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Drive through almost any American suburb, and you will spot it: a shuttered Walgreens with a handwritten sign in the window telling customers their prescriptions moved down the road. More often than not, that road leads to a CVS.

This pattern is playing out in strip malls across the country, quietly reshaping who controls the neighborhood pharmacy business without either company having to compete openly.

Walgreens is not trimming a handful of weak stores. It is closing roughly 1,200 of its approximately 8,500 U.S. locations through 2027.

CVS (CVS), meanwhile, is opening new stores and absorbing customers who no longer have a choice.

Walgreens stock exits public markets amid closures

In August 2025, Walgreens completed a $10 billion sale to private equity firm Sycamore Partners, taking the 124-year-old chain private for the first time. 

According to a company statement, Mike Motz was named chief executive, replacing Tim Wentworth, who will stay on as a director. John Lederer, a senior advisor to Sycamore, became executive chairman.

“As a private organization, alongside our dedicated team members, we are renewing our focus on our core pharmacy and retail platform, our stores and our customer experience,” Motz stated. 

Related: Pharmacy giant closes more stores across U.S. in 2026

Going private removed Walgreens stock from the daily scrutiny of Wall Street, and that freedom appears to have sped up the closures. 

Company leadership has pointed to shrinking pharmacy reimbursement rates, weaker retail traffic, and competition from Amazon Pharmacy as reasons roughly a quarter of stores no longer fit the chain’s strategy.

CVS stock benefits without lifting a finger

CVS has not needed a marketing campaign or a price war to gain ground. 

Federal and state rules require an orderly transfer of prescription records when a pharmacy closes, and in several markets, these scripts land at the nearest CVS. 

Decades of overlapping suburban footprints mean a Walgreens closing is often just a mile or two from an open CVS door.

Foot traffic data shows how sticky the trend has become. Even as both chains shrink their overall store counts, the combined share of pharmacy visits keeps climbing. 

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CVS and Walgreens together now handle nearly 40% of all U.S. retail prescription sales.

CVS also has a structural edge. Its ownership of Caremark, one of the three dominant pharmacy benefit managers in the country, gives it a vertically integrated advantage that helps absorb reimbursement pressure that hits pure retail operators harder.

That advantage showed up in CVS’s second-quarter 2026 results.

The company posted more than $106 billion in revenue and adjusted operating income of roughly $5.2 billion, up more than 35% from a year earlier. 

Prem Shah, who leads CVS’s pharmacy and consumer wellness business, credited a multi-year push on service and pricing for the momentum.

“We’re still the best run national pharmacy in the country,” Shah said on the company’s August 2026 earnings call, pointing to same-store prescription volume growth of 7% and steady front store sales gains. 

He added that CVS expects to keep growing “faster than the market” as pharmacies close around it. 

A monopoly with no antitrust fight

For families near a closed Walgreens, the effect shows up fast, and it goes beyond prescriptions:

Fewer nearby options when picking where to fill a prescription

Longer drives for both medication and everyday items such as toiletries

Less pressure on pharmacies to compete on price or wait times

Convenience spending on snacks, greeting cards, and seasonal goods funneled to whichever store survives

States with the heaviest concentration of Walgreens locations, including Florida, Texas, Illinois, and California, are seeing the most visible closure activity, meaning the shift is landing hardest in the suburbs both chains spent decades building out.

What makes this consolidation unusual is how little regulatory attention it draws. There is no merger to review and no acquisition for the Federal Trade Commission to scrutinize. 

Walgreens is simply choosing, store by store, to stop competing where it no longer sees it as worth the cost. 

Traditional antitrust review is built to identify one company buying out or squeezing a rival.

With Walgreens now private, there is also far less public financial disclosure and shareholder pressure that might otherwise slow the closures down.

CVS benefits from Walgreens store closures.Smith Collection/Gado / Getty Images

What comes next for Walgreens and CVS

Walgreens has committed to continuing closures through 2027, with roughly 100 more expected before the end of 2026. 

CVS’s path forward looks straightforward by comparison. 

It is opening small-format stores, folding in leftover Rite Aid real estate, and leaning into GLP-1 access through new partnerships with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to expand its pharmacy business further. 

CVS raised its full-year 2026 adjusted earnings per share guidance to a range of $7.90 to $8.10, citing strength across every operating segment.

Whether regulators eventually take a closer look at that concentration remains an open question. 

For now, the suburban pharmacy map is being redrawn one closed storefront at a time, and CVS is the chain collecting the pieces.

Related: Walmart, Costco, and CVS have a new way to bring you back

After closing dozens of stores and shutting down two brands, a major jewelry retailer is continuing to shrink its footprint, with dozens more locations expected to close in the coming months.

The latest closures are part of a broader turnaround as the company reshapes its store base, consolidates smaller brands, and shifts resources toward its strongest performers.

Founded in 1949, Signet Jewelers (SIG) is one of the largest diamond jewelry retailers worldwide, operating 2,534 stores across the U.S., UK, and Ireland under several brands, including Kay Jewelers, Zales, Jared, Banter by Piercing Pagoda, Diamonds Direct, Blue Nile, Peoples Jewellers, H.Samuel, and Ernest Jones.

Signet Jewelers closes 53 stores

Signet closed 53 stores between January 1, 2026, and August 1, 2026, with its latest earnings report showing a total of 2,534 locations.

The closures are part of a restructuring effort in which the company plans to shutter approximately 100 stores in fiscal 2027 while renovating its remaining fleet.

As part of its broader transformation, Signet also launched “Love All In” on September 8, 2026, a new brand platform that will refresh the store experience with new approaches to visual merchandising, navigation, and product education, as well as pilots in open selling, custom design, and interaction zones.

