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A grocery store chain is closing several locations across multiple markets as supermarket operators continue reassessing their store networks to improve long-term profitability. The move comes as grocery retailers across the U.S. balance rising operating costs, changing consumer habits, and growing competition from discount chains and online grocery services. Founded in 1928 in Tyler, Texas, Brookshire Grocery Company operates more than 200 stores across Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma under the Brookshire’s, Super 1 Foods, Spring Market, FRESH by Brookshire’s, Reasor’s, and FRESH by Reasor’s banners.Brookshire Grocery closes four storesBrookshire Grocery Company will close four stores across Louisiana and Arkansas on July 24, 2026, following what it described as a comprehensive review of store performance, market conditions, and long-term sustainability, according to a company announcement.The affected stores are:Brookshire’s in Ashdown, ArkansasBrookshire’s in Rayville, LouisianaBrookshire’s in Winnfield, LouisianaSpring Market in Grambling, Louisiana”This was not a decision we made lightly,” said Brookshire Grocery Interim CEO Jerry LeClair in a statement. “We are grateful for the communities we have served and appreciate the loyalty of our customers and the dedication of our partners in each of these locations. Although these four stores are closing, we are committed to being strong neighbors.”The company said the closures are part of its ongoing evaluation of its store network. They also represent one of Brookshire Grocery’s largest rounds of store closures this year as it continues reviewing the long-term viability of individual locations.Brookshire Grocery did not disclose how many employees will be affected by the shutdowns, though the company said all workers have been offered transfers to nearby stores.Despite the closures, Louisiana and Arkansas remain key markets for Brookshire Grocery. According to ScrapeHero, Louisiana accounts for approximately 24% of the company’s stores, while Arkansas represents about 8%, making them two of the retailer’s largest operating markets.Why Brookshire Grocery is closing locationsThe latest closures follow the April 2026 shutdown of a Brookshire’s store at 8503 Dollarway Rd in White Hall, Arkansas.However, the closures do not signal a broader retreat from the region. During the same month, Brookshire Grocery reopened three newly remodeled stores in northwest Louisiana across its Brookshire’s and Super 1 Foods banners, underscoring its strategy of investing in stronger-performing locations while exiting stores that no longer align with its long-term business goals.”These remodels reflect our ongoing commitment to investing in our stores, our employee-partners and the communities we serve,” said LeClair in a company announcement. “We are proud to continue enhancing the shopping experience for our customers”Rather than signaling widespread reductions, Brookshire Grocery’s recent closures and store investments suggest the company is reallocating capital toward markets where it expects stronger long-term returns. That approach has become increasingly common across the grocery industry as retailers prioritize profitability and operational efficiency over maintaining large store footprints.In recent years, Brookshire Grocery has continued opening new locations and renovating existing stores across Louisiana and Texas, reinforcing those states as priority markets for future investment.

Brookshire Grocery Company confirms four store closures.Jeff Gritchen/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images

Grocery retailers continue adjusting to industry pressuresBrookshire Grocery’s decision reflects a broader shift across the U.S. grocery industry, where retailers are increasingly optimizing store portfolios instead of pursuing expansion for its own sake.Higher labor costs, transportation expenses, persistent inflation, supply chain challenges, and intensified competition from discount retailers and online grocery services have prompted many supermarket operators to concentrate investment in markets with stronger long-term demand while closing lower-performing locations.According to Coresight Research’s U.S. Store Tracker 2026 Outlook, retailers are projected to close approximately 7,900 stores in 2026 and open roughly 5,500 locations.The forecast highlights continued realignment across the retail industry as companies adapt to market pressures.Here’s some of my previous coverage of store closures:Grocery chain resumes store closures after monthslong pauseGrocery chain closes final 2 stores in key marketLongtime grocery chain closes stores, exits key marketsFor customers who rely on the affected Brookshire Grocery locations, the closures may reduce nearby grocery options beginning July 24. More broadly, the company’s latest move reflects a continued shift across the supermarket industry, where regional chains are becoming increasingly selective about where they invest. As operating costs remain elevated and competition increases, retailers are expected to continue refining their physical footprints by reinvesting in higher-performing markets while exiting locations that no longer support future growth strategies.Related: Spam maker exits entire market

Starbucks (SBUX) is looking to chase a feeling that doesn’t start in a coffee shop.In fact, it typically starts with summer, orange-and-vanilla frozen treats, and the sort of dessert most people remember from childhood before they ever knew what espresso was. That’s what makes the coffee-shop giant’s latest limited-time menu move more than just another seasonal drink drop.Starbucks will add that flavor to five new drinks on July 28, using it in multiple formats, including as a cold foam topping. These fresh additions come at a time when the company is looking to turn things around after a forgettable 2025. Nevertheless, Starbucks could turn a childhood memory into a big reason for repeat visits. Big restaurant chains are selling memories againMcDonald’s brought back the Snack Wrap, leaning on years of fan demand for a once-discontinued favorite.McDonald’s also revived its Fried Apple Pie, a throwback dessert tied to its older menu identity.Burger King returned Crown Nuggets after a long absence, using a kid-friendly shape with clear nostalgic appeal.Taco Bell built whole decades of menus around discontinued hits, including the Meximelt, 7-Layer Burrito, and Caramel Apple Empanada.Wendy’sbrought back its Thin Mints Frosty, pairing its classic Frosty with a Girl Scout cookie memory.Starbucks turns a childhood flavor into a full summer lineupStarbucks isn’t waiting for Pumpkin Spice season to create another major menu moment.The coffee chain is looking to add five orange cream-flavored drinks on July 28, according to AllRecipes, giving its customers a summer lineup built around the orange-and-vanilla flavor that calls to mind Creamsicles, frozen desserts, and childhood treats.The lineup includes Orange Cream Cold Brew, Iced Orange Cream Latte, Iced Orange Cream Matcha, Iced Orange Cream Chai, and Orange Cream Frappuccino. Starbucks is using the flavor in two ways: mixed directly into some drinks, including lattes and Frappuccinos, and as a topping in the form of its new Orange Cream Cold Foam.More Restaurants:105-year-old burger chain closes an 87-year-old restaurant49-year-old beloved steakhouse chain closes 41 locations32-year-old high-end restaurant chain closes all locationsThe Orange Cream Cold Brew adds the foam to the chain’s signature cold brew, while the matcha and chai versions use the same topping to make existing drinks feel new.The Frappuccino is the most dessert-like option, blending orange and vanilla flavors with ice and milk before adding whipped cream. It’s important to note that Starbucks used a similar play a short while ago, bringing back S’mores on July 1 in new cold-brew and chai versions, AllRecipes noted.The S’mores release attracted a ton of positive online chatter and showed why Starbucks keeps reaching back for nostalgic flavors. The r/starbucks subreddit, which has 307,000 weekly visitors and 7,100 weekly contributions, already had fans celebrating the S’mores return. One user wrote, “My store got the marshmallow syrup back and the milk chocolate sauce and the graham cracker topping,” before calling the drink “FRICKING 10/10 amazing” and “worth the hype.” The post ended with the kind of reaction Starbucks wants: “It’s back! It’s real!” 

