The Street

SpaceX (SPCX) stock investors have been taken on a choppy round trip since going public on June 12, 2026, with the stock touching a high of $225.64 before retreating to $137.95, back near its debut price. 

The pullback hasn’t slowed CEO Elon Musk’s ambitions, though. SpaceX’s engines have barely stopped humming since its IPO, and the newest development, as reported by Fortune,  is a planned $100 billion Starbase complex in southern Louisiana that might become its largest launch facility. In a research note shared with TheStreet, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas says he feels investors are overlooking what the extraordinary commitment really signals.

The decade-long project could feature up to 10 launch pads, along with propellant production, energy generation, vehicle processing facilities, and employee-related housing.

Construction is forecast to begin in 2027, with the first launches targeted for 2029. The sheer scale gives SpaceX far greater launch capacity as it pushes Starship from testing toward commercial use operations. 

Its stock is now sitting comfortably below its 52-week peak, leaving investors to decide if the retreat reflects caution over a growing disconnect between the stock and SpaceX’s plans.

Jonas believes Louisiana points to more than another rocket base, linking the site to an overlooked opportunity for SpaceX.

Morgan Stanley sees bigger opportunity in SpaceX’s $100 billion bet 

Jonas believes investors need to reconsider SpaceX stock as the company prepares a massive expansion of its launch infrastructure. 

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He maintained an Overweight rating and $300 price target. Compared with SpaceX’s August 25 closing price of $137.95, that target implies 117% upside, enough for the stock to more than double.

According to Jonas, what stands out is investors’ underestimation of what SpaceX is developing around Starship. He believes the Louisiana announcement suggests SpaceX might be planning far more launches than the bank’s forecasts assume. 

The firm’s modeling projects nearly 5,800 Starship launches annually by 2040, averaging around 16 launches per day. Assuming each pad supports a couple of launches daily, SpaceX might require just eight pads to reach that forecast.

Yet Morgan Stanley identified 15 planned Starship pads: 10 in Louisiana, two in Texas, and at least three in Florida. Put simply, SpaceX doesn’t need the entire Louisiana complex to meet Morgan Stanley’s aggressive 2040 projections.

That raises the question, though, what does SpaceX expect to launch?

Morgan Stanley doesn’t believe consumer connectivity alone could absorb that capacity. The global satellite-broadband market might become much more saturated before SpaceX fully utilizes all 10 Louisiana pads. Instead, the bank expects orbital computing to account for over 80% of its projected launches beginning in 2032.

A lot of that thesis is dependent on Starship switching up the economics of reaching orbit.

Starship can carry over five times the maximum payload of Falcon 9 and is designed to be fully reusable. Morgan Stanley expects its launch cost to drop to nearly $500 per kilogram by 2030, below $200 by 2035, and below $150 by 2040. That compares with an estimated Falcon 9 variable cost of around $1,000 per kilogram in 2025.

Morgan Stanley says SpaceX’s $100 billion Louisiana complex could unlock substantial upside Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images

Starship faces its biggest test before orbital AI can scale 

Nevertheless, recovering a Starship is only the first step, and the bigger test is how swiftly the vehicle can be inspected, refurbished, and launched again.

The upper-stage ship faces a lot of heat and mechanical pressure as it enters the atmosphere again, which makes it a lot more difficult to reuse than the booster. 

Morgan Stanley’s model assumes limited ship reuse in its early years before jumping to approximately 43 flights per ship by 2040. The bank assumes boosters will soon reach about 130 flights each.

Those are major improvements, but SpaceX doesn’t exactly need to achieve them immediately. Morgan Stanley believes Starship’s payload capacity will reduce costs meaningfully even before the upper stage becomes routinely reusable.

On top of that, launch cadence might matter even more than cost. A single Starship flight is expected to deploy just a single-digit number of megawatts of computing equipment. Building several gigawatts of orbital capacity entails thousands of launches.

That makes the Louisiana complex a lot more consequential as it supplies the launch infrastructure that’s required to make orbital AI possible at scale.

SpaceX is already working on this transition.

The company has wrapped up what it described as its final Falcon 9 Starlink launch from Florida, with future Florida-based Starlink missions likely to move to Starship. Morgan Stanley estimates one Starship flight might carry as much as 25 times the downlink capacity of a Falcon 9 mission.

What should SpaceX investors do now?

Morgan Stanley is telling investors to revisit SpaceX stock, which is trading near its IPO price of $135, as its current price isn’t reflective of its orbital AI potential.

The bank estimates that every incremental gigawatt of nameplate computing capacity could potentially add nearly $27 per share, or around 20% of SpaceX’s current stock price. That calculation assumes $50 in value per watt, a 70% incremental margin, and a 10-times EBITDA valuation.

Jonas is valuing the company at nearly 10-times projected fiscal 2028 sales and 25 times EBIT, forecasting revenue growth of 70% and EBIT growth of 113%. Moreover, the bank’s current share price assigns just a low-single-digit multiple to enterprise AI and effectively zero value to orbital computing.

Moreover, Morgan Stanley expects 4.9 gigawatts of AI computing capacity by the end of fiscal 2027, compared with a far loftier SpaceX target of close to 10 gigawatts. So there’s an incredible gap that illustrates the upside if SpaceX executes much more quickly than the bank expects. 

Nevertheless, it remains a tall order for a company that’s being valued at over 1,607-times forward non-GAAP earnings, which is 11,637% higher than the sector median according to Seeking Alpha.

For current shareholders, the research note backs maintaining exposure while looking at three critical proof points, including Starship launch frequency, vehicle turnaround time, and growth in enterprise-AI capacity. 

