The Street

Walmart just showed investors that even a strong quarter can come with a warning.

The retailer beat Wall Street expectations in its fiscal second quarter, with revenue rising 5.9% to $187.9 billion and adjusted earnings reaching 81 cents per share, CNBC confirmed. 

But the company’s outlook for the next quarter disappointed investors, and Walmart shares fell sharply following the report. 

There was a particularly important reason for that cautious outlook.

Walmart is choosing to go all-in on lower prices. And that may be the company’s most important investment right now.

Walmart is spending on what shoppers care about most

Walmart management was unusually direct about its strategy during its second-quarter 2027 earnings call.

“We’re investing heavily in price because customers need us to,” said CEO John Furner.

That’s a simple statement, but it explains a lot about Walmart’s thinking. The retailer is using money that could otherwise flow toward higher profits to make products cheaper for customers. 

Related: Major supermarket chain closing more stores

Walmart has already rolled back prices on more than 11,000 items. And the company says those investments will weigh more heavily in the coming quarter — hence the disconnect between Walmart’s strong second-quarter results and the market’s negative reaction.

The company reported solid revenue growth, while its U.S. comparable-store sales increased 2.6%. 

But investors may not love the fact that the company appears willing to sacrifice some near-term profitability to reinforce its reputation as the retailer consumers can count on for low prices. 

Walmart is doing everything possible to keep prices low for customers.Iv-olga/Shutterstock.com

Consumers still need a break

Inflation has cooled from its recent highs, but that doesn’t mean consumers suddenly feel comfortable.

The latest available Consumer Price Index showed prices rising 3.4% over the 12 months ending in July. Grocery prices increased 2.7%, while gasoline prices rose 24.6%.

Those numbers help explain why Walmart’s price strategy matters.

Consumers don’t necessarily need to be in an economic crisis to change their shopping habits. They simply need to feel that their paycheck isn’t going as far as it used to.

Recent consumer behavior suggests exactly that. Reuters reported that shoppers are becoming more selective, with middle-income consumers prioritizing necessities and postponing larger purchases as gasoline prices and other costs remain elevated. 

That environment plays directly into Walmart’s strengths.

This could be Walmart’s smartest move

Walmart already has an enormous reach. That gives it an advantage when negotiating with suppliers and distributing products across its stores, warehouses, and digital business.

Now, the company is using some of that advantage to make prices more attractive.

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That’s not necessarily the easiest strategy for investors to embrace, since lower prices can mean lower margins.

But Walmart isn’t trying to win one quarter. It’s trying to secure loyal customers in the long run.

Of course, it’s worth noting that foot traffic has been moderate at Walmart. Visits rose 0.7% year over year at Walmart in Q2, with average visits per location up 0.6%, according to data from Placer.ai. 

“Walmart’s in-store traffic growth has been softer than its other superstore peers, but that is not a full indication of its performance,” Elizabeth Lafontaine, director of research at Placer.ai, told TheStreet. 

“Continued growth in its digital channels and customer-service-based options like delivery may be outpacing the rate of store visits. A pick-up during the back-to-school period may signal consumer affinity as shoppers look for deals and lower prices amidst economic uncertainty.”

All told, if shoppers believe Walmart is consistently cheaper than its competitors, that can drive more traffic, larger baskets, and additional market-share gains. 

And that’s why the company’s decision to invest in lower prices makes sense. 

At a time when consumers are still watching every dollar, Walmart is betting that giving shoppers a reason to believe they’re getting a better deal will pay off over the long term.

Maurie Backman owns shares of Walmart.

Related: Costco makes key move to expand membership base

The SpaceX (SPCX) stock has taken its investors on a bumpy ride since its June debut.

Shares are down 6.9% year-to-date through Aug. 26 and over their nearly three months of public trading, according to Yahoo Finance data. At around $139.63, the stock traded 38% below its June record of $225.64.

Investors are now looking for the next business that’s capable of justifying SpaceX’s lofty valuation, but Bank of America has identified an important wrinkle in its wireless ambitions.

SpaceX has kept expanding beyond rockets. Its first public earnings report showed quarterly sales ballooning almost 50% to $7.81 billion as Starlink and AI sales surged, per Reuters.

The company also acquired 65 megahertz of EchoStar (ECHO) spectrum for $19.6 billion, allowing Starlink greater room to evolve beyond satellite broadband and direct-to-cell coverage into a broader mobile offering.

That opens up the door for a massive new market, but it also moves SpaceX a lot to entrench telecom operators. 

As reported by Seeking Alpha, Bank of America sees that wireless push as credible but feels executing it might require a lot more terrestrial infrastructure, industry cooperation, and time than SpaceX investors currently expect.

BofA sees a costly catch in SpaceX’s wireless push

BofA’s takeaway is that SpaceX’s wireless push might actually help its apparent targets.

Following discussions with T-Mobile (TMUS) CTO John Saw and Crown Castle (CCI), BofA analyst Matthew Griffiths said Starlink is more likely to complement terrestrial networks instead of replace them.

The problem at this point is primarily infrastructure.

SpaceX has satellite capacity and cellular spectrum, but going up against a nationwide carrier requires a lot more transmitting signals from orbit. It would require thousands of towers and small cells, along with energy, fiber, leases, and zoning approvals, along with multiple years of construction.

Related: JPMorgan doubles down on SpaceX verdict on key update

One potential shortcut involves customer-hosted femtocells, or miniature cellular base stations.

However, he estimates that matching T-Mobile’s outdoor coverage requires between 500 million and 1.5 billion femtocells nationwide. At nearly $1,000 each, the equipment alone might cost hundreds of billions of dollars before fiber, power, or maintenance.

Crown Castle argued that femtocells are a lot better in filling isolated coverage gaps. For broader service, SpaceX still needs towers offering reliable coverage, permitting support, power, and fiber.

SpaceX has the money to deploy sites quickly. Even so, BofA said matching established carriers on coverage, capacity, indoor reception, and seamless mobility requires massive spectrum along with several years of execution.

Starlink aims far beyond rural broadband 

Plans for Starlink were originally straightforward. 

It involved using low Earth orbit satellites to provide broadband where fiber and cellular towers are unavailable.

That said, Musk’s wireless ambitions are far bigger. When SpaceX and T-Mobile announced direct-to-cell connectivity back in August 2022, Musk said:

“The important thing about this is that it means there are no dead zones anywhere in the world for your cell phone.”

That service uses Starlink satellites and carrier spectrum to connect ordinary phones in areas beyond terrestrial coverage. However, SpaceX is looking to the past, complementing wireless carriers to go up against them. 

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As reported by LightReading, SpaceX scooped up 65 megahertz of wireless spectrum from EchoStar for $19.6 billion. President Gwynne Shotwell subsequently said SpaceX would add terrestrial infrastructure to create a “true mobile service,” expecting to secure “quite a few” customers from T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon, believing that Starlink’s service would be better.

Musk’s claims have been even loftier, as reported by GeekWire, arguing Starlink might “deliver a majority of the world’s internet” in “less than 10 years.”

Those are incredibly aggressive claims. 

Starlink’s satellite advantage is the strongest in rural areas, disaster zones, aviation, and maritime connectivity. Moreover, dense cities offer far greater capacity, indoor coverage, and network reuse than satellites alone can provide.

That’s where BofA’s findings are so pertinent.

SpaceX could eliminate multiple dead zones, but matching nationwide wireless networks would require thousands of terrestrial sites, more spectrum, fiber, power, and local permits. Starlink could, in many ways, become a formidable wireless layer without fully replacing tower-based networks.

Starlink still pays SpaceX’s bills as AI spending explodes 

Starlink is still paying the bills at SpaceX, even as Musk predicts AI could become its largest business.

SpaceX’s Connectivity segment, the closest proxy for Starlink, generated a tremendous $4.29 billion in Q2 sales, up 66% year over year.

That represented an eye-catching 54.9% of SpaceX’s $7.81 billion in sales, compared to $2.56 billion from AI and $962 million from launches, as per company results.

Starlink produced $1.66 billion in operating profit, while AI lost around $1.26 billion, and SpaceX posted a $541 million net loss.

