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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 dealHigh-end jewelry is something that you might think is reserved for those who sip champagne and eat off fine China on the daily. That’s not the case anymore. Retailers like Macy’s have made luxury jewelry far more accessible than it ever was before. That’s in large part thanks to the store’s regular discounts. One of those deals is currently available on a gorgeous bracelet, and we think it’s definitely worth checking out. This is a clearance item, so once it sells out, you may never get another chance to buy it.The Macy’s Tanzanite Sterling Silver Tennis Bracelet is currently on sale for $772, which is 33% off the original price of $1,149, thanks to an exclusive discount code automatically applied. If you’re in the market for some beautiful jewelry, but you also want to save a little money in the process, then this is the deal for you. Macy’s Tanzanite Sterling Silver Tennis Bracelet, $772 (was $1,149 at Macy’s

Courtesy of Macy’s

Shop at Macy’sWhy do shoppers love it?This bracelet offers so much, especially for such a diminutive piece. Made from high-grade sterling silver, the bracelet has a bright luster that shines beautifully in the sunlight. It delivers all the beauty of white gold or platinum without the hefty price tag. What’s more, sterling silver won’t discolor your skin, and it won’t rust. It’s a hypoallergenic material as well, so those who are prone to skin irritation or have allergies needn’t worry when wearing this stunning bracelet.The stones in the bracelet are made from Tanzanite. It’s an extremely rare bluish-violet stone that can literally only be found in one place on Earth. It’s mined near Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and nowhere else. The stone is made of the natural mineral Zoisite, and its lovely hue sparkles and shines in any light conditions. It’s also a relatively neutral tone, meaning it will match with just about anything you wear it with. The bracelet contains roughly six carats of stones, which is the perfect balance for daily wear. It has a length of approximately seven inches, making it the ideal size for just about any wrist. The box lock clasp closure ensures that the bracelet stays put, even as you perform your regular daily duties. You honestly can’t go wrong with this bracelet, whether you reserve it for special occasions or you plan to wear it on a daily basis.Related: Walmart’s bestselling $110 hypoallergenic hoop earrings are 88% offLuxury jewelry can sometimes be hard to choose because there’s a feeling that it needs to be completely unique and stand out from everything else. This attractive tennis bracelet takes the opposite approach. Its strength is its adaptability and the fact that it doesn’t look out of place with any outfit at all.Shop more deals Forever Grown Diamonds Hoop Earrings, $1,000 at Macy’sMacy’s Diamond Twist Bracelet, $800 at Macy’sEffy Blue Topaz Rope-Framed Pendant Necklace, $243 (was $250) at Macy’sThe Macy’s Tanzanite Sterling Silver Tennis Bracelet is a wonderful choice for fans of high-class jewelry and low prices. At just $772, this is an absolute steal for a piece of heirloom jewelry that you won’t soon forget.

Many parents open their homes to adult children during periods of financial hardship or major life transitions.  About 44% of parents with children ages 18 to 35 have had a child move back home after living independently, Thrivent’s fifth annual Boomerang Kids Survey found.Most parents willingly cover the extra grocery bills, higher utility costs, and general financial strain that a fuller household creates.Suze Orman, the bestselling personal finance author and host of the “Women & Money” podcast, has a warning for those families. One specific response to the financial pressure of a returning child, she argues, threatens far more than a monthly budget.The financial risk is not in welcoming an adult child home, but in the long-term financial decisions parents often make afterward.Nearly 20% of parents are willing to pause retirement contributionsThe financial sacrifices parents make to support adult children who return home extend far beyond cutting a few discretionary expenses from the household budget.About 43% of parents said they would cut personal spending to support an adult child living at home, the Thrivent survey reported.Close to one in five parents said they would go further, reducing their savings or retirement contributions to provide financial support, the survey found. That is the line Orman drew in a July 16 blog post on her personal site, separating acceptable trade-offs from dangerous ones.Trimming discretionary spending on nonessential purchases to help a child is reasonable for most families, she acknowledged in the post. Pulling back on retirement savings, however, crosses a critical financial boundary that no parent can afford to ignore, Orman warned.The compounding penalty that builds in silence over decadesOrman’s concern centers on a cost that most parents never calculate when they decide to reduce or pause their contributions. Every dollar that stops flowing into a retirement account eliminates the original deposit and all of the compounding growth that follows.To illustrate the scale of that penalty: a parent who pauses $500 in monthly 401(k) contributions for two years misses $12,000 in principal deposits. More Retirement:Vanguard drops playbook on retirement incomeVanguard warns workers losing thousands in 401(k)sFidelity’s wake-up call on Social Security, IRAs, and 401(k)sAssuming a 7% average annual return over the following 20 years, that $12,000 would have grown to roughly $46,000 in retirement wealth, based on standard compound-growth calculations.Workers aged 50 and older can contribute up to $32,500 to a 401(k) plan in 2026, and those aged 60 to 63 can contribute up to $35,750 under the SECURE 2.0 super catch-up rule, the Internal Revenue Service confirmed in its annual update.Under IRS rules, 401(k) contribution limits reset each year, and any unused portion cannot be carried forward to future tax years.

