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It’s a question everyone faces each morning: What am I going to wear? Standing in front of the closet, deciding how to dress can be a time-consuming task. Having go-to outfits ready for every occasion can eliminate this daily hassle, and once you have the clothing picked out, it’s time to consider the accessories. For a go-to piece of jewelry, you’ll want something that pairs nicely with your look without overwhelming your outfit. It should also have enough sparkle to elevate casual and dressy attire alike. 

The Cate and Chloe Ethereal Collection Swarovski Crystal Initial Necklace fits the bill, and the bestselling piece is 55% off at Walmart. The gold-plated necklace was already a budget-friendly selection at its regular price of $40, but it’s a steal while it’s on sale for just $18. Best of all, this initial necklace is available in all 26 letters of the alphabet, so if your name starts with the less frequently used letters, like Q, X, or Z, you can still take advantage of this limited-time jewelry deal. Personalized jewelry also makes an extremely thoughtful gift if you want to get a jump on the stocking stuffers extra early this year. 

Cate & Chloe Ethereal Collection Swarovski Crystal Initial Necklace, $18 (was $40) at Walmart

Courtesy of Walmart

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Why do shoppers love it?

The size of the initial on the necklace varies slightly from letter to letter, but they’re all approximately 12 millimeters long by 13 millimeters wide. At this size, this pendant is dainty, but large enough that it’s still legible to others. Each letter is adorned with 15 Swarovski accent stones, so the necklace is dazzling when it catches the light. Further luxury is added with the 18-karat gold plating, which has the added benefit of being hypoallergenic, so the necklace can be worn by those with sensitive skin. 

“This initial necklace is the perfect size and has the perfect amount of bling,” raved one reviewer. They appreciated the hypoallergenic construction that’s free from lead and nickel, as well as the gorgeous design, adding, “The crystals are very sparkly, and when the light hits them, it is beautiful.”

Related: Walmart has $110 hypoallergenic hoop earrings for 88% off

The necklace has an 18-inch-long chain that secures with a sturdy lobster clasp closure. At this length, the necklace will hit just around the collarbone or a little lower. It looks great worn by itself, but the dainty size also makes it perfect for layering with other necklaces. You could even layer it with multiple initial necklaces for the mothers who want to honor their children. 

Details to know 

Necklace length: 18 inches.

Letter options: All 26 letters of the alphabet are available and discounted to $18.

Finish: 18-karat white gold plating.

Is it hypoallergenic?: Yes.

You can feel confident when buying from Cate and Chloe. The USA-owned brand offers a 30-day warranty that guarantees the quality of its craftsmanship. The premium quality jewelry also comes in a free luxury gift box, so it’s great for treating yourself or gifting to a special someone.

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Cate & Chloe Leah Gold-Plated Tennis Bracelet, $30 (was $60) at Walmart

Cate & Chloe Lauren Swarovski Hoop Earrings, $20 (was $40) at Walmart

Cate & Chloe Evie Swarovski Sun Pendant Necklace, $23 (was $40) at Walmart

Don’t miss your chance to score the Cate and Chloe Ethereal Collection Swarovski Crystal Initial Necklace for just $18 at Walmart. With similar fashion deals, we’ve seen certain selections begin selling out, so don’t wait to snag it for yourself.

Most investors have never heard of Ciena.

Most investors also don’t know what actually powers the Internet’s massive highway system. Ciena builds the engines that drive it. And right now, the world needs more of them than it can get.

The 34-year-old Hanover, Maryland, company makes high-speed optical networking equipment. Those are the specialized hardware and software that shoot data across long distances at the speed of light. Telecommunications companies, cloud giants, and governments all depend on them.

And with AI data centers multiplying faster than power grids can handle them, the demand for Ciena’s technology is accelerating in ways that weren’t fully visible even 18 months ago.

Ciena reports fiscal Q3 2026 results on Sept. 3. Morgan Stanley shared a preview note laying out exactly what to watch and why the results might be more important than the headline numbers suggest. 

The firm maintains an Equal-Weight rating with a $490 price target, according to a note shared with TheStreet. That’s not a ringing buy call. But it’s a constructive setup heading into a print the firm explicitly describes as having “positive catalysts.”