Starlink wrapped up the quarter with 12 million subscribers, double its prior-year total. However, average monthly sales per subscriber tanked 22% to $66 as SpaceX expanded through cheaper international plans. That makes its enterprise, government, aviation, and maritime customers a lot more important. Musk expects enterprise sales to “substantially exceed consumer revenue.”

Yet he forecasts a major shift toward AI.

“Definitely, our AI revenue will exceed all other SpaceX revenue probably in September,” Musk told employees, adding it would “significantly exceed” the rest of SpaceX in Q4.

That’s a steep climb to say the least. AI generated $2.56 billion in Q2, while SpaceX’s other businesses produced $5.25 billion. Assuming those operations remain flat, AI sales will need to more than double to go past them.

Moreover, as we look ahead, Musk plans to expand AI computing capacity from 1.4 gigawatts to 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027, generating $300 billion to $500 billion annually.

However, Q2 AI sales annualize to just $10.2 billion, and SpaceX spent $15.8 billion on AI infrastructure while the operation remained unprofitable.

Bank of America says SpaceX faces hurdles building a nationwide wireless network. Allison Robbert-Pool/Getty Images

What BofA’s warning means for SpaceX investors

BofA isn’t predicting failure for SpaceX investors, but it’s questioning how much of Starlink’s status as a potential national carrier disruptor is being priced-in by investors. 

That matters a ton because its valuation leaves virtually zero room for missteps.

According to Seeking Alpha data, the stock’s trading at over 1,585-times forward non-GAAP earnings, 11,472% higher than the sector. In essence, investors are already paying for success across every major SpaceX vertical. 

As we look ahead, investors need to look out for tower-leasing agreements, carrier partnerships, and new spectrum purchases along with direct-to-device revenue disclosures.

Moreover, growing enterprise sales and stable Starlink margins will strengthen the thesis even more. Surging terrestrial spending without corresponding subscriber growth will weaken it.

For existing shareholders, wireless offers meaningful upside, but it shouldn’t be valued as an imminent takeover of the U.S. mobile market.

Perhaps the strongest bullish signal might be SpaceX effectively partnering with others in sharing network costs. On the flipside, the biggest risk involves trying to build the entire network on its own. 

Related: Top analyst sees trouble looming for SpaceX stock

Leaving a job is stressful enough. Then comes the paperwork question nobody fully explains: what do you do with your old retirement account?

Most people assume rolling a 401k into an IRA is the obvious move. It often is. But the way you do it, and the choices you make along the way, can have real consequences for your tax bill and your long-term balance.

The CFP Board of Standards published a rollover guide on August 19 specifically to address two assumptions that advisors say cost investors money every year, according to CNBC.

Why a direct rollover is almost always the right first move

There are two ways to move money from a 401k to an IRA. The direct rollover and the indirect rollover.

In a direct rollover, your old plan sends the money straight to your new IRA custodian. You never touch it. No taxes are withheld. No deadline applies. The transaction shows up on your Form 1099-R with a code indicating it is nontaxable. This is the recommended method.

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In an indirect rollover, your old plan sends the money to you. Then you have 60 days to deposit it into an IRA. The plan is required by law to withhold 20% of the distribution for federal income taxes before cutting you the check.

The 20% withholding is where people get into trouble. More on that in a moment. Start with the direct rollover and you avoid the problem entirely.

The 20% withholding trap that catches people off guard

Say you have $100,000 in your old 401k and you choose the indirect route. You will receive a check for $80,000. The plan withheld the other $20,000 for taxes.

To complete a valid rollover and avoid paying taxes on the distribution, you need to deposit the full $100,000 into an IRA within 60 days. Not $80,000. The full $100,000.

That means you need to cover the missing $20,000 from your own savings. If you do, you get the withheld amount back when you file your tax return. If you cannot come up with it, the $20,000 counts as a taxable distribution. You pay income tax on it at your ordinary rate. If you are under 59½, you also pay a 10% early withdrawal penalty on top of that, according to the IRS.

There is one more rule worth knowing. The IRS limits you to one indirect rollover per 12-month period across all of your IRAs combined. Not per account. All of them. If you do a second one in the same year, it is treated as a fully taxable distribution. The rule does not apply to direct rollovers, which is another reason to use those instead.

There are two ways to move money from a 401k to an IRA. The direct rollover and the indirect rollover.Alvaro/Getty Images

The fees that could be quietly eating your balance

Rolling from a 401k to an IRA does not eliminate fees. It can actually increase them depending on where you land.

Large 401k plans negotiate institutional rates on investments because they represent thousands of participants. Individual IRA accounts do not have that leverage. The expense ratios on funds available inside a 401k are often lower than what you find as an individual investor. Before you move your money, compare the investment options and costs available in both places.

The custodian you choose also matters. Fidelity, Vanguard and Charles Schwab charge nothing to open an IRA and carry no annual maintenance fees. Regional banks and specialty custodians may charge $50 to $300 per year, according to CNBC. That might not sound significant on a large balance, but it compounds over decades the same way your investment returns do.

The CFP Board also flagged advisor fees as a cost to watch. Rolling a 401k into an IRA managed by a financial advisor who charges a percentage of assets under management adds an ongoing cost that did not exist when your money was in the employer plan. Make sure you understand what you will pay and what you are getting in return.

What to check before you complete the rollover

Two things the CFP Board wants people to know before they move.

First: you do not have to roll over when you leave a job. Most 401k plans allow you to leave the money where it is after you separate from your employer. Few people do, but it is an option. If your old plan has strong investment options at low costs, staying put can make sense.

Second: this decision is not easily undone. Once the rollover is complete, reversing it is complicated and sometimes impossible. Do the comparison before you initiate the transfer, not after.

A few other things worth reviewing before you act. If you are between 55 and 59½ and you left your job this year or recently, check whether the Rule of 55 applies to you. It allows penalty-free withdrawals from a 401k in that window, according to the IRS. Roll the money into an IRA and you lose that access, because IRA early withdrawal rules use 59½ as the threshold, not 55.

If you are 73 or older, you must take your required minimum distribution for the year before you roll anything over. RMDs cannot be rolled over. Rolling the distribution along with the rest of your balance is a compliance error, according to CNBC.

And if your 401k holds highly appreciated company stock, look at the NUA rules before you move. In the right situation, those rules let you pay capital gains rates on the appreciation when you eventually sell, rather than ordinary income rates. Rolling the stock into an IRA before checking can eliminate that option permanently.

Related: Dave Ramsey says 3 things set 401(k), Roth 401(k), IRA apart

Transcript:

Caroline WoodsJoining me now is Andrew Graham, managing partner, Jackson Square Capital. Andrew, great to have you back.

Andrew GrahamThanks for having me back. It’s good to be here.

Caroline WoodsSecond time this summer. You were last here in early July. So we’ll check back in with you on on your how your market view has changed. But before we do, let’s talk about Nvidia because Nvidia just delivered another record quarter getting rewarded today, which was sort of the question will Nvidia be higher or lower after earnings.

Caroline WoodsDoes this put the AI spending slowdown. Fear is officially too bad.

Andrew GrahamNo definitely not. You know it’s just going to creep up again I suppose. I think Nvidia the most you know what you said is up today after earnings. They had four quarters in a row where they had excellent earnings and awesome guidance. And the stock went down. It didn’t go anywhere. And so the multiple is compressed down to 21.5 times as low as it’s been in a decade.

Andrew GrahamShould you own it? Yes. You should definitely own the stock. Is the the questions around circular financing and all the rest of it going to go away? No, it’s still going to be an issue. But hey, our bull market climbs a wall. I suppose a lot of these stocks have to do their own climbing of walls.

Andrew GrahamAnd Nvidia I think is, is is laying the foundation for the full stack of AI. And that includes, you know, owning the land and and the transportation and all of it.

Caroline WoodsSo you say, should you own it? Yes. Should you buy it here? Yes, yes. When you were last on and early July you actually picked Broadcom over Nvidia. Yeah. Do you still pick it here.

Andrew GrahamI’m not afraid of Broadcom or it’s sort of mini me which is Marvell which is going to report earnings tonight. Both I think have a great opportunity I think it’s coming later though. So you’re going to get customer clients or corporates, they’re going to have multiple Asics, right? Different different semiconductors for different purposes within inference.