For investors considering the stock, the $300 target for Morgan Stanley comes with remarkably high execution and financing risk. It’s important to understand that the $100 billion Louisiana commitment isn’t self-funding. Also, Morgan Stanley’s broader model assumes SpaceX will be relying partly on an estimated $80 billion in average annual net debt issuance as investment accelerates.

The bull case involves multiple developments happening in tandem.

Starship needs to become dependable and reusable. Launch frequency has to rise from dozens to thousands annually. Moreover, AI customers need to be willing to pay premium prices for scarce computing capacity, while capital markets need to continue financing SpaceX before the economic payoff becomes visible.

Related: Cathie Wood buys $17.2 million of beaten-down AI stock

TheStreet aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.Creating a home that’s both cozy and chic takes a few key elements. Charming furniture, home decor, and floor coverings are a good start, but there’s one component that’s often overlooked — the lighting. Glaring and bright white overhead lights can be harsh, while a space lacking in light can feel dark and cramped. Finding lighting that’s effective while also providing the right vibes is key.

You don’t need to look too far for this ideal lighting fixture, because one option shoppers call “cute and practical” is currently on sale at Amazon. The Kakanuo Cordless Table Lamps, which come in a set of two, have been discounted to just $20 for a limited time. That equals $10 per lamp, which is a rare deal, especially for designs of this caliber.

Kakanuo Cordless Table Lamps, $20 (was $24) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

Shop at Amazon

Cordless table lamps are the perfect accent lighting, mainly because they don’t have the inconvenient cord found on traditional fixtures. These lights use an LED bulb that’s rechargeable via the built-in USB port. Offering a large 5000 milliampere-hour battery, the light can run 8 to 40 hours (depending on the brightness) without needing to be recharged.

The sleek black lamps don’t just look modern and trendy; they’re extremely functional. Depending on the mood you want to set, you can choose from three lighting modes, including a bright, cool white, a warm, golden light, or a more neutral hue between the two. In addition to this, by holding down the touch button, you can set the brightness levels anywhere between 5% and 100% power.

One shopper wrote, “I absolutely love these lamps! The design is quite attractive and reminds me of similar lamps I saw in many restaurants in Italy last year. There is infinite dimming simply by touching and holding the control button. Super simple and super effective!”

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The possibilities for using these table lamps are endless. You can use them as matching accent lamps in the living room, as mood lighting for a den, or as a kitchen light at nighttime. Since they’re waterproof, you can also use them outside or in humid spaces. On top of that, they can be assembled at two different heights, 14.7 inches tall or 9.3 inches tall, to fit in a variety of spaces.

One reviewer said, “These are perfect for when power goes out or you want lights that are easy to use in multiple locations. They provide plenty of light in rooms and are easy to charge. We have a set in our living room and one in our office. They charged quickly, and we love that you can move them around to where you need extra light. We’ve also used them outside at night, and they work great.”

The majority of shoppers have given these lamps the maximum five-star rating. Some reviewers were short and sweet, like one customer who wrote, “We love the ambiance these lights provide.” Another shopper said, “These are awesome little lights! They give off a great glow and are rechargeable. The battery lasts a pretty long time, they are dimmable, easy to set up, and have a nice weight and feel.”

The possibilities for using these table lamps are endless. You can use them as matching accent lamps in the living room, as mood lighting for a den, or as a kitchen light at nighttime. Since they’re waterproof, you can also use them outside or in humid spaces. On top of that, they can be assembled at two different heights, 14.7 inches tall or 9.3 inches tall, to fit in a variety of spaces.

One reviewer said, “These are perfect for when power goes out, or you want lights that are easy to use in multiple locations. They provide plenty of light in rooms and are easy to charge. We’ve also used them outside at night, and they work great.”

The majority of shoppers have given these lamps the maximum five-star rating, so it’s no surprise that they’re a popular pick. So much so that more than 5,000 sets have sold within the past 30 days. And with this deal in place, we don’t see those numbers stopping anytime soon.

Do yourself a favor and bring some light into your life by adding these adorable Kakanuo Cordless Table Lamps to your cart while they’re just $20 for the pair.

Anytime a stock jumps 20% in a single session after earnings, Wall Street analysts have a choice to either chase the move or hold their ground. Morgan Stanley chose the latter.

Elastic (ESTC) closed the week ended Aug. 28 at $99.91, up 19.31% following its Aug. 27 first-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings release, according to Yahoo Finance. 

The jump isn’t just about one strong quarter. Elastic is riding two trends that are becoming hard for businesses to ignore: the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the growing need to make sense of all the data companies collect. That’s where Elastic comes in.

Its platform helps companies search, analyze, and visualize data across cloud, private, and hybrid environments, increasingly giving businesses the tools to put AI to work. Many refer to it as the Google of corporate search.

The 14-year-old Elastic beat guidance across every key metric, raised its full-year outlook, and delivered record customer additions in its highest-value cohort.

Morgan Stanley reviewed the results in a note shared with me at TheStreet.

The note’s headline, “Now That’s More Like It,” was unusually candid for a firm maintaining a neutral stance. Morgan Stanley raised its price target to $75 from $66 while keeping its Equal-weight rating. 

With the stock already trading at $99, Morgan Stanley is essentially saying that, although it’s a great quarter, they are not chasing it here.

Also Read: Elastic N.V. Latest News and Stories

What Elastic actually reported and the numbers behind the 19% pop

As mentioned, the Q1 fiscal 2027 results, reported Aug. 27, were strong across every metric that matters for an enterprise software company.

Total revenue of $478 million grew 15% year over year. (YoY)

Cloud revenue of $235.2 million grew 20% on a constant-currency basis, accelerating from 19% in Q4. 