 Starbucks coffee shop introduces new Orange Cream drinks tied to summer nostalgia.Getty Images

Starbucks still has to prove the comeback can lastStarbucks’ latest quarterly showing gave investors a big reason to believe the turnaround is working.In the fiscal Q2 2026 report, the company reported $9.5 billion in sales, up 8% year over year, while global comparable-store sales jumped to 6.2%. At the same time, North American numbers came in even stronger, with comparable sales up 7.1%, led by U.S. transactions that rose more than 4%. EPS came in at $0.50, up about 22% from a year earlier.Management also bumped fiscal 2026 guidance to 5% or better global comp growth and EPS of $2.25 to $2.45.Though that’s good news, Starbucks still needs to prove the comeback could last beyond a single strong quarter. CEO Brian Niccol said that Q2 marked “the turn in our turnaround,” but he also made clear there is “more work to be done,” Investing.com reported.That breathes new life into the comeback story, which hasn’t come from just a quick fix. In fact, we’ve seen better staffing, quicker service, refreshed stores, a redesigned Rewards program, and more aggressive menu innovation.However, bringing back customers is expensive.North American operating margin contracted 170 basis points to 10.2% in Q2. At the same time, Starbucks said product and distribution costs pressured margins by roughly 190 basis points due to an innovation-led mix, tariffs, and elevated coffee prices. CFO Cathy Smith also discussed coffee inflation, which is running close to $1 per pound higher year over year, even though management expects some pressure to ease later in fiscal 2026.That’s why the Orange Cream launch matters because it plugs directly into one of Starbucks’ strongest add-on engines. CFO Smith said cold foam is the company’s leading modifier, with U.S. company-operated platform sales up more than 40% in Q2, spearheaded by new flavors and protein additions, especially among Gen Z.So clearly, for Starbucks, nostalgia is more than a cute flavor hook; it’s a test of whether the chain can turn menu buzz into repeat visits, protect its premium pricing, and make its turnaround feel a lot more sustainable.Related: Popular burger chain closed over 300 restaurants then disappeared

A rival drug failure can sometimes move a biotech stock almost as much as a company’s own clinical data.That is what happened to BridgeBio on July 9.BridgeBio (BBIO) shares jumped after AstraZeneca and Ionis said Wainua failed to meet the main goal in a late-stage trial for transthyretin-mediated amyloid cardiomyopathy, or ATTR-CM, a heart disease caused by protein buildup that can make it harder for the heart to pump blood.BridgeBio stock was recently trading at $89.86, up 14.7% from the previous close. The stock opened at $84 and traded as high as $93.31 during July 9’s session.The rally added roughly $2.2 billion to BridgeBio’s market value based on its intraday market capitalization. The move shows investors were not just reacting to a failed trial. They were reassessing the competitive field around a drug BridgeBio already sells.AstraZeneca trial miss changes the heart-drug raceWainua, also known as eplontersen, was being tested in the Phase 3 CARDIO-TTRansform trial. AstraZeneca said the drug did not meet the primary efficacy endpoint of reducing cardiovascular mortality and recurrent cardiovascular events compared with placebo.The trial enrolled 1,432 patients across 130 study sites in 20 countries. AstraZeneca said ATTR-CM affects an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people worldwide.The CARDIO-TTRansform trial was designed to examine the role of Wainua, a gene silencer treatment, on top of today’s standard of care.The result had a direct read-through for the ATTR-CM market because Wainua was tested on top of standard care, including stabilizer therapy. AstraZeneca said that approach did not provide a statistically significant benefit on the trial’s main measure. In patients on stabilizer therapy at baseline, no treatment effect was observed.Reuters reported that the setback dimmed prospects for a drug that analysts had predicted could reach about $2 billion in peak sales. The update sent AstraZeneca and Ionis shares lower and lifted U.S. competitors with approved ATTR-CM drugs, including BridgeBio and Alnylam.Key numbers behind the BridgeBio move14.7%: BridgeBio’s recent intraday gainAbout $2.2 billion: estimated market value added by the stock move1,432: patients in the CARDIO-TTRansform trial300,000 to 500,000: estimated global ATTR-CM patient population$2 billion: potential Wainua peak sales opportunity cited by Reuters$180.6 million: BridgeBio’s first-quarter U.S. Attruby net product revenueRelated: Eidos Shares Jump on Plan to Be Bought by BridgeBioWhy BridgeBio investors are watching WainuaThe Wainua result may change how investors view the market around a product that BridgeBio already has.BridgeBio’s Attruby, also known as acoramidis, is approved for ATTR-CM. The company reported $194.5 million in first-quarter total revenue, including $180.6 million in U.S. Attruby net product revenue.With Attruby already generating revenue, investors are watching whether a less crowded competitive field could help BridgeBio grow prescriptions, reimbursement access, and market share.Alnylam also benefited from the Wainua setback. Its Amvuttra, or vutrisiran, won FDA approval in 2025 for ATTR-CM in adults to reduce cardiovascular mortality, cardiovascular hospitalizations and urgent heart failure visits.The read-through was more direct for Alnylam because Amvuttra and Wainua both lower TTR. BridgeBio’s Attruby is a stabilizer, but a setback for a potential ATTR-CM competitor still affects how investors view the market.Related: Biotech stock sends Wall Street surprising signalBridgeBio still has to prove the openingThe ATTR-CM market still includes other approved treatments, including Pfizer’s Vyndaqel and Alnylam’s Amvuttra. AstraZeneca and Ionis also said they will analyze the full Wainua data set and share the results with the scientific community at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in August.For BridgeBio’s investors, the next question is whether Attruby can keep gaining prescriptions, secure payer access and turn a more favorable competitive setup into stronger sales growth.

Martin Philip / Getty Images

The AstraZeneca-Ionis trial miss gives BridgeBio a cleaner competitive setup in ATTR-CM. The next test is whether Attruby can turn that opening into stronger prescriptions, reimbursement access, and sales.Related: AstraZeneca says AI is raising its odds where most drugs fail

Nvidia (NVDA) investors had been bracing for a tougher AI trade, but perhaps not this kind of reset.Over the past three years or so, Wall Street has treated Nvidia as the cleanest way to own the AI buildout.For perspective, Nvidia’s current market cap is at an eye-popping $4.98 trillion, up from roughly $422 billion on Nov. 30, 2022, the day OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, according to StatMuse.Hence, Nvidia’s market value has risen by nearly 1,080%, or roughly 11.8x, since ChatGPT’s release.However, even after a monumental run, the expectation was that demand for GPUs, data-center chips, and next-generation AI systems would likely keep the stock mostly insulated from a deeper multiple squeeze.Case in point: Seeking Alpha still shows Nvidia stock delivering a 24% one-year gain, but that nevertheless marks a dramatic slowdown from the early days of the AI LLM frenzy. That assumption is now being tested.Nvidia has pulled back sharply from its May high, and the stock’s valuation is sending a message that looks remarkably different from the one investors saw during the AI boom.The tech giant’s growth story remains intact, but the market is no longer pricing it like the obvious winner.