Andrew GrahamAnd the probably in my my mind, the guess is that those are the incumbents like Broadcom and Marvell are the ones they’re going to want to go to for a partner in terms of developing those chips. Yes. It’s coming. It’s probably a 20 2829 kind of story. But yeah Broadcom has been a little bit weaker than I would like to see.

Andrew GrahamBut I’m not afraid of it at all. And and I think you give it a little bit more room than you would another stock because business is this is.

Caroline WoodsBooming and it has bounced since you were last on. But last time you were here we were seeing this pullback in tech stocks. And you said that was the opportunity to reload. It has since bounced. Yeah. So has that ship sailed.

Andrew GrahamNo not at all. I think the the bounce that you got was just after sort of a momentum on mine, which is I think in this cycle, this is probably the eighth time it’s happened and it just happened again. We had three weeks of calm, and then all of a sudden we got into August and you saw, you know, the momentum pairs like down 33% or whatever.

Andrew GrahamSo it’s really a unique time. I think it goes back to something which is the pain trade, which is always to look where everybody’s sitting on one side of the boat, you go have to take the other side of it. And I think as we go into September and everybody’s got their, you know, head full of September seasonal weakness and midterm elections, all the rest of it.

Andrew GrahamThe pain trades probably too much cash. So I think if you put it to work just look to put it to work. Admittedly it’s we’re in the middle of a summer vacation season, and so it’s a little tough to, like, derive too much signal from price action. But, I think when we get back and September conference season starts, I think you’re going to see, opportunity there because that conference season is usually an opportunity for for corporates, for management teams to guide the sell side lower.

Andrew GrahamI don’t think that’s the case. It wasn’t last year, and I don’t think it’s going to be this year either. We’re in the middle of a just a boom in earnings growth.

Caroline WoodsIf I have cash to put to work and I’m underweight tech, if I don’t have enough exposure to tech right now, do I put it to work today or do I wait until September when maybe we see or you know, some of the volatility that we could see around midterms.

Andrew GrahamSo what we do a little bit of technical stuff. We don’t like to admit it. And I’m a CFA I to schooled of you know I supposed to know that. But so we you know in the dark, in the shadows, we’re doing some technical work. They’re not perfect yet. They’re not there yet. And we want to make sure we’re buying stuff at the exact right time, because what we found is clients don’t like to lose money, so none of them look super easy.

Andrew GrahamI think Marvell looks good going into earnings tonight. I think they’re going to get rewarded. The deal they did with Google is $20 billion is transformational for that company. And I think the the buy side at the time was at $12 billion. So I don’t know if it’s in a lot of numbers yet. They’re going higher, I would suspect.

Andrew GrahamI think they get rewarded.

Caroline WoodsOkay. So Marvell is a pick your two highest conviction make seven picks. You know, last month or I guess, yeah, in early July, July 9th were Alphabet and Amazon. Would you say those are still your highest conviction picks?

Andrew GrahamYeah. And, you know, I throw Microsoft in there as well. And I think there is a, just a group of software stocks that seem to be built for this inference, a genetic, economy. Microsoft seems to be one of them. And so does Twilio. You know, it’s looking at the quarterly reports and so does Shopify, believe it or not.

Andrew GrahamAnd, Cloudflare as well. So those, those numbers, just hockey sticks straight up in Q2. I want to see what they do when they report next. But yeah, that’s that’s an interesting group. I think within software there’s that little niche in there. And those are the names that we’ve identified that I think look good.

Caroline WoodsThere are a lot of software stocks on steeper sales and Twilio, which is up more than 60% year to date. Cloudflare is up 50%. Names like snowflake up 50%. So you say those are the beneficiaries of this inference economy. What’s your view on software overall? Do you find any first of all, would you buy those names here?

Caroline WoodsAnd do you have any cheaper names that you could recommend.

Andrew GrahamWe would buy Twilio and here we own Cloudflare. Admittedly it’s an expensive stock right. A very expensive stock. But they’re really well positioned. So you wait for your, your, pick your spot on Cloudflare. I think when you’re talking about sort of the old, you know, the, the, the out of favor software names like, Salesforce, you know, just had a good earnings print.

Caroline WoodsIn favor today, up 20%.

Andrew GrahamFor sure. And I’m sure there’s a lot of people are short the stock. And you got to cover but they’re you know, they’re they’re showing signs of the ability to monetize their AI product. And at higher, higher levels, higher prices. So good for them. And I suggest, you know, it’s probably going to be others as well.

Andrew GrahamSo is it time to trade out of semis in the software? No, you probably have enough dry powder. You could add some for me. I would add those faster names. But on pullbacks, if you get them small pullbacks. But yeah, I would add those faster.

Caroline WoodsIf you could only add one snowflake. Cloudflare. Twilio. Which one would it be?

Andrew GrahamI think it would have to be Cloudflare. I mean, it’s been with me for a long time. We’ve owned it for a long time, almost as long as we’ve owned Nvidia. It’s a newer company. But yeah. So that’s, that’s I think the, the crown jewel. But we have bought little bits and pieces of Twilio, sort of adding it slowly as well.

Caroline WoodsAll right. We haven’t gotten to rapid Fire yet, but Cloudflare or Microsoft.

Andrew GrahamIn here Microsoft. Yeah. At the moment.

Caroline WoodsSo across all of tech chips, hyperscalers, networking software, cybersecurity. Where do you see the most upside from here?

Andrew GrahamNetworking. Networking for sure. So you’ve got scale across coming which is data center interconnect. Right now there’s about a million ports dedicated to DCI in the United States. That’s going to go to 20 or 30 million over the course of the next four years. That’s a big opportunity for anybody who’s in the Jericho L3 style switch making business, which is Cisco and Arista.

Andrew GrahamAnd those two names look great. And as you move further out the curve and you get into the scale up architecture, which right now is dominated by NVLink, which is, a product, of course, of Nvidia. That’s all going to change to Ethernet based products that, that these guys makes, Cisco and, and Arista. So those are probably our two favorite names right now.

Andrew GrahamPeriod. Full stop. And we want to own them for the long haul.

Caroline WoodsNot just your favorite names, though. They’re both up almost 50% or more than 50%. Not too late to get in.

Andrew GrahamNot too late to get in. I look, you know, we look at these things, I look at it every day. Unfortunately, I’m moving around a little bit today but spent a lot of time, you know, checking things out a rest. It looks great right now.

Caroline WoodsSo your price target was 7840 by your end for the S&P 500. Are you sticking with that. No.

Andrew GrahamWe’re going to lift it based on what we’ve seen from earnings and estimate revisions estimates. You know since the start of the Iran or whatever have gone up 16% for 2026. We’re going to do in the S&P. I’m going to do 32% earnings growth this year, something like that. And next year, if it goes down to 1213 I don’t care.

Andrew GrahamThat’s not a bear market. That’s double digit earnings growth. And you don’t want to pick a fight with that.

Caroline WoodsSo lift it to what.

Andrew GrahamSure. 8500. It’s such a tough thing, especially by year end. Like I don’t work on a calendar year and I’m like, on a rolling 12 month basis. That’s all that matters, is that we stay ahead of the curve that way. But, Higher. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Put a number on it.

Caroline WoodsIf I had $10,000 sitting in cash right now, how much of that money would you put in this market today?

Andrew Graham

Okay. Because I think it’s another opportunity here and there. Just kind of waiting for spots. Like nothing looks perfect, nothing looks easy. And a lot of it’s kind of murky because of the time of year, you know, and I think one of the reasons why I think what the Treasury probably stepped up their purchases because of illiquidity this time of year, it’s my least favorite time for the market.

Andrew GrahamIt’s dull. It’s boring. The price action doesn’t really mean as much as it should. But again, I think you’re going to have a really bullish September, corporate, meeting season. And, management teams will have an opportunity to sort of guide, you know, whether they give numbers or not. And I think you’ll see numbers go higher at those meetings in September.

Andrew GrahamSo we’re looking for September. Seasonal slowness. Seasonality is such a dumb concept anyway for me. And I would come on and and midterm elections, I think 32% earnings growth wipes all out out 12% next year 13% if that’s your guess wipes it all out.