Sales-led subscription revenue of $398.5 million grew 17% on a Constant-currency basis, accelerating from 16% in Q4. 

Current remaining performance obligations grew 21% year over year to $1.153 billion.

Total RPO grew 27% YoY to $1.854 billion. Adjusted free cash flow was $143 million.Source: Elastic first-quarter fiscal 2027 results

One customer metric stands out. Elastic added 80 customers with more than $100,000 in annual contract value sequentially, the highest net addition quarter on record. The cohort now totals more than 1,800 customers, up 16% year over year.

“AI is reshaping the enterprise technology stack,” said CEO Ash Kulkarni in the earnings statement. “Our record quarter-over-quarter net customer additions reflect the durability of that demand.”

Full-year fiscal 2027 revenue guidance was raised by approximately $12 million, between $1.998 and $2.010 billion, exceeding the $9 million first-quarter beat. Management said they expect acceleration in the second half, with Q4 carrying the highest year-over-year growth rate.

What Morgan Stanley liked on Elastic and what it is still waiting on

Morgan Stanley’s note was quite specific about both the positives and its remaining hesitation.

On the positive side, Morgan Stanley likes cloud acceleration to 20% constant currency despite a tough year-over-year comparison, sales-led subscription growth accelerating for the second consecutive quarter, a strong pipeline from recent go-to-market investments, and a fiscal 2027 guidance raise that exceeded the Q1 beat.

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The specific callout on Elastic’s business mix is this. Management cited Search and Security as growing above the overall company growth rate, while Observability is growing more slowly.

Morgan Stanley flagged that it wants to see more traction in Observability specifically before gaining confidence in a multi-year acceleration. That is the one missing piece preventing the firm from upgrading.

The key concern is familiar in enterprise software: Consumption-based cloud revenue is notoriously difficult to extrapolate. 

Bears point to Elastic’s history of one-off acceleration quarters that failed to sustain. Bulls point to the contracted backlog already sitting in the cRPO balance that provides revenue visibility for the sales-led subscription segment.

“A cc accel across rev, cloud and sales-led subscription plus a raise to the FY27 rev outlook that was initially deemed aggressive should get rewarded,” Morgan Stanley wrote. “The debate ahead is whether the cloud accel is fundamentally durable and we are not yet convinced on that front.”

Morgan Stanley flagged that it wants to see more traction in Observability before gaining confidence in a multi-year acceleration for Elastic.Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The AI product momentum that gives Elastic’s bull case its foundation

Let’s step out of financials for a minute. Elastic’s product announcements during Q1 show that it has found its footing in the AI infrastructure stack.

The company delivered general availability of native Prometheus and PromQL support, introduced Columnar Mode for analytics workloads, launched VectorDB index mode for instant vector search, and introduced an agentic Kubernetes investigation workflow. 

In security, Attack Discovery and Alert Zero both advanced, targeting the AI-powered security operations center. Elastic also unveiled its collaboration with OpenAI to bring advanced reasoning models with governed enterprise context into Elasticsearch.

Related: Morgan Stanley sees big change coming for Alphabet stock

The Gartner recognition validates the progress. Elastic became a leader in the Observability Platforms Magic Quadrant for the third consecutive year, and in the IDC MarketScape for SIEM 2026, according to Elastic’s Q1F27 results.

The Deductive AI acquisition, which brings AI-powered production issue investigation to Elastic Observability, addresses the one segment Morgan Stanley is still watching.

What’s going on with Elastic stock performance?

ESTC is up 32.44% year to date and 13.81% over the past year, according to Yahoo Finance. Morgan Stanley’s $75 price target implies the stock has run meaningfully ahead of where the firm is comfortable endorsing it at this stage of the acceleration debate. 

My read of that stance is that the quarter was genuinely impressive and that the setup for 2H is credible. Yet a 19% single-day move takes the stock well above the valuation that Morgan Stanley is willing to support with an Overweight.

For investors willing to bet that the cloud acceleration is durable rather than a one-off, Elastic’s Q1 gave the bull case its strongest evidence. Morgan Stanley is encouraged by the strong start to FY27, but is asking for one more quarter of proof before it agrees.

Related: Morgan Stanley sends a blunt Tesla message to investors

Each paycheck contribution to a 401(k) can generate a federal tax break tied to the marginal tax rate. 

That means a worker earning $200,000 can receive more than twice the tax benefit per dollar saved than someone earning $50,000, because the higher earner faces a higher marginal tax rate.

That lopsided structure has defined the 401(k) system since its creation, and recent federal data reveals just how wide the gap has become.

Federal retirement subsidies overwhelmingly favor six-figure earners

Federal tax expenditures tied to retirement accounts exceeded $2 trillion over the period from 2022 through 2026, the Tax Policy Center estimated. 

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the five-year cost of the net exclusion for defined-contribution and defined-benefit plan contributions and earnings at roughly $2 trillion.

The estimate covers fiscal years 2025 through 2029, making it the largest single item in the federal tax expenditure budget.

80% of those retirement savings tax subsidies flow to households earning more than $100,000, the Tax Policy Center estimated in 2017. 

The tax deferral offers little or no benefit to low-income households because many owe no federal income tax.

More granular data from the Bipartisan Policy Center shows the same tilt by quintile. In 2019, the highest-earning 20% of American workers captured 58% of all federal retirement tax incentives, worth roughly $160 billion. 

The lowest-earning 20% received 1%, and more than 80% of that group received no retirement tax benefit at all.

Two additional factors reinforce the disparity beyond the marginal-rate mechanic, the Bipartisan Policy Center noted. 

Lower earners have less disposable income to defer, and the pretax deferral structure delivers no benefit to workers whose income falls below the federal tax threshold.