Skipping retirement contributions today may cost tens of thousands tomorrow, as missed compounding quietly erodes long-term wealth over decades.fizkes / Getty Images

Housing costs and job losses are pushing young adults back homeThe economic pressures behind the boomerang trend are significant enough that dismissing returning children as financially irresponsible misses the broader picture entirely. Housing affordability was the top factor cited by 45% of young adults who moved home, up sharply from 32% the prior year, Thrivent reported.About 30% of adults ages 27 to 35 who have not purchased a home said they never expect to afford one, the survey found. Job loss and reduced income ranked second, cited by 36% of respondents as a primary driver of the return home.Nearly half of all boomerang parents, about 47%, reported a measurable financial impact from having an adult child back in the household.Orman’s warning exposes a generational cost that reverses directionThe bigger risk Orman identified reaches well past the parent’s own retirement balance and lands squarely on the next generation. She argued that parents who underfund their retirement today are building a financial crisis that their children will inherit at the worst possible time.In her July 16, 2026, blog post, Orman described a scenario in which a parent retires 10 or 15 years from now and realizes their savings may not last, warning that the shortfall becomes a burden their adult children must eventually shoulder.Don’t you dare stop saving for retirement. That is the opposite of being a good parent.Ameriprise Parents & Finances study reinforces that concern, with 36% of parents in a survey of more than 3,000 American parents with children from newborn to age 30 worrying that supporting adult children could interfere with retirement plans.”Parents should be mindful of how the choices they’re making to support adult children today and into the future impact their own goals, particularly for retirement,” Deana Healy, vice president of financial planning and advice at Ameriprise, said in a statement.Parents, boomerang kids are not having the financial conversation that mattersOne of the most revealing findings in the Thrivent data is the communication gap between parents and the adult children living under their roof. About 76% of boomerang kids said their parents had never explained how having them home affects long-term financial planning, up from 60% in 2025.Gene Elder, a Thrivent financial consultant, noted that multigenerational living has evolved into a lasting feature of how American families manage money. “Boomerang living is not a blip; it’s becoming a lasting part of how families plan their money and keep moving toward their long-term financial goals,” Elder said.Orman’s core message is that parents can open their doors, trim their discretionary spending, and still offer meaningful support to a returning child. Pausing retirement contributions to help a child today, she warned, creates a growing financial bill that the next generation eventually pays.Related: Schwab names the No. 1 risk that could derail retirement

Anyone who has shipped software before it was fully tested knows the math. A bug caught in code review costs an afternoon. The same bug caught after launch costs a weekend, an apology, and sometimes a customer.Chip design runs on a version of that math, except the much-higher stakes involve hundreds of millions of dollars and an entire product cycle.That is the backdrop for a software certification that matters more than the announcement itself suggests.Intel gave itself less room for errorIntel pulled forward the timeline for its most advanced manufacturing process, called 14A, during its second-quarter earnings call on July 23.Risk production for internal chips is now planned for the second half of 2027, a year earlier than Intel had previously guided, with high-volume manufacturing following in 2028, according to MarketBeat’s recap of the call.CEO Lip-Bu Tan said 14A is already outpacing its predecessor, 18A, on defect density and transistor performance at the same stage of development, and he cited growing customer engagement as part of why Intel felt comfortable committing to the faster schedule.That confidence comes with a catch. Intel’s foundry business generated $5.8 billion in revenue last quarter, but only $293 million of that came from customers other than Intel itself, according to CFO David Zinsner’s comments reported by EE Times.Intel still hasn’t named a marquee external customer running production volume on 14A.

Synopsys certified AI-powered EDA design flows for Intel’s 14A chip process, days after Intel moved up its 2028 production timeline.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Synopsys just removed one of Intel’s excusesSynopsys (SNPS) and Intel (INTC) said Monday, July 27, that Synopsys has certified its AI-powered electronic design automation flows for 14A, extending a partnership that had previously reached production-ready status only on Intel’s 18A and 18A-P processes, according to Synopsys’ announcement.The certification doesn’t create a customer. It solves a narrower, more technical problem: making sure the software engineers use to design a 14A chip catches physical failures, such as power delivery and thermal issues, before a design is locked in, rather than after a chip has already been fabricated.The “AI-powered” label isn’t just marketing. Synopsys has built machine-learning search into its EDA suite to explore massive design spaces automatically. This matters more, as 14A designs pack in more transistors and more physical constraints than any process the company has previously certified for Intel.Multiphysics analysis now flags power integrity, thermal, and electromagnetic problems in Intel 14A designs before tapeout, catching issues that otherwise surface only after a chip is built.Synopsys’ 3DIC Compiler platform now supports Intel’s EMIB and EMIB-T advanced packaging, letting engineers plan chip-to-chip connections and cooling early, instead of after prototypes come back.Expanded interface IP, including 224G SerDes and PCIe 7.0, gives 14A customers pre-validated building blocks that previously existed only for Intel’s 18A family.Intel Foundry Services SVP Shawn Han said the expanded relationship gives customers “greater ease of use and confidence to achieve their design goals.”That confidence is key because Intel has struggled to convince outside chipmakers to absorb the risk of committing to an unproven, leading-edge process.The software groundwork predates the schedule change by a yearSynopsys and Intel first said they were beginning early design co-optimization work on Intel’s node beyond 18A back in April 2025, according to Synopsys’ announcement at the time, more than a year before the July 27 certification.The timing matters. It shows the design-software relationship tracking Intel’s manufacturing roadmap in parallel rather than scrambling to catch up, a pattern that broke down during Intel’s 10-nanometer delays last decade, when yield problems collided with immature design tooling.More Intel:Intel and Google deepen AI ties for chip designIntel and AMD just got leverage they haven’t had in yearsIntel CEO gives investors a reality checkSynopsys (SNPS) rose as much as 4.15%, and Intel (INTC) gained 2.62% intraday on July 27. Tesla (TSLA) remains the only publicly disclosed anchor customer for 14A, after CEO Elon Musk said in April that Tesla plans to use the process for its Terafab AI complex in Austin, Reuters reported.Seaport Research Partners analyst Jay Goldberg said at the time that “having a customer is more important than the timing,” a reminder that certified software can’t substitute for a name on a contract.The EDA duopoly is becoming part of every foundry’s pitchJust three companies effectively control the software used to design nearly every advanced chip on the market: Synopsys, Cadence, and Siemens EDA, according to SemiAnalysis.That concentration means a foundry can’t credibly court new customers without those three vendors’ tools working on its newest process, no matter how good its yields look.Investors watching Intel’s turnaround increasingly need to track two timelines instead of one: the fab’s own production milestones, and the software ecosystem that decides whether outside customers can actually design for them.Synopsys’ certification announcements have quietly become one of the clearer signals of how seriously prospective customers are treating Intel’s roadmap, often arriving well before any of them confirm a deal in public.Related: Intel and AMD just got leverage they haven’t had in years