Caroline WoodsSo I’m trying to look at the timeline though because that’s what yeah August 27th right now. And you’re saying September is going to be bullish. So yeah the other 8000 of that 10,000. What I having a pullback like tomorrow you think or.

Andrew GrahamYeah I don’t know. But I wouldn’t say so much pullback. It’s not just pullback. It’s it’s price and time for us. And you you can see it. And we’ve created technical screens that help us get to that moment where you can tell when things are sort of washed out. When things change I think soon.

Caroline WoodsWhat’s the signal that you’d be looking for? What’s the signal that a retail investor should say? Okay, I think right. Said by my chance,

Andrew GrahamThey’re they’re pullbacks to oversold levels and whatever you want to use as your guide there. So if you’re using a slowed stochastic or something like that I think that’s probably the best tool. And then within, you know, good technical chart, Patterson you’ve got to have that fundamental pipeline too. Like the good thing about being a professional is you’ve got all these sell side firms giving you, you know, stuff all the time.

Andrew GrahamYou’ve got this pipeline and, and it’s really important that you stay on top of these stories. So it’s it’s tough. Somebody comes on TV and tells you to buy marble and, you know, you might own it for a while and all the sudden the story falls apart. So staying on top of the story is critical. And it’s the fundamentals of our all the names that we mentioned are excellent.

Andrew GrahamIt’s just like they’re not quite there yet, and I’m hoping that they get there. And I think it’s just time. I think maybe even who knows, two weeks from now.

Caroline WoodsOkay. We’ve focused a lot on tech. Yeah. What are your favorite areas outside of tech to invest in right now?

Andrew GrahamHealthcare. Yeah. And then, you know, if you want to go back to the seeds now, the midterm thing, health care is the one that acts the best through there. It has defensive characteristics, obviously, and it’s had a good run to Lilly’s our biggest position in the broad health care universe. But we’ve recently added to our dividend yielding portfolio, have a lower beta, strategy.

Andrew GrahamWe’ve added some of the, you know, health care services names like Unh and CVS and so forth, grab the dividend and and go along. So, health care would be number one. I’m really interested in retail, and in consumer discretionary. You saw the flash PMI data last week for August. It’s probably lines with about 3% real GDP growth.

Andrew GrahamWe did 1.5% real GDP growth in Q2. That’s a pickup in business momentum. And I think that’s what you’ve got to brace for. And it’s almost like the cyclical stocks. And you can put consumer discretionary in that group look like they’re waiting for permission you know, to go higher. And I think that they could release higher as well.

Andrew GrahamI’m not sure which one to pick in retail and apparel and so forth. But in healthcare it’s a lot easier. The pharma names all look good. And I think the, the, the management, health care management stocks.

Caroline WoodsSo how do you play the consumer discretionary trade then? If stock picking could be hard because we did hear from a lot of retailers. You’re still hearing from them in terms of earnings. But a lot of winners a lot of losers. Yeah.

Andrew GrahamOur favorite is just the off of price stuff. You know the TJX which is had a big pullback but sort of a weird execution issue last last quarter. And something to do with their buying the wrong, you know, stuff. They didn’t have enough of it. So I would put that on double secret probation. But going back to, you know, Costco, King Costco and and those names, even Walmart after a stumble, that was a one time stumble.

Andrew GrahamSo, yeah, if you want to take the risk in the volatility down your account, you’ve got too much tech. Then you’d probably, you know, have those bigger names.

Caroline WoodsOkay. So we have our tech health care consumer discretionary in the portfolio. What’s out of the portfolio.

Andrew GrahamUtilities are out. I’m not sure if they’re over there in a big way either. Reads are very small with us. Again, it fits in that that dividend yield think lower beta strategy and and materials which we which we want to own. But we’re having a hard time, you know, finding the right the right stocks.

Andrew GrahamWe own Ivanhoe Electric which has a big copper mine coming online in North America and Arizona, Santa Cruz copper mine in, next year. So I think that’s a sight to look at, but it’s a smaller market cap. It’s not Freeport. Right. Our, HP it’s just smaller. So, that name we own, we do on some Freeport kind of running away here.

Andrew GrahamBut, yeah, it’s tough. And materials and the chemicals aren’t going to work if the oil’s moving through the Strait of Hormuz because Dow and Lion Dell, the reason why those workers are using natural gas as a feedstock to make polyethylene versus all competitors globally who use oil. So those are off the board. So materials are tough. Yeah.

Andrew GrahamThere’s a lot that’s off. We’re very heavy tech. I would say we’re 55% tech.

Caroline WoodsSo you gave a lot of names. I’m sure our viewers will be happy to hear a lot of those stock picks.

Andrew GrahamYeah.

Caroline WoodsIf you could only buy one safest bet of all the names that you’ve mentioned today, which would it be.

Andrew GrahamA risk to? I took a big deep and.

Caroline WoodsI said, that’s not Nvidia. I was expecting Nvidia. But okay. No, no.

Andrew GrahamIt’s going to be Cisco or it’s going to be Arista. And Cisco is like everybody’s like, no, I don’t want to on Cisco. So I think it’s their dad’s legacy.

Caroline WoodsYeah. Right.

Andrew GrahamThe old business or whatever. Their products are great. They’re very well received for the data center and of course, campus networking, Swift business, very well receive. And, I just I think that’s the name that’s, you know, you’re going to grab a dividend, sort of a slower name, faster name business. Arista.

Caroline WoodsOkay. Yeah. All right. Let’s pivot to our rapid fire round of this so that although we’ve kind of. Yeah, included a few of those in already you’ve played before. Quick questions, quick answers. No heading hedging. Are you ready?

Andrew GrahamYeah. There’s no clues either. There is no giving them side.

Caroline WoodsQuestions ahead of time. Ready. All right. Here we go. Yeah Cisco or Arista Networks.

Andrew GrahamAlso just did that I’m going to go at the moment Arista.

Caroline WoodsBuy this market or wait for a pullback.

Andrew GrahamWell I guess broadly buy this market.

Caroline WoodsStay invested or raise some cash.

Andrew GrahamStay invested.

Caroline WoodsTech buy now or wait for another shakeout.

Andrew GrahamBy now.

Caroline WoodsSemis or software?

Andrew GrahamThat’s a really good one. I think still semi’s.

Caroline WoodsChips or networking?

Andrew GrahamNetworking.

Caroline WoodsGoogle or Amazon?

Andrew GrahamI’m going to go with Google.

Caroline WoodsNvidia or Broadcom.

Andrew GrahamNvidia.

Caroline WoodsChange of answer there. Snowflake or Cloudflare, Cloudflare, Palo Alto or CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, Okta or CrowdStrike.

Andrew GrahamCrowdStrike.

Caroline WoodsAnthropic friend or foe of the I trade.

Andrew GrahamWow, that’s a good question. I think they’re going to have to change the way they do things at anthropic, to be perfectly honest. Eventually get there. Maybe, I would say, friend, because they’re on the frontier there, you know? But,

Caroline WoodsFriend OpenAI or anthropic.

Andrew GrahamOh, boy. I would say OpenAI.

Caroline WoodsBitcoin at 80,000. Opportunity or.

Andrew GrahamOpportunity.

Caroline WoodsBitcoin or gold?

Andrew GrahamGold.

Caroline WoodsAll right. Finish this sentence. The one stock I’d buy today is Marvell.

Andrew GrahamInstantaneous gratification. You gotta print this this evening.

Caroline WoodsThe one stock I’d sell today is wow.

Andrew GrahamGosh, that is a hard one. Is there a pass button?

Caroline WoodsHow about the one stock I’d avoid today is.

Andrew GrahamYeah. I would, I would say I would avoid the, the hard disk drive companies. I think they’re pretty rich. There’s room for them to move higher, but they’ve, you know, had such a big run. So, you know, you’re in the Western Digital kind of world, and that stock has been a little bit weaker.

Andrew GrahamSo. But Western Digital in there, even though you’re picking a fight with an amazing, you know, growth trend.

Caroline WoodsThe next leg of AI leadership comes from.

Andrew GrahamWell, it’s open source models. And it’s going to, you know, it’s going to proliferate faster, with the open source models. And now that Nvidia is in that business, apparently, and others. And that was kind of my problem with the anthropic OpenAI question. I really think that lights it up here. Things are getting less expensive. OpenAI just did a, a price cut, as well.

