The Street

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.

More AI:

Nvidia just made a move Wall Street wasn’t ready for

Microsoft just took sides in AI policy fight

OpenAI just disclosed something genuinely alarming

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

Nvidia (NVDA) has spent the AI boom selling companies the computing power needed to generate things that didn’t exist before.

Now it wants your graphics card to do something similar while you’re playing a video game.

Nvidia’s new AI-powered graphics innovation DLSS 5 is officially rolling out on Sept. 3, starting with NBA 2K27. Nvidia claims it is the company’s largest computer-graphics advance since real-time ray tracing was introduced in 2018.

Nvidia calls it 3D-Guided Neural Rendering. The neural model analyzes scene objects to add more realistic lighting, materials, shadows, and other visual details.

The result sounds like an obvious technological upgrade. It also raises an unusual question for gamers and, eventually, Nvidia investors: At what point does a graphics card stop rendering a video game and start generating one?

Nvidia has dramatically reduced DLSS 5’s hardware requirements

But perhaps the most astounding figure in Nvidia’s release has nothing to do with picture quality.

When Nvidia demonstrated DLSS 5 in March, the technology required two flagship GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards.

Nvidia believes DLSS 5 performance is 5x better and can run on a single RTX 50-series GPU in six months.

That includes the RTX 5060.

Nvidia states that just about every RTX 50-series GPU can run NBA 2K27 at 1080p with ray tracing and the Ultra option, utilizing DLSS 5 and other DLSS technologies.

Related: Bank of America doubles down on Nvidia stock

At the extreme end, Nvidia says an RTX 5090 can reach up to 370 frames per second at 4K with Ultra settings, ray tracing, and DLSS.

At 1440p, Nvidia lists the maximum performance as:

RTX 5090: 590 fps

RTX 5080: 410 fps

RTX 5070 Ti: 350 fps

RTX 5070: 260 fps

Those figures need some context.

DLSS is not only making the GPU do the work of rendering hundreds of full frames per second in the traditional sense. With Multi Frame Generation, AI creates extra frames between the ones that Nvidia normally renders. Current DLSS technology can create up to five more frames for every displayed frame.

DLSS 5 crosses another line

That’s not contentious about DLSS 5 though: frame generation is.

The major difference is in what occurs in those frames.

Nvidia claims its neural model understands scene objects and semantics and can produce more realistic lighting, material reactions and subsurface scattering, while consuming information from the underlying 3D environment. Developers have controls over structure and tone and semantic masks to govern how aggressively the algorithm modifies the picture.

Nvidia claims DLSS 5 in NBA 2K27 can adjust how light goes through a player’s ears, enhance the look of skin and facial hair, and produce more nuanced shadows on jerseys and basketballs.

Those may sound like tiny details. But they represent a significant philosophical change in how video-game graphics can be created. Traditionally, developers create an asset and the GPU renders it.

Enter DLSS 5, a new AI model that can look at that item and create more visual information around it in real time.

That difference is part of why there was a pushback to Nvidia announcing DLSS 5 back in March.

More Nvidia:

Nvidia just made a move Wall Street wasn’t ready for

Nvidia just locked down deal that changes AI race

Nvidia stock is doing something it hasn’t done in years

Some of the earlier demos by Nvidia were derided for modifying characters too much, notably the look of Grace Ashcroft from Resident Evil Requiem, The Verge reported. The article likened the impact to running the game through a generative-AI filter in real time.

NBA 2K27’s AI is more focused on texturing, lighting, and shadows, according to The Verge.

Developers may also instruct DLSS 5 to leave certain sections, like faces, alone.

Nvidia’s newest AI feature comes with one ugly catchMATT RAMEY / Getty Images

Nvidia has another reason to make AI graphics indispensable

There is a commercial narrative behind the technical argument.

Nvidia’s Gaming unit recorded record sales of $16 billion in fiscal 2026, a 41% increase year-over-year.

This is a huge gaming company.

It is also modest in relation to what AI infrastructure has turned into for Nvidia.

The company just reported $96.2 billion of total revenue in a single quarter, up 106% year over year. Data Center alone generated $89 billion, up 117%.

It is an astounding comparison.

Nvidia’s last quarter of Data Center revenue was almost 5 times the total Gaming revenue for the entire prior fiscal year.

That doesn’t imply gaming is dead.

Instead, Nvidia is increasingly bringing the same basic economic proposition that transformed its data center business: more AI requires more Nvidia computing power, back to consumers.

DLSS 5 is one such case.

The technology is officially launching on RTX 50-series desktop and laptop GPUs and on Nvidia’s GeForce Now service. Nvidia said the next model upgrades should increase the performance further.

So, for a gamer with older hardware, some of the latest visual features are not just unlocked with a software update.

They can become another reason to upgrade the GPU.

Nvidia could change what a graphics upgrade actually means

For decades, PC gamers have been upgrading their graphics cards for a rather obvious reason.

A faster GPU would be able to produce more polygons, higher quality textures, sharper shadows and ultimately more realistic ray-traced lighting.

