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Corporate fines are supposed to do two jobs: punish the company and change how it behaves.

The second job is the harder one. A penalty deters only when the company feels it, and a company the size of Boeing (BA) feels very little.

For most of this year, Boeing has been a comeback story. The planemaker delivered 600 commercial aircraft in 2025, its best annual total since 2018, and closed the year with a backlog of $682 billion, according to Boeing. That backlog grew to a record $695 billion by the end of the first quarter.

Regulators eased off, too. The Federal Aviation Administration lifted its monthly production cap in October 2025, and in July it restored Boeing’s authority to issue its own airworthiness certificates for 737 MAX and 787 aircraft.

Investors watched the operational recovery take hold while the legal wreckage from January 2024 slowly cleared.

On Wednesday, Sept. 2, the last piece of that wreckage surfaced. Boeing had paid the FAA $3.1 million, and it did so eight months ago without telling anyone.

How a missing set of bolts rewrote Boeing’s safety record

On Jan. 5, 2024, a paneled-over exit door known as a door plug separated from an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon. All 171 passengers and six crew members survived. Investigators later found four bolts had been missing from the aircraft. 

The fallout was structural. The MAX 9 was grounded. The FAA capped 737 output at 38 aircraft per month. Agency auditors then went through Boeing’s Renton, Washington, factory and the Wichita, Kansas, fuselage plant of then-subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems and found hundreds of quality system violations spanning from September 2023 to February 2024, according to the FAA.

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The audit findings were not limited to assembly errors. The FAA also cited Boeing for interfering with the independence of safety officials working inside its plants, and said the planemaker presented two aircraft for agency approval that were not airworthy, according to Reuters.

The Justice Department piled on separately. Boeing’s May 2025 non-prosecution agreement required it to pay or invest more than $1.1 billion, including a $487.2 million criminal fine, $444.5 million for a crash victims fund, and $445 million on compliance and safety programs, CNBC reported.

Boeing quietly paid a $3.1 million FAA penalty in January over 737 MAX quality violations.gk-6mt / Getty Images

What Boeing actually paid for the FAA safety violations

The FAA proposed $3,139,319 in civil penalties in September 2025. Boeing paid the full amount in January, and the payment was not previously disclosed publicly, the agency told Reuters. Boeing confirmed it.

I ran the number against Boeing’s own income statement, and the scale is difficult to overstate.

Boeing generated $89.5 billion in revenue in 2025, according to the company. At that run rate, the fine equals roughly 18 minutes of company revenue.

Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg took home about $9.4 million in 2025, Reuters noted. The fine is about a third of one executive’s pay.

The Justice Department settlement carried more than $1.1 billion in payments and investments, according to CNBC. The FAA penalty is less than three-tenths of one percent of that.

Boeing’s backlog hit a record $695 billion at the end of the first quarter, the company shared.

Boeing has maintained throughout that it implemented a safety and quality plan under FAA oversight and has been executing against it.

The quiet part is also the mundane one. At $3.1 million, the payment sat far below any threshold that would have forced a separate disclosure, so it moved through the books alongside eight months of ordinary operating expense.

Nothing was hidden. Nothing had to be announced, either, and that is exactly the gap critics keep pointing at.

Why the FAA fine was capped before it was ever written

Here is where the story turns, and it has almost nothing to do with the FAA going soft.

The agency “utilized its maximum statutory civil penalty authority consistent with law,” according to the FAA. That is not a defensive line. It is a description of a ceiling Congress built.

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What struck me when I went through the penalty schedule is the timing. For violations by a large company occurring in the window Boeing’s conduct fell into, the maximum penalty per violation ran in the low $40,000 range.

The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 raised that per-violation maximum to $75,000, but only for violations occurring on or after May 16, 2024, according to a Department of Transportation notice.

Boeing’s door plug violations ended in February 2024. They landed on the cheap side of the line by roughly three months.

Not everyone accepts that framing. “For Boeing, such fines are easily absorbed as the cost of doing business, not a meaningful deterrent to dangerous behavior,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), according to Reuters. Blumenthal chaired the subcommittee that investigated the Alaska incident and has argued that the enforcement regime itself is inadequate.

The counterargument is that the FAA never treated the checkbook as its main lever, and the record supports that.

What the small Boeing fine actually means for investors

The $3.1 million was never the punishment. The production cap was.

Holding 737 output at 38 aircraft per month for nearly two years cost Boeing far more than any civil penalty the FAA is authorized to levy. Deliveries are how Boeing collects cash, and a regulator that can slow the line controls the cash flow statement directly.

That is the real pressure point, and it does not appear on any fine schedule.

It’s why the Sept. 2 disclosure matters less as an accountability story and more as a signal about what to watch. The FAA has already returned certificate authority and cleared the path toward 47 aircraft per month. Wall Street’s rebuilt price targets rest on that ramp holding and on the 737-7 and 737-10 winning certification.

If you own Boeing stock, the risk was never a fine you could fund with 18 minutes of revenue. The risk is that next time, an agency decides the safest thing it can do is tell Boeing to build fewer airplanes.

There is a version of this story where the number climbs. Any violation Boeing commits from May 2024 forward carries a per-violation ceiling nearly double the old one, and the company is now building at a faster rate across more lines than at any point since the door plug came off.

The math that made this penalty small does not apply to the next one. That’s the number that would actually show up in your portfolio.

Related: Boeing lands $131 billion deal, but Americans should read the fine print

When a new coffee chain opens near our home, I try it at least once.

For many chains, like Cali Coffee and Dutch Bros., after a few visits, I knew that neither chain offered me a compelling enough product to drive farther than the closest Starbucks for anything they sold. A local chain, Carmella, passed that test, but its higher prices and longer distance from my home made it a weekend treat, not a regular part of my daily coffee rotation.

When 7 Brew opened near our West Palm Beach condo, however, something was different. I enjoyed the chain’s indulgent “Sweet & Salty,” a salted caramel and white chocolate breve on its “7 Originals” menu, and enjoyed its lower-calorie 7 Fizz Sodas on more responsible days.

Going to 7 Brew, however, still came with two challenges. First, it was a longer ride, and second, it often had a much longer line than Starbucks.

Now, the wait and the drive, at least for a selection of the chain’s beverages, won’t matter because you can buy a selection of ready-to-drink 7 Brew beverages in cans at Walmart.