The S&P 500 just posted its second straight weekly loss, and the investor who called it hasn’t spent a dime.Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett made his fortune on two rules, Investopedia noted. These are: “Rule No. 1: Never lose money. Rule No. 2: Never forget Rule No. 1.” For months, that advice looked outdated as stocks surged on an AI spending boom.Now the benchmark sits 2.6% below its June 2 record, and the chip stocks that led the rally are getting crushed. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has tumbled about 17% in July, dragging markets down even as earnings hold up, Business Recorder reported. Buffett sits on the biggest cash pile in Berkshire Hathaway’s history and isn’t buying.Buffett’s favorite valuation gauge hits an unprecedented 236%The metric Buffett has long endorsed for measuring overall market valuation, often called the Buffett Indicator, compares the total value of U.S. corporate equities to the country’s gross domestic product. The indicator currently stands at about 236%, the highest reading in the history of the measurement, The Motley Fool reported. Buffett told Fortune magazine in a 2001 interview that readings between 70% and 80% represent a strong buying opportunity for stocks.Buffett called low readings a strong entry point and extreme highs dangerous, The Motley Fool also noted.If the percentage relationship falls to the 70% or 80% area, buying stocks is likely to work very well for you. If the ratio approaches 200%, as it did in 1999 and a part of 2000, you are playing with fire.The S&P 500’s Robert Shiller cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio reinforces the signal, sitting at about 41, the second-highest reading in history behind the 44 it reached before the dot-com bubble burst, according to Shiller’s dataset on multpl.com.Berkshire Hathaway’s $397 billion cash reserve tells the same storyBerkshire Hathaway ended the first quarter of 2026 with $397.4 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term Treasury bills, a record for the company, according to its Q1 2026 10-Q filing on SEC EDGAR. That capital is generating annualized interest income approaching $12 billion as government securities continue to offer yields near 3.7%.Buffett appeared on CNBC on July 15 and described the market in unusually blunt terms, saying that finding value is difficult when the prevailing behavior among participants resembles gambling. He had earlier dismissed the 9% pullback stocks experienced this spring, noting that Berkshire’s share price has fallen more than 50% on three separate occasions during his tenure.The forward price-to-earnings ratio on the S&P 500 stands at about 21, well above the long-run historical average of approximately 16, Yahoo Finance data showed. For Buffett, a stretched valuation gauge combined with a pullback that has not come close to prior downturns justifies patience.

Berkshire Hathaway’s record $397 billion cash pile signals Buffett sees few bargains, and is waiting patiently instead of buying into today’s expensive stock market.Bloomberg / Getty Images

A semiconductor rout and a Fed decision add to the pressure on stocksThe S&P 500 lost 0.6% for the week ending July 25, following a steeper 1.6% decline the previous week, and the selling has been concentrated in the technology sector that drove the index to its record, Yahoo Finance reported. The VanEck Semiconductor exchange-traded fund dropped about 9% in the week ending July 18 alone, CNBC confirmed.Alphabet and Tesla both beat revenue expectations, yet their stock prices fell 7.1% and 14.5%, respectively, as investors reacted to surging capital expenditure plans. More Warren Buffett:Warren Buffett’s $187 billion warning grows louder every dayWarren Buffett sends 7-word instruction to stock market investorsWarren Buffett successor triggers massive stock portfolio shakeupAlphabet raised its 2026 spending projection to between $195 billion and $205 billion, up from a prior estimate of $180 billion to $190 billion, Business Standard reported. The move fueled doubts about near-term returns on artificial intelligence investments.The Federal Reserve adds another layer of uncertainty, with its July 28-29 meeting widely seen as one of the least predictable rate decisions in recent memory. The central bank is expected to hold rates steady, but futures markets assign a nearly 38% probability to a hike at the July 29 decision itself, and roughly an 82% probability to a hike by the Sept. 16 meeting, according to CBS News, citing CME FedWatch. Either hike would be the first since 2023.How Buffett and Abel are deploying Berkshire’s capitalBuffett revealed on CNBC that he personally initiated Berkshire’s Alphabet position, first disclosed in Q3 2025. Under CEO Greg Abel, Berkshire expanded that stake in June by participating in a $10 billion private placement tied to Alphabet’s AI infrastructure buildout.Abel also net sold $8.1 billion in equity holdings during his first full quarter as chief executive, continuing a net-selling pattern that has now persisted for more than three years. The divergence between selective buying and overall net selling underscores how narrow the opportunity set appears, even to a firm with nearly $400 billion in dry powder.Buffett, who remains Berkshire’s largest shareholder, told CNBC that the best buying opportunities historically arrive when conditions are so severe that participants refuse to answer the phone.Buffett’s valuation discipline has a message for ordinary investorsBuffett’s framework isn’t a crash prediction; it’s a discipline about entry points that most investors abandon when stocks keep rising. Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research, told Reuters that chip stocks had run too far ahead of their supply lines and would have to retreat and let the fundamentals catch up, while arguing the long-term AI story remains intact.The Buffett Indicator, the Shiller ratio, and Berkshire’s cash balance all point the same way. The investor who has compounded wealth better than anyone is signaling patience, and the numbers behind that signal are the ones worth watching between now and the Fed’s next decision.Related: Warren Buffett has a blunt take on today’s market