Nvidia stock is trading at its cheapest forward valuation since early 2019Ian Maule/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The valuation signal Nvidia investors cannot ignore Nvidia’s selloff has effectively pushed the stock into a valuation zone investors haven’t seen since before the AI boom changed the company’s entire earnings profile.More Nvidia:Nvidia’s workplace culture sends Big Tech a warningNvidia’s $25B bond deal sends investors a clear signalBank of America resets Nvidia stock forecast after CFO meetingAccording to a Bloomberg analysis cited by Seeking Alpha, Nvidia trades at about 18 times projected earnings over the next 12 months, its cheapest forward valuation since early 2019.Though it’s expected to continue growing at a robust pace, it now trades at a forward multiple lower than the S&P 500’s more than 20 times and the Nasdaq 100’s nearly 23 times earnings.For context, a P/E ratio shows how much investors pay per dollar of a company’s profit. A forward P/E uses expected future profit instead of past earnings. It’s basically like paying rent for an apartment based on what you expect the neighborhood to become next year.Nvidia stock has tanked about 16% from its May 14 record, wiping out $1 trillion in market value, while investors rotated into other semiconductor names. Memory stocks like Micron were the clearest beneficiaries, with shares up over 232% in 2026, according to Seeking Alpha.Additionally, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel have also dramatically outpaced Nvidia this year.So even though Nvidia remains critical to AI infrastructure, the market is no longer paying a clear leadership premium for that position. Wall Street price targets for Nvidia stockBank of America: $350. Vivek Arya reiterated a Buy rating, arguing that Nvidia’s lagging performance creates an “enhanced” buying opportunity.Goldman Sachs: $285. James Schneider kept Buy, saying valuation already reflects market-share fears and still implies strong AI growth.Morgan Stanley: $288. Joseph Moore kept Nvidia at overweight, with MarketBeat showing a modest target lift from $285.JPMorgan: $280. Harlan Sur maintained an overweight rating after raising his target to $265.UBS: $280. Timothy Arcuri kept Buy, with MarketBeat showing a target increase from $275.
Sources: MarketWatch, Barron’s, MarketBeat, AOL, 9XMarkets.
Why Nvidia’s rebound still needs confirmation According to data from Barchart, Nvidia stock is currently trading near $204, keeping its chart in a mixed but improving position. The stock is above its 5-day moving average of $197.80, its 100-day average of $197.27, and its 200-day average of $191.40, indicating that buyers have defended the longer-term trend.However, the issue remains in the middle of the chart. Nvidia is still below its 50-day moving average of $209.52, which is perhaps the first major resistance level. A clean move above $209 to $210 would suggest the rebound is much more durable. Until we see that, though, the stock is bouncing rather than fully breaking out.On the downside, the first area to watch is around $201 to $202, near the 20-day moving average. Below that, $197 to $198 becomes a more important support zone, as it lines up with both short-term and 100-day trend levels. A deeper break might put the 200-day average near $191 back in focus.Momentum is not overheated. Relative strength readings sit around 50-55, indicating balance, but volatility remains high, with the 14-day average true range near $7.13, or about 3.5%.Nvidia’s chart has stabilized, but the stock needs to reclaim the $210 area before the technical picture turns bullish.What has to happen next for Nvidia’s premium to return For Nvidia stock to regain its lofty highs, it needs a lot more than “AI demand is strong.” The next several results will require proof that AI spending can continue converting into earnings without being crushed by higher rates, capex fatigue, or a rotation into cheaper chip stock names.The last earnings report still gave bulls plenty to work with. Nvidia reported record Q1 fiscal 2027 revenue of $81.6 billion, up 85% from a year earlier, spearheaded by Data Center revenue of $75.2 billion, showing the core AI engine hasn’t broken. The AI poster child has blown past estimates on both lines by handsome margins in each of the four previous quarters.Nevertheless, that bar has now moved higher. According to Seeking Alpha, Nvidia’s next report is expected Aug. 19 post-market, with consensus EPS of $2.08 and revenue of $91.73 billion. The key detail is the revision balance: analysts have 34 upward EPS revisions and 3 downward revisions over the past 90 days.That means a lot is riding on the next quarter, which has to do two things at once: confirm the growth curve while restoring confidence in its valuation. Related: Cathie Wood buys $2.1M of tumbling AI stock