Andrew GrahamAnd I think it’s just going to drive adoption really, really quickly. So this is the this is the part where it really picks up. And Jensen had some way of framing, you know, this is the golden age of of startups and so on and so forth. I would believe him when he says that. I know sometimes comes off a little promotional, but it feels to me like that’s the case again, when you go back that second quarter earnings press from Twilio and Shopify and all the rest of it, it looks like crazy hockey stick.

Caroline WoodsSo the most misunderstood trade is.

Andrew GrahamI again, I guess the pain trade is, I think, misunderstood when, when and where and what is where. It’s the place to be. And I think, like I said, cash is the is the main trade. So waiting for the midterms which I’ve heard from clients and so on. We love our clients. But sometimes, you know, we’re getting the consensus view and, the pain trades all about taking the other side of the consensus view.

Andrew GrahamAnd I do know that there is a lot of cash on the sidelines. And so, yeah, keep your eye on that. That’s been the most consistent trade all year. If you can identify where everybody’s sitting, you know, you go to take the other side. And and that’s paid off.

Caroline WoodsThe one thing that could break this rally is.

Andrew GrahamI think it’s, widening credit spreads. You know, there’s just so much that you can absorb. The investment grade market can take in, in terms of, of new issuance. And you’ve got, you know, Broadcom $60 billion deal that comes in. It’s hard to bring it to in the middle of summer vacation season. But all the debt issuance that’s coming in $250 billion from the hyperscalers next year.

Andrew GrahamIt looks like it’s $400 billion probably. And what they’d like to get done in issuance. And I just think you have to happen a little slower because the the market can’t digest that. They’re not natural buyers.

Caroline WoodsLike the smartest move a retail investor could make today is.

Andrew GrahamI would make sure. Yeah. Know what your own, add, positions when they’re oversold, only. And, try to hang on to the winners as long as you can. So a lot of sage advice in there, but, I’ve been doing this for 41 years. Yeah. You got to sell the losers and keep the winners.

Andrew GrahamAnd it’s pretty apparent once you buy it, you’re going to know right away if you have a winner or a loser.

Caroline WoodsBut you couldn’t think of a loser to sell.

Andrew GrahamI know, I know, it’s rough. I’ve already sold them. That’s the thing. So yeah, we don’t have any losers in the book right now. And those are the names that we follow. So we’re happy to take a realized loss as long as it’s small. Keep it tight, like 15%, and then we’re going to move on. We’re gonna keep that’s like a tax asset and then take that cash and redeploy it.

Andrew GrahamWe want to redeploy whatever cash we have right now. It’s we’re finding it difficult, but, you know, we’ll get there, I think, in the next couple of weeks.

Caroline WoodsOkay. All right. We’ll leave it there. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Lots of good picks, lots of good insight. That’s Andrew Graham, managing partner in Jackson Square Capital. If you enjoyed this street talk check out our full interview with Anastasia Amoroso. She explains why the eye trade is changing and where to invest next.

While owning a camper and traveling the world is still a dream for my family, many lucky RV owners are staying at home instead of hitting the road. 

During the pandemic boom, consumer demand for RVs surged, driving rapid dealership expansion. And now, as the outdoor recreation boom has cooled and consumers are forced to cut their discretionary spending amid rising fuel and food costs, the industry is trying to catch up to that reality. 

One of the nation’s largest retailers of RVs, RV accessories, and RV-related services,  Camping World Holdings Inc. (CWH) has operated since 1966. It went public in 2016, raising $251 million. 

As of mid-2026, the company has a market cap of $672.45 million. Year-to-date and over the last five years, its shares have dropped 32.96% and 83.65%, respectively, to $6.51 per share. 

To battle the harsh industry environment, the retailer made operational changes, including store closures and consolidations. 

Camping World closes 13 locations in 12 months 

Camping World’s store footprint decreased by 10 store locations over the 12 months ended March 31, 2026, the company reported in its Form 10-Q filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

The company’s financial statements revealed that Camping World actually consolidated 10 store locations, closed three stores, temporarily closed one location, and opened four new locations. 

During the first-quarter earnings call, newly appointed CEO Matt Wagner (since January 2026) attributed the improvement in Selling, General, and Administrative expenses (SG&A) partly to these consolidation efforts. 

“On SG&A, I’m very pleased with our progress. The 135 basis point improvement in SG&A to gross profit and the $29 million reduction reflects a fundamentally lower cost basis, not onetime savings. This includes $19 million of compensation reduction in the quarter and the consolidation of 13 store locations over the last year that sharpened the efficiency of our footprint,” Wagner said. 

Camping World documents also disclosed that in 2025 alone, the company’s full-time employee count dropped from 12,701 to 11,144. 

Camping World closes 13 locations over 12 months. krblokhin / Getty Images

Why Camping World has been closing stores 

Camping World has closed select stores over the last few years to improve profitability and raise unit count and margin profile per store. 

Based on the company’s filing, for the 12 months ended March 31, 2026, the company consolidated and closed stores “to improve overall cost efficiency of the remaining store locations.

“After enduring several difficult years following the post-pandemic boom, Camping World appears to have reached an important inflection point. Management has aggressively reduced inventory, streamlined operations, cut expenses, improved liquidity, and paid down debt. At the same time, the company has embraced AI to reduce operating costs and improve customer service,” Seeking Alpha analyst Brad Thomas recently wrote. 

However, industry pressures recently sparked rumors of the retailer’s potential bankruptcy as it battles the harsh outdoor industry environment. 

Camping World was recently rumored to be heading toward bankruptcy 

Earlier this year, a viral social media post on X (the former Twitter) claimed that Camping World was facing Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to $3.5 billion in unpayable debt. X user Roger compared Camping World’s case to the recent West Marine bankruptcy. 

Former Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis publicly responded to the post, calling the bankruptcy claims “totally false.”

RV Lifestyle travel writer Mike Wendland pointed out that when the CEO of a publicly traded company feels compelled to respond to a random guy on social media, that raises its own set of questions. 

“Either the post struck a nerve because it was dangerously wrong, or because it was uncomfortably close to something that could be true, probably maybe a little of both,” Wendland said. 

Wendland further explained that although Camping World is not facing imminent bankruptcy, it faces the same set of challenges that put the biggest boating retailer in restructuring. 

In May 2026, I reported on the largest boating retailer’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The company noted several contributing factors:

Supply chain disruptions

Extreme weather events 

Shifts in consumer behavior

On the one hand, Camping World is currently under real financial pressure after losing about $105.6 million in 2025, seeing its sales drop further in early 2026, and seeing its stock crash more than 80% from its peak.

Moreover, the company stopped paying dividends to its shareholders earlier this year to better address its debt, Simply Wall St indicated. 

On the other hand, Wendland highlights that the company is not facing imminent bankruptcy. It has $200 million in cash on hand, successfully pays long-term debt, and most importantly, captures a larger share of the overall RV market than its competitors. 

Earnings amid “the weakest new RV retail environment in over 15 years” 

Camping World’s consolidation and other cost-cutting measures come as the retailer battles its most challenging environment in a decade. 

“In the weakest new RV retail environment in over 15 years, we executed on the priorities we set for this year, growing new and used unit share, accelerating Good Sam, and driving SG&A efficiency,” Wagner said during the second-quarter 2026 earnings call.

During the second quarter of fiscal 2026, Camping World reported:

Total revenue amounted to $1.93 billion, compared to $1.98 billion in the same period of 2025.

Total gross profit declined to $538.38 million, versus $592.26 million in the second quarter of last year. 

Total operating expenses decreased to $446.53 million, from $461.99 million a year ago. 

Net income dropped to $43.71 million, from $57.52 million in the same period of last year. 

Camping World also revised its 2026 full year outlook to “reflect what we know today in a highly volatile market.” 

The retailer lowered its previous guidance range of Adjusted EBITDA of $275 million to $325 million to a new range of $230 million to $270 million, for full year 2026. 

Wagner highlighted that the company is not pleased with what it has achieved during the quarter, despite delivering on three priorities in a difficult market: reducing SG&A expenses, growing RV market share, and accelerating Good Sam. 