Walmart adds exclusive 7 Brew beverages

Walmart added canned 7 Brew Coffee in approximately 4,400 Walmart stores nationwide and five unique 7 Brew Energy beverages in over 1,100 locations beginning in August. In total, the coffee chain has three canned coffees and five energy drinks that are only being sold at Walmart.

In fact, three of the energy drink flavors are so exclusive that they’re only sold by the retailer and can’t be purchased at 7 Brew locations.

The coffee flavors include:

Blondie Chilled Espresso Breve Beverage: (Caramel + Vanilla)The iconic Blondie iced espresso breve – a smooth, creamy blend with buttery caramel and rich vanilla notes. Made with 100 percent Arabica coffee, natural flavors, real cream, and 7g of protein.

Brunette Brownie Chilled Espresso Mocha Beverage: (Chocolate) An indulgent chocolate-forward espresso beverage with a rich mocha profile. Made with 100 percent Arabica coffee, natural flavors, real cream, and 8g of protein.

Banana Bread Chilled Espresso Breve Beverage – (Banana + Hazelnut) the buzzy Banana Bread iced espresso breve – a comforting combination of ripe banana and roasted hazelnut with bold coffee flavor.Source: 7 Brew

7 Brew is also introducing a new line of 12 oz. 7 Brew Energy drinks in five flavors, including:

7 Brew Energy Original: Refreshing boost of caffeine with a crisp, clean, lightly sweet finish.

7 Brew Energy Original Sugar-Free: Same great taste experience as Original, but with 0g of sugar and only five calories.

7 Brew Energy Ocean Breeze Sugar-Free: (Blue Raspberry plus Coconut)Blue, beachy, and iconic for a reason.

7 Brew Energy Nightshade Sugar-Free: Lavender plus Pomegranate plus Blue Raspberry)Bold, mysterious fruit flavor with a smooth floral edge and after-dark energy.

7 Brew Energy Pink Mermaid Sugar-Free: (Watermelon + Coconut + Strawberry) Swimming with refreshing, fruity flavors.Source: 7 Brew

Original, it should be noted, has a flavor profile similar to Red Bull, while the three flavored cans are all Walmart exclusives not sold at 7 Brew locations, although if you know the recipe, the chain will make you anything it has the ingredients for.

A win for Walmart and 7 Brew

Offering a popular, well-known brand on an exclusive basis gives Walmart an edge over rivals like Target and Kroger. It’s simply another factor along with price and convenience that consumers will weigh when deciding where to spend their money.

“At Walmart, we continue to evolve our food and beverage assortment to reflect what our customers are looking for,” said Vice President of Beverages Brian Salmon. “We’re excited to bring 7 Brew’s fan favorite coffee and energy drinks to our shelves, giving customers more choice and another convenient way to enjoy the beverages they love.”

RTM Nexus CEO Dominick Miserandino sees this move as a way for 7 Brew to accelerate its growth.

“7 Brew is opening drive-thru stands like crazy, but physical real estate takes time to build out. Partnering with Walmart instantly puts their brand in front of millions of shoppers in markets where they don’t even have a drive-thru lane yet. It’s an aggressive brand-awareness play paid for by grocery shelf space,” he told TheStreet.

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He sees Walmart as having different motivation for the move.

“For Walmart, this is pure defense against Dutch Bros, Starbucks, and canned energy giants like Celsius. Securing exclusive three-dollar cans of viral drive-thru coffee keeps younger, drive-thru-obsessed consumers from walking into Target or convenience stores for their quick morning caffeine fix,” he added.

7 Brew will not sell any canned beverages at its coffee stands, according to its website.

RTD coffee growing faster than overall category

It makes sense for 7 Brew to enter the RTD business because that market has been growing, according to a report from Euromonitor.

“RTDs in the U.S. in 2025 demonstrated a notable divergence between value and volume, with total volume declining by 3% but value increasing by 6% in current terms to $25.1 billion. This reflected a decisive shift towards premiumization and resilience in pricing,” according to the report.

Room for growth remains.

“The market is attractive for brands that can adapt to rapidly changing consumer preferences, as spirit-based RTDs posted double-digit total volume growth of 13% in 2025 and non alcoholic RTDs saw total volume expand by 23%,” it added.

RTD coffee beverages have also been on a growth trajectory.

“The ready-to-drink coffee market in the U.S. is expected to reach a projected revenue of USD 10,469.6 million by 2033. A compound annual growth rate of 4.96% is expected for the United States ready-to-drink coffee market from 2026 to 2033,” according to Grand View Horizon.

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Dell Technologies (DELL) just delivered the kind of AI numbers that would have sounded improbable a year ago.

During its fiscal second quarter, Dell booked $60.9 billion of AI-server orders, recognized $16.4 billion of AI-server revenue, and finished the quarter with a staggering $95 billion backlog.

The backlog was $51.3 billion a quarter ago.

Thus, Dell supplied $16.4 billion in standard artificial intelligence (AI) systems in the quarter, yet saw its backlog grow by almost 85% sequentially as new orders poured in even quicker.

The figures led Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan to raise his Dell price target to $600 from $505, while maintaining a Buy rating.

The revised goal of $425, set Sept. 1 by Dell, implied around 41% upside.

But the most fascinating element of Mohan’s argument is not the $600 aim. That’s why he thinks Dell’s AI boom might extend beyond the tremendous server orders investors can now see.

BofA says AI is starting to pull through demand across servers, storage and PCs, while Dell also sits on a huge traditional server-replacement opportunity. Add those two dynamics together, and Dell begins to appear less like a firm riding one AI hardware cycle and more like one of the infrastructural bottlenecks through which numerous computing improvements must pass.

Dell’s $95 billion backlog is becoming difficult to comprehend

The tale is better told by the evolution than by the headline figure. BofA’s reconstruction of corporate filings found that Dell ended fiscal 2026 with an AI server backlog of around $43 billion.

That grew to $51.3 billion in the first quarter.

Then there was fiscal Q2. Dell booked $16.4 billion in AI server sales but took in $60.9 billion in new orders. Then the backlog ballooned to almost $95 billion.

Related: Nvidia stock flashes unusual signal for investors 

Dell said it has converted $131.7 billion of AI demand into orders over the past 12 months, while its remaining sales pipeline is still multiples of the existing backlog. Its AI customer count also jumped from about 5,000 to more than 6,500 in one quarter.

Dell replied by raising its fiscal 2027 AI server sales projection to $74 billion from $60 billion.

That was not even its biggest direction modification.