Over the years, legal cannabis companies expanded rapidly across the U.S. as more states opened their markets to medical and recreational marijuana.That growth created sprawling businesses that extend far beyond dispensary storefronts.Behind many cannabis retailers are cultivation centers where marijuana plants are grown and harvested.Additionally, there are facilities that process flower into products ranging from pre-rolls and vapes to edibles and other cannabis products.Now, one major cannabis operator is significantly reducing that infrastructure in one of its biggest markets.Parallel cuts cultivation and cannabis production jobsParallel, the cannabis company behind the Surterra Wellness dispensary chain, is permanently closing its two Florida facilities, eliminating 211 jobs.The closures affect operations at 2324 W. Lake Drive in Wimauma and 3516 Hamilton Road in Lakeland, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN), reviewed by TheStreet.Parallel said the layoffs began on July 6 or during the 14-day period that followed.More Layoffs:Meta layoffs take disturbing turn in new lawsuitMajor snack brand closes plant, cuts 345 jobsJPMorgan Chase pushes fraud division layoffs, despite rising revenuesEmployees were placed on paid administrative leave beginning July 6 and were expected to continue receiving their regular compensation and benefits through their respective termination dates without being required to report to work.At the Wimauma facility, affected positions include cultivation technicians, production technicians, processing technicians, laboratory workers, packaging employees, and supervisors overseeing extraction and refinement.Among the largest groups affected are 43 Production Technician I employees, 27 cultivation technicians, 12 production team leads, and 11 Processing Technician II workers.At the Lakeland facility, the cuts include 22 cultivation technicians, 5 cultivation team leads, and employees working in harvesting, pest management, environmental services, research and development, and facility operations.Parallel is a multi-state cannabis business with operations spanning across multiple stages of the industry, from cultivation and manufacturing through retail.The company currently lists Surterra Wellness as its Florida retail brand, operating 45 Surterra stores in the state.In Massachusetts, Parallel operates under the NETA brand, and in Texas, under the Goodblend brand.Surterra offers medical marijuana products that include cannabis flower, pre-rolls, vaporizers, edibles, and other cannabinoid products.

Parallel, company behind Surterra Wellness, closes 2 facilities in Florida.Scott Shymko / Getty Images

Parallel is nearing a possible change in controlThe facility closures come as Parallel approaches the possible conclusion of a financial restructuring that could transfer control of certain company assets to its creditors.Creditors affiliated with SunStream Bancorp, a cannabis-investment joint venture in which Canadian cannabis company SNDL holds an interest, previously provided financing to Parallel.After Parallel encountered financial difficulties, those creditors entered into a strict foreclosure agreement covering certain assets that had been pledged as security for the debt.A strict foreclosure is different from a conventional acquisition. Instead of one company buying another, secured creditors can take control of pledged assets to satisfy outstanding debt, subject to regulatory approvals and the terms of the agreement.The proposed transaction would place certain Parallel operations under the control of an entity formed for the benefit of its creditors.The process began in 2023 and has since cleared several major hurdles.The Florida Department of Health approved the transfer of Parallel’s cannabis license in February 2025, according to SNDL’s first-quarter 2026 earnings reports.“In December 2025, a settlement was reached resolving the final remaining litigation, and SNDL currently expects the strict foreclosure process to close in Q3 2026, subject to completion of remaining steps, satisfaction of applicable conditions, and any required approvals,” SNDL said in the earnings release.TheStreet reached out to Parallel for information about why the facilities were closing and whether the decision was connected to the restructuring.But the company did not reply to a request for comment.Cannabis market grows as operators face pressureParallel’s cuts come as the broader cannabis market continues to expand, even as individual operators face a difficult and uneven business environment.Fortune Business Insights valued the global cannabis market at $102.72 billion in 2025 and estimates it will grow to $137.67 billion in 2026.The research firm projects the market could reach approximately $1.43 trillion by 2034, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 34% between 2026 and 2034.North America accounted for approximately 83.8% of the global market in 2025, supported by legalization, medical use, and consumer demand.But strong projections for the overall industry do not mean every cannabis company is growing at the same pace.Operators still face pricing competition, high production costs, varying state regulations, and federal tax restrictions.Although the results do not reflect Parallel’s operations, recent SNDL earnings illustrate the uneven conditions facing cannabis businesses.Revenue from SNDL’s own cannabis operations fell 14.2% year over year during the first quarter of 2026, citing softer demand, inventory reductions, and changes in the timing of business-to-business orders.Parallel continues to operate 45 Surterra Wellness locations across Florida, but the two facility closures represent a significant reduction in the cultivation and production infrastructure supporting that retail network.Related: 52-year-old international restaurant chain closing all locations

