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While the process of keeping an airline operational is rife with red tape and documentation, the single most important license that a carrier needs in order to sell tickets to passengers is the air operator’s certificate (AOC).

The license is granted by the government agency regulating aviation in a given country while common reasons for a suspension or revocation include a failed safety audit, inactivity or financial situation that puts the airline’s future sustainability into question.

Some of the airlines that lost their AOCs in 2026 include British charter carrier Pen-Avia, Brazilian airline Total Linhas Aéreas, Austrian airline Mali Air, and Ireland’s Westair Aviation.

AirAiles no longer flying, has inactive AOC: Report

In Houston, charter carrier Starflite Aviation also had its AOC license revoked in March 2026 after the FAA found that its owners falsified pilot training records in order to bypass safety audits.

The newest airline to have an invalid AOC is, as first reported by Swiss outlet ch-aviation, French charter carrier AirAiles. Founded out of the Strasbourg region in 1991, AirAiles had a fleet of had a fleet of two planes that it used to run charter and business jet flights. The Citation Jet 4 and Cessna Citation Latitude allowed for only short routes within France and to a few nearby European cities.

Related: Airline keeps threatening to charge for toilet use

According to the report, the airline’s AOC is as of September 2026 inactive after the phase-out of its last remaining jet. While little other information on the airline’s state and plans for the future are publicly available, a carrier is not able to operate without the certificate and so is not running any flights that may have been scheduled going forward into the rest of 2026.

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The last French airline that suffered a similar fate was vacation carrier Air Antilles.

AirAiles ran charter flights to several cities within France.Shutterstock

What happens when an airline loses its AOC

After a failed safety audit in December 2025, the carrier shuttling travelers between the French overseas territories of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Bathélemy ended up filing for bankruptcy when the Commercial Court of Pointe-à-Pitre ruled that it “was impossible to present a recovery plan through continued operations.”

Airlines that also lost their AOC licenses in 2026:

Izhavia: Russian regional airline Izhavia had its AOC revoked by the country’s aviation regulatory agency in July 2026 as Western sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine left the country’s aviation industry crippled by lack of Western parts and lowered ability to ensure maintenance standards.

Bestfly Aircraft Management Aruba: The Caribbean branch of the African charter airline Bestfly Aircraft Management Aruba lost its AOC in May 2026. The Aruban branch was established in 2017 to run flights between the Caribbean countries of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.

Starflite Aviation: Houston-based Starflite Aviation had its AOC license revoked in March 2026, amid FAA claims that owners falsified pilot training records to bypass safety audits.

AlpAvia: Slovenian charter airline AlpAvia also shut down in March 2026 over financial problems.

H-Bird: Charter airline H-Bird was declared bankrupt by a Swedish judge after losing its operating license at the end of 2025.

Related: Another airline pressured to shut down, faces liquidation risk

If your 401(k) holds a Nasdaq-100 index fund, you may already own shares in the biggest wealth fight playing out in Washington.

Elon Musk’s fortune sits at about $908 billion as of early September 2026, according to Forbes.

Senator Bernie Sanders wants to tax stock wealth at that scale through a proposed $7 trillion federal AI trust fund.

Musk fired back, saying his money is paper, not cash. Sanders argues that fortunes built on rising stock values should contribute more to the public.

For investors, however, the debate is about more than taxes on billionaires. Musk’s companies are increasingly embedded in the same index funds Americans use to save for retirement.

Musk says $908 billion is stock, not a cash pile

In a September 5 post on X, Musk wrote: “I have stock in SpaceX and Tesla, not some big pile of cash,” responding to Sanders’ comparison of his fortune to the wealth of the bottom half of U.S. households. 

Sanders had argued that Musk owns more wealth than the bottom half of American households combined.

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The distinction carries real weight. The overwhelming majority of Musk’s net worth sits in his stakes of about 42% of SpaceX and 20% of Tesla, according to Forbes and Bloomberg tallies.

His SpaceX stake remains under a 366-day post-IPO lockup, and his Tesla holdings sit at the level he has voted-share control over, meaning neither position has been converted to cash. 

His fortune peaked near $1.45 trillion when SpaceX debuted on the Nasdaq in June, then dropped below $700 billion by July before rebounding through August.

Musk added a second layer to his argument on X, writing that his shares’ value increases “proportionate to their projected usefulness,” which he framed as a benefit to every holder, including pension and retirement funds owning the same stock.

Sanders’ $7 trillion AI fund targets stock, not income

Sanders introduced the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act in June 2026, Forbes reported.

The bill proposes a one-time 50% tax, paid in stock, on companies earning more than $200 million annually in AI-related revenue. Sanders estimated the resulting trust could start at roughly $7 trillion.

A new federal commission would manage the fund. Sanders proposed directing 5% of its value each year toward direct payments to Americans, alongside health care and housing spending.

The bill targets equity, not earnings. SpaceX and Tesla make up the bulk of Musk’s fortune, so any forced stock transfer would directly affect both share prices.