Hardship withdrawals hit a record high as workers raid their savings

A record 6% of Vanguard 401(k) participants made at least one hardship withdrawal during 2025, up from 5% in 2024, according to the firm’s How America Saves 2026 report, which tracks nearly five million workers.

The withdrawal rate had tripled since pre-pandemic levels, and the rise to 6% marked the sixth consecutive annual increase in emergency distributions from retirement accounts. 

The need for cash for mortgage payments or rent accounted for more than one-third of those withdrawals, with medical expenses the second most common reason.

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Workers earning under $100,000 were 3.5 times more likely to take a hardship withdrawal than those above that threshold, the data showed. The median withdrawal was $1,900, a figure that signals a shortfall in emergency savings.

A decade ago, Economic Policy Institute economist Monique Morrissey warned that the shift to 401(k)s had turned the retirement system into one that magnifies inequality rather than reducing it. Vanguard’s 2026 data shows the trajectory hasn’t reversed.

A record share of workers are tapping retirement savings for emergencies, exposing growing financial strain and weakening long-term retirement security.Jacob Wackerhausen / Getty Images

Nearly half of Americans have no retirement savings at all

The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances shows roughly 46% of Americans have no retirement savings.

Richard Reed, Vice President and DC Practice Director at Segal, told SHRM that closing the shortfall requires earlier saving and stronger financial literacy.

We have got to get employees to start early with savings and prioritizing their retirement. And we need to focus on financial literacy, if people aren’t understanding what they need to do regarding finances, they won’t do it.

Nearly half of private-sector workers still have no employer-sponsored plan, the Bipartisan Policy Center confirmed.

Among workers earning between $18,000 and $31,000 annually, the coverage gap rises to 64%, and among those earning under $18,000, it climbs to 80%.

The personal savings rate fell to 3.9% in the first quarter of 2026, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, suggesting that household budget pressures will continue to widen the retirement gap.

The 401(k) contribution ceiling stays out of reach for most workers

The Internal Revenue Service raised the annual 401(k) contribution limit to $24,500 for 2026, a $1,000 increase from the year before.

Workers aged 50 and older can add up to $8,000 in catch-up contributions, bringing the theoretical maximum to $32,500 for that group. 

Under a provision of the 2022 SECURE 2.0 Act, workers aged 60 to 63 can contribute a higher $11,250 catch-up in 2026, lifting their maximum to $35,750, the IRS stated.

Only 14% of Vanguard’s defined contribution plan participants contributed the statutory maximum in the prior year.

Those who did tended to have higher incomes, longer tenure with their employer, and substantially larger existing balances, the Vanguard report confirmed.

What the 401(k) subsidy gap means for workers weighing contributions

Two features of the retirement system carry different weight for sub-median earners than those who can afford to make maximum contributions to their 401(k) plan.

The employer match accrues for every employee, regardless of the tax brackets that concentrate 401(k) benefits at the top.

A Roth IRA operates on a different mechanism entirely: the after-tax contributions can be withdrawn without penalty. The 2026 Roth contribution limit is $7,500, or $8,600 at age 50 and older. 

The 6% hardship-withdrawal rate, concentrated among people earning less than $100,000, suggests that the gap between statutory ceilings and what workers can afford is driving early withdrawals.

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Chick-fil-A is closing the last remaining restaurant of its kind as it continues to refine its strategy for rapid expansion.

The concept was designed to give customers something beyond the chain’s traditional menu, while allowing the company to test new products and a different way of serving guests.

However, after several years of experimentation, the company is preparing to bring the concept to an end.

The move comes as the restaurant chain continues to expand its footprint and experiment with new formats.

Chick-fil-A is closing its last Little Blue Menu

Chick-fil-A is closing its final Little Blue Menu location at 7242 Baltimore Ave in College Park, Maryland, in January 2027, ending the five-year experimental concept.

Little Blue Menu debuted as a test in Nashville in 2021 before Chick-fil-A expanded the concept to a standalone location in College Park in 2023. The concept allowed Chick-fil-A to serve its traditional menu alongside experimental offerings such as burgers, wings, pizza, and other items not typically available at standard restaurants.

The Nashville location closed in 2023, while the College Park restaurant continued operating as the concept’s last location. Chick-fil-A will now convert the College Park restaurant into a traditional Chick-fil-A location in January 2027, Streetcar Suburbs reported.

“Since its inception five years ago, Little Blue Menu was designed as a test-and-learn concept,” Chick-fil-A told Nation’s Restaurant News.

“After several successful years exploring new ways to serve guests, the location in College Park will transition to a traditional Chick-fil-A restaurant in 2027. We are grateful to remain part of the College Park community and look forward to sharing more soon.”

Chick-fil-A’s expansion strategy

Since its founding in 1946, Chick-fil-A has taken a more deliberate approach to expansion than many of its fast-food competitors.

The company remains family-owned and operates under a local owner-operator model, with individual restaurants managed by independent operators who oversee day-to-day operations in their communities.

The model gives individual responsibility for daily operations while allowing Chick-fil-A to maintain its broader approach to customer service and local engagement as it expands into new markets and formats.

The company continues to grow both domestically and internationally, opening its first restaurants in the UK and Singapore in 2025, following its entry into Puerto Rico in 2022.

The company’s expansion has also included a growing number of experiments aimed at reaching customers outside its traditional restaurant model.

Chick-fil-A is closing its final Little Blue Menu restaurant concept.Jeff Greenberg / Getty Images

Chick-fil-A’s experimental concepts

Chick-fil-A has continued to experiment with different restaurant formats and ways of reaching customers.