Both Alphabet and Tesla posted negative quarterly free cash flow, but their profitability, balance sheets and stock swings after earnings show quite different dangers.Tesla (TSLA) and Alphabet (GOOGL) got the same tough message from Wall Street to start: Investors are no longer prepared to pay for artificial intelligence spending without asking about its cash flow impact.But their stocks tell two distinct tales presently.Shares of Tesla sank more than 14% on July 23, while Alphabet slid almost 7% after both companies disclosed negative quarterly free cash flow and detailed plans for increased spending. The selloff also dragged on the broader market, as the Magnificent Seven account for over 30% of the S&P 500’s value.But by July 27, Alphabet was up about 3%, trading near $328.60 in late-morning trading. Tesla was last down about 1.4% at $308.76.That divergence sharpens the angles.Alphabet is spending heavily, but doing so as Search and Cloud generate fast-growing revenue and tens of billions of dollars in operating profit. Tesla is betting on its AI in an automotive business that sold more vehicles but had far less operational income.It’s not simply a matter of how much each corporation spends. It wants to know which financial engine is footing the cost.Periods of elevated investment “will necessitate additional funding beyond our operating cash flow,” Tesla said in its quarterly filing.Alphabet’s AI spending is backed by accelerating profitsThe post-earnings decline in Alphabet masked a very strong operating quarter.Revenue soared 24% to $119.8 billion, while operating income rose 30% to $40.8 billion. Revenue from Google Search and other sources was $63.3 billion, up 17%, and revenue from Google Cloud skyrocketed 82% to $24.8 billion.Cloud operating income more than tripled to $8.8 billion, pushing the division’s operating margin to 35.6%. Alphabet also said its cloud backlog increased to $514 billion, providing visibility into demand that has not been booked as revenue yet.Alphabet’s $9.11 quarterly earnings per share requires context. A $99 billion unrealized gain on equity investments added $6.26 a share, meaning operating income and cash generation provide a cleaner picture of the underlying business.The worry is Alphabet’s massive infrastructure bill.Operating cash flow was $39.1 billion, but capital expenditures were $44.9 billion, resulting in negative free cash flow of $5.9 billion. Management boosted its 2026 capital-spending forecast to a range of $195 billion to $205 billion, with spending expected to spike again in 2027.Related: Alphabet’s biggest AI fear may be fadingAlphabet, meanwhile, earned $53.3 billion in free cash flow over the past 12 months and had $242.5 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of June. Its quarterly spending is a cash-flow drain, but it isn’t yet endangering the company’s ability to pay for the buildout.The bounce in Alphabet shares suggests that investors are beginning to distinguish between temporarily expensive growth and a faltering core company.Tesla’s AI spending carries less financial protectionTesla also posted a big rebound in revenue.Quarterly sales rose 26% to $28.24 billion on deliveries up 25% to a record 480,126 units. Automotive sales gained 23% to $20.52 billion.Profitability went in the opposite direction.Operating income decreased 57% to $398 million. Tesla’s operating margin contracted to 1.4% from 4.1% a year ago. Operating expenses rose 47% to $4.35 billion.More AI:Workers just sent AI companies an ultimatumPalantir CEO has a blunt verdict on OpenAI and AnthropicElon Musk pulls no punches with AI rivals as Grok 4.5 debutsCapital expenditures more than doubled to $5.79 billion, while free cash flow for the quarter was a negative $1.09 billion. Tesla closed off June with $43.52 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, a strong reserve, but far below Alphabet’s financial cushion.What investors should take from the selloffBoth companies reported negative quarterly free cash flow.Alphabet still produced a 34% companywide operating margin.Tesla’s operating margin narrowed to 1.4%.Alphabet generated $53.3 billion in trailing free cash flow.Tesla generated $5.76 billion over the same measurement period.Alphabet’s stock has begun recovering, while Tesla remains under pressure.Spending on research and development surged 49% to $2.37 billion, mostly on AI and other programs. Tesla plans to spend more than $25 billion in 2026 on computing infrastructure, data centers, production lines, robotaxis and other assets powered by AI.

Tesla and Alphabet reveal the new pecking order in AIJOSH EDELSON / Getty Images

Wall Street is separating AI growth from AI promisesAlphabet still has to prove its infrastructure can generate above-inflation returns on servers, energy and data centers.The tech giant has the data to back this up. Search revenue is growing rapidly, cloud growth is becoming more robust, and management claims that demand continues to outstrip available processing capacity.Tesla’s case is more reliant on future items.Renewed vehicle sales are not yet generating enough operating profit to pay fast-rising AI and infrastructure expenditures. So investors need to place a lot of value on robotaxis, autonomous software, and robotics before such businesses can generate big earnings.That’s the new lesson of the selloff.Wall Street has not walked away from AI investments. It has started to assess the corporations making those investments based on the quality of the businesses supporting them.Alphabet appears to have restored some investor faith since its spending is tied to growing profitability. Tesla still has to prove that its costly next step can bolster rather than drain the business it already has.Related: Alphabet cloud surge overshadowed by negative cash flow shock

Seagate Technology (STX) and Western Digital (WDC) supply high-capacity hard drives used by cloud providers to store the growing volumes of data produced by artificial intelligence workloads.The companies have become two of the market’s most closely watched AI infrastructure stocks as hyperscalers expand data-center capacity and reserve hard-drive supply years in advance.Both stocks moved sharply lower on July 27 despite a bullish analyst call.Seagate shares fell about 6.1% to $800 around midday July 27, and Western Digital declined about 6.1% to $487.87.Seagate will report fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year results after the market closes on July 28. Western Digital is scheduled to report on Aug. 5.The reports will show whether limited hard-drive supply is still helping the companies raise prices and protect margins.They will also show whether production constraints are limiting the number of drives Seagate and Western Digital can deliver.Wedbush analyst Matt Brysonraised his Seagate price target to $1,000 from $825 and lifted his Western Digital target to $650 from $540.Bryson maintained Outperform ratings on both stocks.