Transcript:Caroline WoodsJoining us now is Andrew Graham, managing partner in Jackson Square Capital. Andrew, great to have you at the desk.Andrew GrahamGreat to be here. Thanks for having me.Caroline WoodsSo stocks are rebounding after yesterday’s selloff. We see oil prices moving in the opposite direction. They’re coming down. Do you think this rebound is justified or is the market still underestimating the geopolitical risk that’s out there.Andrew GrahamThat’s a really hard call for me. I mean the geopolitical risk stuff usually put in the, you know, sort of lower on the on the risk list. And yeah, I mean, if you have higher oil prices, you’re going to have higher headline inflation, you’re going to have higher bond yields. That’ll be a drag on risk assets. So it’s something to keep an eye on.Andrew GrahamBut ultimately I think the consensus view and I don’t have a reason to disagree with that is that, you know, eventually they’ll come to terms and the fighting will stop. And you can move oil through the Strait of Hormuz, you know, back to 60% of fall or something like that, which is what it was last week.Caroline WoodsSo this escalation that we’ve seen between the U.S. and Iran is not making you any more cautious on this market.Andrew GrahamNo. We have this big drawdown in tech names. And that’s sort of, you know, where I’m most comfortable. And, and I, I think this is the opportunity to, to reload, to add exposure to, you know, your highest conviction stocks after a 20% pullback in a lot of them. So that’s our opinion.Caroline WoodsYeah. It’s interesting because when you were last on in February, you said that Big Tech was going to take a pit stop. So that’s still sort of the case. And do you think that big tech will continue to lead.Andrew GrahamSo big tech when we’re it as hyperscalers? Let’s just kind of narrow it down a little bit. So let’s call it Google Amazon Microsoft meta. Do I think, the pit stop is over? I think so, yeah. It’s time to kind of put up or shut up when it turns, you know, it comes to return on invested capital.Andrew GrahamAnd I think they have the ability to do that. Now. You have token costs that have been going down, consistently falling, and then you have token prices, which is what they’re selling the compute for. That would be consistent and have been just right. Pretty steady. So that margin there is I think what’s going to give them the ability to put up higher revenue numbers.Andrew GrahamAnd I think incremental margins are also biased higher.Caroline WoodsYou’d be a buyer of all of those right now because we’ve had other guests come on this week actually alone saying either trim profits in the big seven or avoid them altogether.Andrew GrahamNo, I think it’s too late for that. And I would buy Google and Amazon. Those are our two favorite names there. So I think the gap between the performance gap between the hyperscalers, which have underperformed and semis, is going to close, rather than most people who say they’re going to cut CapEx guidance for 2027. That’s going to cause the hyperscalers to go up and, semis to to crack.Andrew GrahamI think that was part of the story as well. Initially, the selloff that started with semiconductors started in South Korea. You’re talking about all the leverage. It was a very, very crowded trade. So what we’re doing is unwinding that now. And in the background is this other story like hey, what if these 1 or 2, whatever guide or at least get the messaging a little softer messaging on CapEx?Andrew GrahamI don’t see that at all. I expect CapEx guidance to be biased higher as well, but I think you can still bring that performance gap together by putting up a better return on invested capital. They did it in Q1. I think they’re gonna be able to do it again here. And so.Caroline WoodsSo this market that seems a bit shaky and concerned that we’ll start to see this cut in CapEx down the road. Do you think that’s wrong?Andrew GrahamNo. Eventually they will start to trim CapEx. It won’t grow at this rate, you know, exponentially. So eventually you’re going to get there. And I think what’s going to happen, though, is you’re going to have the, the, revenues improved. You’re going to have the incremental margins improve for the hyperscalers, and that’s enough. That’s all they want to see is that it’s working and then you don’t have to you can cut it a little bit later.Andrew GrahamIt’s not going to hurt the semi’s at that point.Caroline WoodsWe’ve seen memory stocks which have been you know, some of the year’s biggest winners really start to pull back. Obviously not necessarily the case today. Do you look at that is a buying opportunity.Andrew GrahamWill these memory start I mean the commodity business right. Commodity and prices solve themselves eventually. Right. You’ve got not enough supply. You’ve got a lot of demand. And that will come into balance. Probably not until you see meaningful capacity in 2028, you know, before things kind of, reach some sort of stasis in terms of supply and demand.Andrew GrahamBut yeah, that’s not on our list of things that we’re buying that we’re adding at the moment. They have moved a great deal. They’ve all moved, you know, the disk drive guys and, Seagate and Western Edge and, and and micron and so forth. They’ve just had the run and you got to worry about at some point.Andrew GrahamAgain, it is a commodity and it’s going to the party is going to stop. And so if we are.Caroline WoodsYou’re saying 2028, that’s still seems like a lot of runway now.Andrew GrahamWe own those we own those names. And we have large embedded gains. So I don’t necessarily think we’re going to need to add more for this pullback. We’re using it as an opportunity to to add exposure to the, networking equipment stocks, the optical transceiver stocks. So momentum coherence. And we’re also but we’d probably get a little bit more pullback here on some of the cyber cybersecurity names.Andrew GrahamSo the whole idea that these Chinese open source models are closing the gap with the US frontier Lab models, maybe 6 to 9 months behind, but they’re 6 to 9 months behind cloud mythos. Does that bring up this whole danger of vulnerability detection and so forth? And I don’t see US corporates slowing their spending on cybersecurity. So Palo Alto easy one, CrowdStrike.Andrew GrahamWe own those folks with the big platforms. And then we recently added tenable, which is a mid-cap stock. And you can only own so much of it. But that’s right in their wheelhouse is that vulnerability identification detection?Caroline WoodsOkay. I just going back to memory for just a second. I do have to ask you say you’re not you’re holding on to some of the names you already have. You’re not buying any on any dips. What about SK Hynix U.S. listed shares. Would you be a buyer there?Andrew GrahamWe’ll let it. We’ll let it sit around for a while like we you got that question on space. Actually you’re going to be a buyer on the IPO. And now we’ll just let it trade for a while. We’ll let them, you know, report a quarter or two and just kind of get the feel for it because like the whatever the dirty secret about, you know, what we do at Jackson Square Capital is we do blend a little technical stuff in there as well.Andrew GrahamWe just want to make sure we’re not buying something absolute high. So we’re buying stocks when they’re oversold, and you kind of get a sense for where they’re going to settle down. That’s where we’re trying to add them. I see that in the, networking equipment stocks I mentioned. I see that also in the hyperscalers that I mentioned.Andrew GrahamAnd so those we would buy now and then we would wait on the cybersecurity names.Caroline WoodsOkay. So you didn’t buy space cheaper than the IPO?Andrew GrahamNo, but I’m open to it. Like I have no bias against any stock. And, you know, people like, would roll their eyes at Tesla because it’s just a really expensive car company. But you have to stay open minded about these things. And so there’s a time and a place for everything and we’ll get to it.Caroline WoodsOkay. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about tech. What about the rest of the market. Because we have seen the Russell outperform. We’ve seen the Dow. Although I will say the Dow and Russell are lower on the week. But what other pullbacks are you buying. Where are you putting money to work maybe potentially not on a pullback.Caroline WoodsThat’s areas of the market that are still undervalued.Andrew GrahamYeah I mean it’s hard Pharma. We have a big position in Lilly of course. And probably about four months ago was Johnson Johnson. We added but we own all those of AbbVie. They’re all fine to to buy in here. I think the problem that we’re having is that consumer, consumer confidence is so low, reached an all time low last month, and there’s only one place for it to go, which is up.Andrew GrahamAnd a lot of that’s driven by inflation expectations really gasoline prices. So gasoline prices go down, consumer confidence goes up. And you probably want to own the consumer discretionary names like just the retailers and things of that nature. Can’t find many. I’m really, you know, excited to go out and own. There’s the mighty Costco that you could buy that you know numbers yesterday I think it’s clearing event.Andrew GrahamYou’re going to add that name. TJX is a stock that we like a lot. We’ve known for a long time. I don’t know if we’ve.Caroline WoodsActually been underperforming the broader market. What about target. Target’s actually been an outperform.Andrew GrahamOpen minded to that. But they’ve owned it in the past and sold it for a profit. Paid taxes. And that’s kind of a bitter name. But yeah I’m open to it I just not today.Caroline WoodsThat’s interesting because I feel as if a lot of guests come on, and they’re all avoiding the consumer discretionary stocks because they’re like, compete on the consumer, maybe the Costco’s or TJX, but not a lot else. But you actually think that the consumer has hit bottom and is.Andrew GrahamYeah, I mean, there’s a, you know, pretty good gear ratio there between consumer confidence is just the numbers you get from the conference board or, you know, or maybe even, University of Michigan conference. There’s a really high correlation between that and the performance of these, these stocks. And if you hit rock bottom, there’s only one way for it to go, which is up.Andrew GrahamSo you got to look for those stocks and when to buy them. Maybe it’s Abercrombie or whatever. But we’re we’re actively shopping.Caroline WoodsWhat would you avoid here.Andrew GrahamSo yeah, we just, still avoiding the, the oil, stocks for the most part. We’re, avoiding the, Dow Chemicals, the petrochemical companies as well. You know, the UAE leading OPEC, I think is a material event. And eventually you’re going to get to this point where, yeah, prices will go below $70. I think they might go much lower than people expect.Andrew GrahamSo I’m like a weirdo when it comes to the inflation outlook. I mean, everybody’s looking for, you know, high sticky inflation and the fed to raise interest rates. I don’t see any rate hikes this year. Core drivers of inflation are all trending lower or not all, but the important ones housing costs and wages have been sort of decelerating here.Andrew GrahamSo core inflation is going to, you know, sort of Peter out I don’t see a rate rate hike. And if anything, I guess the next move for me would be a rate cut.Caroline WoodsBut not because the economy is too weak.Andrew GrahamNo, not at all. I mean, you could be, you know, the jobs market by the time we get there, you know, six, eight, 12 months from now might be weak enough for the for the fed to act. But I really think it’s about, inflation generally. They know that the, the fed funds rate is now higher. It’s restrictive more restrictive than it necessarily needs to be so uncertain about an economy that’s clicking along.Andrew GrahamYeah I think they’d be willing to cut.Caroline WoodsInteresting. All right. I was just taking a look. You have an S&P 500 price target of 7840. So not the most bullish I’ve heard but higher from here. Yeah. What’s the biggest reason you’re optimistic from here.Andrew GrahamWell you know we’re a double digit earnings growth. It could definitely end tomorrow. But until we get some sort of signal that it is I think you stay with it. You know that’s earnings growth is is everything. Estimate revisions probably going to be higher coming out of Q2 earnings season. There are some hiccups in the near term.Andrew GrahamThe reason I don’t have a higher price target, going into the midterm elections, that tends to bring out a lot of realized volatility. That’s unhelpful for multiples. So not looking for materials to go any higher. But you can get there on earnings growth. And so that’s kind of where I came up with that.Caroline WoodsAnd that’s all assuming that we get some sort of resolution between the U.S. and Iran, that oil prices are going to come much lower, that inflation’s not going to be sticky, that market can move higher. When do we see this resolution.Andrew GrahamI don’t know. Yeah okay. So yeah you keep all these you know balls in the air all these directional current cues. And a lot of them fall right. And and we just toss things away all the time. That’s my view now. But just like a rolling evolution, you know, with everybody in this business. And so our expectation is that it gets resolved, sometime within the next month or so.Caroline WoodsOkay. So if our viewers, the, the everyday retail investor season, another day like yesterday where we actually closed well off the lows of the day, but sort of a sea of red. What’s your message to them? Do they stay patient? Do they buy any dip. Do they get more defensive knowing that there could be, you know, some volatility down the road?Andrew GrahamYeah, I would say that if you’re buying individual positions I think tech could be a habit here. And and if you’re buying ETFs like soul B wood or zinc or whatever you’re owning, that’s fine too. I guess my big message and message that I had from my mentor when I was in my 30s, which was avoid leverage.Andrew GrahamHe always told me leverage is a killer and hubris is a killer. And when you get the two of them together, you’re in trouble. And so when we had all that leverage so you could see in SK Hynix and Samsung and South Korean Kosky, that was paying trade and everybody sitting on one side of the boat, and you got to go the other way.Andrew GrahamYou knew eventually it was going to crack. And that unwind has already happened largely. And so I think it’s okay to come here after a 20% pullback. I think that’s okay.Caroline WoodsSo no levered ETFs for you know those two times kind of you.Andrew GrahamReally don’t you just go to Las Vegas if that’s what you’re looking for. If you’re trying to make money to stay away from leverage okay.Caroline WoodsAll right I think it’s a great time to pivot to our rapid fire game of this or that. You’ve played with us before. Quick questions, quick answers. Are you ready?Andrew GrahamCan I say no? Yeah.Caroline WoodsI’m ready. All right, here we go. You can say no, but you won’t have any fun. Then here we go. Buy any dip or wait for a bigger pullback.Andrew GrahamBy any dip.Caroline WoodsFlight to safety or stay invested. Stay invested defense stocks or energy stocks. Defense. Alphabet or Amazon.Andrew GrahamAlphabet.Caroline WoodsBroadcom or Nvidia.Andrew GrahamBroadcom.Caroline WoodsSemiconductors or hyperscalers.Andrew GrahamHyperscale.Caroline WoodsCybersecurity or AI infrastructure.Andrew GrahamCybersecurity.Caroline WoodsCrowdStrike or Palo Alto both of your CrowdStrike AI spending slowdown overblown or real risk overblown?Andrew GrahamI think we’ve been on bubble watch far too long for two years. There are some things out there, but most of the things that I’ve seen are anecdotal.Caroline WoodsIs I a bubble? Yes or no? No. Bigger risk China catching up on AI or hyper scalar CapEx cuts.Andrew GrahamThe former China catching up on a.Caroline WoodsMemory cycle peaking or just getting started.Andrew GrahamIn the process of peaking.Caroline WoodsOne memory stock you would buy here.Andrew GrahamIt would have to be micron.Caroline WoodsBut you’re not buying it.Andrew GrahamWe own it. And yeah, not at these levels. We want it to be oversold when we’re adding something. It’s just not there.Caroline WoodsSK Hynix IPO opportunity overhyped.Andrew GrahamOpportunity.Caroline WoodsNasdaq listing boom. Bullish signal or warning sign. Bullish signal equal weight S&P or mega cap tech.Andrew GrahamMega cap to.Caroline WoodsHighest conviction pick for the second half of the year.Andrew GrahamMomentum.Caroline WoodsOne word to describe this market.Andrew GrahamNow strong. And I would say earnings growth extra strong. This is an amazing period. And it’s a great time to be involved. You got to stay involved though. You got to make sure that your your know what’s going on at all times. But yeah. 22% earnings growth expectations 28% Q1. That’s boom period.Caroline WoodsAnd just finally S&P 500 price target by year end.Andrew Graham7850 7840.Caroline WoodsSo leave it there. That’s Andrew Graham, Managing partner, Jackson Square Capital. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.Andrew GrahamThank you for.Caroline WoodsLunch. Are you glad you said yes.Andrew GrahamYeah I’m glad.Caroline WoodsIf you enjoyed this street talk check out our full interview with Victoria Fernandez. She’s actually trimming her tech winters right now and explains the name she’s rotating into.