The company launched its first delivery and carryout locations in Nashville, Tennessee, and Louisville, Kentucky, in 2018, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. Those units were designed to support demand for catering, takeout, and delivery without relying on traditional dining rooms.

In 2019, Chick-fil-A expanded its delivery strategy by operating from a shared kitchen facility in Northern California in partnership with DoorDash.

Here’s some of my previous coverage on Chick-fil-A’s expansion strategy and experimental concepts:

In 2025, Chick-fil-A opened a ghost kitchen with CloudKitchens in Boston and expanded to Miami in 2026 as part of an ongoing effort to expand delivery capabilities.

In fall 2025, Chick-fil-A opened Daybright, a beverage-focused concept, in Hiram, Georgia, through its subsidiary, Red Wagon Ventures LLC.

At the same time, Chick-fil-A launched its first-ever vending machine, a temperature-controlled fridge that allows customers to access menu items through a touchscreen.

In late 2025, the company also began converting its licensed locations, including restaurants on college campuses, in hospitals, and at theme parks, excluding airports, to its owner-operator model. The change is designed to create a more consistent experience across its restaurants.

What this means for Chick-fil-A

Today, Chick-fil-A operates more than 3,000 restaurants across the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, the UK, and Singapore, according to its website.

While that footprint remains smaller than competitors such as McDonald’s, which operates more than 45,000 restaurants worldwide, and Subway, with over 35,000 locations, Chick-fil-A has become the third-largest quick-service restaurant company in the U.S. by system-wide sales.

Chick-fil-A generated more than $9 billion in company revenue in 2025, while its restaurants recorded nearly $24 billion in system-wide sales, according to data gathered by QSR Magazine.

The company’s continued growth means Little Blue Menu is only one part of a broader strategy that has seen Chick-fil-A test new restaurant formats, menu items, and service models while expanding its traditional locations.

The end of the Little Blue Menu experiment does not signal a retreat from innovation. Instead, it illustrates how Chick-fil-A has used experimental concepts to test new ideas and determine which formats may fit into its larger restaurant strategy.

Related: Chick-fil-A brings 9 former test items nationwide

Fresh fruit is one of the most constant features of an American grocery store. 

Apples, pears, and cherries may remain on shelves long after harvest season ends, but the workforce behind them often follows a far less stable calendar.

Agriculture depends heavily on workers hired to pick, pack, and move crops.

But they are released once that work is done. 

For consumers, the product can feel permanent, but for the farmworkers, the job often is not.

That tension is playing out again in Washington, one of the country’s most important fruit-growing regions.

Borton & Sons, a Washington fruit grower and packer, plans to lay off 928 farmworkers in November as this year’s harvest winds down, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) reviewed by TheStreet.

The affected employees are general farm laborers working under the federal H-2A program.

The program allows agricultural businesses to hire foreign workers for temporary or seasonal jobs when there are not enough U.S. workers available.

Borton said the layoffs will begin on Nov. 8 and continue through Nov. 15 across operations in Yakima, Zillah, Pasco, Burbank, Prescott, Soap Lake, Othello, and Mesa.

Seasonal layoffs after harvest are common in agriculture, and Borton acknowledged as much in its filing.

What makes this notice more notable is how the company characterized the departures. Borton said all 928 layoffs are considered permanent because it has not identified specific recall dates or staffing needs for 2027.

The company also said it is not yet clear whether additional domestic workers could be affected, citing uncertainties such as weather, crop conditions, and employee attrition over the remaining weeks of harvest.

The company did not respond to TheStreet’s request for more information about its 2027 staffing plans.

Thousands of farm jobs disappear with harvest

Borton’s layoffs are large, but they are far from an isolated event.

From November 2024 through November 2025, Washington employers reported 20 agriculture-related layoffs affecting 14,831 mostly seasonal workers, according to the state’s Employment Security Department.

The filings involved agricultural businesses as well as agencies specializing in services to agricultural employers.

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Several individual filings involved more than 1,000 workers.

Stemilt Ag Services, a Washington fruit company, laid off 1,561 seasonal H-2A field workers in November 2025 as their contracts ended with the harvest season. The company said warehouse and shipping employees were not affected.

AgriMACS, an agricultural employer in Chelan, separately disclosed layoffs affecting 1,368 workers in November 2025.

Other large Washington agriculture filings that year included Gebbers Farms, with 3,465 workers affected, and FirstFruits, with 1,200.

The scale of those notices helps explain why Borton’s 928-worker filing, while substantial, is not unusual for a seasonal agricultural workforce. The figures also provide a clearer picture of a segment of the labor market that historically was much less visible in WARN data.

Washington officials said agriculture-related businesses traditionally did not file WARN notices for seasonal workforce reductions because federal rules did not require them to report seasonal layoffs. 

Changes in state reporting requirements brought more of those seasonal employment swings into the public record.

But large numbers in agricultural WARN filings do not necessarily signal that a farm is failing or shutting down.

In seasonal agriculture, such swings in employment can be built into the business. For workers, however, the financial consequences of that cycle can be much harder to absorb.

A Washington fruit grower will lay off more than 900 workers after harvest.picture alliance / Getty Images

Farmworkers face financial hardship

Recent federal research highlights the financial vulnerability of agricultural work.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study published in 2025 found that workers in farming, fishing, and forestry experienced some of the highest levels of economic hardship among the occupational groups examined.

About 18.5% reported experiencing at least four measures of economic hardship, compared with 6.9% of workers overall.

Roughly 32% reported food insecurity.

Nearly 25% reported housing insecurity.

About 29% lacked health insurance.

Nearly one-third experienced lost or reduced working hours.