James Broughel, an economist and Forbes contributor, warned that a 50% equity claim could discourage capital investment in AI firms that remain unprofitable.

He also flagged a valuation problem, noting that taxpayers could end up buying into these companies at prices that outpace their fundamentals.

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio raised a related concern months before Sanders introduced his bill. In a November 2025 post on X, Dalio argued that wealth taxes would “trigger a forced selling of private and public equity, depressing valuations.”

His warning was directed at broader wealth-tax proposals, not at the Sanders bill specifically, but the mechanism he described applies wherever wealth is concentrated in a single stock.

Sanders’ proposed $7 trillion AI fund would target company stock, raising concerns over valuations, investment incentives, and forced equity selling.Bloomberg / Getty Images

SpaceX already sits inside millions of retirement accounts

SpaceX went public on June 12, 2026, at $135 per share. The offering closed on June 15 at approximately $85.7 billion in gross proceeds after underwriters fully exercised their overallotment option, making it the largest IPO in history.

SpaceX’s July 7 addition to the Nasdaq-100 triggered automatic buying across every fund tracking the benchmark, including Invesco’s QQQ, QQQM, and target-date retirement funds with Nasdaq-100 sleeves.

TD Securities projects that SpaceX’s weight in the Nasdaq-100 could rise from about 1% to above 3.5% at the September 2026 quarterly rebalance.

The S&P 500 has not added SpaceX because the company does not meet the index’s profitability and public float requirements.

A 401(k) holding only S&P 500 index funds carries no direct SpaceX exposure, which makes the gap between the two benchmarks meaningful for retirement savers.

Valuation and key-person risks compound the passive exposure 

Nicolas Owens, an equity analyst at Morningstar, assigns SpaceX a fair value estimate of $62, well below its recent trading range around $148.

SpaceX posted $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025, alongside a net loss of $4.9 billion, with losses widening in the first quarter of 2026.

Tesla demonstrated similar sensitivity in early 2025. Shares fell roughly 50% from their mid-December 2024 peak to their April 2025 lows after Musk shifted his attention to leading the Department of Government Efficiency, CNN reported.

Tim Quigley, a professor of strategic leadership and governance at the International Institute for Management Development, told CNN that investors are not adequately accounting for how dependent both companies are on a single founder.

I think the market is probably underpricing the risk,

Musk has argued that rising share prices lift all holders, including retirement savers, BeInCrypto reported. The same index mechanics that deliver those gains also transmit losses when either stock reprices.

The one detail that determines your 401(k)’s SpaceX exposure

SpaceX does not appear by name in most target-date or index fund descriptions. The only way for plan participants to confirm the exposure is through their fund’s holdings report.

That gap is where the Musk-Sanders fight lands for retirement savers, the same one Nasdaq-100 buying compresses each rebalance cycle.

Morningstar’s $62 fair value estimate suggests that weight is building at a price the company’s financials have not yet supported.

The Musk-Sanders wealth fight will keep playing out in Congress and on social media. For the millions of 401(k) holders already exposed, the actionable step does not require waiting on Washington.

Morningstar’s analysis points to one check: the benchmark a fund tracks determines whether it holds SpaceX, and that is where any repricing of Musk’s wealth lands first.

Related: Elon Musk sends a strong message to Tesla and SpaceX investors

The pizza dining sector has faced hundreds of restaurant closings over the last two years as chains seek to restructure their businesses by closing underperforming locations.

Pizza Hut‘s parent Yum Brands said it would shutter 250 underperforming restaurants as part of its Hut Forward plan in the first half of 2026. Papa John’s announced in its fourth-quarter earnings call that it will close 200 locations by the end of 2026.

And now, Chuck E. Cheese parent CEC Entertainment Concepts LP is not renewing certain leases of locations that no longer make economic sense to operate.

CEC Entertainment Concepts LP has closed at least six Chuck E. Cheese locations in 2026.M. Suhail / Getty Images

Chuck E. Cheese closes 6 locations

The popular arcade pizza chain has closed six restaurant locations so far in 2026, allowing their leases to expire.

The pizza chain closed its Airport Highway location at the Swan Creek Plaza shopping center in Toledo, Ohio, in late August 2026, as its lease expired.

Parent company CEC Entertainment Concepts LP did not give a specific reason for allowing its lease to expire or make a statement regarding the closing, according to Capital Digest.

Chuck E. Cheese, however, will continue operating its restaurant location on Monroe Avenue in Toledo. Both the Airport Highway and Monroe locations opened in 1993.

The restaurant location’s landlord has not yet revealed a replacement tenant at last check.

Last Nebraska location closed

The Toledo closing came almost two months after the pizza chain shuttered its last location in Nebraska, as it permanently closed its restaurant on North 76th Street in Omaha, Neb., on July 2, according to Grow Omaha.

Chuck E. Cheese parent CEC Entertainment Concepts also closed its last remaining Chuck E. Cheese location in Topeka, Kan., on Wanamaker Road, on April 5, 2026. The Wanamaker location opened in 1990.

