’s generous return policy.

“Think of Costco’s return policy as a customer satisfaction tool — not a free rental program. Occasional legitimate returns are no problem. It’s the repeated high-dollar returns that will attract their attention,” it wrote.

ALSO READ: Loss of Costco deal helps push beverage brand into Chapter 11

A $40 billion institutional trade cycles through Vanguard’s S&P 500 exchange-traded fund (VOO) every quarter, affecting retirement account holdings, Bloomberg reported.

Foreign institutions are behind the quarterly movement, exploiting a scheduling gap between VOO and BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) to sidestep U.S. dividend taxes.

The two funds track the same index and charge the same 0.03% annual fee, but they distribute dividends on different dates each quarter, Bloomberg confirmed.

That scheduling gap lets overseas investors sidestep the 30% United States withholding tax on dividend income from both funds.

The strategy probably saved foreign investors an estimated $147 million in U.S. taxes last year, and the next rotation is expected around Sept. 15, 2026, according to Bloomberg calculations.

The trade is legal, but the friction costs fall on domestic shareholders who hold VOO or IVV through each quarterly rotation cycle.

How staggered dividend dates on VOO and IVV enable a tax-free rotation

VOO and IVV hold the same 500 large-cap stocks, giving a dollar in one fund the same economic exposure as a dollar in the other, Bloomberg reported.

The key difference is timing: IVV’s third-quarter ex-dividend date falls on Sept. 15, 2026, and VOO’s arrives about two weeks later, near the end of the month, according to BlackRock’s 2026 distribution schedule.

Under the Internal Revenue Code, foreign investors owe a 30% withholding tax on U.S.-source dividend income, though tax treaties reduce the effective rate to 15% or lower for many institutional holders. The rotation avoids the levy entirely, regardless of treaty rate.

Foreign institutions exit IVV before its ex-dividend date, move the capital into VOO, then reverse course before VOO pays its own quarterly distribution.

Share prices typically fall by the dividend amount on the ex-dividend date, so selling beforehand converts the payout into untaxed capital gains.

That process provides overseas investors with continuous S&P 500 exposure, with no taxable dividend income and no withholding liability on distributions from either fund.

Museum Mile Funds CEO Mayank Mohan told Bloomberg that the strategy became viable only after multiple large, low-fee S&P 500 ETFs existed for institutions to rotate among.

With the emergence of IVV and VOO you have the availability of doing these switching trades.

The flow pattern first became visible in fund flows in 2023 and has grown in dollar volume since, Bloomberg’s investigation documented.

Treasury scrutinizes ETF tax strategies but excludes the direct rotation

At a Wall Street Tax Association seminar on July 21, 2026, senior Treasury officials raised public concerns about multiple categories of ETF-based tax strategies, noting that certain products under review may produce outcomes inconsistent with what Congress intended, according to Bloomberg.

“We’re not here to be over-broad or disruptive, but we are also not prepared to turn a blind eye to aggressive planning,” Kevin Salinger, acting assistant secretary for tax policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, said at the seminar.

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The strategies under review included funds that avoid dividend income by rotating among other ETFs, fitting the mechanism behind the IVV-VOO quarterly trade.

When Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jeffrey Hochberg asked whether concerns extended to foreign investors executing the direct rotation, U.S. Department of Treasury Senior Counsel Erika Nijenhuis replied, “That’s not a focus,” according to Bloomberg.

Treasury’s scrutiny targets packaged investment products that bundle switching mechanics inside fund wrappers.

The department stopped short of announcing new rules, with officials saying they “expect a serious dialogue with the market before positions harden,” Bloomberg reported.

Treasury is scrutinizing ETF tax strategies, but officials say foreign investors using direct ETF rotations are not currently the focus.Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images

Why the rotation’s tax benefit skips domestic VOO and IVV holders

The costs imposed on everyday investors by the quarterly rotation are real, though they remain modest on a per-share basis for most long-term holders, Bloomberg confirmed.

When tens of billions of dollars shift between two nearly identical funds at once, bid-ask spreads can temporarily widen, and short-term tracking error can appear.

The structural asymmetry is that the tax benefit flows entirely to foreign institutions.

An American investor in either fund receives the quarterly dividend, pays applicable tax, and bears a share of the rotation’s frictional costs, with no comparable advantage from the trade.