The group’s median annual wage was $35,520, compared with $48,060 for workers overall.

The instability does not fall only on workers. It can also hit growers when weather, crop losses, or delays in seasonal labor collide with a narrow harvest window.

Reuters reported that growers in Michigan’s cherry-growing region faced severe crop losses and delays in bringing in H-2A workers for the 2025 harvest.

One grower told Reuters that labor shortages can leave fruit unpicked when workers do not arrive in time.

It illustrates how closely seasonal workers’ livelihoods and growers’ businesses depend on the same narrow harvest window.

The pressures can run in both directions. Farms need enough workers at precisely the right time, while workers depend on jobs that may last only as long as the crop does.

H-2A wages are also being rewritten

The wages supporting that seasonal workforce are also changing.

In 2025, the U.S. Department of Labor overhauled the way minimum pay rates are calculated for many H-2A jobs.

Instead of using one broad state or regional agricultural wage rate for most field and livestock workers, the department shifted to Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and divided jobs into entry-level and experienced categories.

The rule also allows a downward adjustment to the wages of H-2A workers who receive employer-provided housing.

Employers are still required to provide qualifying H-2A workers housing at no cost.

But under the new methodology, the estimated value of that housing can be counted toward compensation, reducing the cash wage an employer would otherwise have to pay.

That distinction can matter considerably in seasonal agriculture, where workers’ U.S. earning opportunities may be concentrated into a limited part of the year.

The Labor Department said the new system better reflects differences in skills and compensation while accounting for housing provided to H-2A workers.

The changes have also become the subject of legal and political challenges over how much seasonal farmworkers should be paid.

Washington heavily reliant on H-2A labor

The scale of that temporary workforce remains significant.

Through the first three quarters of fiscal 2025, Washington accounted for about 9% of all H-2A positions certified nationally, according to U.S. Department of Labor data.

Farmworkers and laborers represented 82% of certified H-2A positions nationwide during the same period.

These workers support one of the country’s largest fruit-producing markets. Washington produced about 7.16 billion pounds of apples for use in 2025, according to USDA data, with a farm-level value of approximately $1.89 billion.

About 5.66 billion pounds went to the fresh market, worth roughly $1.75 billion.

The state harvested about 171,000 acres of apples in 2025 and produced roughly 7.54 billion pounds overall.

For consumers, that scale shows up as an uninterrupted supply of fruit in grocery stores. But for workers, the employment calendar looks different. Agricultural businesses may need large numbers of workers during a relatively short harvest window and considerably fewer once that work ends. 

In the H-2A system, that temporary nature is built into the job itself.

Related: Another country tells citizens to avoid non-essential travel to the U.S.

Target’s comeback has been built on the key pillars that helped the company earn its “Tar-Jay” reputation as a hip but affordable place to shop.

That’s something the company has returned to as it looks to win back lapsed customers and move the narrative away from the so-called culture wars.

“We’re putting style, design and value at the center of everything we do,” the company shared in a March 3 press release.

The chain also shared its plans to stay a step ahead of its rivals in the affordable apparel space. Key priorities included:

Maximize our in-house design capabilities and trend-tracking technology to bring new styles to consumers faster.

Lead with great denim and everyday essentials, with seasonal styles and frequent partnerships driving year-round newness.

That strategy has been working, as the chain reported strong sales in its most recent quarter.

“Second quarter net sales grew 5.3% over last year, with comparable sales growth of 3.8% driven by a 3.6% increase in comparable traffic,” its Q2 earnings release shared.

Those are encouraging numbers, but a new effort from Walmart could derail those efforts.

Walmart launches a fashion brand

Target has built its apparel business around owned-and-operated brands. These are brands the retailer owns, giving it greater control over product development, pricing, and merchandising without sharing revenue with a third-party brand.

Now, Walmart has made an aggressive move into the women’s fashion space with Scenario, “a new women’s fashion brand bringing a romantic, modern bohemian point of view to customers at an incredible value,” the company shared in a press release.

Available now in Walmart stores and on Walmart.com, the 280-piece collection spans apparel, shoes, jewelry, handbags, and accessories, with the vast majority of items priced under $25.

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“Scenario combines feminine silhouettes, vintage-inspired prints and rich textures with versatile pieces designed for everyday life. Think airy blouses, printed dresses, lived-in denim, braided flats and accessories finished with fringe, tassels and artisanal details, all with the style, quality and extraordinary value customers expect from Walmart,” the company added.

Walmart has a clear reason to launch Scenario, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Sarah Nassauer.

“It is part of Walmart’s latest attempt to become a fashion destination for more Americans. Right now many Walmart customers buy their groceries at the chain, but buy clothing elsewhere,” she wrote.

Scenario, she noted, could help the chain sell clothes to a new group of customers.

“Those who do buy clothes are often purchasing basics at low prices — simple T-shirts or leggings — and the women who shop its largest brands tend to skew older. Increasing fashion sales may help the company reclaim ground it has lost to Amazon over the past several years,” she added.

Walmart wants to expand its fashion sales.Walmart

Walmart wants more from its customers

The challenge for Walmart is getting customers to move from its low-margin grocery products to more profitable areas.

GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders thinks the chain might be able to make that happen.

“Walmart hasn’t suffered from customer defections; on the contrary, it has held on to the vast majority of customers that joined its ranks over the past few years. The opportunity, however, is to get more of these customers to convert from grocery into non-food, including fashion,” he wrote on Retailwire.

Scenario may be able to do that.

“Does it stand a chance? Yes. We can see in our data that Walmart has made good progress in apparel over the past few years and it has moved from a place where folks went to get basics to one that serves a wider variety of needs,” he posted.