AI alters that equation.

If the neural networks can intelligently rebuild, augment or synthesize sections of the final product, the graphics card doesn’t have to brute-force every pixel and every frame in the conventional sense.

This might make the capabilities of AI more and more essential when buyers compare GPUs.

And Nvidia has been building just that edge into RTX.

Related: OpenAI’s agents breached Hugging Face. Nvidia wants it.

The RTX 50 series is based on the fifth generation of Nvidia’s Tensor Cores, a dedicated AI accelerator silicon. DLSS provides Nvidia with a consumer-facing application that can take those AI cores and convert them into something players will really see.

The strategic value could be more than one generation of graphics cards.

If game creators are able to start developing games with neural rendering at the core, rather than as an optional addition, AI technology might become as crucial to gaming GPUs as conventional rendering performance.

One game will now test Nvidia’s biggest graphics claim in years

There is a catch. At launch, the showcase is remarkably narrow. NBA 2K27 is the only confirmed game shipping with DLSS 5 in Sept. 3.

The games announced at Nvidia’s March event included Resident Evil Requiem, EA Sports FC, Starfield, and Hogwarts Legacy; however, The Verge reports that Nvidia did not provide an updated timeframe for DLSS 5 support in those titles.

That is, investors and gamers should not mistake the promise of the technology with the possibility for mass adoption.

Nvidia has shown that DLSS 5 can operate on much less hardware than it could six months ago.

Developers or players have yet to show that they want AI to change depicted scenes in broad strokes.

That’s why NBA 2K27 is more significant than it looks.

The discussion isn’t actually about whether artificial intelligence can make virtual bacon shinier or basketball players’ skin more lifelike.

It’s about where computer graphics are heading, according to Nvidia.

For decades, the graphics industry competed over which GPU could render reality most convincingly.

Nvidia is beginning to suggest that the next winner may be the GPU that can intelligently generate the missing pieces of reality instead.

Gamers can decide on Sept. 3 if that’s the future or if Nvidia’s AI has gone too far.

Related: Nvidia stock flashes unusual signal for investors 

When development companies put their funds behind a project, there is always the risk that things will not go the way they intended.

Two resorts in Miami Beach filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy within a few weeks of each other in March 2026, while at the end of last year, the company behind well-known New York City hotels such as The Tuscany and Hotel 27 shut down operations in a situation that left guests from different parts of the world struggling to find last-minute accommodations at Manhattan rates.

The latest development company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York is the beleaguered Park Place Partners Development LLC.

Park Place Partners Development files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The owner of both the unfinished 66-foot 45 Park Place tower at the intersection of New York’s Tribeca and Financial District neighborhoods and the vacant lot next to it, the company run by Sharif El-Gamal started running into financial troubles after lower numbers of apartments in the property have gone under contract than expected and overseas lenders started to cut off funding.

The initial plan to put a 71-foot-tall, 16,000-square-foot Islamic cultural and prayer center adjacent to the main tower also caught national attention around 2010 due to its proximity to the Ground Zero site of the former World Trade Center and was eventually scrapped amid controversy.

Related: A luxurious Canadian hotel brand is coming to snowy Japan

Amid both rising debts and multiple creditor efforts to foreclose, construction on the tower stopped in 2019, and the tower stood in a half-finished shell over the last seven years in one of the most well-recognized examples of a stalled project in New York and the U.S.

According to the bankruptcy filing, Park Place Partners Development reported $15 million in assets and $13.8 million in liabilities. Kevin Nash of the Goldberg Weprin Finkel Goldstein law firm is representing El-Gamal and Park Place Partners in the bankruptcy case.

Early renderings presented 45 Park Place as an ambitious luxury condo tower project.45 Park Place

How 45 Park Place became the most famous unfinished condo tower in New York

Park Place Partners Development could not be reached for comment on the filing; as a result, little other information on why the company filed for bankruptcy now, after years of setbacks, is currently publicly available.

Amid multiple foreclosure efforts, El-Gamal has previously threatened to tear down the top of the 667-foot tower that has already been built in order to make the project less valuable and “get back” at creditors that he felt were purposefully preventing him from getting ahead.

More Travel News:

Airline to launch unusual new flight to Cayman Islands from the U.S.

There is a very cool Irish version of swimming pigs in The Bahamas

Unexpected country is most luxurious travel destination for 2026

Low-cost airline launches easier way to get to Sri Lanka

In response, the lending group that included creditors like Malaysia’s Malayan Banking Berhad, Kuwaiti Warba Bank and Chicago-based MSD Partners accused El-Gamal of creating a “bad faith scheme” to “gain leverage in negotiations.”

“To the extent that Mr. El-Gamal and his companies seek to pursue this scheme, they will be held fully liable for any and all damages,” the group wrote in a letter through the attorneys representing them as reported by The Real Deal in 2020.

Related: Another national park closes hotels, campgrounds, overnight parking

ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF (NOBL), barely moved on September 1 while the broader market sold off hard. Wall Street’s first trading day of September turned into a rout, and the fund’s calm stood out against it.