The business increased the midpoint of its full-year total sales outlook by $25 billion to $192 billion from $167 billion and upped non-GAAP EPS expectations to $25.50 from $17.90.

Bank of America sees something beyond the AI-server boom

This scenario is where BofA’s theory becomes more intriguing.

Mohan raised his fiscal 2027 revenue estimate to approximately $197 billion from $178 billion. His EPS estimate jumped even more dramatically: to $26.35 from $19.56.

That represents an increase of almost 35% to the analyst’s earnings forecast in a single research reset.

Compared with Dell’s fiscal 2026 adjusted EPS of $10.30, BofA is effectively forecasting EPS growth of roughly 156% this year.

For fiscal 2028, Mohan raised his EPS forecast to $30.41 from $24.67.

The $600 price target is based on about 20 times that $30.41 estimate.

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The valuation choice itself is interesting, since BofA concedes that 20 times earnings is beyond Dell’s historical price range since returning to public markets. Mohan says a premium is warranted given Dell’s exposure to AI across servers, storage, and PCs; a better storage mix and decreased financial leverage.

The analyst isn’t simply saying Dell should ship more Nvidia-powered servers. BofA believes agentic AI could spread demand through Dell’s entire hardware portfolio. That’s potentially a much larger thesis.

Dell has 1.2 million old servers waiting for replacement

An obscure number in BofA’s research deserves attention. Analysts estimate 1.2 million Dell servers are 14th generation or older. Eventually, those machines need upgrades.

That refresh cycle would exist even without the generative-AI boom.

AI could accelerate it.

Revenue from conventional servers and networking, meaning the business outside its headline-grabbing AI-optimized equipment, was a record $10.5 billion in Q2, up 122% year over year.

Dell said traditional-server revenue in the past two quarters has nearly matched its annual total.

It has also gained more than 10 percentage points of traditional-server market share over the last two quarters.

That’s important, since AI inference doesn’t always happen in massive GPU clusters.

As businesses push AI into daily applications, workloads may be pushed to traditional CPU servers, private data centers, and edge computing.

Dell said explicitly on its results call that on-premises and edge technology might provide favorable economics for certain AI workloads while enabling enterprises to retain greater control over sensitive data.

That makes for a second AI trade under Dell’s first.

The firm supplies the massive GPU systems for training and running frontier models.

It can also sell the conventional servers firms employ as AI creeps farther into everyday corporate computing.

Bank of America sees something much bigger than Dell’s $95 billion AI backlog.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Storage could make Dell’s AI boom more profitable

Next, there is storage.

Dell’s storage revenue jumped 26% to $4.9 billion during the quarter. Infrastructure Solutions Group operating income reached a record $4.8 billion, up 225% from a year earlier, while the segment’s operating margin reached 15%. BofA sees that as crucial.

AI servers are big moneymakers, but storage might be even more economically enticing, especially when Dell sells more of its own intellectual property.

Mohan explicitly pointed to increasing Dell-IP storage attachment as a potential margin driver. That might help answer one of the major questions hanging over the AI-server growth.

Selling a lot of hardware isn’t inherently enticing if a lot of the value goes through to Nvidia and other component suppliers.

The economic payoff for Dell comes when the first AI server sale also brings along storage, networking, services, and ultimately, PCs.

The latest quarter offers signs of precisely that. Infrastructure revenue rose 89%. Storage rose 26%. Client Solutions Group revenue rose 20%, with commercial PC revenue up 22%. Dell’s business is growing in places that don’t contain an Nvidia GPU.

Supply may now be Dell’s biggest problem and advantage

The strangest element of the story is that customers apparently want even more equipment than Dell can currently provide.

BofA expects demand to exceed available supply by about 30% in fiscal 2027, and the gap will widen further in fiscal 2028.

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Dell has pointed to memory as a significant limitation, while the entire industry remains under pressure regarding DRAM, NAND, CPUs, and other components.

Dell’s shares jumped about 11% on Sept. 2 on strong demand for AI, with its servers purchased by AI cloud providers such as Nscale and CoreWeave, according to Reuters. Dell was trading at roughly $461 throughout the day.

One risk is obviously supply shortages. Dell cannot recognize revenue on hardware it cannot obtain or ship. But scarcity can also help to support pricing and raise visibility by customers ordering further ahead. That seems to be part of what BofA expects to see.

Dell investors may be looking at the wrong number

The figure that jumps out is the $95 billion AI backlog.

It ought to. Dell’s AI backlog has risen from $11.7 billion six quarters ago to around $95 billion now, according to the BofA series.

But if you focus only on that number, you might miss what’s changing.

The company’s recent quarter saw record AI server sales, record conventional server revenue, significant storage growth, and the strongest PC growth in years. Dell’s PC business grew 20%, the quickest rate in five years, Reuters noted.

That’s the core reason BofA’s $600 objective warrants attention.

The thesis isn’t that one very successful server product just continues increasing forever. It’s because AI starts impacting everything Dell already offers.

The firm has thousands of AI clients, a massive installed base of servers that are ready for upgrades, a rising storage business, improved PC demand, and more AI orders than its supply chain can now fulfill.

BofA is forecasting $197 billion of revenue this fiscal year. Dell generated $113.5 billion last year. That would represent growth of roughly 74% in a single year.

And if Mohan is correct that agentic AI will migrate from massive cloud installations into corporations, private data centers, edge systems, and ultimately PCs, the most astonishing thing about Dell’s $95 billion backlog may not be how enormous it’s grown.

It may be that the backlog represents only the first piece of an AI infrastructure upgrade that is beginning to spread across Dell’s entire business.

Related: Dell Technologies Inc. Q2 2027 Earnings: Recap of $DELL Earnings Call, Forecast 

Wall Street is fairly bullish on SpaceX (SPCX) stock, and Oppenheimer’s latest price target raise is pushing that narrative further.

Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan increased his price target on SpaceX stock to $280 from $250, according to TipRanks. His price target implies about 85% upside, as SpaceX is trading near $151. The raise is a result of Horan’s growing confidence that SpaceX can become a real AI giant.

On the surface, MarketBeat’s data shows 27 of 42 analysts covering the stock rate SpaceX a buy, and this fresh take from Oppenheimer makes the stock look very attractive.

But does the thesis make sense?

Oppenheimer values SpaceX as a “unique vertically integrated AI platform”

The core valuation question is whether you believe that it can capture the market it said it aspires to capture in its S-1. SpaceX’s S-1 states that the company estimates its total addressable market (TAM) at $28.5 trillion, of which $26.5 trillion, or 92.98%, is expected to come from AI.