Georgeanne Bender, a leading retail consultant, doesn’t think the clothes are the issue.

“Walmart’s problem isn’t what it sells, it’s how it sells it. Even Chanel would look bad crammed on a 7′ fixture. The apparel departments need a visual merchandising tweak,” she shared on RetailWire.

Gary Sankary, another RetailWire Brain Trust member, actually thinks Target has shown Walmart how to make people think of the chain for items that go beyond cheap basics.

“To uplift that perception, they need help. They need credibility from the fashion world to change how shoppers see them. Their competition, Target, has been particularly good at this over the years: designer collaborations, buzz‑worthy collections, hosting events. Those things resonate with aspirational fashion buyers and add credibility to the offers,” he wrote.

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

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Safety and security in your personal space are of the utmost importance no matter what time of year it is. However, there’s no denying that, with the holiday season approaching, there’s certainly a bit more emphasis placed on keeping your home intruder-free. With the onset of the holiday calendar comes regular shopping trips to your favorite stores and your favorite websites. That means more deliveries are likely on the horizon, more than during the rest of the year. The last thing you want after ordering a new laptop or road bike is to have it swiped by an unscrupulous prowler before you even get a chance to wrap it. The best way to stop this from happening is to pair your security lights with a good doorbell camera.

As many as 104 million packages are stolen from front doors every year in the United States. That equates to roughly 15 billion dollars a year in stolen goods. If you’re not protecting your packages, then you’re just asking for trouble. Luckily, Amazon has a lot of doorbell cameras available that can suit just about anyone’s needs. In fact, one of the most trusted names in doorbell cameras currently has a model on sale, and we think it’s worth taking a look before the holiday rush arrives.

Ring 4K Pro Doorbell Camera

Courtesy of Amazon

Check price at Amazon

The Ring 4K Pro Doorbell Camera is a great pick for anyone who wants to feel more secure at home. As the name suggests, it delivers crystal-clear 4K video directly to your phone and other devices. It includes 10x enhanced zoom, a wide-angle lens, and night vision capabilities. It’s also available in four color variants and either a single or a dual pack. That means there’s likely one that will suit your home’s outdoor color scheme, no matter what that may be. If you opt for the dual pack, then you can have one at the front door as well as another one at the back. 

Benefits of a doorbell camera

There are many advantages to having a doorbell camera. However, it’s probably best for us just to stick to the main three, which are crime communication, crime deterrence, and smart-home integration. As for communication, most doorbell cameras connect directly to your smartphone. That means you can see what’s on the camera any time, day or night, regardless of where you may be. They also usually include two-way voice talk, which allows you to communicate with anyone at your door through your phone. Having the ability to speak with any person at your door so easily is a big plus.

As for smart home integration, doorbell cameras can easily connect to smart locks, smart lighting, and most importantly, voice assistants. That means you can connect many doorbell cameras to your Alexa or other similar voice assistant, allowing you total voice control over the camera. This makes your doorbell camera even more convenient than it is without such a connection. It allows you to change settings, turn the camera on or off, and communicate with visitors.

Finally, perhaps the biggest benefit of these cameras is crime prevention. Not only does the visual presence of a doorbell camera prevent would-be burglars from breaking into your home, but it protects your parcels from unwanted “porch pirates”. As stated above, billions of dollars worth of packages are stolen every year from front doors and porches. A good doorbell camera can nip that problem in the bud before it ever happens.

More doorbell cameras

If the Ring 4K Pro Doorbell Camera doesn’t suit your needs, then Amazon has lots of other options from which to choose. Whether you want a brand-name camera or opt for a more affordable, lesser-known brand, Amazon has lots of great deals for you to browse. The following is a list of a few of the favorites that we think are worth a look.

Ring 2K Pro Doorbell Camera

Courtesy of Amazon

Check price at Amazon

Blink HD Video Doorbell

Courtesy of Amazon

Check price at Amazon

Arlo 2nd Generation Video Doorbell

Courtesy of Amazon

Check price at Amazon

Google Nest Doorbell

Courtesy of Amazon

Check price at Amazon

TheStreet Shopping is your guide for shopping insights and advice. We look beyond the price tag to find the best value in home, tech, and wellness gear based on product features and real-world use. Read more about our Editorial Standards and How We Choose Our Shopping Deals.

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 deal

Storage cabinets are essential for any home. From bathrooms to entryways, a storage cabinet can reduce clutter and keep you organized. These days, furniture can be pricey, but luckily, there are endless storage cabinet options you can get for under $100.

The Panana Farmhouse Storage Cabinet is on sale for only $61 at Amazon. It’s versatile and compact enough to fit in small spaces, and it’s surprisingly affordable. Originally $71 for the black colorway, it’s 14% off. At its lowest price in a month, it’s a wonderful way to upgrade your home with one of Amazon’s many early Labor Day deals.

Panana Farmhouse Storage Cabinet with Drawers, $61 (was $71) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

Shop at Amazon

Why do shoppers love it?

If you need versatile storage with a timeless look, this cabinet is a fantastic choice. It has a farmhouse-style design, with charming features that can blend in with a variety of styles. It’s available in two colorways: white and black. The white colorway is classic and neutral, and the tabletop with a weathered wood finish gives it a rustic look. The all-black storage cabinet looks a touch sleeker and has more of a modern farmhouse feel, 

Its open and closed storage options add to its versatility. The tabletop is spacious enough to display decor, like a favorite framed photo or a lamp, in any room. There’s an open shelf that provides additional space for more decorative items. Then, you have closed storage. There are three drawers on one side with cut-out pulls that are perfect for smaller items. A sliding barn door on the other side covers two open compartments with an adjustable shelf. But the beauty of this setup is that you can slide the door from side to side, whether you want the compartments to serve as open storage or if you want to conceal them.