The company said the closures will focus on underperforming locations, particularly those outside its core brands or in declining retail environments.

Why Signet is closing stores

The closures follow a comprehensive review that Signet revealed during its fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call, aimed at restructuring its brand portfolio to focus on higher-growth opportunities.

In this review, the company identified opportunities to integrate smaller brands into its larger, more established banners. As a result, Signet prioritized its three core brands: Kay Jewelers, Zales, and Jared.

As part of its new strategy, Signet made James Allen a proprietary collection within Blue Nile and shut down its standalone website. The company also integrated Rocksbox into Kay Jewelers.

The move will allow the company to concentrate resources on top-performing brands, improve operational efficiency, expand customer reach, and drive more consistent comparable-sales growth.

“We believe the cash generation from these businesses as well as the potential tax cost of exiting these brands significantly outweighs any potential sale proceeds,” Signet Chief Operating & Financial Officer Joan Hilson said in the Q4 2026 earnings call.

The retailer also added that it will continue evaluating the long-term role of Banter.

Signet noted that all real estate decisions are guided by strict financial and operational criteria, including local market potential and mall performance. The company said it continues to “rationalize its store footprint” to improve productivity, reduce exposure to weaker malls, and enhance the in-store experience.

Signet Jewelers closes 74 stores.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Signet’s business shows signs of improvement

During the second quarter of fiscal 2027, Signet reported:

Net sales: Declined 0.5% year over year

Same-store sales: Increased 2.2%

North America same-store sales: Climbed 1.9%

Adjusted Operating Income: Rose 25%

Signet said it delivered positive comparable sales across all fine jewelry brands, including high single-digit unit growth at higher price points.

The company also raised its full-year guidance for the second time, reflecting core performance and the economic benefits of a newly signed consumer credit agreement.

“Building on this momentum, we are accelerating our key brand initiatives, including merchandise refreshes, enhancements to both the online and in-store customer experience, and a more modern and emotionally engaging marketing approach,” Signet CEO J.K. Symancyk said in the company’s Q2 2027 earnings release statement.

“By leveraging the full strength of our diversified portfolio, we are entering the back half of the year well-positioned to deliver compelling value throughout the holiday season for customers across a broad range of income levels.”

Retail rivals close stores

Signet is not alone in reassessing its physical footprint. Several major retailers have closed stores or announced additional shutdowns as they adjust to changing consumer demand and shifting market conditions.

For many of these companies, the strategy is not simply about reducing store counts but reallocating investment toward stronger brands, markets, and locations.

Here’s some of my previous coverage of retail store closures:

Tiffany & Co.: Closed several stores across domestic and international markets in late 2025 and 2026.

The Foschini Group: Plans to close 180 additional stores over the next three financial years

Kering: Closed 133 locations across its brands in 2025, with an additional 100 store shutdowns scheduled worldwide in 2026.

Saks Global: Plans to close an additional nine stores following the shutdown of hundreds of locations and its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

Related: 77-year-old jewelry giant will close 100 stores, shut 2 brands

Rival sports leagues that try to encroach on long-established leagues often fail in their attempts to succeed.

The National Football League, established in 1920, has faced challenges from several competing leagues that failed, including the All-America Football Conference, which lasted four seasons before folding after their 1949 season.

The World Football League’s attempt to compete against the NFL in 1974-75 failed and the league went out of business, and about 10 years later, the original USFL operated from 1983-86 and folded, winning $1 in an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL as a consolation.

LIV Golf’s star golfer Jon Rahm is uncertain about his future with the fledgling sports league.Michael Reaves/PGA of America / Getty Images

LIV Golf cancels event before bankruptcy

And now fledgling international sports league LIV Golf Inc.‘s future is uncertain after finishing its season on Aug. 23 in Indianapolis and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept 8.

The league also cancelled its Team Championship that was scheduled to begin Aug. 27 in Detroit.

The West Trenton, N.J. debtor and 54 affiliates filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey with a restructuring support agreement, backed by a proposed new investor, BC Partners Advisors, after its original investor Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia ended its support of the organization in April.

LIV Golf and London-based BC Partners contemplate the company continuing as a going concern through a player-first model, with the company majority owned by players. The parties are currently negotiating details of the ownership structure, according to a company statement.

Star golfer uncertain of return

The upstart league’s star golfer, Jon Rahm, who signed a contract with LIV Golf in December 2023 and won the league’s individual title three straight years, has said he is uncertain about his future with LIV as it faces bankruptcy and restructuring.

“There’s a lot of things that could happen and it’s one of those things where time is gonna tell,” Rahm told the BBC.

“I still have a contract with LIV 1.0 that I’m more than willing to fulfill, so like I said, time will tell,” Rahm said.

Rahm has not yet committed to continuing with a reorganized LIV Golf or a so-called LIV 2.0, however.

Two other LIV golfers, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed, have left LIV to return to the PGA tour, according to the BBC.

Public Investment Fund provides DIP loan

Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia has agreed to provide up to $49.6 million in debtor-in-possession financing to fund the debtor’s bankruptcy case, while BC Partners and other potential minority investors are expected to provide exit financing and recapitalize the reorganized company as the company’s plan sponsor.

LIV Golf, which listed $100 million to $500 million in assets and $500 million to $1 billion in liabilities in its petition, will also seek recognition of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy in England and Wales to protect its assets in those countries.

The golf league posted a message to its fans on Sept. 8 regarding the bankruptcy filing.