This means the long-term investment case depends almost exclusively on the success of SpaceX’s AI platform.

Horan believes that SpaceX’s AI play is progressing well and has increased his long-term revenue estimates for the company by about 10%.

He said that the acquisition of Cursor is “transformative” for the company and will help improve its AI platform, including Grok.

The key obstacle for growth is infrastructure capacity, and he believes it will require much higher capital expenditures (capex).

Investors who reviewed SpaceX’s second-quarter (Q2) earnings report likely raised their eyebrows reading that capex claim.

It is really simple: AI revenue in Q2 was $2.56 billion, but AI capex was $15.83 billion, and net loss was $541 million.

We can estimate that, despite the impressive revenue growth from AI, if the capex has to be much higher, as an Oppenheimer analyst said, the company will continue to report net loss instead of income for the foreseeable future.

Related: BofA names 2 SpaceX alternatives with massive upside

With an average price target of $221.2 for SpaceX, Oppenheimer is above consensus. However, this price target is nowhere near the most bullish one, Raymond James’s, at a whopping $800. Raymond James was one of the underwriters, and it certainly has an incentive to see the stock soar.

I’ve explored the problem SpaceX underwriters face, Bank of America more specifically, in my article Bank of America sets alarming SpaceX stock price target.

In short, for the stock to hit any of the price targets, almost everything the company is doing would need to go smoothly. The company needs to achieve many very difficult engineering feats, which are not guaranteed.

This is also what Morningstar equity analyst Nicolas Owens thinks. He is very bearish on SpaceX, and he values the stock at $63 per share.

The AI play is not going off without a hitch, despite Oppenheimer’s growing confidence that it is.

Oppenheimer values SpaceX as a “unique vertically integrated AI platform.”SpaceX-Imagery/Pixabay

SpaceX’s Cursor and infrastructure build-out face setbacks

On Aug. 28, OpenAI shared that it plans to wind down its contract providing OpenAI models to Cursor. The proposed end date was set to Nov. 12, 2026.

OpenAI’s reaction to Cursor being acquired by SpaceX was fairly easy to anticipate. What is a bit trickier is guessing whether Anthropic will do the same.

Anthropic following suit would be a major blow to SpaceX. The main problem for Anthropic is that it rents capacity from SpaceX, so cutting Cursor off may cause problems on that capacity front.

The company probably has the same limited period to respond to Cursor’s acquisition, so if it also wants to cut off Cursor’s access, it will have to announce it soon.

Nonetheless, Cursor’s loss of access to one of the two generally accepted best coding models is a setback.

SpaceX also hit a bit of a snag in AI data center build-out.

SpaceX has replaced several leaders of its data-center team with executives from its rocket and Starlink operations, according to The Information. This switch follows civil engineering problems and reliability issues at data center sites in Tennessee and Mississippi, as reported on Stocktwits.

The data center sites having issues should not be a surprise to anyone who has followed the work of what used to be xAI.

Hyping SpaceX’s superfast build-out as something good is a very superficial way of looking at it. Building things fast always comes with a cost you pay for later. Building more slowly but in a more reliable and efficient manner seems to be what competitors are doing.

xAI built its Colossus 1 by mixing H100, H200, and GB200 Nvidia GPUs, and this mix is a suboptimal choice for training.

As explained by Tom’s Hardware: “When the faster GB200 chips complete their work first, the entire cluster waits for the slower H100s to catch up — a well-known bottleneck known as the straggler effect. At 220,000 chips, this effect is exponential.”

This led to Colossus 1 being used only for inference, resulting in excess capacity that was rented to Anthropic.

Meanwhile, there hasn’t been any revelation that any hyperscaler has built a supercomputer unsuitable for training.

When analysts give high price targets for SpaceX, they are saying it will win the AI race. These elevated valuations assume SpaceX will capture market share from competitors, including Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

Usually, the same firms are also bullish on Microsoft, Google, and Meta. Investors need to evaluate whether these price targets reflect realistic market growth or double-counted market share across competing sell-side models.

Related: Morgan Stanley finds bigger story in SpaceX’s $100 billion bet

A financial decision made today, with retirement just a decade away, could significantly affect long-term financial security and quality of life in the years that follow. 

Morgan Stanley published a guide urging workers in their final decade of employment to give special attention to high-interest debt. It outlines six actions pre-retirees can prioritize before their income stops. 

The guide covers expenses, income sources, debt, investment strategy, tax efficiency, and insurance, but its debt section never distinguishes between credit card balances and a mortgage.

For the growing share of homeowners entering retirement with a balance still on the house, that gap changes how the guide should be read. The rate, tax bracket, and cash left after a payoff determine whether eliminating the loan builds security or drains it.

More retirees carry mortgage debt into their later years

The share of homeowners age 75 and older with a mortgage nearly tripled between 1998 and 2022, reaching about 30%, an Urban Institute analysis found.

Median mortgage debt for that group rose to $106,800 after inflation adjustments, a 61% increase from the same measure in 1998. 

Rising prices and pandemic-era refinancing changed the baseline for a generation that once entered retirement mortgage-free. More households now enter Morgan Stanley’s decade-out planning window with a mortgage still on the books.

Morgan Stanley recommended working with an adviser to review outstanding obligations, but the guide does not specify what threshold separates high interest from manageable cost.

Mortgage rate draws the line between payoff and investing

A homeowner locked in at 3% faces entirely different math than a borrower at 7%, and a T. Rowe Price analysis illustrates the gap clearly.

The firm modeled a $300,000 mortgage at 4% interest, with the borrower able to direct an extra $500 per month toward either accelerated payoff or investing. A faster payoff would save about $25,000 in interest over 13 years and cut seven years off the remaining term.

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Investing that same $500 at a 6% after-tax return would produce a net worth advantage of roughly $16,000 over the same period.

David Edmisten, a financial advisor at Pure Financial Advisors in Prescott, told Kiplinger that homeowners locked in at rates of 3% to 3.5% may benefit more from carrying the balance and directing their savings elsewhere. 

At a 7% rate, the guaranteed return from paying down the mortgage typically exceeds what short-term Treasuries and high-yield savings currently pay.

Mortgage rates can change the retirement math, making investing more attractive at low rates and mortgage payoff more compelling as borrowing costs rise.Tom Werner / Getty Images

New standard deduction narrows the mortgage interest tax benefit

The standard deduction for joint filers rose to $32,200 for the 2026 tax year under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, according to the IRS Revenue Procedure 2025-32.