Tech layoff announcements follow a predictable script. A company memo goes out. The number of jobs cut makes the headlines. Executives talk about realigning for the future. Then the story moves on, and the people who just lost their income are left sorting through the details on their own.Microsoft published those details this week. On July 6, the company cut roughly 4,800 jobs across Xbox and its commercial sales division. Alongside the announcement came the specifics of what laid-off U.S. employees are being offered, and the package is more generous than what several of Microsoft’s peers have provided in their own recent cuts.Microsoft severance package: Up to 39 weeks of base paySeverance documents reviewed by Fast Company show that affected U.S. Microsoft employees stay on payroll for at least 60 days after notification. On top of that, additional weeks of base pay come based on tenure and seniority.Junior and mid-level staff earn one week of pay for every six months worked. Principal and director-level employees earn two weeks per six months, with the total capped at 39 weeks. Executives fall under a separate arrangement.Salesforce’s recent severance ran between nine and 30 weeks. Oracle capped at 26. Meta offered 16 weeks plus two per year of service, according to Technobezz. Microsoft’s cap of 39 weeks is higher than any of those.Stock vesting and health coverage: What else is in Microsoft’s exit packageBeyond the cash, Microsoft is keeping stock vesting active for six to 12 months after employees leave, depending on how long they’ve been at the company. At a place like Microsoft, equity is a big part of how people get paid. Letting vesting continue after the exit means employees keep collecting on shares they already earned rather than losing them mid-cycle.Related: Microsoft cuts thousands as Xbox faces rude awakeningHealth coverage is the other piece. Microsoft is covering six months of employer-paid insurance, with the option to continue for another year through COBRA. For anyone who has been through a job loss in the U.S., health coverage is usually one of the first things that gets expensive fast. Six months paid takes some of that pressure off.What Microsoft told employees about the cutsAmy Coleman, Microsoft’s Chief People Officer, sent the internal memo on July 6. “Our business is changing because the world around it is changing,” Coleman wrote, according to TechCrunch. “Companies don’t get to choose whether their industry changes; they only get to choose whether they change with it.”She also addressed the AI question. “The roles eliminated today are not being replaced by AI. What is true is that AI is changing how work gets done.”More Microsoft:Microsoft may be done making Xbox cheapMicrosoft has bad news for a key AI partnerMicrosoft reveals strange new plan for usersAs TheStreet has reported, workers across Big Tech have been pushing back on that framing for months. Microsoft is spending heavily on AI infrastructure this year. The layoffs and the AI buildout are happening on the same balance sheet.Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s memo to the gaming team was more direct. “Our business today is not healthy,” she wrote. She cited margins running several times below comparable platform businesses and described the Xbox restructuring as the biggest in the division’s history. About 1,600 roles were eliminated on July 6 with more planned through the fiscal year.