Golfers would be league owners

“The next phase of LIV Golf will be built around a sustainable business model and deeper alignment between players and the league, with team golf at its core,” LIV’s CEO Scott O’Neil said in the note. “Players will have the opportunity to share directly in the value they help create, while teams will be positioned to grow into enduring global sports businesses. And fans will remain at the center of everything we do.”

LIV Golf, founded in 2021, claims to be the world’s only global golf league, which featured 57 players from 21 countries competing across 10 countries and five continents in 2026. The league has 13 teams, a 14-tournament schedule, and some of the top golfers in the world.

The league broadcasts to nearly 1 billion households across 250 international markets and territories, while LIV Golf has generated over $1.5 billion in economic impact across host markets since its launch, according to the league.

LIV Golf differs from the PGA Tour and Europe’s DP World Tour, as the longtime established tours compensate players through prize purses, requiring golfers to cover their expenses, such as hotel and travel for themselves and staff. Players also need to sign their own sponsors for personal branding.

To attract top quality golfers, LIV Golf offered upfront payments as well as annual payments to cover the rights to the players sponsorship inventory. Teams sell sponsorships for their organization’s benefit and not any one player, according to a declaration by the debtor’s Chief Restructuring Officer David Orlofsky of Alix Partners LLP.

Annual payments compensated players for their lost earning potential from not being able to sell their own sponsorships.

LIV Golf required significant investments from affiliates of its ultimate equity holder, the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, totaling about $5 billion in equity capital since it launched in 2021.

Over its five-year existence, LIV Golf ran at an operational loss and was years away from standalone profitability. The Public Investment Fund in April 2026 asserted that it would cease further equity funding, but would fund operations through the 2026 season, according to the declaration.

LIV Golf hired restructuring advisers who identified BC Partners Advisors as a lead investor willing to fund operations, contingent on the debtor filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Related: Beloved pizza dining chain’s franchisee closes more locations

Oracle (ORCL) has been a goliath in enterprise technology for decades. Lately, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has emerged as the primary growth engine because of the AI boom.

Oracle just delivered a very solid quarter. Cloud infrastructure revenue grew 121% year over year. Total revenue hit $19.3 billion, up 30%. The company booked more than $30 billion in new AI cloud contracts in a single quarter. Remaining performance obligations reached $664 billion, up $209 billion year over year.

Impressive, right?

Yet the stock is still down 20.90% year to date and 49.83% over the past year, according to Yahoo Finance. How and why?

That gap between operational excellence and stock performance is the Oracle story in 2026 (we’ll get into it in a moment). Then, Morgan Stanley reviewed the Q1 fiscal 2027 results in a note shared with TheStreet. 

The firm kept its Equal-weight rating and $210 price target. And the headline tells it all: OCI delivers, gross margin still to come.

Morgan Stanley’s story on Oracle is impressive execution, but the path to profitability remains the outstanding question.

Also Read: Oracle Corporation Latest News 

Here’s what Oracle’s Q1 fiscal 2027 actually showed

The Sept. 10 results were really strong across most top-line metrics, according to Oracle’s earnings release.

Total cloud revenue reached $11.6 billion, up 62% year over year (YoY).

Cloud infrastructure, the OCI segment that is the center of the AI debate, grew 121% to $7.4 billion, beating consensus by approximately 3%.

The company has delivered 850 megawatts of additional data-center capacity and deployed more than 300,000 GPUs to AI cloud customers since Q4. 

Non-GAAP EPS of $1.92 grew 30% year over year.

The backlog picture is remarkably strong. RPO of $664 billion grew 46% YoY and $26 billion sequentially, with management projecting about half of the RPO to convert to revenue over the next 36 months. 

Customer prepayments with a significant financing component contributed $11.4 billion of deferred revenue in Q1 alone, compared to $4.6 billion across all of fiscal year 2026.

Related: Oracle sends another shocking message to employees

“Customer demand for AI Cloud Training and Inferencing Services continues to grow faster than supply,” the company said in its earnings release.

For Q2 fiscal 2027, Oracle guided total revenue growth of 30% to 34% and total cloud revenue growth of 65% to 71%. Full-year fiscal 2027 guidance was nudged to at least $90 billion in revenue, with non-GAAP EPS of $8.10.

What Morgan Stanley liked and what is still missing

Morgan Stanley’s note has answers to both.

On the positive side, OCI capacity delivery was diversified across multiple sites rather than dependent on any single location. Shackelford, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Michigan are highlighted sites that do not affect fiscal 2027 guidance, management said. 

GPUs up for renewal in Q1 achieved an average 20% premium to prior contracts, indicating pricing power rather than desperation. The $20B at-the-market equity program was completed at $19.9B, removing a share overhang that had been weighing on the stock. 

And the RPO expansion of $26B sequentially came without any increase to the fiscal 2027 capital expenditure guidance of $90 billion to $95 billion.

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The concern is in the gross margin line. Non-GAAP gross margin fell to 61.0%, down approximately 770 basis points YoY, just below consensus. The heavy upfront investment in GPU infrastructure is understandably weighing on margins, but it also raises questions about when profitability will begin to inflect.

“When will impressive execution on the capacity build-out translate to more impressive flow-through on profitability?” Morgan Stanley asked.

The answer management offered was “gross margin stabilization” as capacity comes on stream. 

But the firm wants to see evidence rather than guidance, which explains the decision to maintain the Equal-weight rating rather than upgrading.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has emerged as the primary growth engine, with the AI boom pushing the business into a new phase of growth. OCI revenue grew 121% year over year.Shutterstock

The debt question has weighed on Oracle all year

Yahoo Finance data show the stock hit a record high of $345.72 a year ago (Sept. 8, 2025) and has since lost more than half its value. 