Retirees age 65 and older can stack a new $6,000 senior deduction onto that figure, with qualifying married couples eligible for up to $12,000 combined. An age-65 add-on, worth $1,650 per qualifying spouse in 2026, layers on top of both.

Those combined thresholds mean fewer retired households will need to itemize, making the mortgage interest deduction irrelevant for most retirees.

A retired couple, both 65 or older, with $15,000 in annual mortgage interest and $8,000 in state and local taxes, would total $23,000 in itemized deductions. 

That sum falls more than $24,000 short of the couple’s combined $47,500 standard deduction, the base plus both add-ons stacked.

Retirees with larger mortgages or high state and local tax bills may still clear the itemization threshold, but the OBBBA math pushes far more filers to the standard side.

Cash reserves matter more than a zero mortgage balance

Depleting savings to eliminate a mortgage can leave retirees without the liquidity they need during their first years without income. 

Anqi Chen, then associate director of savings and household finance at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (now at Edelman Financial Engines), told CNBC that liquidity planning matters because roughly 10% of retiree income goes to unexpected shocks.

Even small amounts of savings will help provide some sort of buffer for when these events occur.

Kevin Lao, owner and financial planner at Imagine Financial Security, told Kiplinger that retirees are better served maintaining 12 to 24 months of liquid reserves as a buffer against market downturns.

Pulling a lump sum from a pretax retirement account to pay off the house triggers an immediate tax bill that many retirees underestimate. At the 22% marginal rate, netting $100,000 after tax requires a gross withdrawal of roughly $128,000.

That withdrawal could push taxable income high enough to trigger higher Medicare premiums through income-related monthly adjustment amounts, adding a hidden cost.

“You never want to end up house rich and cash poor by paying off your mortgage,” Brandon Ashton, director of retirement security at Cornerstone Financial Services, told Kiplinger.

What shifts the mortgage calculation from here

Two moving pieces will continue to change the payoff-or-carry question for pre-retirees. 

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act senior deduction phases out for higher-income filers and is scheduled to expire after 2028. That makes the standard deduction advantage that currently sidelines mortgage interest a temporary feature of the tax code. 

Retirees planning around the current threshold could face a different itemization calculation before the decade is out.

Adjustable-rate borrowers who locked in during pandemic-era lows face added pressure as reset dates arrive, typically five or seven years after origination. 

That group is small next to fixed-rate refinancers, but individual stakes grow as more resets hit through 2029.

The three variables Morgan Stanley leaves each household to weigh, rate, bracket, and cash position will look different in 2028 than they do today.

Related: 3 tips for getting the lowest mortgage rate in today’s market

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This jacket offers a super soft, plush feel for any outing. The Algae blue color leans into a more vintage color palette that mixes well with browns, greens, cream, white, and other colors, making it an easy option to style. It features a rib-knit collar, hem, and cuffs for comfort, and to help keep the cold out on frigid days. The jacket can be worn open on warmer days or fully zipped to the top to help protect your neck and chin from cold winds. It also features two hand pockets that feature zippers to keep your phone or other items safe while exploring. 

Related: REI’s quarter-zip pullover is only $41 during its Labor Day sale

The jacket is made from recycled polyester fleece with a 75-denier and 325 grams per square meter fabric weight, meaning it’s a heavier weight, holds its structure, and keeps in warmth. This fabric is a great weight for durability, making it ideal for withstanding wear and tear on a weekly basis. The relaxed fit is comfortable and easy to move around in, while the hem keeps it closed tight around your waist to prevent heat from escaping. 

Details to know

Sizes: Choose from size XS to XXL.

Material: The recycled polyester fleece offers a soft feel with a heavier weight of 325 grams per square meter fabric.

Features: The two zipper pockets can warm your hands or hold your phone, and the full-length zipper is ideal for customizing your warmth. 

Shoppers have left some positive reviews, but note that it does run large, so sizing down is a good idea. One buyer said, “This is a very nice fleece for fall, winter, or spring. It’s a beautiful fleece material. I loved it,  but I had used the sizing chart to order the recommended size, and it was actually too large.”Another person wrote, “This was a great purchase for a good price. High quality, great fit and color, and it feels terrific. I would recommend it.”

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For years, Tesla (TSLA) has argued that autonomy could fundamentally change its economics. On Thursday, Sept. 3, investors may get one of the clearest indications yet of how close that transformation actually is.

Tesla is rolling out the Cybercab in Austin, Texas. Cybercab is the robotaxi that the company introduced almost two years ago and designed for a single purpose. Unlike a Model Y running autonomous-driving software, Cybercab was created from the ground up, without traditional driver controls and exclusively for Tesla’s intended ride-hailing network.

The business is celebrating the introduction of the Cybercab in Austin, and Tesla’s own event site discloses that it utilized trips in its current Robotaxi service to pick five customers to attend.

That makes Thursday far more significant than a typical product introduction.

Cybercab is already beyond the idea stage. In its second-quarter shareholder documents, Tesla said it launched Cybercab manufacturing in the quarter, began engineering test drives of production cars on public roads and started giving staff rides on its Texas plant facility in July.

The next step is to turn those cars into a scalable commercial service.

Tesla has already crossed an important Cybercab line

The Cybercab event comes on the heels of Tesla discreetly doing what investors have been waiting years for.

It is making the car.

Tesla’s second-quarter report says manufacturing of the Cybercab started in the first half of 2026. The corporation also stated it was testing technical cars on public roads. This is something very different from showing prototypes on a stage.

Cybercab also has the infrastructural benefit of Tesla’s current Robotaxi service, which did not exist when the car was initially shown.

Related: Tesla quietly kills a product homeowners once paid a premium for

Tesla claims it’s now providing autonomous Robotaxi rides in Model Ys in Austin and Houston, Texas, and in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, Florida. Cybercab is described separately on its website as the purpose-built automated vehicle that would ultimately provide trips.

That difference matters.

Tesla is not aiming to manufacture a vehicle and then build a ride-hailing service around it. It is aiming to insert Cybercab into an autonomous network on which it is currently working.

What investors should watch at Tesla’s Cybercab event

Thursday’s unresolved questions, therefore, are more important than the vehicle’s features.

Reuters adds that Tesla has not disclosed if it has received the regulatory clearances required for the commercial launch of Cybercab or that the vehicle conforms with the relevant federal safety standards.