The selling followed a fresh escalation between the United States and Iran that pushed oil prices sharply higher and sent government bond yields climbing, according to a market recap from Alain Guillot.

Every major index closed lower, but NOBL fell only a fraction of what stocks broadly lost.

Related: Schwab SCHD draws $679M as dividend ETF climbs 2.39%

NOBL barely reacted while stocks sold off hard

The S&P 500 dropped 0.7% on September 1 to close at 7,631.47, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 419 points, or about 0.8%, to finish at 52,766.88, according to CNBC’s recap.

The Nasdaq Composite fell roughly 1% to close at 26,099.77. Technology stocks led the decline, with cybersecurity firms among the hardest hit.

NOBL closed the session at $57.64, down about 0.4%, according to ProShares’ own fund data. That decline was roughly half the size of the S&P 500’s drop and less than half the size of the Nasdaq’s, a gap that shows dividend-focused strategies picking up support just as tech sentiment turned sour.

ProShares’ Dividend Aristocrats ETF fell just 0.4% on September 1 as the Nasdaq dropped 1% and the S&P 500 lost 0.7% in a tech-led selloff.TIMOTHY A. CLARY / Getty Images

The fund’s structure limits its tech exposure

NOBL’s resilience traces back to how it is built. The fund equally weights all 69 of its holdings rather than letting a handful of giant companies determine its returns, and no single sector can exceed 30% of the index, according to ProShares.

That structure is why the fund was not dragged down by the same mega-cap technology weakness that hit the Nasdaq hardest.

That construction pushes technology down to roughly 3% of the portfolio, while consumer staples and industrials each make up about a fifth of the fund, according to a July analysis from 24/7 Wall Street.

None of the Magnificent Seven companies qualify for the index, since two of them (Amazon and Tesla) do not pay a dividend at all.

More Dividend Stocks:

Does IBM pay dividends? History, yield & payout ratio explained

Does Walmart pay dividends? Its yield and payouts explained

Does Sandisk pay dividends? Will it split its stock?

Dividend growth matters more than headline yield

NOBL’s 30-day SEC yield sits at 2.14%, modest next to some high-yield ETFs, and the fund charges a 0.35% expense ratio while holding $11.76 billion in net assets, according to ProShares.

What the underlying index screens for is not yield, but a 25-year streak of dividend increases, a bar that filters out companies with shaky cash flow.

The S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index returned 5.89% over the three months ended July 31 and 11.05% year to date, trailing the broader S&P 500’s stronger tech-driven gains during that stretch, according to ProShares.

That lag is the tradeoff investors accept for smoother days like September 1.

A few additional data points frame the broader shift toward dividend strategies:

Dividend-focused ETFs pulled in $24.1 billion in the first quarter alone, a pace that could set a record for the full year, according to The Motley Fool.

A 10-year Treasury yield near 4.76% makes bonds more competitive with expensive growth stocks, pressuring the same technology names that have carried the market for years, according to Yahoo Finance.

NOBL trades close to its 52-week high near $58, even after years of lagging the S&P 500’s tech-heavy gains, according to 24/7 Wall Street.

A quiet rotation could reshape market leadership

One calm trading day does not prove dividend aristocrats have taken over market leadership.

But the pattern fits a broader shift already visible in fund flows, where investors increasingly want proof of durable cash generation rather than a promise of future AI payoffs.

If oil prices and rate worries keep pressuring growth stocks through September, historically the weakest month for stocks, funds like NOBL may keep drawing steady interest.

Not because they are exciting, but because they are boring in exactly the way nervous investors want right now.

Related: Dividend ETFs paying 2% to 3.7% for your portfolio

One crazy thing I have learned from technology companies is that the first narrative is rarely the final one. Cybersecurity has proved that. When AI took the podium and every headline, the fear was that it would eat into the very businesses built to defend against increasingly sophisticated threats. 

For a while, it looked like the security vendors had more to fear from AI than to gain from it. Nikesh Arora, the CEO of the global AI cybersecurity leader, Palo Alto Networks (PANW), himself admitted as much on Mad Money Sep. 2 night.

Nine months ago, I said we were guilty and convicted of near-death because AI was going to eat our lunch, breakfast and dinner.

Nikesh continued to tell Jim Cramer, “It seems like that’s not the case. Seems like we’re going to have to have the feast with them.”

The twist is that AI did not kill cybersecurity as most of us thought. It radicalized the threat environment, which means the demand for serious, AI-native security platforms is actually accelerating. And Arora had a number that should make every IT executive stop scrolling.

Also Read: Palo Alto Networks Inc. Latest News and Stories

The $1 trillion problem Arora is describing

Cramer put the warning as: “You’re talking about the need for accelerating the urgency to modernize $1 trillion of legacy security. That just means hackable security, $1 trillion worth.”

Nikesh explained the math. 

“If the average life is seven years and you’re spending $200 to $300 billion a year, you’ve got $1 trillion of security infrastructure that’s out there,” he said. “Nothing that was deployed seven or 10 years ago is prepared or ready to handle AI at machine speed.”