The reason is not the cloud infrastructure business. That sector is executing well. It is the debt load required to build that infrastructure.

Related: Morgan Stanley says Bloom can withstand an Oracle project delay

Oracle took on enormous capital expenditure commitments to compete with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud for the AI buildout. 

Free cash flow has been negative. The company raised $20 billion through equity issuance. Fiscal 2027 and 2028 are described by management as peak capital expenditure years at $90 billion to $95 billion annually.

What comes next for Oracle investors

For investors who can underwrite the view that these are productive investments that will generate strong returns once the $664 billion backlog converts to revenue, the stock is attractive. 

For investors who worry that the economics of GPU-as-a-service are less favorable than assumed, the gross margin compression is the concern signal that validates their hesitation.

Morgan Stanley‘s Oct. 28 Financial Analyst Day is the event the firm flagged as the next major information opportunity. 

Management is expected to provide more detail on the infrastructure build timeline, gross margin trajectory, and the path from backlog to earnings. That is where we are likely to see the Equal-weight rating get reassessed.

With a 30% single-quarter revenue growth rate and 121% cloud infrastructure expansion, I see Oracle valued on the assumption of continued uncertainty.

If the Oct. 28 analyst day removes that uncertainty, Oracle’s position changes quickly.

Related: Morgan Stanley delivers bold Carvana stock verdict

Many homebuyers have felt the strain of an expensive housing market so far in 2026. High housing prices, surging mortgage rates, and costs such as insurance and property taxes are making monthly payments unaffordable for numerous Americans.

Real estate technology company Zillow released its August 2026 Market Report on Sept. 8. The report showed that high costs have had several negative consequences for the housing market, including slower home sales and higher monthly mortgage payments.

But Zillow also discovered a bright spot for homebuyers: less competition.

In fact, if you can still afford a home in today’s real estate market, you may have some serious advantages.

“Affordability is putting the brakes on the for-sale market, but it is also changing the experience for buyers who remain active,” wrote Mischa Fisher, Zillow chief economist. “Less competition gives well-prepared buyers a better chance to compare options and negotiate with confidence.”

More homes for sale could give buyers more negotiating power

Zillow data showed 1.41 million homes for sale in the U.S. in August.

Active inventory, which refers to all homes for sale during the month, increased 3% year over year. It also rose monthly, up 0.2% from July.

New listings hit 356,934 in August, which is a 2.4% annual increase.

New listings are down 7.9% from July. However, this decline may partly reflect typical housing market trends. For example, Opendoor reports that sale price versus market value, days on the market, and buyer competition are typically a little weaker in August than in July. These types of factors could discourage sellers from listing their homes in August.

The national housing shortage is the main driver of the U.S. home affordability crisis. The country still has a long way to go — Zillow estimates that 4.7 million new homes need to be built — but a 3% annual increase is a good start.

More inventory means less competition among buyers. And less competition typically leads to lower home sale prices.

Zillow data shows that active inventory increased both monthly and annually in August.Bloomberg / Getty Images

More than 1 in 4 listings had a price cut

When a seller cuts the listing price on their home, buyers benefit in two ways.

The first (and most obvious) perk is that the price is now lower. Someone who was on the fence about being able to afford the house before might be able to make an offer now.

The second is that, depending on the circumstances, a price cut might indicate that a seller is more motivated to negotiate and make the sale work.

The Zillow August 2026 Market Report revealed that 26.3% of home listings had a price cut in August. That’s a year-over-year increase of 0.5%.

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“Buyers who can make a move today are encountering conditions that were scarce during the frenzied years: more homes to consider, more time to decide and sellers who are increasingly cutting prices to attract buyers,” wrote Zillow.

Mortgage rates may have been lower from 2020-2022, but “frenzied” is the perfect word to describe the national real estate market in those years. Now, borrowers can take their time, wait for possible price cuts, and find more opportunities for negotiations.

Key takeaways from the Zillow Market Report

Buyers in areas with more inventory have more power. Zillow found that a select few U.S. metro areas experienced more inventory growth in August than others: Salt Lake City (6.2%), Buffalo, New York (5.2%), and Detroit (5%) topped the list.

Buyers in cities with decelerating inventory have less power. Some metro areas actually lost inventory in August. The most significant drops were in Boston (-4.2%), New York City (-3.5%), and Austin, Texas (-3.2%). As a result, residents could face more competition and even higher prices.

Monthly pricing cuts are down. Although the year-over-year number of listings with price cuts has increased by 0.5%, they’ve decreased by 0.8% since July.

An expensive housing market also means less competition. High home prices and mortgage rates have priced some people out of the 2026 housing market. If you can afford to buy a home, this means even less competition for you, which could help you negotiate for a lower price or other concessions.

Be honest about what’s affordable. The truth is, the current national housing market is good for those who can afford a home they like and the monthly payment that comes with it. But it’s still an expensive market overall. Don’t take on a mortgage so large that the rest of your life becomes financially stressful.

Related: Zillow predicts big mortgage rate, housing market change

Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong is issuing a stern warning about broadband pricing and the company’s future performance as it continues to lose a significant number of customers.

In 2025, Comcast, which operates broadband service under the name Xfinity, lost over 700,000 internet customers after raising Xfinity prices and restricting its autopay discount. The trend continued, with the company losing a combined 232,000 internet customers across the first and second quarters of this year. 

On an earnings call in July, Armstrong said that the company is operating in an “intensely competitive” market. 

“Fiber continues to expand, fixed wireless remains aggressive, satellite is emerging as another alternative, and convergence-based promotional activity remains elevated across the industry,” he said. 