Beyond the cash, Microsoft is keeping stock vesting active for six to twelve months after employees leaveMichael/Getty Images

Microsoft layoffs and what’s happening across the tech industry in 2026This is the third significant round of cuts at Microsoft in under two years. The company eliminated more than 15,000 jobs in 2025 and offered voluntary buyouts to roughly 9,000 employees earlier this year. Amazon, Meta, and Oracle have all made large cuts in 2026, too, each while ramping up AI spending at the same time.Microsoft’s stock has been one of the weakest performers among large tech companies this year, falling sharply in the first half. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and vice chair, told GeekWire it comes down to basic business reality. “Microsoft can only be a strong employer if it has a successful business,” Smith said. “We have to adapt to change.”As TheStreet reported in June, Microsoft has repeatedly cut in divisions where the work doesn’t fit cleanly into its AI roadmap. The China Azure layoffs, the LinkedIn reductions, Xbox now. The thread running through all of it points in the same direction.What laid-off Microsoft employees should know about the severance offerThe 60-day payroll period is the most immediately useful part. It keeps a paycheck coming while the job search starts, which is a different situation than receiving a lump sum on the last day.An employee in India shared on the anonymous workplace app Blind that they were offered active employment through mid-October followed by several months of severance. “It’s a decent cushion, but I’m still stressed,” they wrote, according to Fast Company.The U.S. package runs more generous, but the stress piece doesn’t really change based on what the offer letter says.One more thing worth knowing: Severance agreements come with strings. Non-disparagement clauses are standard. Some roles carry non-compete language depending on state and job level. The payout is real. So is what gets signed away to collect it.Related: Microsoft CEO sends another shocking message to employees

TheStreet aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.Why we love this dealWhen making healthy lifestyle changes, whether it’s getting in extra steps each day or exercising at the gym regularly, having facts and figures about your ongoing performance can make all the difference. Tracking your health and fitness levels provides tangible proof that your efforts are paying off, giving you additional motivation to keep the hard work going. One of the simplest ways to monitor this progress is with a smartwatch, and Walmart has a weekly Flash deal on one, making it more affordable to invest in.Normally retailing for $160, the Hwagol Smartwatch is now discounted to just $24 — that’s savings of 85% back into your pocket. We appreciate this tech selection because it has a massive markdown and comes packed with handy features, like exercise tracking and message alerts. This deal is exclusive to the smartwatches with soft silicone wristbands in black or pink. There are also two options with steel mesh straps, giving the smartwatch more of a classic wristwatch look, but they’re a little more expensive, on sale for $30 apiece currently.  Hwagol Smartwatch, $24 (was $160) at Walmart

Courtesy of Walmart

Shop at WalmartWhy do shoppers love it?Equipped with a 1.85-inch touchscreen display, this smartwatch has a stylish appearance that’s comparable to the Apple Watch. It has many overlapping features as well, like the ability to take calls directly from your wrist and get notification alerts from your favorite applications, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat. When it comes to battery life, it even outperforms the iconic brand, lasting three to five days on a single charge — and that’s with regular use. When this smartwatch is in standby mode, it can run even longer, lasting up to 10 days.With 80% of shoppers giving this smartwatch a perfect five-star rating, you can feel confident in its performance. “I love how easy it is to track my steps and monitor my health,” raved one shopper. They continued to praise the device, writing, “Overall, it’s a great balance of function and style, and I’m so impressed that I’ve already decided to get another one for my husband.”Related: Amazon has active noise-canceling Bluetooth earbuds for just $28 that have over 26,000 5-star ratingsYou’ll want to wear this smartwatch next time you hit the gym. It tracks over 120 different exercises with its plethora of sports modes, including options for running, yoga, cycling, or basketball. After your workout, you can see the metrics on the duration, calories burned, average heart rate, and distance covered. Additionally, the smartwatch has an IP68 waterproof rating, so if you get a little sweaty or jump in the shower while wearing it, it won’t get damaged.Details to know Battery life: Three to five days with regular use, up to 10 days in standby mode.Color options: Four colorways are available for $30 or less.Compatibility: Most Apple and Android smartphones.Is it waterproof?: Yes. It has an IP68 waterproof rating.As long as you keep your smartphone up to date, this smartwatch should be compatible with your current tech. The smartwatch is compatible with smartphones running on Android 8.0 and above and iPhones running on IOS 9.0 and above.Shop more dealsIkt Smartwatch, $27 (was $170) at WalmartMingdaln Smartwatch, $30 (was $200) at WalmartTikland Smartwatch, $27 (was $190) at WalmartThe Hwagol Smartwatch is a steal at only $24 with Walmart’s weekly Flash deals. Flash deals only last through the week, and the best ones tend to sell out, so don’t wait to snag this one for yourself.

In the phone business, the most dangerous competitor is the one that doesn’t need your towers.For decades, the U.S. wireless market has operated like a private club. Three companies own the national networks, and everybody else, from Mint Mobile to your cable company’s phone plan, pays rent to get on them.That rent flows through a mobile virtual network operator agreement, known in the industry as an MVNO. It is a quiet, profitable arrangement. The host carrier collects wholesale fees, and the renter gets nationwide coverage without spending tens of billions of dollars on spectrum and cell towers.The unwritten rule of the club is simple. You rent to partners, never to predators.That rule is now being stress-tested by the most talked-about would-be renter in America, a company with its own rockets, its own satellites, and, as of last month, its own ticker symbol.Wall Street has started handicapping which of the three landlords blinks first. On July 8, Wells Fargo gave its answer, and it was rough news for one of them.The bank initiated coverage of AT&T (T) with an underweight rating and an $18 price target, calling the carrier the least likely of the big three to cut a deal with SpaceX’s (SPCX) Starlink, and the most exposed if the satellite giant decides to compete head-on instead.