Also Read: Ciena Corporation Latest News and Stories

The backlog number that matters more than revenue right now

Here’s the dynamic at the centre of the Ciena story, and it’s worth understanding before the Sept. 3 numbers land.

Ciena is not supply-constrained because demand is weak. It’s supply-constrained because demand is outrunning its ability to source optical components, particularly pump lasers, which are critical to its networking hardware. 

Lumentum (LITE) is one of Ciena’s key suppliers, and LITE reported pump-laser shipments up more than 80% year over year last quarter, with plans to increase volumes roughly fourfold over the coming quarters, according to the Morgan Stanley note. 

New long-term agreements between suppliers and Ciena should improve supply visibility, but not in time to meaningfully impact Q3.

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What that means for you as an investor is that the revenue number matters less than the backlog number. Backlog represents orders Ciena has won but can’t yet ship due to component constraints. 

In Q2, backlog grew by $600 million. Morgan Stanley expects Q3 backlog growth to exceed that figure, according to the note. If it does, it would signal that the demand is accelerating even as near-term revenue conversion remains limited.

My read is that a backlog beat is the most important signal in this print. It offers an early look at what fiscal 2027 revenue could look like before supply constraints fully normalize.

According to Morgan Stanley’s note, its specific Q3 bogeys are approximately $1.69 billion in revenue, a 45.5% gross margin, and a 21% operating margin. A clean print also requires Q4 guidance of approximately $1.73 billion in revenue with similar margin parameters.

Why distributed AI is quietly becoming Ciena’s biggest tailwind

Here’s the part of the Morgan Stanley thesis that I find most interesting, and most underappreciated by the market.

Everyone knows AI data centers require enormous amounts of connectivity. The conventional assumption is that this means building massive centralized campuses. 

Morgan Stanley’s thematics team is pushing back on that assumption, according to the note. 

Related: Morgan Stanley resets CIEN stock target after earnings

Political opposition and power constraints are rising non-linearly with campus size. The bigger the proposed campus, the harder it becomes to permit and power it.

The result, according to the note, is that workloads may increasingly be distributed across smaller, geographically dispersed sites, which then need to be interconnected over long-haul optical networks. 

That’s exactly what Ciena builds. If the mega-campus model hits structural limits, the scale-across optical networking opportunity doesn’t shrink. It potentially expands.

What about the Nvidia catalyst?

The Nvidia long-haul network build reinforces this thesis. Nvidia’s infrastructure project includes more than 8,000 miles of new fiber across 16 U.S. routes and targets 15,000 new route miles through 2030, according to Morgan Stanley’s note. 

Ciena is well-positioned to capture equipment orders as those routes are lit. Morgan Stanley estimates the total CIEN opportunity from this build at less than $1 billion over multiple years.

That’s roughly one-quarter to one-third the size of Lumentum’s deals with Meta and Microsoft, with initial deployments expected as early as 2027, according to the note.

It’s not a near-term catalyst. But it’s a real, named pipeline item that the Street hasn’t fully modeled.

A backlog beat is the most important signal in Q3 earnings for fiscal 2026.Cheng Xin/Getty Images

What Ciena’s Q2F26 showed, and what it sets up for September

Ciena’s most recent quarter, reported June 4, was genuinely impressive. 

Revenue reached $1.57 billion, up 40% year over year (YoY).

Adjusted EPS came in at $1.64, up 290% YoY.

The company raised its full-year fiscal 2026 revenue guidance to $6.3 billion, representing 32% YoY growth at the midpoint.Source: Ciena fiscal second-quarter 2026 results

CEO Gary Smith mentioned this in Ciena’s Q2 statement. 

“Our long-term strategy to be the global leader in high-speed connectivity is tightly aligned to the structural, multi-year opportunities created by AI-driven demand.”

Ciena’s own guidance calls for $1.625 billion in revenue, an adjusted gross margin of around 45%, and an operating margin between 19% and 20%.

Morgan Stanley’s bogey of $1.69 billion sits above that guidance midpoint. The firm is modeling upside relative to management guidance, according to Ciena’s Q2 statement. 