Comcast CFO warns about “irrational” fiber internet pricing

At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference on Sept. 9, Armstrong has warned that the company is seeing “irrational” pricing from fiber internet rivals, a trend that began in the first half of this year. 

“We were starting to see irrational competition,” said Armstrong. “It popped up a little bit in the second quarter. I would tell you it’s continued into the third quarter.”

“So when we see fiber pricing, standalone fiber pricing, in the $30-$40 range for a gig, when we say irrational, that’s what we mean by irrational,” he continued. “That to us is not a rational price point.”

Related: Comcast adds new service to internet plans as customers leave

Armstrong said that the transition from copper to fiber costs Comcast “potentially thousands of dollars,” causing him to question the $30-$40 pricing. Currently, Comcast charges roughly $50 per month for its fiber-powered internet (a hybrid fiber-coaxial network) at 1 Gbps speed. 

He also flagged that rivals are rapidly increasing their fiber internet build in Comcast’s markets, further intensifying competition. 

“If you look at fiber making its way into our markets, historically, we would see overbuild of 2%-3% per year,” he said. “That’s accelerated in the last couple of years. It looks more like 4% or 5% at this point.”

As fiber internet operators accelerate their growth and offer lower-priced plans to consumers, Armstrong warned that Comcast doesn’t expect customer losses to improve in the third quarter of this year. 

“We do think a full year we’ll improve our broadband subscriber losses,” he said. “I think quarters are going to look different within that. This particular quarter, I don’t think we’ll improve year over year. So the pressure we’ve seen, in particular with irrational fiber pricing, is going to cause that.”

Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong said “irrational” fiber internet pricing by rivals is intensifying broadband competition. Bloomberg / Getty Images

Comcast faces growing pressure from fixed wireless and satellite

Fiber isn’t the only growing threat to Comcast’s business. Fixed wireless internet, which is usually offered by mobile providers at lower prices than traditional wired internet, is becoming increasingly popular among U.S. consumers. 

“Fixed wireless continues to be a pressure on subscriber additions,” said Armstrong. “That’s no different from the past several years.” 

Satellite internet providers are also gaining steam in the broadband market. For instance, SpaceX’s Starlink surpassed 12 million global high-speed internet customers so far this year. Armstrong said that while satellite internet isn’t a major threat to Comcast at the moment, this could change over time. 

“Satellite looms out there as a potential threat,” he said. “Would reiterate what we said on the second-quarter call, not really seeing it yet, but there’s no complacency around it. I think we’ll see it over time and, in particular, in rural and maybe deep suburban markets, it may be a better option as a competitor than we’ve faced historically.”

Despite intensifying competitive headwinds, Armstrong said that wired internet still “wins.”

“If you think about the ability to increase speeds over time, if you think about lowest latency, if you think about lowest marginal cost to upgrade, all those sort of bring you back to you want a wire in the home,” he said.

Comcast navigates cautious consumers, bets on company split 

Armstrong’s bleak outlook on broadband competition and on Comcast’s near-term performance in the industry comes as more consumers nationwide are opting to switch internet providers amid rising prices.

A survey from Reviews.org in March found that 73% of Americans have seen their internet service bills inflate this year, with 30% facing monthly increases of $10 to $20.

Hidden fees and unexpected charges are influencing internet customers’ decisions, as roughly 

67% said this has caused them to either change providers or consider switching. Meanwhile, higher prices have led 30% of Americans to cancel their home internet service or move to a lower-tier plan over the past year. 

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Tim Tincher, a media relations specialist at Reviews.org, said in a press release that pricing significantly impacts customer retention in the broadband industry. 

“People want internet pricing to be simple and honest,” said Tincher. “Instead, many are dealing with rising bills, surprise fees, and confusing charges. When customers feel caught off guard, they’re much more likely to start looking for another provider.”

As Comcast faces a more price-conscious consumer, it announced in June that it plans to split into two companies in mid-2027. This includes separating its media and entertainment assets, including NBCUniversal and Sky, from its cable business, which provides broadband, wireless and cable TV services under the name Xfinity.  

Former Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis will rejoin the company as CEO of the retained cable business. Armstrong said this change will help fuel growth into its broadband, cable TV and wireless services. 

“For the remaining cable co., it’s also a forcing function,” said Armstrong. “How many things can we go reinvent? Where are the pockets for growth that we can just be more agile, more focused? There’s a lot of different things out there we’re looking at.” 

In a research note in July, MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett said that Angelakis’ main task will be to “find balance” to turn around Comcast’s struggling broadband segment, according to a report from Light Reading. 

“Yes, broadband sub trends clearly need to improve,” said Moffett. “But the improvement can’t come solely from cutting prices.”

He added that the goal “isn’t to ‘lose less.’ And it’s certainly not to ‘lose less’ if the cost of the price reductions is greater than the benefit to net additions.”

“But, as we noted last quarter, turnarounds must start somewhere,” he continued. “It’s not unreasonable to be at least a little optimistic.”

Related: Comcast hopes generous offers will slow internet customer losses

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Why we love this deal

I love browsing local antique stores and estate sales for hidden gems, focusing mostly on wooden furniture and vintage decor to fill my mid-century modern space with a bit of boho eclectic flair. At one time, these second-hand finds were a budget-friendly way to furnish the home, but these days, the superior quality and construction of the decades past can cost a pretty penny, at times being more expensive than buying something brand-new. Because of this, more manufacturers are producing vintage-inspired furniture that looks like a family heirloom but without the high-end price tag.