“Our progress was more than offset by new RV industry trends that weakened during the peak selling season in May and June. Even so, we moved aged used inventory and prior-model-year new inventory as planned. These factors pressured vehicle gross profit and resulted in second-quarter earnings below our expectations. We are not satisfied with the result.”

Outdoor retail industry challenges are real as consumers cut discretionary spending 

Camping World’s challenges reflect a broader slowdown across the entire outdoor recreation industry. High interest rates, inflation, elevated fuel prices, and tariffs are forcing everyday consumers to cut back on big-ticket discretionary items such as RVs and boats. 

According to a McKinsey & Company consumer study, American families report an immediate intention to “pull back spending across most discretionary categories,” noting that even higher-income consumers are aggressively cutting back on ‘nice to haves.’”

Related: 29-year-old casual dining chain closes 4 locations after acquisition

During the Covid pandemic, however, both the recreational boating market and RV market actually boomed. Americans heavily invested in getting into the outdoors, either on the water or by camper. 

Boating market sales reached pre-2008 financial crisis heights, and Bloomberg called RVs “Covid campers” due to their sudden rise in popularity. As lockdowns receded into the past and consumers’ wallets tightened, the outdoor industry started feeling pressure again.  

Results from the RV Industry Association’s (RVIA) July 2026 survey of manufacturers found that total RV shipments ended the month with 19,948 units, an 11.9% decrease compared to the 22,633 units shipped in July 2025. 

RV owners are staying home: here’s why 

Earlier this year, during the 2026 RV Industry Power Breakfast, Toby O’Rourke, CEO of KOA, the largest campground network in North America, sounded the alarm on industry trends. 

O’Rourke highlighted that while more people are camping, camping frequency is down. 

“Two-thirds of all people who are camping are doing so just once or twice a year compared to 55% in 2019,” she said. “That’s a significant loss in camper nights at campgrounds.”

Data also revealed that 5% to 8% of people who own an RV didn’t use it last year, and that might be a conservative estimate. 

“This difference in participation has a big impact at campgrounds, but it also has a big impact at dealers because if people are not using their product, they’re not inclined to upgrade or purchase another one,” O’Rourke explained, as reported by RV Business. 

She added that people aren’t dropping out because they’ve lost interest in camping; rather, they can’t afford to do it as often, they can’t find the time, or both. 

“We need to make camping multiple times a year feel possible again because that will drive purchases,” she said.

Wendland commented on this in the podcast, adding that one of the things he keeps hearing from RVers is that “between fuel costs and just the general price of everything, people are being a lot more careful about when they hit the road and how far they are going to go.” 

Based on current fuel prices, campground fees, and food and activities costs, a long weekend ends up costing more than a week used to cost, argued Wendland. 

Related: 125-year-old mall retail anchor closes discount outlet, cuts 101 jobs

Most stock advice comes with an expiration date. Buy this now, sell that by Friday, watch the earnings report next week.

Jim Cramer just gave SpaceX (SPCX) investors a very different kind of timeline.

During the lightning round of CNBC’s “Mad Money” on Aug. 25, a caller asked whether it was safe to buy SpaceX stock after its slide from summer highs.

Cramer’s answer was blunt. Put it away and give it to your kids, he said. He wasn’t joking, and he wasn’t talking about next quarter.

For investors, that raises a fair question. Is a stock that has been this shaky really something you hand down to the next generation?

Why Jim Cramer is telling parents to buy SpaceX stock now

Cramer has covered markets on CNBC for more than two decades, and he ran a hedge fund before that, so his read on sentiment tends to carry weight with retail investors.

His pitch this time leans on history. He compared SpaceX to the 100-year railroad bonds that funded infrastructure decades before it paid off.

Related: SpaceX stock defies latest Wall Street forecasts

The point is simple. Some assets reward patience measured in generations, not trading days.

Cramer argues that judging SpaceX on a normal 90-day earnings cycle misses what the company is actually building.

He has been consistent on one condition, though. “I would never recommend SpaceX if Musk weren’t involved,” he said on CNBC, tying the whole call to the founder’s ability to raise money and deliver.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has tied the company’s future to Starship, Starlink, and orbital AI compute.Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

What the SpaceX stock price is actually doing

SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share on June 12, in what became the largest public offering in history. It quickly ran up to an all-time high of $225.64 by June 16.

Then the stock gave back most of those gains and touched a low of $104.83 in early August.

As of Aug. 25, SPCX closed at $137.95, up 2.19% on the day. That put it back above its IPO price and gave the company a market cap of about $1.87 trillion.

So the “give it to your kids” call is not a bet on a skyrocketing stock. It comes after a bumpy first few months as a public company.

The earnings and cash burn that spooked Wall Street

SpaceX released its first quarterly report as a public company after the market closed on Aug. 4, and the numbers cut both ways.

Revenue in the second quarter jumped 92% to $7.8 billion, beating analyst expectations of about $6.93 billion, CNBC reported.

The problem was spending. Capital expenditures hit $18.4 billion for the quarter, and the company posted a net loss of $541 million.

Here is what investors reacted to:

Revenue growth was strong across Starlink and AI compute

Cash burn ran billions above what Wall Street modeled

Free cash flow stayed negative

Shares fell 13.6% the day after the report, showing how sensitive this stock is to any sign that the spending won’t slow down soon.

How the share lockup added more pressure

Timing made the drop worse.

Roughly 911.5 million previously restricted shares became eligible to trade on Aug. 6, more than doubling the public float from about 639 million shares to 1.55 billion, Reuters reported.

At the time, that put more than $100 billion in stock in position to trade for the first time.

More supply usually means softer prices, and additional unlocks are spread across a dozen-plus dates into late 2026.

Cramer flagged this exact setup weeks earlier, telling viewers to wait for the lockup to hit before buying. His long-term optimism and his short-term caution were always two separate messages.

What SpaceX is building to justify the price

The generational case rests on businesses that barely exist yet.

Starlink is the profitable engine today, with about 12 million subscribers and a $1.66 billion operating profit in Q2. 

That funds everything else.

The bigger swing is AI. SpaceX has turned its Colossus data centers into a compute-rental business, signing agreements with Anthropic, Google, and Reflection AI, CNBC reported.

Fortune estimates the agreements could generate about $26 billion a year.

More SpaceX:

Jim Cramer sees the writing on the wall for SpaceX investors

Top analyst sees trouble looming for SpaceX stock

5-star analyst sets alarming SpaceX stock price target

The company also wants to move those AI data centers into orbit, using solar power and the cold of space for cooling.

On Aug. 25, SpaceX announced a $100 billion Starbase spaceport in Louisiana, CNBC reported. 

It will be the company’s largest launch site, with construction starting in 2027 and the first launch targeted for 2029.

Where Wall Street disagrees with Cramer

Not everyone sees a generational bargain at these levels.

Morningstar, one of the most respected independent research firms, reaffirmed a fair value estimate of $62 per share after the second-quarter report, arguing the stock still prices in optimistic outcomes for Starship and orbital data centers.

Others are far more bullish. JPMorgan holds an Overweight rating with a $240 target, and Morgan Stanley’s bull case reaches as high as $600, according to according to Investing.com.

That contrast tells you something important. The analysts who cover this stock cannot agree on what it is worth within a few hundred dollars a share.

Skeptics also point to the data center contracts, which are lucrative but can be canceled with 90 days’ notice, making long-term revenue harder to count on.

What this means for you before you buy

If you are considering SpaceX because Cramer said to, a few practical points are worth holding onto.

Before buying SPCX, consider these realities:

The stock carries high volatility, and more share unlocks are coming through late 2026

The company is not profitable yet and is spending heavily

The bull case depends on Starship reusability and orbital AI that are years from proven

A generational holding still requires you to survive the near term without panic-selling.

For most investors, that means sizing the position small enough that a further drop won’t force your hand. 

Cramer’s own advice supports this. He warned people not to build a large position into the unlocks.

If you believe in the decades-long vision, dollar-cost averaging into a modest stake gives you exposure without betting the outcome on a single entry price.

The bottom line on Cramer’s SpaceX call

Cramer’s message to parents is genuinely long-term, and it is not a promise that the stock goes up from here.

He is asking investors to accept sharp near-term swings in exchange for a bet on Starlink, AI data centers, and space infrastructure that could take a generation to mature.