The forgone tax revenue has reached a meaningful scale, and the savings flow mainly to wealthy participants, Robert Morris University professor Steven Hodaszy noted, according to Bloomberg.

What the September rotation means for VOO and IVV holders

Vanguard’s VOO and BlackRock’s IVV have continued to deliver low-cost S&P 500 exposure at a 0.03% fee, with the quarterly rotation cycling through their share bases without altering that structure, according to both fund providers’ 2026 disclosures.

For U.S. holders, the trade-off is small on a per-share basis. It shows up as slightly wider bid-ask spreads and brief tracking error around ex-dividend dates.

IVV’s next ex-dividend date lands on Sept. 15, 2026, with VOO’s following in late September. Any real change to the pattern would need formal Treasury guidance aimed at the switching mechanism itself, and the department has not signaled that step.

Related: Vanguard’s VOO faces something it never has before

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

Patio sets literally come in all shapes and sizes. From large multi-piece sectionals to individual rocking chairs, outdoor furniture can serve almost any purpose you need. One of the most convenient options we’ve seen in a while comes in the form of a basic three-piece set that’s currently on sale at Walmart. It works just as well as part of a larger patio setup as it does as a standalone piece for those with a small balcony or mini patio. Check out this deal now, since there’s no telling how long the current discount will last.

The Vineego Modern 3-Piece Patio Set is on sale at Walmart for 42% off and is available for only $70 right now. If you’re in the market for a beautiful, no-nonsense patio set that doesn’t cost a fortune, then this is the set, and now is the time to buy.

Vineego Modern 3-Piece Patio Set, $70 (was $120) at Walmart

Courtesy of Walmart

Shop at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

This patio set is all about doing more with less. It includes two standalone chairs and a small end table. The chairs are upholstered with comfortable and attractive textilene fabric. Textilene is a thin, breathable textile that looks sleek and modern while providing the perfect level of support for your back and legs. The small bistro-style table has a tempered glass top that is both shatter-resistant and weatherproof. It’s a great accent piece that complements the chairs aesthetically while offering a great spot to keep drinks, snacks, or even your reading material. 

The entire set is constructed from powder-coated stainless steel. It’s durable and rustproof, making it a terrific option for year-round outdoor use. What’s more, the high armrests and slightly reclined seat backs give the chairs a comfortable ergonomic design that feels as good as it looks. Speaking of looks, the deep matte black steel next to the dark gray textilene fabric gives the entire set a modern look that fits great in almost any setting imaginable. While intended for outdoor use, we can even imagine this set looking wonderful in a living room as well.

While assembly is required, the set comes with all the tools you’ll need as well as easy-to-follow instructions. Buyers shared that the assembly was relatively quick and hassle-free, with multiple customers calling the set “easy to put together.” 

Related: Amazon is selling a wicker rocking chair patio set for $60

Details to know

Chair dimensions:  24 inches long by 22.5 inches wide by 30 inches high.

Table Dimensions: 19.2 inches long by 19.2 inches wide by 19.2 inches high.

Furniture material: Powder-coated stainless steel.

Upholstery material: Breathable textilene fabric.

Walmart customers were very happy with this set. One shared that “the style, the price, and the sturdiness of the set is awesome…Will be ordering another set soon…The seating is comfortable and spacious.”

Shop more deals 

Techmilly 3-Piece Patio Set, $160 (was $180) at Walmart

Gymax 3-Piece Rattan Outdoor Patio Set, $170 at Walmart

If you want a patio set that’s both breathable and beautiful, then the Vineego Modern 3-Piece Patio Set is for you. At just $70, you won’t find a better patio set anywhere. That said, don’t rest on your laurels, as it’s likely to sell quickly while it’s so deeply discounted. Buy now, or forever hold your peace.

James Bond has been cast according to a co-star of one of the frontrunners, Slow Horses’ Jack Lowden. So, is it him?

The Trump administration has taken exception to the UK’s plans to increase the prominence of ‘trusted news sources’ on YouTube and other digital platforms.

Ciena (CIEN) just delivered one of its strongest quarters ever. Then the stock fell hard anyway.

That contrast has left many investors unsure of what to do next.

Citigroup has now stepped in with a call that stands out from other analysts, pointing to a much higher share price.

Here is what the bank sees, why the stock dropped, and what it means for you. 

Why Citi thinks Ciena stock can more than double

Citi reiterated a $658 price target on Ciena and kept its Buy rating. 