“It’s not easy to say goodbye,” CEC Entertainment said in a statement. “We are deeply grateful to every family, every birthday kid, and every guest who has walked through our doors over the decades. We know this news will disappoint many longtime guests, and we sincerely thank you for your loyalty.”

“While we are leaving Topeka for now, that does not mean we won’t be back,” the statement asserted. “This community has been part of our story from nearly the very beginning, and we hope it will be again soon.”

Chuck E. Cheese opened its first Topeka location in 1979 at West 29th Street, which the chain subsequently closed. The pizza chain no longer has a location in Topeka.

“Thank you for being part of our Topeka story – a story that spans generations. We will always remember the joy and community you brought to our doors,” the statement concluded.

3 locations closed on April 4

CEC Entertainment closed three locations on April 4, 2026, including another Kansas location in Olathe, according to the Kansas City Star.

“We understand that this news may have an impact on you, and you may visit us at the nearest location in Overland Park, KS,” a sign on the closed location read.

“As leases expire, markets evolve, and consumer preferences shift, we adjust our real estate strategy accordingly,” CEC Entertainment spokesperson Allison Chouinard told The Star.

The company still operates three nearby locations at 9196 N. Skyview Ave. in Kansas City, Mo.’s Northland area, 10510 Metcalf Lane in Overland Park, Kan., and at 18701 E. 39th Street in Independence, Mo.

The company also closed its Chuck E. Cheese location on Buffalo Gap Road in Abilene, Texas, on April 4, according to KTAB-TV, as well as its restaurant on North Salisbury Boulevard in Salisbury, Md., which shut down on the same day, WBOC-TV reported.

“This is how we manage a national footprint across 45 states and should not be interpreted as an indication of financial or operational distress,” CEC Senior Director Alejandra Brady told WBOC.

Restaurant recovers from distress

Chuck E. Cheese, which has over 500 locations in 45 U.S. states, filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2020 after shutting down operations when the Covid-19 pandemic swept through the nation in March 2020.

The arcade pizza chain, which opened its first location in San Jose, Calif., in 1977, restructured its debt, spent $350 million remodeling its locations, and updated its menu.

CEC Entertainment Concepts this year launched a new spinoff concept for adults, Chuck’s Arcade, that seeks to attract consumers who grew up enjoying Chuck E. Cheese pizza and the restaurant’s arcade games.

Related: U.S. defense contractor files Chapter 11 bankruptcy

For years, The Trade Desk (TTD) gave investors something increasingly difficult to find in advertising technology: consistent growth.

Now the company is getting smaller.

The Trade Desk is cutting nearly 15% of its worldwide staff in a wide restructure that might impact about 575 individuals based on the 3,843 full-time employees the business said it had at the end of 2025.

The cuts arrive after an extraordinary reversal: a 70% drop in The Trade Desk’s stock over the past year and 90% from its late-2024 peak. Its latest quarter saw 3% revenue growth, and management’s guidance suggests even more unusual revenue decline.

But CEO Jeff Green says the firm itself is robust.

That means the layoffs are bigger than another effort to reduce tech costs.

They are a test of whether The Trade Desk can retool itself back to growth as Amazon and a host of other advertising giants become tougher rivals.

The Trade Desk cuts roughly 1 in 7 jobs

The Trade Desk will be around 15% smaller worldwide, Green told staff, in a restructure he described as getting staff into “smaller pods and smaller scrums” with more concentration.

That transition has a price, as the company’s SEC filing shows.

The Trade Desk expects severance and employee benefits to cost $39 million to $51 million in cash restructuring charges. Another $4 million to $5 million stock-compensation reversal should reduce those costs. Third-quarter restructuring should be mostly complete.

Related: The Trade Desk crash exposed a much bigger problem

The timing is impossible to overlook.

Second-quarter revenue reached approximately $715 million, increasing only 3% from the prior year. Green acknowledged after the results that the quarter “did not meet the standard we set for ourselves.”

Then came the larger warning.

The Trade Desk said it expected sales of at least $650 million in the third quarter. It earned $739 million in the same quarter a year ago. That would be a loss of almost 12% year-over-year if sales are at the floor of projection.

That’s a big change for a corporation that logged 18% growth in the third quarter only a year ago.

Jeff Green says The Trade Desk is still healthy

But there is an essential wrinkle.

The Trade Desk isn’t framing the job cuts in financial terms.

“Our company is very healthy,” Green told employees, pointing to approximately $1.5 billion in cash and no debt. He also noted that annual revenue has climbed from $202 million when the company went public in 2016 to more than $2.9 billion last year.

Much of that argument is based on the balance sheet.

The Trade Desk had $1.12 billion cash and $362 million short-term investments on June 30.

That makes the 15% labor cut more intriguing. The corporation isn’t laying people off because it’s out of money. Management has significant financial resources, and it is facing serious challenges.

That suggests the more urgent problem is execution.