And that is the structural argument behind Palo Alto’s entire growth thesis right now. Legacy firewalls, security information management systems, and endpoint tools built before generative AI existed were not designed for adversaries operating at machine speed. 

More AI:

Nvidia just made a move Wall Street wasn’t ready for

Microsoft just took sides in AI policy fight

OpenAI just disclosed something genuinely alarming

Bad actors are already using AI to generate attacks faster, more variably, and at greater scale than human security teams can respond to manually.

And then Nikesh added a second number on top of the first: “On top of that, you’re going to see $5 trillion of capex spend in the next five years with people building AI data centers and having tons and tons of agents running around. You also have to build a net-new security stack for that.”

So the addressable market is not just modernizing the existing $1 trillion of legacy infrastructure. It is also securing the $5 trillion of new AI infrastructure being built simultaneously.

Palo Alto’s Q4 fiscal 2026 showed a company catching that wave

The Q4 results, reported September 1, validated the demand environment Arora described on Mad Money.

Total revenue grew 34% year-over-year (YOY) to $3.41 billion. 

Next-Generation Security ARR (NGS ARR) grew 63% YOY to $9.10 billion, adding nearly $1 billion in a single quarter. 

Remaining performance obligations grew 34% to $21.2 billion. Source: Palo Alto Networks Q4 and Full Year 2026 Results

CFO Dipak Golechha said the “profitable growth framework continues to scale effectively,” reinforcing confidence in a 40% adjusted free cash flow margin target for fiscal 2028.

That means we are more likely to see the stock continue surging, too. Currently, PANW is up 76.66% year-to-date, according to Yahoo Finance.

For Q1 fiscal 2027, Palo Alto guided total revenue of $3.30-$3.31 billion, up 33%-34% YOY, with NGS ARR of $9.54-$9.56 billion, continuing the 63% growth rate. Based on 45 analysts’ ratings of Palo Alto Networks in the past 3 months, 38 recommended buy, 7 hold, and 0 sell, TheStreet reports.

Related: Jim Cramer has a strong message for Nvidia stock investors

Full-year fiscal 2027 guidance calls for $14.10-$14.20 billion in revenue, up 23%-24%, and NGS ARR of $11.075-$11.175 billion on the path to the $20 billion fiscal 2030 target.

On the same earnings day, Palo Alto announced the acquisition of Console. It is an AI-native agentic platform designed to help organizations resolve alerts and security issues at machine speed. 

This addresses the “AI at machine speed” threat Arora described. Palo Alto also completed the acquisition of Chronosphere in Jan. 2026. This one focused on AI-driven observability, targeting the AI security operations and IT operations market.

Palo Alto Networks reports a 78% growth in AI usage over the last 12 months, with 94% of enterprises currently utilizing Generative AI software.Shutterstock

The phone calls Arora is now receiving and what they mean

There is a detail from the Mad Money interview I find most revealing about where enterprise technology priorities sit right now, and where they’re headed. Why?

Arora said he is now on the receiving end of calls rather than making them. More than 2,000 companies have reached out about cybersecurity in the context of AI deployment. 

Every organization rushing to build AI infrastructure is realizing, often for the first time, that deploying AI agents across a corporate environment without a modernized security architecture is a serious risk.

“The Mythos moment has just become a net new beginning for the cybersecurity industry,” Arora noted, “because the world has realized that we have to pay attention to cyber because AI is going to be weaponized by bad actors.”

And I think the transition from selling to receiving calls is the leading indicator that the $1 trillion modernization cycle has actually begun. 

Palo Alto is the largest pure-play cybersecurity platform company in the world, with the most comprehensive portfolio to address both the legacy refresh and the new AI security stack Arora is describing.Palo Alto Networks reports a 78% growth in AI usage over the last 12 months, with 94% of enterprises currently utilizing Generative AI software. The stock is up 76.66% year-to-date, suggesting the market already agrees. The $1 trillion problem and the $5 trillion capex wave say the story is not finished.

Related: Jim Cramer has strong message for Micron stock investors

After years of losses and mounting financial pressure, a longtime luxury retailer recently received a new owner that promised to reshape the struggling business and return it to profitability.

But the change in ownership has not saved every location.

One of its stores is now facing closure after the business behind the location was placed in liquidation proceedings, highlighting the difficult decisions the retailer faces as its new owner begins restructuring the company.

Founded in 1831, Harvey Nichols is a British luxury department store chain known for its upscale designer fashion, beauty products, fine wines, and gourmet food. Frasers Group acquired the retailer on Aug. 13, 2026, through a pre-pack administration, taking over six UK stores, the online business, existing inventory, and more than 1,000 employees. Its international franchise agreements were also included in the transaction.

Harvey Nichols is closing its Ireland store

Harvey Nichols’ only store in Ireland, located inside Dundrum Town Centre in Dublin, is expected to close Sept. 13, 2026, after efforts to find a way to continue operating the business failed.

The store employs 33 people, all of whom have been informed of the planned closure.