CIEN shares were trading at $378.44, down 5.35% on the week ended Aug. 28, but up 61.82% year to date and 286.60% over the past year, according to Yahoo Finance. 

Morgan Stanley’s $490 target, based on 37x its 2028 EPS estimate of $13.26, implies roughly 29% upside from current levels. 

The Equal-Weight rating reflects near-term caution on optical sector multiples, not a fundamental concern about the business. The Sept. 3 print gives us the chance to see whether the backlog inflection Morgan Stanley expects actually shows up in the numbers.

Related: Morgan Stanley rattles investors with bombshell HP stock verdict

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh sent a signal at his Jackson Hole speech that interest rates might need to rise again.

Inflation remains sticky and is still above the Fed’s 2% goal. Moreover, financial conditions are loose, and the labor market remains consistent with full employment. Traders bumped the odds of a September rate hike, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sees something in the turmoil that investors might be missing.

That comes at a point when gross federal debt, as reported by Reuters, has surged over $40 trillion, twice its decade-ago level.

Additionally, Treasury data put public debt at $32.31 trillion, while the Congressional Budget Office expects net interest costs to rise to $1 trillion in fiscal 2026. At the same time, according to TradingEconomics, the 10-year Treasury yield hovered near 4.73%, elevating refinancing costs while intensifying scrutiny of Washington’s finances.

Yet Bessent isn’t joining the chorus of alarm. His answer doesn’t erase the debt burden, but it effectively challenges the assumption that investors are losing faith, placing unexpected meaning on the bond market’s latest signal.

 His answer challenges the biggest assumption rattling bond investors Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Why Bessent sees strength behind the debt-market strain 

Bessent’s unexpected answer is that investors might be overstating U.S. debt-market stress.

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“First of all, I’m not sure where the bond market turmoil is,” he told Reuters, making the case that the U.S. bond market was “the best performing” among global peers in 2026.

His defense primarily rests on economic growth. 

“What’s important, too, is that we are growing,” Bessent said. Real GDP grew at a 1.5% annualized rate in Q2, after growing 2.1% in the first, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Importantly, consumer spending, investment and exports have all contributed.

That backs up Bessent’s claim that the economy isn’t collapsing under the immense debt burden. Growth tends to expand income and tax receipts, which makes debt a lot easier to service relative to GDP.

However, 1.5% is hardly booming, and it has slowed down from the previous quarter. Inflation can also lift nominal sales while compelling investors to demand higher yields, which increases Washington’s refinancing costs.

Moreover, Bessent also defended Treasury’s decision to double buybacks of longer-dated bonds from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation starting September 10. 

Buybacks enable the Treasury to repurchase older, less-liquid securities, which improves trading conditions and reduces the risk that thinner demand ends up producing disorderly yield spikes.

Yet $4 billion represents nearly 0.01% of the $40 trillion gross debt. The program is a market-liquidity tool and not exactly a debt reduction.

Critics, including Stanley Druckenmiller, feel that the 30-year yield reached a 19-year high, which looks like an effort to suppress borrowing costs instead of taking on the deficit head-on.

Bessent acknowledges that constraint. “I don’t think I can change the equilibrium price,” he said. “My job is to slow things down … and make sure that the market doesn’t get disorderly.”

The $40 trillion problem behind Bessent’s optimism

Any debate over the stability of the Treasury market begins with the size of government’s obligations. Treasury data shows gross federal debt jumping to $40.08 trillion on August 27, after crossing $40 trillion on August 18.

Of that total, roughly $32.31 trillion is held by the public, which includes investors, banks, pension funds, the Federal Reserve and foreign governments. The remaining $7.76 trillion represents intragovernmental holdings, obligations owed to federal trust funds. 

The publicly held part matters most to markets, as it’s financed through Treasury issuance.

It’s important to note the incredible pace of accumulation. Gross debt stood at $19.49 trillion in August 2016, which means it has more than doubled in a decade. It has surged by $13.46 trillion since August 2020 and by $2.79 trillion over the past year alone. 

That increase amounts to about $7.65 billion per day, or $5.3 million per minute.