That’s the case with the bestselling Mehoom 3-Tier Side Table at Walmart. With charming scalloped legs and three rows of shelving, this versatile table looks like something you’d find at grandma’s house. It’d be a great addition to the living room, but it’d look equally good in the bedroom, home office, or den. It regularly retails for $69, but with a weekly Flash deal, you can score it for just $37 — that’s 46% off its original price. Since Walmart’s Flash deals change each Saturday, you won’t want to wait to snag this one.

Mehoom 3-Tier Side Table, $37 (was $69) at Walmart

Courtesy of Walmart

Shop at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

Ideal for even smaller spaces, this side table measures 11.8 inches long, 13.6 inches wide, and 22.5 inches tall. Elegant in its simplicity, this selection will elevate the space, but it also adds plenty of functionality to your setup with three incredibly convenient shelves. You can use the top shelf for a table lamp, an alarm clock, or to display artwork or plants. With the second row, you can create a spot to charge your devices at nighttime, with ample room for charging your tablet and smartphone. The bottom shelf could be used for bulky books, or you could add a fabric storage basket at the base to hide away messy clutter. 

Related: Walmart’s bestselling farmhouse pantry that can hold up to 320 pounds is now $120

The furniture is constructed with a mix of real wood and engineered wood, but the wood grain finish makes the entire thing look like solid wood. Assembly will be required upon arrival, but the table offers a tool-free assembly that takes under 10 minutes to complete, so it shouldn’t be a complex or tedious process. Once completed, the sturdy table can hold up to 40 pounds, so you can stack on heavy coffee table books or even smaller appliances if needed. “A sturdy product with a vintage appearance,” is how one shopper described the table, adding, “This side table is very nice and can be placed anywhere you want it.”

Details to know 

Dimensions: 11.8 inches long, 13.6 inches wide, and 22.5 inches tall.

Material: Wood and engineered wood.

Is assembly required?: Yes.

With an average shopper rating of 4.3 out of five stars, this side table or nightstand has been given its stamp of approval by reviewers. One shopper raved, “A very cute little table. It’s perfect for displaying a plant.”

Shop more deals

Gaderth Round 3-Tier Side Table, $36 at Walmart

Gijjgole Rustic 2-Tier End Table, $36 (was $60) at Walmart

Mehoom Narrow 3-Tier Side Table, $38 (was $69) at Walmart

The Mehoom 3-Tier Side Table is a great addition to any home, especially while it’s on sale for just $37 at Walmart. This deal will likely end by this weekend, so don’t wait to secure the savings by adding it to your shopping cart now.

When investors scan a mutual fund’s or ETF’s performance summary, two Morningstar badges immediately catch their eye: a Gold Analyst Rating and a  5-Star Rating. While both signal top-tier quality at first glance, using them interchangeably is one of the most common — and costly — mistakes in retail investing.

Understanding how these two systems differ is the key to separating temporary momentum from a sustainable, forward-looking edge.

ETFs and mutual funds are both viable investments; using Morningstar’s ranking tools can help you build your portfolio.

Backward-looking vs. forward-looking

The fundamentally distinct engine behind each rating determines what it actually tells you about a fund:

The 5-Star Rating (quantitative and historical): Morningstar’s star rating is entirely mathematical and strictly backward-looking. It evaluates an ETF’s or a mutual fund’s risk-adjusted returns relative to its category peers over past 3-, 5-, and 10-year periods. No human discretion is involved. A fund earns 5 stars simply because its historical trailing performance landed in the top 10% of its category, after accounting for downside risk and sales charges.

The Gold Rating (qualitative and forward-looking): The Medalist Rating (Gold, Silver, Bronze) reflects Morningstar’s conviction in a fund’s ability to outperform its peer group or benchmark in the future on a risk-adjusted basis over a full market cycle (at least five years). It is driven by qualitative analysis evaluated across three core pillars: People, Process, and Parent.

Key Comparison: Star vs. Medalist Ratings

FeatureMorningstar 5-Star RatingMorningstar Gold Medalist RatingPrimary FocusPast performance track recordFuture outperformance convictionEvaluation Type100% quantitative formulaQualitative analysis (Manager + Quantitative model)Core CriteriaTrailing risk-adjusted returnsPeople, Process, and Parent company qualityDistributionTop 10% of category historical performersHighest-conviction funds net of feesKey LimitationSuffers from “chasing yield/returns” lagForward-looking assessments can still miss market shifts

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Why a 5-star fund isn’t always a solid choice

Past performance doesn’t always predict future performance in fund management. A fund or ETF can easily earn a 5-Star rating due to a macroeconomic tailwind or a sector bubble that propelled its holdings over the last three years.

However, if the star-performing portfolio manager leaves, the strategy’s assets swell to an unmanageable size, or expense ratios creep up, that 5-star history won’t protect future returns. In fact, historical studies show that 5-star funds often revert to average or below-average performance over subsequent years.

Why a Gold Rating Demands Attention

A Gold Rating represents Morningstar’s highest level of analyst conviction. To earn Gold, a fund or ETF must excel across all three evaluation pillars:

People: Exceptional, stable portfolio management with significant personal coinvestment alongside shareholders.

Process: A disciplined, repeatable investment strategy that offers a distinct, sustainable edge over benchmark indexes.

Parent: A fund family dedicated to investor stewardship, low fees, and strong risk management rather than asset-gathering.

Critically, Medalist Ratings explicitly account for fees. A great strategy with excessive expense ratios will be downgraded because high costs directly erode net returns to investors.

How smart investors use both

Rather than picking one over the other, treat the two systems as complimentary screening tools:

Use Star Ratings as a Filter: Use 3-, 4-, or 5-star ratings to weed out funds and ETFs with consistently poor historical risk management or persistent underperformance.