That is about 105% above its recent $321 close.

The bank called the post-earnings selloff a buying chance, according to CNBC. 

Atif Malik, Citi’s managing director leading its semiconductor and networking coverage, sees further gains ahead.

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Malik framed Ciena’s 30% growth guidance as “a floor that will move higher with increased supply.”

His case rests on two things: Ciena’s lead in optical transport gear, and a new wave of demand from AI data centers.

Ciena’s optical networking gear carries data between AI data centers, the demand driving Citi’s bullish call.SOPA Images / Getty Images

The record quarter behind Ciena’s stock drop

Ciena builds the high-speed optical equipment that moves data between data centers and across long distances. 

AI has made that equipment more valuable, since AI clusters in separate buildings must move huge volumes of data at high speed.

Its fiscal third quarter was a record. Revenue rose 37% to $1.67 billion, and adjusted earnings jumped 215% to $2.11 a share, Ciena reported.

Ciena also raised full-year revenue guidance to $6.42 billion. 

Direct cloud revenue climbed more than 80%, and its order backlog grew to $8.5 billion, heading toward $10 billion by year-end, according to Yahoo Finance.

Why Ciena stock fell despite strong results

Demand kept building after the quarter closed. 

One month into the current period, Ciena had already booked nearly as much as it did in all of Q3.

Even so, the raised guidance only edged past Wall Street’s estimate, and fourth-quarter margins are set to ease. 

That was enough to trigger a sell-off after a strong rally. 

Related: Citi says investors should consider buying tumbling tech stock

Rivals also cut their targets, with UBS moving to $394 and B. Riley to $347, Investing.com reported. 

Other networking names actually rose that day, so this was a Ciena-specific reaction, not a sector selloff.

What Ciena investors should weigh now

The bull case is simple. Ciena dominates a part of the AI buildout that chipmakers cannot replace, and its backlog gives years of order visibility.

The bear case is in the details. Growth now depends on parts supply more than on new orders, and the shares trade at a rich price after their run. 

Most analysts still rate the stock a Buy.

What has to go right for Citi’s target

Component supply eases, letting Ciena turn backlog into revenue faster.

Cloud and telecom customers keep spending at the current pace.

Margins hold up as the product mix shifts.

For a two-to-three-year holder, the $10 billion backlog offers real cash-flow visibility. 

Short-term traders face more volatility.

The key risks for Ciena investors include:

Customer concentration: Two customers made up 41.7% of revenue last quarter, Ciena disclosed. One lost account could hurt revenue.

Valuation: Shares trade above 105 times trailing earnings, which invites sharp swings.

Supply limits: Near-term sales are capped by parts availability, not demand.

The bottom line for investors

Citi’s $658 target is aggressive, but it rests on a real shift in how AI traffic moves.

The near-term risk is valuation and thinner margins, while the long-term appeal is a growing backlog.

If you expect AI spending to stay strong, Ciena is a direct way to own the network layer. 

If you need stability, wait for a calmer entry.

Related: Jim Cramer reveals 6 AI stocks to watch in 2026

Markets have one mechanism for handling talk. It is called the open.

A chief executive can say anything on a Sunday. The price of that sentence gets set the moment somebody can act on it, and not one minute earlier.

That mechanism has been working overtime for three years. Artificial intelligence (AI) has produced more confident forecasts per quarter than any industry since the dot-com buildout, and investors have built a filter for them.

Claims attached to a purchase order move stocks. Claims attached to a milestone usually do not.

Nvidia (NVDA) is the cleanest test of that filter. The company has spent three years being repriced on capital spending commitments from four or five customers, while its chief executive’s larger arguments about where computing goes next have been treated as color.

Over the weekend, Jensen Huang put both kinds of claim into the same post. The market had nowhere to put either one.

Huang wrote on X on Sunday, Sept. 6, that OpenAI’s new GPT-6 Astra had crossed the line the industry has argued about for a decade. “AGI has arrived. Congratulations @OpenAI team,” he wrote, using the shorthand for artificial general intelligence.

Then came the part that pays Nvidia’s bills. Another 400,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) are coming online next, Huang wrote in the same post.