The High Court appointed Grant Thornton’s John Boland and Nicholas O’Dwyer as provisional joint liquidators of the Dublin business in August after the company was found to be insolvent and unable to pay its debts.

Grant Thornton later confirmed that the store was expected to cease trading on or around Sept. 13 after it was unable to reach an agreement with Dundrum Town Centre to continue operating.

“We recognise that this is difficult news for employees, customers and other stakeholders,” Grant Thornton said in a statement reported by The Irish Times.

The firm added that representatives would meet with employees and provide support during the wind-down process.

Harvey Nichols opened its Dublin store in September 2025. Its planned closure means the retailer will no longer have a physical store in Ireland.

Why Harvey Nichols is closing its Dublin store

The closure follows years of financial difficulties at the Dublin business and the failure to reach an agreement that would allow the store to continue trading at Dundrum Town Centre.

The Irish company has been unprofitable for several years and has not recovered from the difficult trading conditions that followed the pandemic. It was also no longer receiving financial support from its UK parent company, according to evidence presented to the High Court.

Harvey Nichols CEO Julia Goddard said in written evidence that the store’s annual rent was nearly €1.1 million ($1.3 million). The Dublin business had net liabilities of €19.4 million ($22.5 million) in 2021, rising to €28.2 million ($32.7 million) by the end of its 2026 financial year.

Goddard also said that no buyer had been found for the Dublin company. The board therefore determined that winding up the business was in its best interests and that the liquidators would be best positioned to oversee an orderly cessation of trading and secure the company’s assets.

Harvey Nichols will close its Dublin store.Bloomberg / Getty Images

Harvey Nichols’ financial struggles

The Dublin closure comes as Harvey Nichols undergoes a major change in ownership following years of financial losses.

Hong Kong luxury goods businessman Dickson Poon acquired Harvey Nichols in 1991 from Debenhams and the Burton Group for £53 million. After 35 years of ownership, Poon put the retailer up for sale in June 2026 as it struggled with mounting losses and a lack of profitability.

The retailer had not returned to profitability following the pandemic and warned that it could run out of money within a year without additional investment.

Harvey Nichols reported a £105 million ($142 million) loss after tax for the year ended March 29, 2025, after writing off intercompany loans, according to its annual report and financial statements.

Revenue fell from £204.8 million ($277 million) to £184.8 million ($250 million) in the year, while pre-tax losses widened from £34 million ($46 million) to £49 million ($66 million). The retailer’s accumulated pre-tax losses had reached more than £140 million ($189 million) over five years.

The financial pressure reflects several challenges facing the retailer and the wider luxury market, including weaker consumer demand, higher operating costs, online competition, and changes in international shopping patterns. The end of tax-free shopping for tourists in the UK has also weighed on luxury retailers that rely on international visitors.

After months of uncertainty, Frasers Group announced on Aug. 13 that it had acquired Harvey Nichols through a pre-pack administration process. The deal included six UK stores, the retailer’s online business, existing inventory, more than 1,000 employees, and its international franchise agreements.

However, the future of the Dublin business remained separate from the acquisition. Frasers Group said discussions regarding the store were ongoing at the time of the deal and that it continued to support the Dublin location’s trading operations while its future was considered.

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

Major mall retailer closes more stores in 2026

Sportswear giant closes 113 stores as shares plunge

172-year-old luxury giant exits entire market

The acquisition marked the beginning of a significant restructuring effort for Harvey Nichols. Frasers Group said it would review and potentially rationalize the retailer’s store portfolio, organizational structure, operating model, and cost base as it works to create a sustainable business.

The Dublin closure underscores that the turnaround will not necessarily mean preserving every part of Harvey Nichols’ existing physical footprint.

Related: 200-year-old retailer shares its fate after shutdown warning

Tech companies have been sending difficult messages to employees all year.

Meta did it in May, shedding roughly 8,000 workers in one of the largest rounds of job cuts the company has ever made, as TheStreet reported. Morgan Stanley cut nearly 2,500 roles in March. UBS has been working through thousands more layoffs.

Uber became the latest addition on Sept. 2. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi confirmed plans to cut approximately 10% of the company’s global workforce. That is roughly 3,300 of its 34,000 employees. Uber shares rose about 2% in premarket trading, CNBC reported.

What Uber’s 10% layoffs will actually do

Khosrowshahi sent an email to employees that was also published online. He was specific about what will change.

“The changes we’re making today are designed to do two things: make Uber simpler and faster, and create more capacity to invest in our future,” he wrote, according to CNBC.

Small teams are being cut the hardest. Teams with one or two direct reports will be cut by roughly 50%. Employees more than seven reporting layers away from the CEO are being reduced by 20%. The company is combining its engineering, science, and delivery divisions, TechCrunch reported.

Jobs will be concentrated in hubs. New York and San Francisco are the main ones. Only about 1% of employees will be allowed to work remotely. Everyone else is expected back in the office.