This is especially noteworthy since the production concept for Cybercab removes two pieces of equipment regulators have long believed would be inside a passenger vehicle: a steering wheel and pedals.

Tesla’s public-road testing has included versions equipped with steering wheels.

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The event may answer several questions that matter more to Tesla’s valuation than another demonstration ride: When will paying customers ride production Cybercabs? Should early cars have conventional controls? How fast can Tesla make them? Can the company expand beyond Robotaxi markets quickly?

The responses are important for another reason.

Tesla’s own regulatory filings expressly disclose that the company’s future growth hinges in part on customer acceptance of autonomous driving. The firm warned that if its autonomous driving solutions and Robotaxi don’t reach the anticipated level of acceptability, its business and financial performance might be negatively impacted.

In other words, Cybercab is becoming less of a side project and more of a test of Tesla’s stated long-term business model.

Tesla is preparing for a potential gamechanger.KARL MONDON / Getty Images

Tesla needs Cybercab to change the economics of selling cars

The timing is particularly fascinating, since Tesla is already a major player as a traditional carmaker.

The second quarter of 2026 saw 451,758 vehicle production and 480,126 deliveries. Tesla delivered 838,000 consumer vehicles in the first six months after producing 860,000 in the first quarter.

A robotaxi might impact how frequently a Tesla earns income.

When Tesla sells or leases a privately owned car, it’s often monetized, plus the following software and service fees. A Cybercab on the Tesla network may potentially be profitable again and again over its useful life.

Tesla itself increasingly describes that transition in financial rather than futuristic terms. “We have continued to expand and refine our Robotaxi service.” The company said in its latest 10-Q that it is using its AI investments and mobility infrastructure to advance a “service-driven business model.”

That may be the most crucial term being thrown around Thursday’s event.

Tesla is not only attempting to sell a $30,000 self-driving vehicle. Cybercab might one day be sold for around that amount, Musk has stated in the past, according to Reuters. Tesla is working to develop the hardware that will support a recurrent transportation service.

If so, investors may ultimately have to judge Tesla partially on its mobility platforms, not only versus Ford, General Motors, or other EV makers.

If not, Cybercab is a costly vehicle initiative connected to a thesis on autonomy that has taken years to market.

The biggest Cybercab obstacle isn’t manufacturing

Tesla has previously shown it can build cars on a huge scale.

It has also shown it can scale its Robotaxi network outside of one city. The firm said in documents released for its second quarter that it increased unattended operations in Austin and debuted unsupervised rides in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa in July while it worked on other U.S. metro regions via testing, permitting, and first-responder training.

The bigger question is whether Tesla can remove humans while satisfying regulators and convincing passengers the system is safe.

Tesla’s 10-Q states that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, Securities and Exchange Commission, and Justice Department have requested information on Autopilot, FSD, and Robotaxi. Tesla discloses pending litigation over driver-assist technology statements. Tesla promises a fierce defense.

That makes for a strange setting for Thursday.

Tesla isn’t building Cybercab from scratch. Production is ongoing. It’s been tested on public roads. Its Robotaxi fleet is running in a few of cities.

It’s less clear, and likely far more difficult, whether Tesla can transform all three into a large-scale autonomous transportation company.

So the most significant item for investors at the Cybercab event may not be what Tesla shows off.

It’s what Tesla finally says about when the driverless car sitting onstage becomes a business capable of making money without anyone sitting behind the wheel.

Related: Tesla uses data transparency to get what it wants

Valued at a market cap of $58 billion, Nike is among the worst-performing stocks on the S&P 500 over the past decade. Nike (NKE) stock is down almost 80% from all-time highs and trades at a 12-year low. 

The ongoing pullback has raised the forward dividend yield to 3.7%, making it attractive to income-seeking investors. 

Let’s see if the footwear giant is a bargain buy or a value trap at current valuations. 

Why Nike stock is under pressure

Nike’s revenue has dropped from $51.2 billion in fiscal 2023 (ended in May) to $46.4 billion in fiscal 2026. Moreover, its operating margin has narrowed from 15.6% in fiscal 2021 to 8.2% in fiscal 2026. 

In fiscal Q4 of 2026, Nike posted revenue of $11 billion, down 1% on a reported basis and 4% on an adjusted basis.

Diluted earnings per share of $0.72 looked strong on paper, but that number was inflated by a $0.52 per share one-time benefit tied to an expected tariff recovery.

Strip that benefit out and the underlying picture is far less flattering. 

Nike’s management pointed to a low- to mid-single-digit revenue decline expected for the first quarter of fiscal 2027, with earnings per share roughly flat over the next three quarters once tariff-related gains are excluded. 

Related: Nike stock could suffer because of JPMorgan verdict

In a note shared by Yahoo Finance, Evercore ISI analyst Michael Binetti, covering Nike stock, offered a warning. 

“No hints yet that revenues can turn positive in the foreseeable future; we don’t see a clear reason to expand the P/E ratio from here (from 22x FY27 consensus EPS).” 

NBA star and longtime Nike athlete LeBron James told Yahoo Sports the brand needs to reconnect with its roots. 

“You gotta get back into the roots, you gotta get back to being out in the inner city, having runners, when I was coming up, you had people that was literally out in the communities talking to these younger generations, asking them what they like, what they don’t like,” James said, according to the Boardroom interview.

Nike stock price target debate heats up

Nike is focusing on cost savings to improve profit margins. In Q4:

Nike reduced its cost of sales by 16%, improving gross margins to 49.2% from 40.3% over the last 12 months. 

Gross profit rose 21% despite falling sales, driven by tariff refunds.

Adjusting for tariff refunds, its gross margins stood at 40.2%, 10 basis points lower than the prior quarter.

Gross margin beat management’s guidance, which expected a decline of at least 25 basis points. 

Management now expects gross margin to start expanding in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, earlier than originally planned, suggesting that supply-chain fixes are starting to show up in the numbers. 

The improvement echoes what Nike’s finance chief told analysts on the company’s earnings call.

“I would say that our performance this quarter has given us increasing confidence that our margins are stabilizing and that we’re starting to see a pathway back towards gross margin expansion,” Matt Friend, Nike’s outgoing chief financial officer, said on the call. 

He added that improved discounts in North America, along with lower sales-related reserves, cancellations, and markdowns, drove much of the progress.

The ongoing drawdown has meant that Nike stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings multiple of 22.3x, below its 10-year average of 31.1x. 