Higher interest rates make that growing balance increasingly expensive. The Congressional Budget Office projects Washington will need to spend $7.4 trillion while collecting $5.6 trillion in fiscal 2026, producing a mind-boggling $1.9 trillion deficit.

Net interest costs are likely to approach $1 trillion this year, or around $2.7 billion per day. CBO expects publicly held debt to rise to 120% of GDP by 2036, with annual interest costs skyrocketing to $2.1 trillion. By 2056, debt could reach 175% of GDP, showing why bond-market confidence remains critical.

How investors should read Bessent’s debt-market signal 

For investors, Bessent’s comments are far from being an all-clear. 

They suggest that the Treasury market remains functional but far from removing the risk that deficits and inflation can continue to keep borrowing costs elevated.

Bond investors need to distinguish liquidity from duration risk. Buybacks might improve trading in older securities while preventing dislocations, but they can’t guarantee lower yields. At the same time, long-bond buyers still face losses if inflation continues to persist or the Fed raises rates. A maturity ladder lowers the risk of one oversized duration bet.

Cash investors are incredibly well positioned. 

Treasury bills and money-market funds offer a lot more attractive income with limited choppiness, but the tradeoff is reinvestment risk if growth is sluggish and the Fed cuts rates.

For stock investors, the big question is whether long-term yields are high enough to constrict valuations, raise corporate interest costs and make bonds more competitive. Moreover, expensive growth stocks and heavily indebted companies are sensitive.

Gold might benefit if investors question U.S. fiscal credibility or the dollar. However, further Fed tightening and rising real yields could cap gold prices, making it a portfolio diversifier rather than a guaranteed crisis hedge.

Related: Jim Cramer reveals his 20% rule for winning stocks

A teenager opening Instagram may soon find the app works differently.

There might be a default two-hour daily limit, restrictions after midnight, fewer notifications during school hours, and more aggressive age verification.

Those changes are part of a sweeping settlement with nearly all U.S. states by Meta Platforms (META) over allegations Facebook and Instagram were designed in ways that harmed children. Meta denied any wrongdoing.

But for investors, perhaps the most important part of the deal is the provision that extends beyond Meta itself.

Roughly 30% of Meta’s potential payout, along with some of the tougher restrictions on teenage users, depends on competing platforms accepting comparable obligations.

That creates an unusual possibility. Meta could be helping to establish a new operating standard for social media that ultimately affects Alphabet’s (GOOGL) YouTube, TikTok, and Snap (SNAP) as well.

For parents, it could mean the apps kids use every day become more restrictive by default.

For investors it poses a different question.

What happens if the cost of protecting teenage users becomes an industrywide expense instead of a Meta-specific disadvantage?

Meta’s settlement reaches far beyond Facebook and Instagram

Meta will pay up to $18 billion over 10 years to settle lawsuits filed by nearly every U.S. state alleging that it intentionally made Facebook and Instagram addictive to children.

It also proposes sweeping changes to how young people use the platforms, including a default two-hour daily usage limit, restrictions on access between midnight and 6 a.m. without parental permission, and limits on notifications during school hours.

Those changes matter because engagement is the raw material of the social media business.

Related: Mark Zuckerberg sends shocking message to Meta employees

The more time someone spends watching videos, scrolling feeds, or engaging with posts, the more opportunities a platform usually has to serve ads. That makes time and notification limits potentially economically significant, especially for platforms that are in fierce competition for teen attention.

But Meta structured the deal in a way that could alleviate that competitive risk.

Competing platforms would only receive some 30% of the payout and stricter usage limits if they agreed to similar terms.

That’s the funny part.

If Instagram itself limits teens to two hours a day, competitors could be poised to steal some of the time that users no longer spend on Instagram.

That advantage is all but wiped out if TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube are under similar rules.

Wall Street quickly noticed the difference

The initial stock moves were striking. Meta shares rose about 1% after the settlement. Alphabet fell 1.4%, and Snap dropped 8.4%.

Those moves don’t tell investors precisely why each stock moved, and a single trading session is never proof of a longer-term competitive shift.