More Layoffs:

Samsung cuts jobs as it shifts U.S. headquarters

Another popular soda giant closes warehouse operation, cuts 184 jobs

Meta layoffs take disturbing turn in new lawsuit

Khosrowshahi said Uber has outgrown the structures it built during its rapid expansion years. “We’ve built new products, expanded into new businesses, reached more consumers and supported more earners,” he wrote. “But that growth has also brought complexity: more layers, more coordination, more fragmented ownership.”

The delivery reorganization is specific. Restaurant, retail, and direct delivery units are being merged into teams organized at the global, regional, and country levels. That consolidation alone affects a significant portion of the operational staff.

These are the largest cuts Uber has made since May 2020, when it eliminated about 6,700 jobs during the Covid pandemic.

Why Uber isn’t blaming AI for the cuts

This is important. Tech company layoffs in 2026 have frequently been framed as AI-driven. Companies say the technology is replacing tasks that people used to do, and they are reducing headcount accordingly.

Khosrowshahi did not say any of that. He did not mention AI as a reason for the cuts at any point in his email. The explanation he gave is about management bloat. Uber grew fast. It added layers that made decisions slower and less clear. The cuts are meant to fix that.

That is a different story than what Meta told its employees when it cut 8,000 people. Meta was direct that AI investment was part of the reason for reducing headcount.

Uber is cutting for organizational reasons, not because a machine is doing someone’s job. Whether that distinction holds up as the company continues to invest in technology is a separate question.

For Uber employees who keep their jobs, the message is that their responsibilities are about to grow.Klaudia/Getty Images

What Uber’s return-to-office policy means

Allowing 1% of employees to work remotely is not a remote-work policy. It is the effective end of one. Most employees who were hired under flexible arrangements are now being asked to relocate, commute, or resign.

Uber is concentrating jobs in New York and San Francisco. For workers in other cities or countries, that means relocation or departure.

This is becoming a pattern at large tech companies. The argument from management is that office-based teams move faster and collaborate more effectively.

For Uber specifically, the timing matters. These employees are already absorbing the news of large-scale layoffs around them. Telling them they also need to relocate or return to an office adds a second decision on top of the first.

Employees have pushed back at every company that has made this call. In Uber’s case, some will leave, and some will comply. The cost of return-to-office mandates usually shows up months later in attrition numbers.

What the Uber layoffs mean for workers and investors

Uber did not break down the cuts by team or level. The company also did not specify severance terms or timing in the announcement. That information will matter enormously to the people affected.

For employees who keep their jobs, the message is that their responsibilities are about to grow. Fewer layers means fewer people between them and the decisions that must be made. Khosrowshahi said the goal is “clearer ownership, faster decisions, and more time spent building rather than coordinating.”

That sounds good in a memo. In practice, it means remaining teams will need to absorb what the cut teams were doing.

Investors reacted positively. The stock moved up. The market tends to read workforce reductions as evidence that a company is getting serious about costs.

Uber had about 34,000 employees at the end of 2025, according to its annual filing. It operates in more than 70 countries. A 10% reduction touches every region. The company did not detail which geographies or divisions take the deepest hit. That information will come as affected employees receive their notices.

Whether the cuts produce faster decisions without creating new problems is what Uber’s next few quarters will show.

Related: Mark Zuckerberg sends shocking message to Meta employees

Earlier this summer, Rockstar Games faced a PR nightmare after the company revealed that it would not be shipping its highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto sequel GTA VI with a physical disc.

Gamers wanted the option of having a physical copy of the game, not just a digital one. The backlash became so loud that Rockstar was eventually forced to reveal that the disc version would be available in the “following months” after its November release, Vice reported.

The GTA incident is just the latest example of public pushback against the digitization of entertainment. Having your favorite movie or television show available through streaming has obvious benefits, including speed of access, saving space, and cheaper cost.

However, the downside is that you don’t actually own the entertainment. So if you stop using the streaming service, or if you lose internet access, then you no longer have access to your library.

With that in mind, younger generations are increasingly turning to analog entertainment options such as DVDs and Blu-rays for movies.

For music, vinyl records have maintained a certain popularity for decades, but now CDs are also making a comeback as music lovers turn to old-school options to expand their music collections.

CD sales grow faster than vinyl

Compact Discs reached the zenith of their popularity in the late 90s and early 2000s. However, as digital streaming services, including Napster, came into play, CDs were increasingly seen as outdated.

Once Apple released the iPod, it was all but over for the era of CDs. That is, until now, according to the latest Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) mid-year report.

Related: AMC Theatres CEO says one long-running entertainment debate is finally over

U.S. recorded music revenues for the first half of 2026 were up nearly 7% year over year, according to the RIAA. While streaming is still the unquestioned king of most of that revenue, accounting for 82% of total revenue at $4.9 billion, CDs are the fastest-growing portion of music sales.

Consumers purchased 17.5 million CDs in the first half of the year, a 46% year-over-year increase, spending $171.1 million, a 59% increase. Meanwhile, music lovers purchased nearly 27 million vinyl records, a 21% increase, spending $534.8 million, a nearly 18% increase.

The shift toward CDs has been happening since at least early 2022, when Billboard reported that 2021 CD sales represented a year-over-year improvement for the first time since 2004.