United States equity markets were closed Monday, Sept. 7, for Labor Day. The first session in which anyone can act on either sentence is Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Jensen Huang declared AGI Sunday, crediting OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra and previewing 400,000 additional GPUs.CFOTO / Getty Images

What Huang actually posted about Astra

The declaration arrived inside a congratulation, not a keynote. Huang was replying in a thread about the Astra launch, and his post credited the model’s training run to more than 100,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell NVLink72 systems.

OpenAI released Astra on Thursday, Sept. 3. I covered that launch here, including the cybersecurity restrictions the company built into the release.

Related: Nvidia stock flashes unusual signal for investors 

What OpenAI did not do was call it AGI.

President Greg Brockman came closest, telling reporters, “Welcome to the AGI era,” Forbes reported. There is still no universally accepted definition of the term, reported Yahoo Finance.

So the only person in the chain willing to say the word flatly is the one selling the hardware underneath it.

Why the 400,000 GPU line matters more than the AGI claim

Strip the milestone sentence out and the post is a demand disclosure. Huang told the market how much silicon a frontier training run now consumes, then told it how much more is about to be plugged in.

That distinction matters because of what NVLink72 actually is. Seventy-two processors sit in a single enclosure and operate as one compute block, which was an expensive bet that somebody would eventually need that much coordinated capacity in one place.

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Astra is the evidence that somebody did.

The market has learned to check that kind of claim from the other end. Nvidia’s demand story gets confirmed in customer disclosures, not supplier posts, because a hyperscaler has to book the spending in a filing that carries consequences.

Here is the record of the week, and these are the numbers that will still be here after the argument about definitions burns out:

OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra on Sept. 3 and described it as its most intelligent and aligned model, according to OpenAI.

Astra scored 98% on FrontierMath Tier 4 and 99.9% on ARC-AGI-3, reported Investing.com.

Huang said Astra trained on more than 100,000 Grace Blackwell NVLink72 systems, reported Seeking Alpha.

Nvidia posted $96.2 billion in quarterly revenue in August, with $89 billion of it from data center, according to Dataconomy.

Four hundred thousand more units is the only figure in that group describing revenue Nvidia has not booked yet. Everything else is history with a benchmark score attached.

The number Huang posted and then deleted

There is one wrinkle in the record. Huang’s first version of the post cited 300,000 systems, and he deleted it and reposted the smaller figure, reported BeInCrypto. Nvidia has not explained the change.

My read is that the correction is the more interesting half of the weekend. A chief executive who declares a civilizational milestone and then quietly revises his own hardware count inside the same hour is showing you which of the two numbers he treats as load-bearing.

He is also showing you that the count is not a disclosure. It is a post.

A figure that moved by 200,000 units before lunch on a Sunday is not an input for a 2027 revenue model, whatever it gets used for on Tuesday.

What Sept. 8’s open will actually price

This is not Huang’s first AGI call. He told the Lex Fridman podcast in March that the milestone had already been reached, as TheStreet reported, and the stock did not reorganize itself around the claim.

What is different now is not the word. It is the channel.

Huang ran Nvidia for three decades without posting on social media once, and only started on July 24 to hand Washington a letter defending open-weight models, as I reported for TheStreet. Six weeks later, that same account is where AGI gets declared and where next quarter’s capacity gets previewed.

An account opened as a policy instrument is now doing investor relations work, and none of it carries the liability of a filing or the discipline of an earnings call.

Nvidia last traded around $229.49, roughly 3% below its 52-week high of $236.54, according to Robinhood.

For anyone holding Nvidia inside an S&P 500 index fund, which covers most people with a 401(k), the practical question on Tuesday is narrow, and it has nothing to do with machine cognition.

The market cannot price whether a model qualifies as general intelligence. It has no instrument for that, no cash flow to discount and no date to mark.

It can price 400,000 units. What it has to work out is whether those units are incremental demand or a restatement of orders already sitting inside the guidance Nvidia gave in August.

Those two readings look identical in a social media post and separate by tens of billions of dollars across a fiscal year.

If it is incremental, the AI capital spending cycle just extended past the point most 2027 models assume it flattens. If it is a restatement, Tuesday is a headline with no earnings attached, and the stock spends the week giving back whatever the word bought it.

That is the thing to watch when the bell rings Tuesday, Sept. 8, and Huang will not be the one to settle it. It gets settled by whichever hyperscaler discloses the capital spending line those units have to show up in.

The word arrived on a Sunday. The invoice has to arrive on a Tuesday.

Related: Nvidia’s cash could reshape an AI cloud contender

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