Use Medalist Ratings for Selection: Once you have a shortlist, rely on Gold (or Silver) ratings to verify that the fund’s competitive edge, leadership structure, and cost structure support future performance.

When a fund holds both a 5-Star Rating and a Gold Analyst Rating, you have identified a fund where exceptional past execution aligns directly with long-term forward conviction. This is a good first step in the process.

Smart investors take it further, however. They look for mutual funds and ETFs that fit their strategy, including their overall asset allocation. These might be index funds and ETFs, active funds or a combination of both. Expense ratios are important as well, higher investment costs detract from returns.

The star ratings based on past performance and the medalist ratings that try to point out future potential are a great starting point for investors. But they are just that, a starting point. Research, analysis and portfolio parameters should be key parts of the investing process as well.

Related: Vanguard renames key funds to highlight Morningstar benchmarks

Big claims about machines and work always arrive with a number attached, because the number is what does the persuading.

Nobody remembers the argument. Everybody remembers the figure.

That is why automation forecasts land differently than interest rate forecasts. A rate call you can check in six weeks. A claim about the shape of the world economy in 2036 sits out there for years, doing quiet work on how you invest, what you tell your kids to study in college, and whether you assume your job survives the decade.

The baseline right now is deliberately boring. Global growth is running near 3% a year, and outside of shocks it has for most of the past decade. Your 401(k) projections, your employer’s hiring budget and your local housing market all rest on some version of that assumption.

Boring baselines are useful. They are also the first thing to get blown up when someone with capital and an audience publishes a different number.

That happened again on Sept. 9. “AI+robots will more than double the global economy in less than 10 years,” Elon Musk posted on X, the platform he owns.

I have read enough forecasts to know the claim itself is never the interesting part. The growth rate the claim quietly requires is. So I ran the timeline against the International Monetary Fund’s own projections, and the gap is wider than one sentence on social media lets on.

Elon Musk says AI and robots will double global GDP by 2036.Malorny / Getty Images

Why the robot economy math matters to your money

Global gross domestic product is projected at roughly $126 trillion in 2026, according to the International Monetary Fund. Doubling that means adding a second $126 trillion of annual output by the mid-2030s.

Run the compounding and the requirement gets specific. A clean double in ten years takes 7.2% growth every year. Doing it in less than ten pushes you to about 8% a year over nine years, or 9% over eight.

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Now the baseline. Global growth is projected at 3.0% in 2026 and 3.4% in 2027, according to the IMF. At 3%, the world economy doubles in roughly 23 years.

My analysis puts Musk’s requirement at about 2.5 times the planet’s current speed, sustained annually, with no recession in the window.

There is one reading that makes the claim far less wild, and almost nobody states it. Musk did not specify real or nominal.

In dollar terms, global output is projected to climb from about $118 trillion in 2025 to about $126 trillion in 2026, according to IMF projections. That is nearly 7% nominal growth, which is within striking distance of the 8% the timeline needs.

Nominal growth counts inflation and a weaker dollar as progress, so it is not the same as the world actually producing twice as much. Read the claim as real output and it is extraordinary. Read it as headline dollars and it is close to the current trend.

That gap is not academic. Wage growth, corporate earnings and the returns sitting inside your index funds all key off aggregate output.

Related: AI Could Blow a Hole in the Federal Budget

Put it in dollars. At 3%, global output reaches about $170 trillion by 2036, adding roughly $43 trillion in annual production. Musk’s version adds $126 trillion over the same stretch, close to three times as much new output for wages, profits and tax receipts to draw from.

That is the real stake in the argument. Musk has made versions of it before, including his case that mass automation would force governments to start handing out cash.

What Musk actually told the G20 about robots

The post was a compressed version of a much longer pitch. “AI will probably increase the global economy by 20% to 30%,” Musk said during a virtual appearance at the G20 Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Sept. 1, according to CNBC.

He put that figure at $20 trillion to $30 trillion in added annual output.

The robot half is where he got specific. There will be at least one billion robots within a decade, and those machines will be “at least five times the output of a human,” he told technology ministers, according to the Daily Tar Heel. He described it as a call he would put serious money behind.

He also handed ministers the constraint. Industry consensus points to a power shortfall of roughly 15 gigawatts in 2027 because AI chip production is climbing far faster than electricity supply can follow, he said, per the Daily Tar Heel.

Here is what the shipment data actually shows:

China is expected to ship 50,000 humanoid robots in 2026, up from a January forecast of 14,000, according to CNBC’s report on Morgan Stanley (MS) research.

Chinese annual humanoid shipments are forecast to reach 446,000 units by 2030, according to CNBC.

China’s humanoid market is valued near $2 billion this year and is projected at $15 billion by 2030, according to CNBC.

Global output is projected at roughly $126 trillion for 2026, according to the IMF.

What struck me running those figures is how violently the curve has to bend. Reaching one billion units within a decade from a 2026 base near 50,000 requires annual shipment growth of roughly 185%, with something like 650 million robots coming off assembly lines in the final year alone.

Morgan Stanley’s most aggressive published number for 2030 is 446,000 units. That is roughly 1,500 times smaller than the final-year pace the timeline demands, and it comes from the bank that has already revised its own forecast upward twice this year.

What the robot economy means for your paycheck

The forecast is doing real work on the labor market long before any of it arrives. Artificial intelligence was cited in 116,175 announced U.S. job cuts through August, about 22% of all cuts this year, according to Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

That is the leading stated reason for layoffs in 2026, and it is happening while global humanoid shipments are still counted in the tens of thousands. The robots are not taking those jobs yet but the expectation of the robots is.

For Tesla (TSLA) shareholders, the stakes run more directly. Optimus production sits among the milestones attached to Musk’s compensation package, which ties an enormous payout to targets the company has not yet hit.