Wells Fargo puts AT&T last in the race for a Starlink wireless dealLucia Gajdosikova / Getty Images

Why every carrier is watching Starlink’s next moveSpaceX went public on June 12 in the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history, pricing shares at $135 and finishing its first day with a market value north of $2 trillion, according to CNBC. Starlink, the satellite internet arm, is the only profitable piece of the whole operation.More Telecommunications:Comcast targets frustrated T-Mobile customers with free offerT-Mobile stands to benefit as rival files Chapter 11 bankruptcyAmazon is finally taking the fight to StarlinkThat profit engine needs somewhere to grow, and the U.S. wireless market is the obvious target. SpaceX has already committed about $17 billion to buy wireless spectrum from EchoStar (SATS), the raw material for a real mobile service. Starlink’s mobile offering recently passed 10 million subscribers, with a stated target of 25 million by the end of 2026, TheStreet highlighted.The carriers have noticed. In May, AT&T, Verizon (VZ), and T-Mobile (TMUS) announced a joint venture to pool satellite spectrum, a defensive alliance among three companies that agree on almost nothing else. All three have also said, on the record, that they are not interested in renting Starlink their networks.Related: Starlink just notched a win U.S. investors should watchMVNOs “make sense for us when it’s a TAM expansion,” T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan said on his company’s April earnings call, referring to growth in total addressable market, as reported by Fierce Network. Verizon and AT&T have offered versions of the same argument, and AT&T CEO John Stankey has consistently framed satellite as a complement to cell networks rather than a replacement.Wells Fargo puts AT&T last in line for a Starlink dealWells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall launched coverage of all three carriers on July 8 with a cautious view of the whole sector, casting Starlink as a near-term winner in home broadband and a longer-term threat to the wireless business itself. Within that picture, AT&T is “least likely to strike a Starlink Mobile MVNO,” according to Investing.com.Cahall attached hard numbers to the question everyone in telecom keeps dancing around. His estimated odds that each carrier eventually signs a Starlink MVNO:Verizon, 40%, the highest of the three, according to Investing.comT-Mobile, 30%, per the same Wells Fargo noteAT&T, just 20%, the lowest odds in the group, the note saidI lined those probabilities up against what each CEO has said publicly this year, and the ranking makes uncomfortable sense for AT&T. Verizon has a new chief executive, Dan Schulman, who may look at a Starlink partnership differently than his predecessor did, the Wells Fargo note argued, per Investing.com. T-Mobile already runs a satellite texting service with Starlink. AT&T bet on rival satellite firm AST SpaceMobile and has the least obvious path to a handshake.No deal means no wholesale revenue and no truce. “Outside of T’s fiber footprint we think competition will be fierce,” Cahall wrote in a note to clients, according to CNBC.The $18 target implies nearly 15% downside from the stock’s July 7 close, on top of a roughly 15% slide already booked in 2026. The call also breaks from the pack, since more than half of the 29 analysts covering AT&T still rate the stock a hold or better, based on LSEG data cited by CNBC.AT&T’s fiber bet now has to carry the full loadStrip away the satellite drama and Wells Fargo’s argument comes down to one sentence. Without a Starlink deal in its back pocket, AT&T “needs fiber to outperform,” per Seeking Alpha.Related: AT&T leaves rivals flat-footed as bankrupt carrier foldsThe company has certainly spent like it believes that. AT&T expects to reach about 40 million fiber locations by the end of this year and more than 60 million by 2030, closed its purchase of Lumen’s consumer fiber business in February, and agreed to pay $23 billion for its own slice of EchoStar spectrum.Inside AT&T’s fiber footprint, that bundle of home internet plus wireless is a genuine moat. Outside it, which is still most of the country, the company is left selling a phone plan against a rival that launches its own rockets.My read is that the market is quietly repricing what used to be AT&T’s safest quality, its predictability. This is a stock millions of retirees hold for the dividend, and that dividend rests on wireless cash flow Wells Fargo now calls the most exposed in the industry.There is a consolation prize in all of this, and it lands in your pocket rather than your portfolio. A fourth network competitor with its own satellites and deep pockets is exactly the kind of pressure that, historically, shows up as lower phone bills.For AT&T shareholders, the watch list is short. If Verizon’s new boss warms to Starlink first, the club’s unwritten rule dies, and the carrier with the lowest odds of a deal is left defending its turf with fiber alone.The most dangerous competitor doesn’t need your towers. Wells Fargo just told investors it may not need AT&T’s signature, either.Related: Oppenheimer downgrades AT&T stock on SpaceX threat

With the final football game between France and Morocco set to kick off in the afternoon of July 9 and determining who advances to the semifinals, a long-running rivalry between two countries with a long history around the popular sport is about to bring in just over 65,000 fans toGillette Stadium in the Foxborough suburb of Boston.Amid such a large influx of fans, local authorities from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation is warning fans and anyone in Boston leading up to or immediately after the game to watch out for crowds and otherwise display common sense around attending a major sporting event.”We encourage everyone to plan ahead, take public transportation whenever possible, and allow for extra travel time,” MassDoT Interim Secretary of Transportation and MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng said in a statement to the public. “For our fans traveling on MBTA event trains, we ask that you arrive at your listed boarding group time to ensure smooth boarding.”Massachusetts officials warn about traffic, crowds at final France-Morocco gameMotorists driving through Route 1 near Gillette Stadium are also advised to plan for additional traffic as well as use the mass511.com and mbta.com/Gillette sites for real-time updates on roads around the area.”MassDOT and the MBTA have helped transport tens of thousands of fans to Gillette Stadium on match days, and we look forward to providing another safe, reliable, and enjoyable experience for fans attending the France v. Morocco Quarterfinal match on Thursday, July 9,” Eng said further in his statement.Related: TSA issues strict warning about ranch dressingOther cities where the semifinals will take place, at AT&T Stadium in Dallas on July 14 and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on July 15, are also putting out similar advisories to locals and the tens of thousands of fans who will be coming in for the games.The final World Cup game will take place at at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford in New Jersey on July 19 and bring in at least 82,500 attendees as well as countless others cheering in their team without viewing the game live to the New York area.