U.S. recorded music revenues for the first half of 2026 were up nearly 7% year over year.Grace Cary / Getty Images

What’s fueling CD sales growth?

A separate mid-year report from entertainment industry data and analytics company Luminate dives deeper into the numbers to find out what’s driving CD growth.

K-pop sales growth had a lot to do with the 16% surge in CD sales to 16.3 million units that Luminate recorded. While the growth was “fueled by collectible K-pop releases,” even if you strip out K-pop’s numbers, U.S. CD sales still grew nearly 7% in the first half of the year.

Meanwhile, vinyl sales only grew 2.4% in that time period.

“Halfway through 2026, our data shows the entertainment market growing in several directions at once, as audience behavior across music, television & film defies easy assumptions,” said Luminate CEO Rob Jonas.

“Streaming is expanding, CDs are surging, younger audiences are returning to theaters, and library and broadcast titles are commanding enormous audiences alongside the newest streaming originals.”

Gen Z is helping fuel the CD surge due to what experts are calling “performative audiophilia.”

Digital Music News defines performative audiophile as “the idea that handing a physical format has become a deliberate, visible alternative to algorithm-driven listening. As a result, there’s been a surge in CD players and headphone sales designed to be accessorized by Gen Z in the same way that Sony Walkman and Discman players were loved in the 80s and 90s.”

Related: As GTA VI pre-orders break records, investors still need one answer

There are many extra steps Costco takes in order to retain members — and understandably so.

The company reported that during its most recent quarter, it took in $1.37 billion in membership fee income. Costco also boasted a 92.2% membership renewal rate across its U.S. and Canadian markets. 

On top of offering amazingly low prices on bulk grocery items and household staples, Costco is constantly finding ways to add valuable new services. You can get new tires at Costco, schedule HVAC installation, and plan your next vacation. 

Costco has also invested heavily in its Kirkland Signature brand as a means of member retention. 

Shoppers have come to rely on Kirkland for quality products at a lower price point than national brands.

Costco sometimes faces hard choices

Costco members don’t tend to have too many complaints. But some feel that the store’s operating hours aren’t as generous as they could be.

Granted, Costco recently added an extra shopping hour on Saturdays for all members. 

The company also brought back early shopping hours for Executive members, who pay twice as much as regular members for warehouse access. 

Still, weekend hours at Costco tend to be limited. And Costco also sometimes needs to make the tough choice to close its doors on certain holidays for the sake of its employees.

The entrance of a Costco store.Shutterstock

Costco won’t open on Labor Day

Costco doesn’t close that often. And there are certain holidays where the company remains open so that members can access the products they need.

But Costco will not be open this year for Labor Day, which falls on Monday, Sept. 7. 

The logic is that Costco feels its employees deserve certain holidays off to be with family and get a break. 

The good news for members is that Costco only closes seven times a year. The other closure dates are:

New Year’s Day

Easter

Memorial Day

Independence Day

Thanksgiving Day

Christmas DaySource: Costco

Of course, not every major retailer and grocer is closed on Labor Day. Costco knows this, but it’s still willing to give up revenue seven days a year. 

The reality is that Costco is in a strong place financially. So the company can afford to see shoppers go elsewhere once in a while. 

As CEO Ron Vachris said during Costco’s most recent earnings call, “All three four-week fiscal periods of the quarter set successive all-time company volume sales records, with the final five weeks of the quarter becoming our top five volume weeks ever.”

More Retail:

Costco sees major shift in member behavior

Retail chain shuts all locations as legal changes hit industry

Costco makes major investment in online shopping for members

In other words, Costco isn’t a company that’s hurting for business. And closing up shop for major holidays to throw employees a bone is a strategic decision that generally works out well in the long run.

If employees at Costco are happy, they’re less likely to leave. Less turnover equals a better shopping experience for members, making those annual fees more worthwhile and making renewals more likely. 

Maurie Backman owns shares of Costco.

Related: Walmart takes big step to make Sam’s Club memberships more valuable

For years, Elon Musk’s most ambitious promises across Tesla and SpaceX lived mostly in keynote slides and roadmap timelines. That is starting to change, and Musk himself agreed with the shift.

Someone on X laid it all out. Robotaxi fleet growing. Cybercab event confirmed. Semi rolling off the line. Optimus production starting. A $100 billion spaceport breaking ground.

“The promises are turning into actual factories, vehicles and launch dates,” the user wrote. “Now comes the hard part: scaling them.”

Musk replied with one word. “True.”

The trillion dollar chip plant behind the Optimus

At the center of the renewed attention is Terafab, the semiconductor manufacturing project jointly backed by Tesla and SpaceX. The entity behind it, Terafab AI, recently locked in a tax value limitation agreement for its site in Grimes County, Texas.

SpaceX confirmed the location on August 6, with construction set to begin.

The initial commitment is real money. Tesla and SpaceX plan to invest $16.8 billion at the outset and employ at least 3,000 people. A May filing had outlined a potential $55 billion first-stage buildout that could grow to as much as $119 billion across additional phases.