So watch a different number than the one Musk handed you. Annual humanoid shipments and the electricity available to run them are the two figures that decide whether 8% growth is a forecast or a slogan.

If shipments triple again next year and utilities keep signing data center contracts, the fast scenario stops being rhetorical and current AI valuations start looking defensible. If they do not, the boring 3% baseline holds, and a lot of portfolios are priced for an arrival date that keeps sliding.

Musk’s forecasts are free to publish. The positioning they encourage is not.

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Warren Buffett spent six decades beating the market in a way almost every investor tries and fails to match. But the advice he gave everyday people investing on their own had nothing to do with picking the next great stock at all.

His own portfolio at Berkshire Hathaway tells a more complicated story today, one that is shifting under new leadership, even as his original advice to regular investors has not changed.

Warren Buffett keeps pointing to Vanguard ETF fund

Berkshire stock delivered a compound annual return of roughly 19.7% during Buffett’s years of run as CEO, meaning a $500 investment in 1965 would have grown to about $24 million by the time he stepped down at the end of 2025, according to The Motley Fool. Buffett never expected ordinary people to replicate that kind of run.

Instead, he spent years pointing everyday investors toward low-cost index funds rather than individual stock picking. He first named Vanguard specifically in a 2013 letter describing instructions he had written into his own will, telling the trustee to put 90% of his wife’s inheritance into a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund and suggesting Vanguard by name.

He repeated a version of that advice in Berkshire’s 2016 shareholder letter and again at the 2021 annual meeting.

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The reasoning comes down to cost. The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF charges an expense ratio of just 0.03%, meaning an investor with $10,000 parked in it pays roughly $3 a year, a rounding error next to what most actively managed funds charge, according to The Motley Fool.

That recommendation has aged well so far. The fund has grown to more than $950 billion in assets and gives investors exposure to 500 of America’s largest companies across every major sector of the economy, with any companies that no longer meet the index’s criteria.

The index behind the ETF has grown lopsided

Getting into the S&P 500 is not automatic just because a company is large. Membership requires market capitalization, liquidity, public float, and financial-viability requirements, including a record of consistent profitability, and even then the S&P 500 Index Committee makes the final call on which companies actually make the cut.

Because the fund weights companies by market capitalization rather than giving each one equal footing, the largest firms carry outsized influence over its returns compared with the smallest. It’s technically made up of roughly 500 companies across 11 sectors of the economy.

That structure has made technology the dominant force in the index today. The sector now carries a 36.6% weighting, driven largely by five companies worth $1 trillion or more each, including Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Broadcom, and Micron Technology.

The AI boom explains much of that shift. AI growth accelerated once OpenAI’s ChatGPT crossed 100 million users in early 2023. If the technology’s contribution over the past three and a half years is excluded, the S&P 500’s total return drops from 101% to 63%, The Motley Fool reported.

The gap shows how much of the index’s recent performance is riding on a handful of names rather than being spread evenly across the market.

Buffett’s own caution about the current market adds one more layer worth considering.Daniel Zuchnik / Getty Images

Buffett’s own stock picks tell a different story

Buffett’s retirement as CEO on Dec. 31, 2025, handed Berkshire’s stock portfolio to his longtime successor, Greg Abel, who wasted little time putting his own stamp on it.

Buffett remains chairman and continues to advise on major decisions. Abel has kept concentrating capital in a handful of best ideas rather than spreading it thin, with five stocks making up the bulk of the portfolio as of late summer, led by Apple at roughly 20% of invested assets.

Alphabet has become Abel’s most visible addition since taking over. He more than tripled Berkshire’s Alphabet stake during the first quarter of 2026, and then added a $10 billion private placement in June.

While Warren Buffett initiated Berkshire’s original Alphabet investment in 2025, Abel oversaw the subsequent $10 billion investment after consulting with Buffett.

That kind of concentrated conviction has always been part of the Berkshire playbook, not something new to Abel. Berkshire first bought Coca-Cola in 1988, and by 1994 had spent $1.3 billion completing the position.

The annual dividend from that single investment grew from $75 million in 1994 to $704 million by 2022, as reported by TheStreet, illustrating the power of holding a high-quality business for decades.

American Express tells a similar story. Berkshire completed its purchases in 1995 for $1.3 billion, and the position’s annual dividends grew from $41 million to $302 million by 2022.

By mid-2026, the position is now worth nearly $46 billion. Meanwhile, Buffett never sold either position, despite the opportunities and temptations to trade.

What it means for everyday investors

Buffett’s own caution about the current market adds one more layer worth considering. Berkshire has been a net seller of stocks in 14 of the last 15 quarters, selling roughly $175 billion more than it bought since October 2022.

This is despite the Buffett Indicator, which compares total market value to GDP, hitting an all-time high of 240% in August, according to one widely followed measure, marking a record high, as reported by TheStreet.

Buffett has stayed consistent about what would change that posture. Speaking to CNBC, he noted that three separate 50% Berkshire declines occurred during his tenure. He said anything short of a genuinely large drop does not meet the bar for deploying the company’s cash more aggressively, a threshold he reaffirmed as recently as this year.

None of that changes the advice he gave to everyone else. Whether Berkshire’s professionals are buying Vanguard ETF, trimming other positions, or sitting on record cash waiting for the right moment, the index fund path Buffett pointed regular investors toward back in 2013 never depended on guessing what the pros would do next, and the simple math behind it.

A low-cost fund that owns the market’s winners automatically, held patiently for decades, has already turned a modest sum into real wealth once.

Related: Warren Buffett has a stark message for stock market investors

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