Finance, revenue, strategy, and marketing leaders, as well as board members, have left The Trade Desk. The company also had a public dispute with Publicis Groupe earlier this year, which they said they resolved.

The Trade Desk’s 70% collapse forces a major rethink.Greg Doherty / Getty Images

Amazon adds pressure to The Trade Desk’s turnaround

The Trade Desk’s task is not taking place in a vacuum.

Its platform enables marketers automate the acquisition of digital ads across websites, streaming television and other media. That has historically given the firm an appealing position as an independent option to ad ecosystems run by corporations that simultaneously hold media inventory.

Green still thinks that difference counts.

In a note to workers, he stressed The Trade Desk’s determination to concentrate on buyers and not own advertising inventory. The business has grabbed just around 1% of what it deems its entire addressable market, he also stated.

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But there are reports that competition has intensified, particularly from Amazon, which has spent years improving its own demand-side advertising platform.

That changes how investors should view the layoffs. Cutting 15% of employees can reduce expenses. Smaller teams could also help The Trade Desk move faster.

Neither automatically fixes slowing demand or competitive pressure.

The Trade Desk’s next quarter becomes a major test

In Green’s statement there is an odd contradiction:

The CEO says The Trade Desk has a healthy business, plenty of liquidity, and enormous room to grow.

The corporation is also cutting almost one in seven jobs as quarterly growth slowed to barely 3%.

And its next goal for revenue is lower.

That makes the $650 million projection for the third quarter perhaps more crucial than the layoffs themselves.

Investors will be looking to see whether the restructure is a short-term reset before growth resumes or an admission that the Trade Desk’s former operational structure was created for a growth pace the firm no longer can achieve.

The balance sheet gives Green time. The competitive environment makes that time valuable.

After a roughly 70% stock decline over the past year, investors have already reacted strongly to The Trade Desk’s slowdown.

Now Green has made his response. The next question is whether cutting 15% of the workforce can make the company grow again.

Related: The Trade Desk crash exposed a much bigger problem

In mid-August, process engineers at Samsung Electronics Co. (SSNLF) stood on stage in Seoul and said the industry’s most advanced chipmaking machine still was not ready for their factories.

In the week of Sept. 7, Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) signed up for it anyway. That kind of reversal rarely happens this fast in an industry that plans in decades, not quarters.

ASML Holding (ASML), the only company in the world that builds extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, confirmed the commitments in a joint statement with TSMC published September 8.

Samsung will use the newest High-NA EUV systems for memory chips starting in 2028. TSMC will follow for logic chips in 2030, according to Bloomberg, joining Intel Corporation (INTC) as the third confirmed customer.

Each machine costs roughly $400 million, according to CNBC. That is the exact price Samsung and TSMC cited in August, when both said they would hold the technology back until nodes near 2030. Three weeks later, they signed a formal joint commitment instead.

Samsung’s timeline matters beyond the lithography roadmap. The company will bring High-NA EUV into memory production as a global shortage of memory chips, driven by AI data center demand, pushes prices higher across electronics, according to Bloomberg.

That shortage gave Samsung a reason to formalize a date instead of leaving it open-ended.

Related: US, Japan $550 billion deal leaves AI chip stocks guessing

The objection was never about the technology

The delay was never about whether High-NA machines work. Intel already settled that question by running the systems in production, according to CNBC.

The real question was whether the economics justified the price, since TSMC and Samsung compete on cost per chip, not on owning the newest tool.

That is why the second half of the announcement matters more than the headline. ASML, TSMC and Samsung also agreed to shift from six-inch photomasks, the stencils that print circuit patterns onto silicon, to a larger 12-inch format.

12-inch masks enable greater scanner productivity and allow the industry to meet the demand for smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient chips.

ASML Chief Technology Officer Marco Pieters noted that the bigger masks could lift machine output by 40%. That means fewer machines are needed to produce the same number of chips.

A $400 million machine looks very different once it can print 40% more wafers. That figure, not the sticker price, is what determines what a chip actually costs to make.

The mask initiative, more than the lithography tool itself, appears to be what moved TSMC and Samsung off the sidelines.

The near-term roadmap, as confirmed in the companies’ announcements, breaks down like this:

High-NA EUV systems are already in production at Intel, which took delivery of the equipment before either rival, according to CNBC.

DRAM manufacturing with High-NA EUV is set to begin at Samsung by 2028.

TSMC is targeting logic chip production with High-NA EUV by 2030, with a 12-inch mask pilot line to follow by 2031.

The shift to larger 12-inch photomasks allows chipmakers to increase wafer output by 40%, fundamentally changing the economics of $400 million EUV machines.Oleh Stefaniak / Getty Images

Intel is finally ahead instead of behind

Intel’s position here inverts its own history. The company delayed adopting ASML’s original EUV machines in the 2010s, a decision that let TSMC pull ahead and eventually forced Intel to outsource its most advanced chips.

This time, Intel moved first and is the only company already running High-NA systems in volume production.