The risk is also real. Morningstar’s $62 fair value and the ongoing cash burn are reminders that the price today already assumes a lot goes right.

For readers, the honest takeaway is this. If you buy SpaceX, buy it the way Cramer framed it, as money you can leave alone for years, not capital you will need back soon.

Related: JPMorgan resets SpaceX price target after earnings

After nearly two decades in business, a longtime bakery has closed its remaining storefronts following years of financial turmoil, a bankruptcy filing, and mounting pressure on its operations.

The company had once expanded beyond its local roots, distributing its products across multiple states and building a retail presence. Now, customers will no longer be able to visit any of its physical stores.

Founded in 2006, The Cookie Factory is a regional New York-based bakery known for its cookies, pastries, cakes, and baked goods.

The Cookie Factory closes all physical locations

The Cookie Factory has closed all of its remaining retail locations, ending a 20-year run of physical stores. Its website is no longer available, which has also terminated the company’s nationwide shipping operations.

The affected locations are:

Collar City: 520 Congress St, Troy, NY 12180

Halfmoon: 1705 US-9, Clifton Park, NY 12065

The company had previously distributed its products beyond New York stores, with its baked goods available in as many as 25 states.

Although its retail locations have closed, The Cookie Factory’s products will continue to be sold at select retailers, including Hannaford Supermarkets, Stewart’s Shops, and other locations.

Related: Iconic seafood chain brings back controversial deal amid closures

The company owners, brothers Chris and Joe Alberino, announced the closure in a farewell message on Facebook.

“As we close this chapter, we do so with a tremendous amount of gratitude and an unbelievable collection of memories that we will carry with us forever,” the owners wrote in the statement.

The announcement came after the company had temporarily closed its stores for vacation from Aug. 17 through Aug. 24. The locations did not reopen.

Why The Cookie Factory is closing its stores

The Cookie Factory has not provided a specific reason for permanently closing its retail locations. However, the business has faced a series of financial and operational challenges in recent years.

The company’s financial problems became public in 2023, after a failed merger with a former business partner. The dispute was followed by significant unpaid bills and claims from suppliers and other creditors.

An entity affiliated with The Cookie Factory filed for voluntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy in September 2024 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York. The bankruptcy filing sought liquidation, but a judge subsequently allowed the bakery to continue operating while the case proceeded.

The bankruptcy proceedings detailed more than $2 million in claims involving lenders, vendors, and suppliers. The company’s financial difficulties were also compounded by fallout from a 2023 product recall, according to the filing.

The business faced another major setback in late 2024 when a portion of the roof at its primary commercial bakery facility on River Street in Troy collapsed, creating an additional operational challenge.

The financial pressure continued in 2025 and 2026. A foreclosure action involving the company’s Troy property resulted in a judgment of roughly $2.25 million, according to a 2026 court filing.

The company’s River Street commercial bakery was eventually sold at auction in June 2026.

With the company’s remaining retail locations now closed, The Cookie Factory’s physical retail presence has come to an end.

The Cookie Factory closes all physical locations.Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images

Rising costs continue to pressure food-service operators

The challenges facing The Cookie Factory come as food-service operators continue to deal with elevated costs and uneven customer traffic.

The National Restaurant Association estimates that total expenses for an average restaurant increased 36% between 2019 and 2026. Average hourly earnings for restaurant employees have risen 41% since February 2020, while average wholesale food prices are up 35% over the same period.

Those higher costs have continued to put pressure on restaurant profitability. The National Restaurant Association reported that 33% of operators said their restaurants were not profitable during the first half of 2026.

Consumer traffic has also remained uneven. The association said inflation-adjusted restaurant sales are projected to increase just 0.8% in 2026, while higher menu prices have accounted for much of the industry’s nominal sales growth.

For specialty dessert businesses, those pressures can be particularly important because products such as cookies, cakes, and other treats are generally discretionary purchases rather than everyday necessities.

Competition can add another challenge as consumers have more options for occasional dessert purchases.

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

Dessert chain quietly closes locations, exits multiple markets

Popular beverage chain closing multiple locations nationwide

Popular frozen yogurt chain closes most locations

Business Insider Senior Reporter and industry expert Katherine Ortiz has previously pointed to customer visit frequency as a key factor in determining which specialty dessert concepts can sustain their businesses.

“How often people realistically want dessert is what ultimately determines which chains endure and which burn out,” said Ortiz.

“When too many concepts flood the market offering the same product for the same narrow occasion, the model goes stale, no matter how beloved the brand once was.”

For The Cookie Factory, years of financial problems, property-related setbacks, and operating pressure have now brought an end to its physical retail footprint. Its baked goods, however, will remain available through select retail partners.

Related: Popular frozen yogurt chain closes most locations

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

Keeping your home’s outdoor spaces illuminated is important this time of year. As summer turns to fall and the weather becomes less muggy, everyone wants to spend more time outdoors. What better way to enjoy the fall months than by lounging on your patio set while listening to your favorite music? However, in order to do that once the sun goes down, you’ll need some good lighting. While a full-sized gazebo with built-in lights is a nice luxury, it’s not in the cards for everyone. That’s why a good extra-long set of string lights is a great buy for enjoying the fall nights in style. Amazon happens to have a set like this on sale, and we think it’s worth a look.

The Amzrap 200-Feet Solar String Light Set is marked down to only $60, which is 40% off the regular price of $100. If you’re looking to light up your life and your backyard, for that matter, then this is the deal for you.

Amzrap 200-Feet Solar String Light Set, $60 (was $100) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

Shop at Amazon

Why do shoppers love it?

This set of string lights offers everything you want in backyard lighting. It’s cost-effective, attractive, and practical to use. As far as cost is concerned, these can help save money on your monthly bills. Because the lights are solar-powered, they won’t pull any additional power from your home’s grid connection. That means you can have them running every single night without fail, and it won’t cost you a single additional cent. 

In addition to being economical, these lights are beautiful as well. They’re designed to look like vintage incandescent bulbs, with an illuminated filament. The elongated bulbs give the set a retro look that fits in nicely with all types of decor schemes. A black cord and black bulb bases give the set a subdued look that blends in easily, no matter where you choose to hang it. Speaking of hanging, because of the extra-long length of this model, it’s easy to stretch over your entire patio, giving off a warm glow to the whole area.

The lights have so many features, you’ll never get bored with them. The extra-large solar panel gathers power from the sun all day and disperses it as needed to the bulbs. There is a remote control that comes with the set, allowing you to control every aspect of the lights, including a timer function and dimmer. They’re also weatherproof, so you don’t have to worry about damage due to rain or snow if you choose to leave them outside year-round.

Related: Amazon’s 8-pack of solar fence lights is just $28 ahead of Prime Day

Amazon shoppers were impressed with these string lights. One called them “magical,” adding, “the lights are just beautiful…Solar charging has been more than adequate.”

Shop more deals 

Gigalumi 6-Pack Ground Solar Lights, $25 (was $28) at Amazon

Addlon Solar String Lights, $18 (was $24) at Amazon

Lianglome Solar Fence Lights, $34 (was $44) at Amazon

The Amzrap 200-Feet Solar String Light Set is a great option for anyone who wants to keep their backyard or patio nice and bright, even at night. Just don’t wait too long to get yours, as they may sell out quickly.

In January 1983, Apple offered a free Apple IIe computer to every eligible school in California under a program called Kids Can’t Wait. The idea, according to Steve Jobs, was to reach a generation of future customers before they ever compared products elsewhere.

Google ran a similar play decades later with free Chromebooks, which helped cement its dominance of school hardware. The pitch to schools has barely changed since. Only the free product looks different now.

OpenAI is running a version of that same playbook. The company announced that ChatGPT for Teachers is expanding to 55 additional school systems across 20 states, adding more than 100,000 educators and staff.

The free program now reaches over 300,000 teachers and staff across more than 100 K-12 organizations in 30 states. That puts OpenAI ahead of any single AI product tied to Microsoft or Alphabet inside American public schools, at least by headcount.

Access was never the hard part. Anyone can already open ChatGPT in a browser for free. What districts actually needed was legal coverage, and that changed this week.