According to consensus data compiled by Tikr.com. analysts tracking Nike stock forecast adjusted earnings per share to expand from $1.58 in fiscal 2026 to $5.13 in fiscal 2031. If Nike stock is priced at 25x earnings, it could almost triple from current levels. 

Nike CEO Elliott Hill is focused on improving profit margins.Soobum Im / Getty Images

What next for Nike stock price?

While Nike Sportswear and Jordan streetwear keep dragging on results, Nike’s running category has posted five straight quarters of double-digit growth, helping the brand gain five points of market share across Western Europe and North America. 

Nike is among the most recognizable brands globally and is wrestling primarily with product mix. 

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CEO Elliott Hill has leaned into that distinction repeatedly, pointing to the company’s new Sport Offense structure, built around small teams focused on individual sports like running, basketball and football, as the reason performance categories are recovering faster than lifestyle ones.

Sportswear and Jordan are still expected to decline through fiscal 2027, China remains a multi-year project, and tariffs are still an unpredictable cost. 

Nobody should pretend otherwise. But the pieces investors usually look for early in a turnaround are showing up. 

Margins are stabilizing, the running category is growing fast enough to matter, and management is guiding to earlier-than-expected margin expansion. 

And the stock is priced closer to a value bet than a growth story.

If Nike meets the numbers analysts already expect, patient investors buying near these levels could be rewarded over the next few years. If the Sportswear and China problems drag on longer than management hopes, the stock could stay cheap for a while longer, too. 

Nike will lay out its next chapter at its Investor Day on Nov. 16 and 17, and that event should offer the clearest read yet on which version of this story plays out.

Out of the 15 analysts covering Nike stock, eight recommend “Buy,” 15 recommend “Hold,” and two recommend “Sell.” The average NKE stock price target is $50, indicating an upside potential of 31% from current levels.

Related: Nike rival makes a surprise U.S. comeback

Roku (ROKU) has spent years trying to own the software layer of television. Now it is getting more aggressive about owning the television itself.

Roku has launched its first OLED TVs, pushing into a premium display category long dominated by Samsung, LG, and Sony.

The new Roku Pro Series OLED starts at $999.99 for a 55-inch model, while the 65-inch version costs $1,199.99. Roku is also preparing a brighter Pro Series LX OLED for October, priced at $1,299.99 for 55 inches and $1,599.99 for 65 inches.

Roku is pushing OLED image quality farther down the market, but still with features that are more typical of more costly TVs: 120Hz refresh rates, four HDMI 2.1 connections, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, FreeSync Premium, and variable refresh rate gaming compatibility.

But Roku’s business model makes the launch more fascinating than a simple hardware pricing battle.

More than 100 million streaming households use Roku OS devices. Licensing partners, not Roku, make the majority of its TV sales.

This implies that Roku doesn’t necessarily need to earn giant profits by selling an OLED TV.

Another Roku OS screen is required.

Roku is attacking OLED at a difficult moment for TV makers

The timing is unusual, since global television demand is hardly booming.

TrendForce anticipates global TV shipments will fall 0.8% in 2026 to roughly 194.65 million units, while shipments in the first half would rise 1.3% to 93.74 million. The sector is under pressure from growing memory prices, softening demand, and shrinking margins for smaller producers.

Memory’s share of a television’s bill of materials is expected to jump from roughly 2.5% to 3% historically to 6% to 7%.

Related: A $650 smartphone takes aim at Apple and Samsung’s surging repair costs

That is a surprisingly big shift for a category where manufacturers already compete fiercely on price.

And the market is becoming more divided.

Samsung delivered 17.6 million TVs in the first half of 2026, up 6.3%. TCL delivered 15.08 million, up 7.1%; Hisense delivered 14.23 million, up 3%. LG delivered 11.3 million units, up 3.9 percent.

Against those giants, Roku’s manufacturing scale is comparatively modest. So why enter OLED now? Because Roku may be pursuing a different strategy.

The TV itself may be Roku’s customer-acquisition cost

Roku said something telling earlier this year.

Devices revenue was $118 million in the first quarter, down 16% year over year, with a negative 16.3% gross margin. The company attributed the drop to lower player sales and promotional pricing.

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That is not how most investors want a hardware business to look. But Roku’s TVs and streaming boxes serve another purpose. They get Roku OS into homes.

Once Roku has the operating system on the device, it can monetize the device over its lifetime through advertising, streaming subscriptions, content distribution, and other platform services.

That alters the economics of selling a TV.

Samsung, Sony, and LG usually require their premium TVs to be substantial hardware goods.

The transaction brings a long-term platform user, which might possibly help Roku overcome poor hardware economics.

Its first OLED TV is therefore more of a 55-inch screen customer acquisition device. That’s likely why Roku can afford to be so aggressive with the launch pricing.

Roku just found a new way to fight Samsung and LG.Bloomberg / Getty Images

OLED gives Roku access to a more valuable type of customer

OLED is still a top-end technology.

Traditional LCD TVs use LCD pixels that need a backlight, whereas OLED pixels make their own light, enabling deep blacks, excellent contrast, and incredibly thin displays. The category has always demanded costs much above mainstream market LCD TVs.

And although the overall TV industry is in decline, OLED is one of its growing sectors.

Omdia estimates that large-area OLED display shipments will grow 18.8% to 38.8 million units in 2026, while total large-area display shipments will fall 2.3%.

Not all of that increase is coming from TVs; monitors and laptops are contributing heavily. Still, it shows a larger transition to OLED even as weaker display technologies see reduced demand.

The move into OLED also affects the sort of home Roku can target.

Its brand has long been synonymous with cheap streaming sticks and budget televisions.

A Roku television priced between $1,000 and $1,600 brings the business into living rooms where customers are ready to pay substantially more for entertainment devices.

Those homes may also be very lucrative advertising and subscription clients. And that’s where the strategic payout might be higher than the margin on the TV.

Roku’s new television makes the software battle harder to ignore

For the most part, the television business was a fight for image quality.

The fight over what occurs when the TV goes on is becoming more of a war.

As the market moves away from hardware requirements alone, TrendForce specifically expects smart-TV platforms, advertising services, and content ecosystems to become more significant to manufacturers’ competitiveness.

That observation fits Roku unusually well. Roku started with the platform. The hardware came later.

The traditional TV makers have largely gone the other way: They made displays and then built operating systems, advertising platforms, and content ecosystems around them.

That makes Roku’s OLED growth strategically crucial.