For a foundry business still trying to rebuild, being first matters. Intel is using its High-NA lead to court outside customers who need leading-edge capacity.

It is one of the few technical advantages Intel can currently claim over TSMC.

TSMC’s exposure to ASML is bigger than it looks

ASML trades on Nasdaq and Euronext Amsterdam under the ticker ASML, and the stock has climbed roughly 120% over the past year, according to CNBC.

TSMC alone accounts for about 16% of ASML’s revenue, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That concentration cuts in both directions.

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It gives ASML unusual visibility into future demand whenever a customer of TSMC’s size signs a multiyear commitment. It also means ASML’s growth is tied to the capital spending decisions of three companies, since Samsung and Intel round out its largest customers.

A slowdown at any one of them would show up quickly in ASML’s order book.

AI chip capacity is a decade-long project

The most overlooked detail in this week’s announcement is the timeline. ASML and TSMC are targeting a pilot line for 12-inch masks by 2031, with full production readiness by 2033, according to the companies’ press release. That is seven years from now.

For investors who treat AI chip shortages as a problem that more capital can fix within a year or two, that timeline is a useful correction.

The equipment that will make next-generation AI chips affordable is still being designed, and the companies that build it are only now agreeing on its format.

The bottleneck in AI hardware is not closing soon. It is being built for the 2030s, one commitment at a time.

Related: Why is Taiwan hiding the backers of its $20B US pledge?

T-Mobile, which is owned by Deutsche Telekom, continues to cut a key part of its operations after months of significant workforce changes. 

As the carrier undergoes a digital transformation, announced by CEO Srini Gopalan late last year, it has quietly conducted several rounds of job cuts in December, March and April, affecting employees in departments such as consumer and retail, sales, etc.

It also reportedly began shrinking its authorized retail location footprint earlier this year, resulting in additional layoffs. 

Amid these workforce changes, Deutsche Telekom revealed in its second-quarter 2026 earnings report that T-Mobile’s U.S. headcount dropped from 70,036 employees on Dec. 31, to 65,365 by June 30, “primarily due to the impact of the 2025-2026 Workforce Transformation.”

T-Mobile closes more stores and lays off employees

T-Mobile is officially continuing to enforce these changes as it plans to lay off 77 workers in Washington state, according to a WARN notice it filed with the state Employment Security Department on Aug. 21.

The latest round of job cuts stems from several closures, including six retail locations and one corporate office.

The layoffs are expected to occur between Sept. 21 and Nov. 18, and they will impact employees such as managers, directors, mobile experts, and senior analysts in departments including technology, HR, product, and engineering.  

Related: T-Mobile makes striking workforce shift amid fight for customers

In the notice, T-Mobile clarifies that these job cuts are expected to be permanent. It also states that a “subset of the layoffs are due to relocation,” as in some cases, employees have been offered the opportunity to relocate. 

The move from T-Mobile comes as layoffs are on the rise nationwide. Employers in the U.S. announced 52,881 job cuts in August, up 58% from the 33,429 cuts announced in July, according to recent data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. 

Approximately 4,113 of the layoffs announced in August were from the telecommunications industry. 

Matt Walker, chief analyst at MTN Consulting, said in a report from Mobile Europe in May that artificial intelligence has recently become the leading reason for layoffs in the telecom industry as more companies aim to cut costs.  

“The telco workforce has been shrinking for years due to layoffs, retirement and attrition, while the employee profile is also changing,” said Walker. 

“Telcos increasingly value skills in software, cloud, AI and quantum computing,” he continued. “Operators have long automated incrementally, but many now frame their strategy explicitly around AI as AI has become a major theme in the telco C-suite.”

T-Mobile is laying off 77 employees in Washington State.M. Suhail / Getty Images

T-Mobile doubles down on T-Life transformation

T-Mobile’s recent cuts also come as it ramps up efforts to encourage more of its customers and employees to use its T-Life app to streamline operations, another change that reflects the company’s ongoing digital transformation. 

This includes rolling out a digital switching tool on the app late last year. The company also plans to make customers and employees 100% dependent on the T-Life app to process phone upgrades and add new lines.

In July, T-Mobile also reportedly stopped allowing customer support representatives to manually process bill payments and set up autopay for customers. This change requires customers to complete these tasks in the T-Life app or on the T-Mobile website.

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More recently, the company has begun requiring customers to use the T-Life app to check in at a few of its stores.

In a memo sent to employees in May, T-Mobile Chief Operating Officer Jon Freier said that the company’s “T-Life transformation” is about “perfecting the customer experience and modernizing ways of serving customers.”

Freier also said that this transition is successfully reducing reliance on customer service representatives to set up accounts for new customers. 

“There are 30% fewer calls to Customer Care when a new customer joins T-Mobile through T-Life,” he said.  

As the company leans further into becoming digital-first, it expects to achieve about $3 billion in savings by 2027 from its AI and digital initiatives. 