SOPA Images / Getty Images

Wedbush expects the HDD shortage to continue into 2027Wedbush expects growing demand and limited hard-drive supply to continue well into 2027.Cloud providers are reserving high-capacity drives as they expand storage for AI training data, inference output, customer records and backups.The shortage gives Seagate and Western Digital more leverage in negotiating new customer agreements because hyperscalers have fewer suppliers with available capacity.Related: Nvidia just locked down deal that changes AI raceHowever, higher market prices may take time to reach Seagate’s financial results.The company has already committed much of its fiscal 2027 capacity through long-term agreements that set volumes and pricing in advance.That means the strongest benefit may come when existing agreements reset or Seagate signs contracts for later delivery periods at higher prices.Seagate had declined about 17% in July entering Monday, while Western Digital had fallen more than 20%, according to Investor’s Business Daily.The pullback shows investors are waiting for more details on contract pricing, available capacity, and whether limited production will prevent the companies from accepting additional orders.More AI:The new Chinese AI model rattling U.S. tech investorsAnthropic restores access to Mythos 5 for select organizationsSoftBank CEO offers stinging critique of Musk’s AI betAI expansion is increasing demand for mass-capacity storageAI models require storage before and after they run.Companies retain training datasets, model checkpoints, inference results, security logs, and customer information inside cloud data centers.High-capacity hard drives allow cloud providers to store large amounts of that information in a smaller physical footprint.A recent Bank of America report placed that demand inside a wider shift in technology investment.The debate around frontier technologies has shifted from experimentation to scalability.BofA did not mention Seagate or Western Digital in that section of the report.Its scalability framework helps explain why storage availability has become part of the AI infrastructure buildout alongside processors, networking equipment, and electricity.AI companies can experiment with limited computing capacity.Running those products for millions of customers requires much larger systems for computing, moving, and retaining data.The demand has already affected Seagate’s production planning.CEO Dave Mosley said in May that building new factories would take too long and could leave the company with unused capacity if demand later weakened.Mosley said recording-head wafers had lead times exceeding nine months.Finished drives required roughly another quarter after that stage.Seagate later said its nearline capacity was almost fully allocated through calendar 2027.Nearline drives are high-capacity products designed for cloud and enterprise data centers.The storage shortage can also cap revenue growthLimited supply can lift prices when customers compete for available capacity.It creates a different problem when manufacturers cannot produce enough drives to accept additional orders.Seagate and Western Digital therefore need to show that pricing gains outweigh the revenue they may be leaving behind due to constrained production.Related: Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO just made major AI decisionTheir margin benchmarks are already high.Seagate reported a 47% non-GAAP gross margin in its fiscal third quarter, up from 36.2% a year earlier.The company forecast fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $3.45 billion, plus or minus $100 million.It projected non-GAAP earnings of $5 a share, plus or minus 20 cents.Western Digital reported fiscal third-quarter revenue of $3.34 billion and a non-GAAP gross margin of 50.5%.It forecast fourth-quarter revenue of about $3.65 billion and a non-GAAP gross margin of approximately 51.5%.Those results leave little room for a quarter that merely meets expectations.Investors will need evidence that new contracts are being signed at higher prices, recent margin gains can continue, and customer commitments extend beyond the capacity already reserved for 2027.Key numbers ahead of Seagate and Western Digital earnings$1,000: Wedbush’s new Seagate price target$650: Wedbush’s new Western Digital price target47%: Seagate’s latest non-GAAP gross margin50.5%: Western Digital’s latest non-GAAP gross margin$3.45 billion: Seagate’s fiscal fourth-quarter revenue guidance midpoint$3.65 billion: Western Digital’s fiscal fourth-quarter revenue guidance midpointThrough 2027: Period for which Seagate’s nearline capacity was almost fully allocatedWedbush’s targets assume that constrained supply will continue supporting contract prices and margins.Seagate reports first, giving investors the earliest indication of whether the recent decline has reset expectations or reflects concern that profitability is approaching a peak.Western Digital will face the same test the following week.Related: Cathie Wood buys $50.1 million of tumbling megacap stock