The final match of the FIFA World Cup will take place at MetLife Stadium on July 19.Getty Images

What is going on with crowds and traffic during the final World Cup gamesBrian Kelly, a travel expert and the founder of The Points Guy, has also repeatedly warned about crowds at World Cup events but personally got around the situation by being a hospitality captain and ambassador for On Location for his home city of Philadelphia.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 BahamasUnexpected country is most luxurious travel destination for 2026Low-cost airline launches easier way to get to Sri LankaThe hospitality group is the official partner providing lounge access and premium seating for the FIFA World Cup this year. The record attendance this year has also surged demand for luxury hospitality packages even as most choose to go the other way and enjoy the celebratory atmosphere in crowds.”I personally hate crowds like at the airport and the anxiety of trying to go to an arena and not knowing the ins and outs,” Kelly said to TheStreet in an interview on his experiences during the World Cup. “I think what On Location has done is take pretty much all of that friction out of what will be the largest sporting event the continent has ever seen.”Related: US puts out new warning about World Cup travel to Canada

Think about the last time you actually thought about how a payment worked. You probably didn’t. You tapped, you paid, it was done. Modern payment systems are designed so you never need to think about them.But behind that seamless experience, the pipes that actually move money around are being rebuilt from scratch. The old systems, the ones built around business hours, batch processing, and the assumption that payments could wait until tomorrow, are giving way to something faster, more connected, and increasingly software-driven. It’s one of the less-talked-about transformations in finance right now, and it’s creating real opportunities for investors paying attention.Speed isn’t the hard part anymoreFor a long time, the big goal was just making payments faster. And that’s largely been achieved. The Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service, which launched in July 2023, now connects more than 1,500 financial institutions and lets money move in seconds, any hour of the day. Europe and the UK have similar systems up and running. What used to take two business days now takes about as long as sending a text.So speed is mostly solved. The harder problem is getting all these fast networks to actually talk to each other. Right now, when a payment crosses from one system to another, it often hits an expensive translation layer that slows everything down and adds cost. APIs and open banking initiatives are helping. They give banks and businesses shared standards for exchanging financial data, which makes it possible to stitch different networks together without all the manual workarounds.Related: Apple answers Wall Street’s biggest AI concernThe real value creation won’t come from faster networks running in isolation. It’ll come from getting those networks to actually work together. “We’re gradually moving toward a world where value moves much more freely across those boundaries,” said Eric Swartz, Founding General Partner and General Counsel of Panther Hollow Ventures, adding it’s a much bigger change than shaving seconds off transaction times. Cross-border payments remain costly friction points in global commerce despite years of effort, and better interoperability is what would actually fix that, not faster rails on their own.Payments are disappearing into productsThere’s a whole generation of people who’ve never written a check in their life, and they probably find it weird that payments used to be a separate thing you had to go do. Increasingly, money movement is just built into whatever experience you’re already in: the app, the platform, the workflow.Embedded finance is what this looks like in practice. A business integrates payments, lending, and treasury tools directly into its own software through APIs. The invoice gets paid automatically. The supplier gets settled without anyone manually logging into a banking portal. The checkout process handles payment natively instead of handing off to a third-party processor.”The biggest shift is programmable payments. Technologies like APIs, open banking, and blockchain-based settlement are turning payments into software that can be built into almost any application,” said Wish Wu, Co-founder and CEO of Pharos. “Over time, moving money will become a natural part of digital experiences rather than a separate financial process.”More Tech:Microsoft may be done making Xbox cheapIBM handed two major wins within 24 hoursSpaceX’s 32% crash may force Musk into radical moveFor merchants, faster settlement and real-time cash flow visibility are the obvious wins. Businesses running operations across multiple currencies get something bigger: treasury automation that currently requires a lot of manual decision-making gets handled by the software itself.AI is moving deeper into the plumbingFinancial institutions have been using AI for fraud detection for years now, and it’s become the dominant use case. A Cambridge CCAF report found that 58% of financial institutions globally are already deploying AI for fraud detection, and Mastercard research puts the average annual fraud loss at $60 million per organization, with 83% of industry leaders saying AI has cut down on false positives.Banks and payment providers are now extending AI into routing decisions, liquidity management, and compliance reviews that used to need human sign-off. Wu put it plainly in an interview with TheStreet: “AI will become the intelligence layer of payment infrastructure.” And as AI systems start executing transactions on their own, without a human approving every step, the underlying infrastructure has to support machine-to-machine activity at speeds and volumes it wasn’t originally designed for.The connectivity problem runs deeper than just payment speed. AI systems don’t care about banking hours. They need money to move when they call for it, not when a settlement window opens. The financial infrastructure they’re being asked to plug into wasn’t built for continuous operation, and closing that gap is a big driver of what’s happening in the modernization space right now. Kaledora Kiernan-Linn, Co-Founder and CEO of Ostium, has argued this is the more fundamental challenge the industry is working through.”Institutions aren’t going to adopt AI-driven financial systems simply because they’re faster. They’ll adopt them when they know they can trust the infrastructure underneath,” Swartz added.

For a long time, the big goal was just making payments faster.Eric/Getty Images

This is really a capital markets storyMost public conversation about payment modernization circles around the consumer side: faster checkouts, better app experiences. But people working closer to the infrastructure tend to describe something bigger going on.”People frame this as a payments story because that’s the most obvious use case,” added Kiernan-Linn. “It’s really a capital markets story.” Once payment rails become real-time and programmable, markets don’t have to stop at four o’clock. They can run continuously. The distinction between moving money and moving assets gets fuzzier. And settlement cycles that have defined how financial markets work for decades start looking a lot less fixed.What’s on top of the infrastructure, traditional or digital, matters less than what runs underneath it. “The interesting part is the pipe, not the wrapper,” she said. Reliable settlement, institutional-grade compliance, and interoperability with existing workflows are what make assets usable, not their format.Trust has become the defining test of payment infrastructure, more than speed. “The biggest shift in payments infrastructure isn’t speed, it’s trust,” said Albert Dadon, Founder and CEO of AEREDIUM Holdings. His company is running a live test of that proposition through the Lava Tokenization Sandbox, working with the Lava Foundation and Bretagne Holding Limited on settlement infrastructure around Alba Bay, a $5.4 billion real estate development in the Dominican Republic. The test lets investors buy in using bank transfers, cards, or stablecoins, while developers get a single auditable settlement regardless of which payment method was used.One technical approach being tested at AEREDIUM is distributed signing: spreading transaction authority across independent hardware so no single machine or employee can move funds unilaterally. “When you combine distributed signing with attested execution, you get payment rails where trust is a mathematical property of the system rather than a promise from an intermediary,” Dadon said.What this means for investors watching the spacePayment infrastructure doesn’t get much press. The systems do their job quietly, and nobody writes about them when they work. But a lot of serious money is moving into the companies building this layer of the financial system right now: banks, payment networks, cloud providers, fintech firms, and cybersecurity companies are all competing to own pieces of it.Tracking product announcements won’t tell you much. Every company in this space will claim real-time capabilities and AI integration. What’s harder to see from the outside is who’s actually building the connective infrastructure that lets existing capital and assets plug into faster, more continuous markets without everything having to be rebuilt. That’s the harder engineering problem, and it’s where the lasting competitive edges are going to come from.Getting fast is something every company in this space can claim. Getting trusted at the institutional level is the harder problem, and it’s the one that will determine who actually wins. Most of this work is happening well below the surface of anything consumers will notice, which is exactly where infrastructure competition usually plays out.Related: Dave Ramsey sends message about mortgage payments