Related: T-Mobile has a new rule for customers entering its stores

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Why we love this deal

Sheds are an easy way to add extra space in your yard. They can house everything from lawn mowers to firewood to a bicycle. Even if you have a garage, it frees up so much space and provides a lot more organization for your outdoor essentials. But if you’ve ever looked up how much a shed can cost, you won’t be surprised that a high-quality option can cost thousands of dollars. 

If you’re looking for a budget-friendly option and portability, you’re in luck. You can get portable storage sheds for under $100, especially if you know where to look. The Erommy 5-by-7-Foot Portable Storage Shed is on sale at Walmart for only $90, and it’s a bestseller that you’re going to want to grab while it’s discounted during a limited-time Flash deal.

Erommy 5-by-7-Foot Portable Storage Shed, $90 (was $100) at Walmart

Courtesy of Walmart

Shop at Walmart

Why do shoppers love it?

Measuring 5 feet long and 7.2 inches wide, this portable shed offers extra storage without taking up too much space. Since it’s portable, you can set it up anywhere without having to worry about building a foundation, and you don’t need to stick to just one spot if you need to move it. 

However, just because it’s portable doesn’t mean it’s not durable, as shoppers say the shed is “strong” and “sturdy.” The powder-coated steel frame is resistant to chipping, rust, and corrosion, and it’s grounded with anchors to keep it in place, despite wind or harsh weather. The cover is made of three layers of 190-gram PE material. With a coating, it’s waterproof, tear-resistant, and UV-resistant. 

The shed has a roller shutter door design that not only protects your belongings but also makes it easy to access them. It rolls up for a wide opening, and it’s secured with hook-and-loop tape to quickly roll it up and down when inclement weather is expected.

Its portability and durability are easily some of the biggest benefits of this storage shed, but we can’t forget to highlight how versatile it is. It can be used for a variety of items, including storing your motorcycle or bike, firewood for fall night fires, gardening supplies, and lawn care equipment. You can also use it beyond storage, setting it up for extra shelter during outdoor parties and tailgating, along with markets or trade shows. 

Related: Walmart is selling a 3-piece patio set with a glass coffee table for only $70

Details to know

Dimensions: 5 feet long by 7.2 feet wide by 5.4 feet tall.

Material: Steel frame and PE cover.

Features: Waterproof, UV resistance, and tear resistance.

Walmart shoppers say the storage shed is “solid” and “perfect for cheap storage.” One reviewer said it’s a great place to store their lawnmower.

Shop more deals

Homall 6-by-3-Foot Outdoor Storage Shed, $69 (was $120) at Walmart

Sunmthink 6-by-8-Foot Portable Shed, $100 (was $135) at Walmart

Walsunny 6-by-6-Foot Storage Shed, $70 (was $170) at Walmart

The Erommy 5-by-7-Foot Portable Storage Shed is on sale for just $90, and it’s a great storage option that won’t break the bank.

Roth individual retirement account conversions jumped 41% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier, a Fidelity Investments retirement analysis found.

The surge followed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which locked in lower federal brackets permanently and removed the sunset uncertainty that had frozen many conversion decisions.

An analysis from Charles Schwab warns that converting at the wrong time can erase years of compounding and leave retirement savings in worse shape. 

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated the ability to undo a Roth conversion made on or after January 1, 2018, meaning the decision is irreversible once funds move. 

How a single Roth conversion can push you into a higher tax bracket

A Roth conversion transfers pre-tax retirement savings into a Roth account, where qualified withdrawals are tax-free after a five-year holding period under IRS rules. 

The trade-off is that every dollar converted gets taxed as ordinary income in the conversion year, and large transfers can push income into higher brackets.

Hayden Adams, Director of tax planning and wealth management research at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, warned that a large conversion can require years of compounding just to recover the extra taxes paid.

“However, if the lump-sum conversion bumps you into a higher income tax bracket, it could take years of growth to make up for the extra tax hit, assuming you ever make up that lost ground,” Adams said.

The risk becomes concrete with 2026 bracket numbers from the Internal Revenue Service. A married couple filing jointly with $650,000 in taxable income sits in the 35% federal bracket, which caps at $768,700, Schwab showed. 

Converting over $118,700 (the difference between $650,000 and the $768,700 ceiling) in a single year would push income past that ceiling and into the 37% rate on every additional dollar.

Three signals a Roth conversion would work against you

Schwab’s research identifies conditions in which a conversion is more likely to hurt, and all three center on financial readiness.

The first signal is that you expect to be in a lower tax bracket after you stop working.

The strategy collapses for people who will pay less tax on traditional IRA withdrawals during retirement than they would pay on the converted dollars today, the Schwab analysis noted.

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The second signal, the Schwab analysis noted, is that you cannot cover the tax bill without tapping retirement savings or emergency reserves. 

A saver who converts $100,000 and withholds $22,000 from the balance for taxes only moves $78,000 into the Roth to grow tax-free. 

Applying a 7% annual growth rate over 25 years, that $22,000 would have compounded to about $119,000 in forfeited tax-free wealth, Income Lab showed.