The privacy agreement is doing more work than the chatbot

OpenAI is introducing a 16-state National Data Privacy Agreement built on the Student Data Privacy Consortium framework. It lets a district evaluate ChatGPT for Teachers once against a shared checklist instead of negotiating a separate contract from scratch, according to OpenAI.

That deal matters more than the headline numbers. School procurement moves slowly because every district’s lawyer must independently confirm a vendor meets FERPA, the federal student privacy law, along with state rules.

A shared agreement removes that bottleneck for the 16 states it covers, plus California under a separate deal.

Related: OpenAI picks perfect moment to childproof ChatGPT

OpenAI says no other AI vendor has published a comparable multistate agreement covering K-12 student data, a distinction the company is using to differentiate the rollout, according to its announcement.

Leah Belsky, OpenAI’s vice president of education, frames the offering around control rather than access. Districts get role-based permissions and administrative oversight that let schools implement AI within their own legal requirements, she said, according to Texas Public Radio. That is a pitch aimed at general counsel, not classrooms.

OpenAI is fighting a distribution war, not a software war

ChatGPT already leads other AI chatbots in teacher engagement, according to education technology researcher Tom Daccord. But Alphabet’s Google has folded Gemini directly into Workspace for Education at no extra cost, and Microsoft added a Unit Plans feature to Copilot for Education this year, according to Forbes.

Both rivals already sit inside software schools use daily. OpenAI has to win districts as a new habit, a harder sell than an upgrade to a tool already installed.

OpenAI has usage data to back its pitch:

More than 1.9 million messages sent by teachers between January and mid-July concerned time-saving tasks, according to a privacy-preserving OpenAI analysis.

Roughly 900,000 of those messages dealt with report cards and progress reports, and 800,000 concerned lesson planning, the same analysis found.

That kind of usage data is what OpenAI can show districts that neither Google nor Microsoft can claim at the same scale in a single classroom specific product.

OpenAI is expanding ChatGPT for Teachers to 55 more school districts.ALEX WROBLEWSKI / Getty Images

Schools are a cheap place to buy trust before an IPO

OpenAI’s annualized revenue run rate topped $40 billion this month, roughly double where it stood at the end of 2025, according to Bloomberg.

The company also completed a $7 billion secondary share sale in August that valued it at $852 billion, reported CNBC, ahead of a widely expected public listing.

Rival Anthropic has posted similar acceleration, reporting a $47 billion run rate in May, which raises the pressure on OpenAI to lock in every category of future customer before a listing, including one that is not paying yet.

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None of that revenue comes from teachers. ChatGPT for Teachers stays free through June 2028, extended from an original 2027 cutoff, according to OpenAI. But habits formed for free rarely stay free once a company needs to show investors a return on the users it collected.

Enterprise software has run this playbook before: land a user cheaply, make the workflow indispensable, then raise the price once switching costs are high enough to stick.

The real test comes when the free period ends

Teachers who build lesson plans, grading rubrics and family communications inside ChatGPT for three straight years will not switch tools easily in 2028.

That habit, not goodwill, is the asset OpenAI is actually building inside the education system.

The open question is whether that loyalty survives a price tag, or whether it transfers instead to whatever AI tool a teacher’s next employer already pays for.

Districts betting on free access today are also betting on what OpenAI decides to charge once the giveaway ends.

Related: OpenAI investors must consider latest CFO comments

Jim Cramer is not telling you to get out of ServiceNow. He is telling you to get smarter about how much of it you own.

I want you to sell half and then let the rest run.

Cramer said that during the Aug. 25 Mad Money Lightning Round, when a caller asked about ServiceNow (NOW).

Twelve words that carry a specific message about position management. It is worth unpacking for any investor sitting on gains from the April low.

NOW hit its all-time high of $239.62 on Jan. 27, 2025. It then collapsed to approximately $81 in mid-April 2026. That’s a massive drawdown that shook out a lot of its believers and investors. Its 52-week high remains at $194.73.

Since that $81 low, the stock has recovered fairly to the current $125.80. That is a meaningful move. 

Cramer now has a lesson on trade management. He’s essentially saying to make sure you pay yourself first after a profitable setup. And I couldn’t agree more, because that’s something I embrace in my setups, too. If you bought the dip, it is reasonable to bank half and ride the rest with house money.

Also Read: ServiceNow Inc. Latest News and Stories 

What the Q2 ServiceNow results showed

The reason Cramer says “let the rest run” rather than “sell it all” is visible in the recent Q2 2026 results, reported July 22.

Subscription revenues grew 24.5% year-over-year (YOY) to $3.877 billion 

Total revenues of $3.987 billion grew 24% YOY. 

Current remaining performance obligations reached $13.20 billion, up 21%. 

Total remaining performance obligations (RPO) hit $29.0 billion. Source: ServiceNow Second Quarter 2026 Results

The company statistically beat the high end of guidance across every topline and profitability metric. To me, the headline for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) story is what I found intriguing. ServiceNow AI crossed $1 billion in annual contract value in Q2 2026.

Agentic deployments of ServiceNow AI increased ninefold in just nine months, according to CEO Bill McDermott.

In an environment where most enterprises are still searching for AI’s ROI, ServiceNow is the platform delivering it.

The full-year 2026 subscription revenue guidance was raised to $15.76-$15.78 billion, reflecting 22.5% year-over-year growth. 

For Q3, guidance calls for subscription revenues of $3.975 billion to $3.980 billion and a 31% non-GAAP operating margin, according to ServiceNow Q2 2026 Results.

Following the strong Q2 report, a recent report by TheStreet showed that Bank of America raised its price target to $150 from $130 in August, maintaining a Buy and citing ServiceNow’s positioning as the workflow context layer for enterprise agentic AI.

The structural AI story behind the ‘let the rest run’ thesis

Cramer’s “let the rest run” language is his way of signaling long-term conviction without encouraging investors to size up further at current levels.

The AI Control Tower product is the clearest expression of what makes ServiceNow structurally defensible. McDermott has called it the market standard for enterprise AI governance. Nearly all 50 U.S. states are using the platform, according to a July press release.

Anthropic is the first design partner connecting Claude directly to ServiceNow workflows. NVIDIA integrated AI Control Tower into its Enterprise AI Factory design. Microsoft extended the governance layer across Microsoft Agent 365. AWS surpassed $1 billion in ServiceNow Marketplace transactions.

Related: Jim Cramer resets investors biggest Nvidia fear 

The long-term financial targets from the May Analyst Day are the numbers that justify any continued position. 

By 2030, ServiceNow targets more than $30 billion in subscription revenue, 30% of ACV from AI, and a combined growth and free cash flow margin exceeding 60%, according to a ServiceNow report.

I remember covering ServiceNow’s CEO kill-switch interview in July, in which McDermott described the AI Control Tower as the tool that stops AI agents from going rogue. 

I think that positioning (governance, not just automation) is the reason 50 of the last 54 analyst ratings are Buy or Strong Buy, according to TipRanks. The same report shows that the average analyst price target over the past three months is $141, implying roughly 12% upside from current levels.

ServiceNow AI crossed $1 billion in annual contract value in Q2 2026.David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Why Cramer’s ‘sell half’ advice makes sense

The honest context for Cramer’s recommendation is the entry point question. ServiceNow at $81 in April was a different proposition than ServiceNow at $125 now.

The stock is still down 17.88% year-to-date and 27.25% over the past year, according to Yahoo Finance, meaning investors who held through the 2025 decline are still underwater from a 12-month perspective.

But investors who bought anywhere near the April low are sitting on meaningful gains, and the stock still trades well below its $239 all-time high.

More AI:

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OpenAI just disclosed something genuinely alarming

Selling half locks in a portion of the recovery while preserving full exposure to the business thesis. 

If the $30 billion subscription revenue target and the agentic AI deployment acceleration play out through 2030 as management describes, the remaining half participates in that upside without the psychological and capital risk of holding a full position through what remains a volatile stock.

The baseline is that smart money management is selling some when you have it, not when you need to. With $29 billion in RPO, 24.5% subscription growth, and $1 billion in AI ACV crossed, it’s fair to say that this is a business worth holding. Just perhaps not all of it.

Related: ServiceNow CEO admits there’s a solution to AI’s biggest problem