Nvidia(NVDA) investors have no shortage of reasons to remain bullish.The AI chipmaker posted record revenue of $81.6 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2027, up 85% from a year earlier. Data center revenue surged 92% to $75.2 billion. Nvidia forecast second-quarter revenue of about $91 billion and gross margins of about 75%.That outlook has one glaring exception: Nvidia assumes there will be no Data Center computing revenue from China.For now, the company is growing strong enough to absorb that lost business. But a new White House allegation about Chinese startup Moonshot AI points to a risk that could extend beyond China.Moonshot purchased servers equipped with Nvidia’s GB300 processors and deployed them in Thailand, probably to train AI models, according to Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as CNBC reported.The claim had not been independently verified, said CNBC. Its report did not charge Nvidia with knowingly violating U.S. export controls.The question for shareholders is not whether Moonshot will reduce demand for Nvidia chips. It’s whether the row will spur Washington to regulate data centers abroad, cloud providers, and remote users of Nvidia hardware.That could turn a China sales problem into a wider global compliance issue.Nvidia’s earnings show demand is not the problemNvidia’s recent results show the strength of the underlying investment thesis.Net income for the quarter was $58.3 billion, and diluted earnings per share increased 214% from a year ago to $2.39. Data Center sales represented more than 90% of total revenue.Nvidia’s official earnings release also suggests the company expects around 12% revenue growth quarter over quarter, excluding China Data Center computing sales from its forecast.More AI:Workers just sent AI companies an ultimatumPalantir CEO has a blunt verdict on OpenAI and AnthropicElon Musk pulls no punches with AI rivals as Grok 4.5 debutsThose numbers suggest that the Moonshot report is not an immediate earnings threat. Instead, the risk is in the potential second-order effects.In its most recent statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nvidia said it is effectively unable to compete in China’s Data Center computing market in the current regulatory environment.The company cautioned that its absence might allow competitors to build bigger consumer and developer ecosystems, possibly threatening Nvidia in other areas. It also claimed that the lost opportunity could have a material impact on its company and financial results.“We were effectively foreclosed from competing in China’s data center computing/compute market,” Nvidia said in its quarterly filing.Moonshot could expand Nvidia’s regulatory exposureThe Moonshot disagreement is important since the reported access took place in Thailand, not China.Export regulations have typically been concerned with who buys a chip and where it goes. Remote computing enables a corporation to use modern hardware without having to physically import it.Congress is already thinking about laws to try to close the gap.Key takeaways for Nvidia stockAI demand remains Nvidia’s primary earnings driver.China Data Center sales are already excluded from current guidance.Remote-access controls could affect customers outside China.Tighter monitoring could raise compliance and deployment costs.Nvidia’s absence from China could strengthen competing chip ecosystems.The Remote Access Security Act would give the federal government the specific authority to regulate remote foreign access to controlled U.S. technology. The House passed the bill 369-22 in January and sent it to the Senate Banking Committee.And the White House’s AI Action Plan proposes to leverage location-verification features in advanced chips and ramp up monitoring in areas deemed vulnerable to diversion.Related: Bank of America delivers strong Nvidia verdictFor Nvidia, the restrictions could involve more stringent customer vetting, monitoring of use, and partnerships with cloud and data-center providers.The Commerce Department has already made compliance a condition of some purchases from China. It has a January licensing policy that allows case-by-case consideration of applications for exports of the H200, provided that buyers implement customer-screening and other security measures.

Nvidia’s strongest AI chips create a growing policy problem.Bloomberg / Getty Images

The takeaway for Nvidia investorsThe Moonshot assertion is a double-edged sword for Nvidia shareholders.The positive argument is that China’s apparent effort to buy access to GB300 demonstrates how valuable Nvidia’s tech is.Each GB300 NVL72 has 72 Blackwell Ultra GPUs and 36 Grace central processing units. Nvidia says it can deliver up to 50 times the AI factory output of Hopper-based platforms.Moonshot claims its Kimi K3 model has 2.8 trillion parameters and enables a context window of one million tokens, according to the BBC. Such are Moonshot’s criteria, but they hint at the amount of computing Chinese developers are seeking.The negative take is that it’s getting difficult to market and deploy the finest of Nvidia’s products globally.The immediate risk to the stock is not an earnings collapse. Investors consider increased compliance expenses, less open markets, and tougher rivals from China, so the regulatory discount is bigger.Nvidia’s expansion is drowning out those concerns. Investors should watch whether Washington sticks to Moonshot or expands into laws governing Nvidia systems globally.Related: AMD’s customer list keeps growing, and Nvidia should notice

Alphabet reported earnings on July 22 and the stock dropped more than 7% in a single session. The numbers weren’t bad. Cloud grew 82% year over year. Advertising held up. EPS beat. What rattled investors was the spending. Capital expenditure guidance for 2026 came in at $195 billion to $205 billion. Free cash flow went negative for the first time in the company’s history. The market looked at that bill and sold first, asked questions later.Five days later, Phillip Securities analyst Serena Lim Yi Qi published a note saying the market got it wrong. On July 27, she upgraded Alphabet to Buy from Accumulate, lowered her price target to $425 from $450, and explained why the combination of those two moves makes sense.Phillip Securities upgrades Google stock to Buy on AI growthThe upgrade from Accumulate to Buy is the meaningful part of the call. Phillip Securities is saying Alphabet’s AI momentum has reached the point where sitting on the sidelines no longer makes sense, according to Investing.com.Lim Yi Qi pointed to Alphabet’s vertically integrated AI ecosystem as the core of the bull case. The company controls its own custom silicon through its Tensor Processing Units, runs optimized data centers, and deploys its Gemini models across Search, Cloud, and its broader product suite. That integration, in her view, gives Alphabet a structural advantage that is starting to show up in the numbers in a meaningful way.The free cash flow picture is more complicated. Alphabet turned negative on free cash flow for the first time this quarter because of the scale of its AI investment. Lim Yi Qi views that as a temporary condition supporting stronger long-term growth rather than a structural problem. The company has also raised its 2026 capex guidance to a range of $195 billion to $205 billion, signaling the buildout is far from over.Why Phillip Securities cut the Google stock price target to $425Cutting the target while upgrading the rating isn’t contradictory. It reflects a specific view: Phillip Securities likes where Alphabet is going more than it did before, but it’s also more disciplined about how much it’s willing to pay to get there.Lim Yi Qi lowered her fiscal 2026 revenue and net income forecasts by approximately 2% and 4%, respectively. The revisions reflect moderate margin expansion amid ongoing supply chain constraints on AI hardware. The near-term earnings power looks slightly weaker than she previously modeled. The long-term direction looks better. The price target reflects both.At $319.74, Alphabet is trading at a P/E of 16.04 and a PEG ratio of just 0.14, according to TipRanks. A PEG ratio below 1.0 typically signals a stock is cheap relative to its growth rate. At 0.14, Alphabet is exceptionally cheap by that measure, which is part of why Phillip Securities thinks the upgrade is justified even with a lower target.