Every premium Roku television sold has the potential to usurp the default gateway to a household’s streaming habit from a Samsung Tizen, LG webOS, or Google TV interface.

And the living room screen is the prime piece of real estate.

Consumers may hold on to a TV for several years. During that time, the operating system may show advertisements frequently, propose content, and enable subscriptions.

The $999 purchase happens once, yet the platform relationship can last much longer.

Amazon exclusivity adds another twist

Amazon is the only place to get Roku’s Pro Series OLED for 2026.

That provides Roku quick access to one of the biggest consumer electronics stores in the U.S. without the need to create a similar physical retail presence.

The basic Pro OLED now comes in 55- and 65-inch sizes. The more expensive LX, arriving in October, has around double the brightness, a 144 Hz variable refresh rate, and a polarizer meant to cut down on reflections, according to product specs provided by Roku.

Roku’s official product page confirms the prices and OLED specifications. This is great for consumers. Buyers now have another option besides Samsung, LG, and Sony as OLED prices drop. For Roku investors, calculations differ. What matters isn’t whether Roku can become America’s largest OLED maker. Perhaps it’s unnecessary.

Roku OS is already running in more than 100 million streaming homes. The trick is keeping those families interested while adding new ones and extending the platform into more lucrative portions of the television industry.

An inexpensive OLED provides Roku another option to accomplish it. It could also explain the unconventional economics of the launch.

Roku isn’t simply trying to sell you a cheaper premium television. It may be willing to make the television cheaper because it really wants to own everything you do after you switch it on.

Related: Apple’s new iPhone strategy comes with a $2,500 question

Michael Burry made his name betting against a market everyone else trusted. This time, the market pushed back harder than usual, and the damage showed up across nearly every corner of his bearish portfolio.

August turned into one of the roughest months yet for his bearish AI positions, even as he kept adding to them rather than backing away. The stretch offers a real test of how long conviction can hold up against a genuinely strong earnings season.

Michael Burry’s bets against Palantir Nvidia and Micron backfired in August

Most of the stocks Burry was bearish on advanced during August, led by sharp gains in Palantir, Nvidia, and Micron. The month highlighted a real risk for AI skeptics: valuation concerns can look extreme for a long time before momentum and earnings growth actually break. August gave little evidence that a break is imminent.

Palantir was by far the biggest problem. The stock surged 51.4% in August, even as Burry maintained out-of-the-money put options with a $100 strike expiring December 2026 and a $50 strike expiring June 2027, according to Yahoo Finance.

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Nvidia and Micron added their own pressure. Nvidia rose roughly 8% in August while Burry held bearish put positions alongside higher-strike December calls meant to offer some protection around earnings. Micron gained 13.3% even after Burry increased his short exposure, arguing the memory maker’s rally reflected speculation more than fundamentals, according to Stocktwits.

Other names in Burry’s bearish basket told a similar story. Oracle climbed 16.2%, CoreWeave gained 17.4%, Tesla advanced 12.1%, and Nebius rose 9.9% over the month, leaving Applied Materials and Caterpillar as the only two of his tracked short targets that actually declined, down 9% and 1.8% respectively, Stocktwits noted.

Palantir was the biggest problem in Burry’s portfolio

Palantir’s second-quarter results, reported August 3, gave the stock’s rally real fundamental backing. Revenue reached $1.935 billion, up 93% year over year, with U.S. commercial revenue growing 149% to $764 million and adjusted free cash flow of $1.22 billion, TheStreet reported.

Burry has not backed off his long-term view despite those numbers. He has said Palantir is worth under $1 per share on a long-term basis, a stark contrast to a stock trading near $175 with a market capitalization around $420 billion and a trailing price-to-earnings ratio above 137, according to Stock Analysis.

Burry’s argument is not that Palantir’s business is weak. He has acknowledged the company’s Rule of 40 score, a metric combining revenue growth and profit margin, reached 155% last quarter, far above the benchmark for AI infrastructure companies. His case instead is that the current price already assumes near-perfect execution indefinitely, leaving little room for anything to go wrong, as TheStreet reported.

In early August, Burry widened the comparison further. He likened the current AI buildout to 2005, one year before the housing market began to crack. He also disclosed fresh shorts against Oracle and Nebius around that same period, broadening his bet beyond the three most talked-about names.

Most of the stocks Burry was bearish on advanced during August, led by sharp gains in Palantir, Nvidia, and Micron.Michael/Getty Images

Why Michael Burry still isn’t backing down on his shorts

Burry’s positioning has grown rather than shrunk as the trades have moved against him. His short positions in the iShares Semiconductor ETF, Micron, Nvidia, Caterpillar, Palantir, Tesla, and Applied Materials remained largely intact up until early August. He has said publicly that all of those positions stayed profitable except his bet against Nvidia, according to TheStreet.

Micron’s own business results complicate Burry’s timing argument. Chief business officer Sumit Sadana said on the company’s fiscal third-quarter earnings call that customer demand for memory chips remains “well above our ability to supply” across nearly every product category through 2028, a comment that cuts directly against the idea that current demand reflects speculation rather than end-customer need, according to Insider Monkey.

Burry has also pointed to a more technical concern about how AI infrastructure spending gets accounted for. He has argued that hyperscalers may be extending the useful life of Nvidia chips in ways that understate depreciation and inflate reported earnings, estimating the resulting shortfall could reach roughly $176 billion between 2026 and 2028.

Burry’s call options on Nvidia, bought as a hedge rather than a bullish trade, at least partly cushion the impact from Nvidia’s own August strength. “I am not playing for gains here,” Burry wrote of that trade as the stock jumped roughly 8% following its August earnings report.

What investors should watch next after Burry’s August losses

August illustrates the gap between identifying valuation risk and successfully timing it. Burry may ultimately be right that parts of the AI trade are overpriced, but Palantir, Nvidia, and Micron all continue to benefit from genuinely strong earnings and sentiment momentum that has outpaced his bearish thesis so far.

Burry’s short positions are not a signal by themselves. The signal is the earnings data. Right now that data says AI demand is real and growing. If a major hyperscaler comes out next quarter with weak guidance or a spending cut, that changes everything. Nothing like that has shown up yet.

Burry has been here before. He was early on the housing trade too, and early felt a lot like wrong for a long time. August is one data point. The numbers that matter are the ones that come out of the next round of earnings calls. Until the demand story cracks there, the market is not listening.

Related: Michael Burry just sent a fresh signal to stock market investors