The divergence, however, is striking.

Meta just agreed to a settlement of up to $18 billion. But investors hammered one of its smaller rivals much harder.

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The reason may be simple: Meta has vast financial resources and an advertising business that can absorb large legal and compliance costs.

Snap is on a whole different scale.

That means an industry-wide increase in compliance costs could be much more important for smaller platforms than it is for Meta.

Meta’s cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities were $90.26 billion at the end of its most recent quarter. It had $31.86 billion cash flow from operations for the quarter.

This gives the company plenty of financial wiggle room to pay lawyers, develop age-verification systems, tweak products, and hire compliance teams.

The surprising number inside Meta’s teen restrictions

The shocking number lies in Meta’s limits for teens.

The settlement also raises another question investors may not have been expecting: What if some protections for teens have little impact on overall use?

Internal Meta testing suggests that hiding visible like counts would only reduce the company’s daily user base by about 0.09%, Reuters reported.

That’s very few.

That doesn’t mean every new restriction will have a similarly narrow effect. A daily two-hour usage cap could have a different impact on engagement; age verification could create friction.

But that 0.09% number is significant because it flies in the face of a long-standing assumption about social media.

Engagement features such as likes, notifications, recommendations, and endless feeds have long been considered central to user growth and advertising performance for platforms.

If it’s possible to add some safeguards without materially reducing usage, the business cost of changing social media may be smaller than investors once feared.

That could have implications far beyond Meta.

South Korea’s media regulator has already urged Meta to roll out its new youth protections globally, not just in the U.S., Reuters Reuters reported.

Following the U.S. settlement, Meta and Roblox also agreed to strengthen safety measures for young people in the Philippines, including age verification and stricter parental controls.

The direction of travel is becoming increasingly clear. Teen safety is shifting from a product feature into a cost of doing business.

Meta just turned a legal headache into a competitive weapon.COM & O / Getty Images

Meta can better afford that expense than most

Here’s where the investor angle gets juicy.

Meta earned $60.8 billion in the second quarter, up 28% annually. Advertising revenue rose 27% to $59.36 billion. Ad impressions increased 14% across its Family of Apps, while average ad price increased 12%. Its daily active population rose 3% to 3.60 billion.

Meta brings scale to the regulatory fight with those numbers. Nearly 98% of second-quarter revenue was advertising.

This allows the company to spread new compliance and safety costs across one of the world’s largest digital advertising operations.

Similarities are present in other heavily regulated industries.

Large banks, pharmaceutical firms and automakers can sometimes absorb costly new rules more easily than their smaller competitors because the fixed cost of compliance is spread over much larger revenue bases.

Perhaps social media is going the same way.

If every major platform needs better age verification, parental controls, safety auditing, and youth-specific product settings eventually, those systems become another fixed cost.

The biggest platforms may be best placed to soak it up.

Meta’s legal problem could become an industry rulebook

Meta’s legal headaches aren’t going away.

New Mexico and Florida were not part of the larger settlement, and the company still faces scrutiny outside the U.S. And the deal does not guarantee that TikTok, YouTube, or Snapchat will agree to similar terms.

But it gives investors something they haven’t had: a tangible model for what a big U.S. social-media settlement can look like.

For normal families, the effects might eventually show up on the screen.

Teen accounts may have time limits, overnight restrictions, muted notifications, hidden engagement metrics, and more parental involvement by default.

For investors, the question is who pays for that transition.

Meta on Thursday showed that one of the world’s biggest tech companies can absorb billions of dollars in legal costs and still grow its advertising business at more than 20%.

Its smaller competitors may not have the same luxury.

Maybe that’s why the biggest fallout from Meta’s $18 billion settlement isn’t the money Meta pays.

It may be the rules that everyone else will eventually be asked to follow.

More on Meta & its stock: 

Is Meta Platforms a good long-term investment? 

Does Meta pay dividends? Its yield and payouts explained

Has Meta conducted a stock split? What sets this ‘Mag 7’ stock apart

Meta’s stock buybacks: How the company’s AI spending could affect shareholder returns

Where is Meta Platforms’ headquarters? A look inside its Menlo Park home