Lim Yi Qi pointed to Alphabet’s vertically integrated AI ecosystem as the core of the bull caseKarl/Getty Images

What Google cloud and advertising growth say about Alphabet’s AI momentumThe 82% year-over-year cloud growth is the headline number. It reflects surging demand for Google Cloud’s enterprise AI products and services as companies scale their AI workloads. That kind of growth rate from a business already generating tens of billions in annual revenue is unusual and it’s the clearest sign that Alphabet’s AI investment is converting into real customer demand.Advertising held up better than many expected. Revenue grew 14% year over year, driven by Gemini integration making Search more useful and increased monetization of Shorts and connected TV. For a business that skeptics have spent years worrying about as AI disrupted traditional search behavior, a 14% growth rate signals those fears may be overstated for now, as TheStreet reported.Alphabet’s Barclays analyst maintained an Overweight rating and a $425 target citing the company’s new TPU-as-a-service model, which involves selling Tensor Processing Units directly to customers. That business is seeing purchase commitments rise significantly based on Alphabet’s latest 10-Q filing. Citizens also maintained a Market Outperform rating with a $515 target, one of the most bullish on the Street, emphasizing AI growth potential, as TheStreet reported.What Phillip Securities’ Google stock upgrade means for Alphabet investorsPhillip Securities’ timing matters. Upgrading five days after a 7% earnings selloff says the firm looked at the same numbers that rattled investors and reached a different conclusion. The post-earnings drop gave the stock a valuation that Lim Yi Qi clearly thinks doesn’t reflect what the business is actually doing.Not every analyst sees it the same way. Bernstein SocGen lowered its price target to $385 and maintained a Market Perform rating, citing the negative free cash flow quarter and the scale of the capex guidance raise. The $195 billion to $205 billion capex range is a significant commitment, and some analysts are less willing than Phillip Securities to take the long-term view on when that investment starts generating proportional returns.At $319.74 with a $425 Phillip Securities target and cloud growing at 82%, the bull case for Alphabet is real. The question is whether the market is ready to reward a company spending at this scale before the margins fully recover.Related: Bank of America doubles down on Google stock ahead of earnings

Paramount Skydance had been pushing to close its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by the end of September. It picked the wrong month to be optimistic. A coalition of 12 state attorneys general sued to block the deal on July 13, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order days later, and now the closing date has been pushed as far back as June 2027.Paramount filed an 11-page court stipulation on July 24 agreeing to hold off on closing the transaction until five days after the judge rules on the antitrust case, or June 1, 2027, whichever comes first, CNBC reported. The deal is still alive. It is just moving on a very different timeline than anyone expected three weeks ago.Who’s fighting the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger?The legal challenge came from 12 states led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. The coalition includes Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington. They filed suit July 13, arguing the merger would reduce competition in three areas: wide-release theatrical film distribution, top-grossing movie distribution, and the market for distributing basic cable channels to cable and satellite providers.U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern District of California issued the temporary restraining order that same week. The Writers Guild of America also filed a separate lawsuit the following day, alleging the deal violates federal antitrust law and would hurt pay and opportunities for writers, Axios reported.Related: Warner Bros. sues Amazon over an exec who left 16 months earlyParamount said in its filing that it still believes the merger should be allowed, and called the states’ case “wrong on both the facts and the law” and “one of the weakest merger challenges” it has seen. The company rejected claims it would reduce competition. Bonta responded by calling the stipulation “great news for audiences, movie theaters, and the many people who write, build, and create the art, news, and entertainment so many of us enjoy.”Why the state challenge of Paramount’s WBD acquisition landed so hardThe deal had cleared two major regulatory hurdles before the states moved. The Department of Justice antitrust division declined to challenge it in June. European regulators approved it around the same time. Both federal and international reviewers gave the green light, Variety reported.State attorneys general have been increasingly willing to fill the gap when federal antitrust enforcement pulls back. Bonta pointed to that shift explicitly, saying the federal government had “abdicated” its responsibility to challenge big corporate mergers. The states argued that Section 7 of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 bars mergers likely to substantially lessen competition, and they say this one does.The deal would combine Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, Paramount+ and HBO Max, CBS News and CNN, and dozens of cable channels under Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison. New York Attorney General Letitia James called the temporary pause “a critical victory in our efforts to uphold the law and protect the film and television industries.”

The legal challenge of the Paramount Skydance-Warner Bros. Discovery merger came from 12 states, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.Patrick/Getty Images

What the new timeline means for Paramount and WBD investorsParamount previously said it wanted to close by the end of September. The new stipulation eliminates that target entirely. No trial date has been set, but Paramount has indicated it wants a trial as early as November. California has said the states may seek a 2027 proceeding to allow more preparation time, NBC News reported.For investors in both companies, the merger is no longer a near-term event. It is now a legal process with a months-long runway. Paramount’s stock may trade with deal-related uncertainty rather than a clean acquisition premium. WBD shareholders get assurance the deal hasn’t collapsed, but they have to wait much longer to see whether it actually closes.Why the outcome of this antitrust case matters beyond these two companiesState attorneys general in Democratic-led states are taking a more aggressive stance on large media mergers after federal enforcement has pulled back under the current administration. Other studios or media companies watching this case will have a clearer read on how much state-level resistance to expect before they announce their own deals.The case also tests how far state authority extends on federal antitrust questions. The deal cleared the DOJ and European regulators. A state coalition blocking it anyway would mark a significant expansion of state power in merger oversight, which has implications well beyond Hollywood. Bonta said the states intend to continue seeking a permanent order blocking the merger, even after the pause agreement was signed.Paramount has said it will fight the case on the merits. The company filed its stipulation voluntarily, not under a court order requiring it to do so. That gives Paramount the legal positioning to argue it is cooperating with the process while still contesting the core claims. The two sides must submit proposed trial schedules by July 31.Related: Warner Bros. offers new Superman attraction