The cabinet can be used in practically any room in your home. It would work well in a bathroom, a living room, a hallway, and an entryway. One shopper even used it in a kitchen as a coffee bar.

Related: Amazon’s $108 farmhouse storage cabinet is 5 feet tall and spacious enough for practically anything

Details to know

Dimensions: 23.62 inches long by 11.42 inches wide by 31.81 inches high. 

Material: Wood.

Best for: Bathrooms, kitchens, entryways, hallways, and living rooms. 

According to Amazon shoppers, it’s a nice piece of furniture, especially for the price. Reviewers say it “looks great” and is also “very sturdy.” One customer said everything works smoothly, and it’s “well-built.” They added that the instructions are easy to follow; however, it was time-consuming to put together, taking around 1 and a half hours.

Shop more deals

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The Panana Farmhouse Storage Cabinet is on sale for as low as $61, and it’s a beautiful storage upgrade with the perfect amount of farmhouse flair.

Every growth company eventually faces the moment when the executive who built its financial foundation walks away right as the hardest test begins.

Boeing’s CFO left during 737 Max turmoil. WeWork cycled through finance chiefs as its losses mounted. Investors have learned to read these exits as data points, not footnotes.

Rivian Automotive, Inc. (RIVN) just gave them another one to study, and the details make it harder to wave off as ordinary turnover.

Related: Automakers keep quiet about a U.S. probe into their sensors

Chief Financial Officer Claire McDonough will step down on October 30, according to a regulatory filing Rivian submitted Thursday. She is leaving after nearly six years to become CFO of GE Vernova (GEV), the power equipment maker, a move confirmed by both companies according to CNBC.

Vice President of Finance Derek Mulvey will take over on an interim basis while Rivian looks for a permanent replacement.

In a LinkedIn post addressing her departure, McDonough reflected on her future, calling her work taking Rivian from “an ambitious vision to a category defining enterprise” the highlight of her career while acknowledging that leaving the team is “bittersweet.”

The timing is what makes this more than a routine executive change. McDonough is leaving just as Rivian pushes through the most expensive and operationally complex stretch in its history: ramping production of the R2 SUV, building a second factory in Georgia, and burning through cash faster than it is bringing it in.

Rivian reported a net loss of $833 million in the second quarter and negative free cash flow of $849 million, according to its quarterly filing with the SEC.

The company ended the quarter with $5.3 billion in cash and short-term investments, and it raised roughly $1.3 billion in a follow-on stock offering in July just to keep that cushion intact.

That is not a company in crisis, but it is one that needs its CFO working at full capacity through 2027, not handing off strategic files to an interim replacement.

Rivian CFO Claire McDonough is departing October 30 for GE Vernova as the EV maker navigates its costliest year, and RIVN shares fell 6% on the news.PATRICK T. FALLON / Getty Images

Why Claire McDonough is headed toward the AI power trade

GE Vernova is not a random landing spot. The company, spun off from General Electric in 2024, has become one of the clearest beneficiaries of the AI buildout because it makes the gas turbines and grid equipment data centers need to get power in the first place.

Its order backlog has grown to $176 billion, according to Seeking Alpha, and the stock has climbed sharply this year as hyperscalers scramble to secure electricity.

McDonough will join GE Vernova in November as a strategic advisor before formally becoming CFO on January 1, succeeding retiring finance chief Kenneth Parks, according to CFO.com.

In market terms, that is a significant upgrade: she is trading an EV maker still years from sustained profitability for a company whose order backlog already stretches past a decade.

More Automotive:

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Mazda just made a big change under tariff pressure

Key auto parts maker closes factory, lays off 325 workers

Wall Street is not shrugging this off

Rivian shares fell as much as 6% on Friday, sliding toward $15.80, extending a stock that was already down 15% year to date heading into the announcement, according to 24/7 Wall Street. Shares had also slipped about 2% in after-hours trading Thursday immediately following the filing.

That selloff stood out because it was concentrated in Rivian specifically, not spread evenly across EV stocks or the broader market.

A stock dropping in isolation, rather than alongside its sector, usually means the market is pricing in something specific to the company. Here, that something is uncertainty about who runs Rivian’s finances through its most capital-intensive year yet.

A few numbers frame how much is riding on execution over the next 12 months:

Rivian raised its 2026 delivery guidance to a range of 65,000 to 70,000 vehicles, up from its earlier target, according to its second-quarter earnings report.

The company’s total targeted capital, including a $4.5 billion Department of Energy loan and pending investments from Volkswagen Group and Uber, exceeds $14 billion.

McDonough helped negotiate Rivian’s technology joint venture with Volkswagen, under which VW agreed to invest up to $5.8 billion in exchange for access to Rivian’s software architecture, according to TechCrunch.

What CFO poaching says about AI growth

McDonough’s move fits a pattern that gets less attention than it deserves. As AI infrastructure spending reshapes which industries generate the fastest, most visible growth, finance executives are following the capital.

A company like GE Vernova, sitting inside the physical infrastructure layer of the AI boom, can now offer a career trajectory that a capital-constrained EV maker cannot easily match.

That dynamic should worry Rivian’s board less than the immediate succession question, but it points to a structural challenge ahead.

Retaining senior finance talent gets harder when a company is competing for the same executives being courted by the sector generating the market’s biggest returns right now.

Rivian’s search for its next CFO just started and it will be an early test of whether the company can still win that competition, and whether investors treat the outcome as reassurance or as one more reason to watch the R2 ramp even more closely.

Related: Tesla rival trims spending plans despite revenue beat