The $16.8 billion is now the officially confirmed first-phase figure, TechCrunch reported.

One important detail the announcement did not lead with: the chips at Terafab will be manufactured by Intel, with Tesla, SpaceX and xAI as anchor customers. The facility is designed to bring logic, memory, packaging and testing under one roof, producing chips for Tesla’s Optimus robots and Cybercabs, as well as for space-based data centers SpaceX is developing.

More Elon Musk:

Elon Musk makes bizarre claims about money, future of AI

Elon Musk sends blunt verdict on the future of humanity and AI

Elon Musk’s startling claim to SpaceX investors

What turned heads was ARK Invest’s longer-term framing of the project. ARK estimated Terafab could eventually require $1 trillion in total investment.

A figure that would surpass the inflation-adjusted $704 billion cost of building the entire U.S. Interstate Highway System. That comparison underscores just how large a bet Musk’s companies are making on controlling their own chip supply, according to Stocktwits.

Tesla and SpaceX have described the ambition in blunt terms. Musk has said Tesla will work with SpaceX on a one-terawatt compute hardware factory, with Terafab designed to help meet expected demand.

The two companies already have real commercial ties, with Tesla disclosing $143.3 million in 2025 revenue from SpaceX, primarily from vehicle sales including Cybertruck purchases, according to Quartz.

What this means for Tesla and SpaceX stock

The market has not been reading the two companies the same way. SpaceX recovered sharply from its July lows over the past month. Tesla did not get the same treatment. Same ecosystem, same billionaire, very different stock charts right now.

Part of that divergence traces back to SpaceX’s own headline-grabbing announcement this month. The company revealed plans to invest $100 billion in Starbase, Louisiana, a spaceport in Vermilion Parish expected to become its largest launch facility, with construction starting in 2027 and first launch targeted as early as 2029, according to CNBC.

At full buildout, the site is expected to include five launch complexes with two pads each, plus propellant production and employee housing. Shares of SPCX rose about 2% on the news.

Musk also used the weekend exchange to clear up confusion about a separate deal, the $1 billion acquisition of mobile power provider APR Energy. “Since I’m the controlling shareholder of SpaceX, it weirdly gets reported as me buying it, which is not true,” Musk said, clarifying that SpaceX, not Musk personally, made the purchase. APR Energy operates more than one gigawatt of mobile gas and diesel generation capacity, giving Musk’s companies access to deployable electricity as power becomes a growing constraint on AI expansion.

That growing overlap between Tesla and SpaceX is itself becoming a source of investor uncertainty.

One Jefferies analyst has warned that as SpaceX speculation intertwines further with Tesla’s stock, traditional valuation methods based on vehicle sales and margins may become less useful for explaining Tesla’s price moves, TheStreet reported.

The most immediate catalyst is Tesla’s Sept. 3 Cybercab launch event in Austin.hapabapa / Getty Images

Scaling is where Musk’s track record gets complicated

The X user’s comment about scaling being “the hard part” is not idle. Tesla’s own history offers a cautionary example in the Cybertruck.

It will be unveiled in 2019 with a promised $39,900 base price and annual production ambitions of 250,000 units. The current entry model starts at $74,990, and estimated U.S. sales fell from nearly 39,000 in 2024 to about 20,000 in 2025, TechCrunch reported.

The Semi faces a similar test now that production has actually started. Tesla’s first high-volume Semi rolled off the line at its Sparks, Nevada facility, targeting an annual capacity of 50,000 trucks, though analysts expect only 5,000 to 15,000 deliveries in 2026 as the ramp builds gradually, TheStreet reported.

Robotaxi scaling tells a similar story. Despite operating in multiple cities including Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa, Tesla’s unsupervised fleet remains small relative to what Musk has long promised. The Sept. 3 event was marketed as folding a new two-seat vehicle into that existing service rather than a dramatic fleet expansion.

Retail sentiment reflects that mixed picture. On Stocktwits, sentiment toward SPCX registered as bearish alongside extremely low message volume. Meanwhile, TSLA traders remained neutral amid normal chatter. A sign that even engaged retail traders are not fully convinced the scaling phase is a sure thing.

What investors should watch next

The most immediate catalyst is Tesla’s Sept. 3 Cybercab launch event in Austin, which will be expected to show whether the two-seat, steering wheel-free vehicle can actually integrate into Tesla’s existing Robotaxi service rather than simply generating headlines.

Beyond that, the pace of Terafab’s construction in Texas and Starbase Louisiana’s 2027 groundbreaking will offer concrete markers for whether Tesla and SpaceX can convert massive capital commitments into physical infrastructure on schedule.

Louisiana officials project the spaceport will create 3,000 direct jobs over 10 years with an average annual salary of $92,600, according to TechCrunch.

Given how far apart SPCX and TSLA have moved over the past month, investors in either stock will likely need to watch both companies together rather than in isolation, since Musk’s ecosystem increasingly ties their fortunes to the same underlying bets on AI compute, autonomy and space infrastructure.

Related: Elon Musk drops stunning SpaceX forecast