The final signal Schwab flagged is that you cannot afford to wait out the five-year holding period. 

Each conversion starts its own five-year clock under IRS rules, and withdrawing earnings before the window closes can trigger ordinary income taxes plus a 10% early withdrawal penalty for savers under age 59½.

A Roth conversion can backfire if you expect lower taxes, cannot cover the bill, or need retirement funds before the five-year clock expires.PixeloneStocker / Getty Images

How Schwab’s bracket management approach limits the tax damage

Adams recommended a tactic Schwab calls tax bracket management as a safer alternative to a single large conversion for savers who still want Roth benefits. 

Adams said the approach can be repeated annually, building a Roth balance in stages while keeping each year’s tax bill within a known and planned rate. 

Bryan Strike, a Certified Financial Planner and Senior Director of Financial Planning at Mercer Advisors, noted that the years between retirement and the start of required minimum distributions at age 73 often present the best window for this graduated approach.

Adams identified one exception: savers already in the highest 37% bracket who expect to stay there may benefit from converting a larger sum to maximize tax-free growth time.

What the Roth conversion decision comes down to for your retirement

The Schwab analysis frames a Roth conversion as a tax-rate comparison that only pays off when today’s rate is lower than the future rate. 

Catherine Valega, a Certified Financial Planner and Founder of Green Bee Advisory, has stressed that savers at every life stage need to understand where they sit in the federal brackets, advice that applies directly to irreversible moves like Roth conversions. 

The Roth conversion coming out ahead depends on whether a saver’s current federal tax bracket is above or below the rate they expect to face in retirement.

Related: The tax rules that can quietly ruin your Roth IRA conversion strategy

There was a time when augmented reality was going to change everything.

Phone makers were racing to add AR features. Samsung built an entire suite of them, gave them a home under a menu called AR Zone, and put them in commercials. Draw on the air. Measure your furniture without a tape measure. The pitch was that your Galaxy phone could see the world differently.

Nobody really cared. And now Samsung is admitting it.

Now, two of those apps are getting end-of-service notices. Samsung confirmed it is discontinuing AR Doodle and Quick Measure, with both apps shutting down on Dec. 31, 2026, Android Authority reported.

After that date, the apps will no longer be available for download from the Galaxy Store and will not be supported in future versions of One UI.

What AR Doodle and Quick Measure actually did

AR Doodle let Galaxy users draw in the air using the phone’s camera. Lines, shapes, and messages could be anchored to a face or a surface, making them appear to float in the real world.

On supported devices, a stylus could be used to draw. The feature showed up in Samsung’s promotional materials for years as an example of what Galaxy cameras could do that other phones could not.

Quick Measure did something more practical. It used the camera and augmented reality to estimate the dimensions of objects in the physical world. Point it at a wall, a piece of furniture, or a box, and it would give you approximate measurements without a tape measure.

While useful in theory, in practice, it was one of those features that most users discovered once and rarely revisited.

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Both apps had already been demoted before this announcement. When Samsung released One UI 7, it restructured the AR Zone app and made AR Doodle and Quick Measure optional downloads rather than built-in features.

Getting moved out of preloaded into optional is the first step on a slow walk out the door. Dec. 31 is the last step.

Why Samsung is retiring AR Doodle, Quick Measure and what comes next

The honest answer is that AR never became what Samsung hoped it would.

Think back to what the technology landscape looked like around 2020 and 2021. Augmented reality was going to be everywhere. The metaverse was coming. NFTs were the future of ownership. Blockchain was going to change finance.

Samsung, Apple, Google, and Meta all poured resources into AR features and let their marketing teams run with the story.

Consumers used them occasionally at best. AR Doodle made for a funny video once. Quick Measure was genuinely useful in a pinch. But neither became something people reached for every day.

Usage stayed low. The features stayed niche. And when generative AI took over as the technology story with actual consumer pull, the AR moment quietly ended.

Samsung has been building AI into its cameras, messaging, search, and productivity tools. Resources that once went to maintaining AR apps are now going there instead.

Samsung is not framing this as a clean kill, though. Android Central reported that Samsung says it is “committed” to returning these apps “with improved services in the future.”

The company acknowledged the inconvenience but stopped short of giving a timeline or any specifics about what the improved versions would look like.

This fits a pattern of Samsung quietly winding down older software. In July 2026, the company retired its own Messages app, replacing it with Google Messages. AR Doodle and Quick Measure are next.

AR Doodle let Galaxy users draw in the air using the phone’s camera.GREG BAKER / Getty Images

What happens to your Galaxy device after Dec. 31

The apps will not stop working the moment the clock hits midnight on Jan. 1, 2027. If you have AR Doodle or Quick Measure installed on your device right now, they will likely continue running for some time.

The problem comes with software updates. 9to5Google reported that as Samsung releases new versions of One UI, the apps will lose compatibility. A software update that improves other parts of your phone could be the update that breaks AR Doodle or Quick Measure for good.

Some newer Galaxy devices are already there. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 does not show the apps in the Galaxy Store at all. If you have a newer device, you may not be able to download them even now.

After Dec. 31, the download option disappears entirely. If the apps are not on your device by then, they will not be available to install.

What Galaxy users should do before Dec. 31

If you actually use AR Doodle or Quick Measure, download them now if they are not already on your device. Do not wait. The window to get them is open but is not unlimited, and newer devices are already being cut off.

If you use them and want to keep using them for as long as possible, hold off on major One UI updates. Future OS versions will break compatibility. That is a trade-off most people will not want to make, but for anyone who genuinely depends on Quick Measure for a workflow, it is worth knowing.

For everyone else, the practical answer is to look at what replaces these features. Android and most third-party apps have measurement tools built into camera apps or available separately.

A quick search for AR measurement apps on the Google Play Store will surface alternatives that work across devices and manufacturers rather than being tied to Samsung’s Galaxy ecosystem.

The broader takeaway is one that applies to any app tied to a single manufacturer’s hardware. Proprietary features are only as durable as the company’s interest in maintaining them.

Samsung built these, marketed them, and is now retiring them. If you built workflows around them, the time to find alternatives is before Dec. 31, not after.

Related: Samsung’s $2,100 phone tests how much consumers will pay to fold

If you were to ask your financial advisor how they get paid, they might answer that they charge a percentage of the assets that they manage for you. Or, they might say that you don’t pay them directly; rather, the fund company or the insurance company does.

This might sound simple, but in reality, financial advisor compensation can be quite complex. It’s critical to understand how your financial advisor, or any financial advisor you might be considering using, is paid.

3 main types of advisor compensation

The three main types of advisor compensation are fee-only, fee-based, and commission-based, according to Investor.gov.

They all sound a bit similar, but there are huge differences that impact not only your costs in working with an advisor, but also whether an advisor truly puts clients’ interests first when making recommendations.

Advisor compensationWho pays the advisor?Commissions received by an advisor?Fee-onlyClients onlyNoFee-basedClients and product providersYes (in part)CommissionProduct providersYes

It’s important to understand how your financial advisor is compensated and what types of fees and expenses you will pay.Dwight Burdette, CC-BY-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Fee-only advisors

Fee-only is just what it sounds like. These advisors are compensated only from fees paid by their clients. These fees might be flat fees for a one-time financial plan or for ongoing advice.

Many advisors charge clients a percentage of the investment assets they manage for them. In some cases, advisors might charge clients an hourly fee for advice.

Fee-only advisors do not accept commission from the sale of products, nor do they take 12b-1 fees from mutual funds they place their clients in.

Most fee-only advisors serve as fiduciaries to their clients; they put clients’ interests first.

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Fee-based advisors

A fee-based advisor will generally charge an advisory fee, such as a percentage of assets managed for the client, while also receiving commissions from selling products such as insurance policies to their clients.

They can act in a fiduciary capacity when managing client portfolios, but then shift to a broker role when selling products. It is questionable whether this “dual role” constitutes acting in a true fiduciary capacity.

Commission-based brokers

Commission-based advisors/brokers make their money from commissions generated when you buy, sell, or trade certain products such as insurance policies, some annuities, mutual funds, ETFs, and stocks and bonds.

They may also earn commissions from ongoing fees generated by certain products, including mutual funds that generate 12b-1 fees and surrender charges on some annuities.  

Commission-based brokers, in essence, mostly generate income when you buy or sell something. This can create an inherent conflict of interest between what is best for their income and what is best for their clients.

This isn’t to say that commission-based brokers can’t have their clients’ best interests at heart, but unfortunately, that is sometimes the case.

Ask your advisor how they are paid

It is important that you understand how your financial advisor is paid and how much they earn from having you as a client.

Some questions to ask include:

Are you a fee-only fiduciary on all of my accounts and all of my holdings 100% of the time? If they answer anything but an unequivocal “yes,” there are a number of other questions to ask. Even if they say yes, take it a step further and ask: How will you get paid by me, and how much will/do I pay you?

Are you fee-based? If so, what will be paying you in terms of an ongoing fee or one-time fee? How will I be billed for any commissions from eligible product transactions? Will I incur other fees such as 12b-1 fees from certain mutual funds or similar fees from other products?

Are you commission-based? If so, how does this arrangement work, and what types of fees can I expect to pay over the course of a year?

Ask the advisor for a breakdown of the all-in cost of working with them on an annual basis.

If they hesitate to answer or you feel they are providing anything other than full disclosure, you might consider working with another advisor.

The bottom line

There is nothing wrong with a financial advisor earning a fair, fully transparent income for helping you grow and protect your wealth. However, how they are paid often dictates how they treat your money.

Push for a transparent, fee-only structure and understand the all-in costs of your portfolio. This helps ensure that your advisor’s primary incentive aligns with your financial success.

Accept nothing less than full fee transparency from your advisor, period.

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