The Street

Social Security checks rarely stretch as far as retirees hope.

Even with a solid cost-of-living adjustment on the way for 2027, Medicare premiums and inflation tend to eat into the raise before it ever reaches a bank account.

That is why many financial firms point retirees toward dividend stocks as a way to build a second income stream.

Charles Schwab put it plainly in its investor education materials, noting that for retirees, regular payouts from dividend stocks can provide a recurring and steady stream of income.

Two companies stand out right now for income-focused investors: grocery giant Albertsons and pipeline operator Plains All American. 

Both pay quarterly dividends, and both gave investors fresh updates on their payouts during recent earnings calls.

Social security benefits may not be enough

How much someone collects from Social Security depends heavily on the age they claim benefits. 

According to Social Security Administration data, the average monthly benefit ranges from $1,424 at age 62 up to $2,275 at age 70.

That is a difference of more than $850 a month, or over $10,000 a year, based on the starting age. 

More Social Security:

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Retirees who claim Social Security earlier may need extra cash later for medical bills, home repairs, and travel.

An additional passive income source can close this gap, making investing in dividend stocks a top strategy for retirees. 

A retiree who owns shares that pay quarterly cash dividends can supplement whatever Social Security check they receive each month, without needing to sell shares or tap into their savings.

Albertsons has grown its dividend

Albertsons (ACI) operates more than 2,200 stores under names like Safeway, Vons and Jewel Osco.

The company has raised its dividend from an annualized $0.40 per share at its 2020 IPO to $0.68 per share today, a 10% annual growth rate since going public.

That puts the stock’s dividend yield around 5.5%, based on recent trading levels near $12.4 a share.

On its July 23 earnings call: 

CEO Susan Morris outlined a restructuring plan called the ACI Edge, which moves the company from 11 divisions to four regions and centralizes buying decisions. 

Management expects the plan to generate about $200 million in incremental annual savings, with most of the benefit landing in fiscal 2027.

Albertsons also returned more than $300 million to shareholders in the first quarter, including $84 million in dividends and $225 million in share buybacks. 

CFO Sharon McCollam, who announced her retirement on the call, said the company ended the quarter with a net debt-to-adjusted-EBITDA ratio of 2.3 times, which she described as giving the business ample financial flexibility.

Related: Longtime grocery chain exits entire market after 49 years

The company trimmed its full-year outlook, citing softer grocery unit trends and pressure from lower-income shoppers. 

Adjusted earnings per share are now expected between $1.75 and $1.85 for fiscal 2026, down from earlier targets.

Sharon McCollam stated:

“Our more cautious view reflects ongoing pressure on lower-income consumers, softness in grocery industry unit trends and the potential for additional affordability pressure from supplier cost increases.”

Plains All American offers a high-yield dividend

Plains All American (PAA) runs one of the largest crude oil pipeline networks in North America, with a heavy footprint in the Permian Basin. 

Its quarterly distribution recently rose to $0.4175 per unit, or $1.67 annualized, putting the yield near 6.8% at current prices around $24. The annual dividend has more than doubled from $0.72 per share in 2021. 

CEO Willie Chiang told investors on the August 7 call that the company is on track to hit its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance of $2.88 billion, plus or minus $75 million. 

Plains also closed the sale of its Canadian NGL business in May, which helped bring leverage down to 3.3 times.

The company raised its 2026 growth spending to a range of $400 million to $450 million, funding projects like an expanded Permian gathering system and a capacity boost to its Cactus III pipeline. 

Management expects roughly $1.75 billion in free cash flow this year and plans to keep growing the distribution by $0.15 per unit annually.

Chiang also pointed to record crude exports out of the Gulf Coast during the quarter, along with rising Permian production forecasts, as reasons for optimism heading into 2027.

Investing in dividend stocks is not risk-freeBloomberg/Getty Images

What to know before you invest in dividend stocks

Neither stock is risk free. 

Albertsons faces a softer grocery unit environment and rising competition from Walmart and Amazon, and it is still absorbing pressure from the Inflation Reduction Act’s impact on pharmacy sales. 

Plains All American carries commodity price exposure tied to oil markets, which can swing sharply based on global events.

Moreover, dividend payouts are not guaranteed and could be rolled back or suspended if financials take a nosedive.

Notably, PAA was forced to lower its annual dividend from $2.80 per share in 2016 to $1.20 in 2019 and $0.72 in 2020. 

Still, both companies have shown a clear commitment to paying and raising cash to shareholders, even while investing in their businesses. 

A 6% yield on a $100,000 investment can help you generate $6,000 in annual dividends, which translates to $500 each month or $1,500 per quarter. 

For a retiree trying to close the gap between a Social Security check and monthly expenses, that combination of income and growth potential is worth a closer look.

As always, dividend income should complement a diversified retirement plan rather than replace it, and anyone considering these stocks should weigh their own risk tolerance and consult a financial advisor before investing.

Related: Iconic bank stock pays Buffett’s Berkshire $619M in annual dividends

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Why we love this deal

Regardless of the weather, cozying up in a soft bedding set is the perfect way to end the day. But as the seasons change, your bedding should too. While warmer months call for light and breathable options and colder months require bundling up, bedding with an all-season design can be used all year long, give or take a few extra layers. 

We spotted a comforter set that’s not just perfect for year-round use, but will also look good regardless of how you style it. The Zzlpp 7-Piece Comforter Set has a luxurious seersucker design, and it’s on sale for as low as $34. The striking Olive Green and Dark Grey color options offers the best deals, but prices vary up to $48. With seven pieces, it comes with all the bedding essentials you need to give your bed an upgrade.

Zzlpp 7-Piece Comforter Set, From $34 (was $48) at Amazon

Courtesy of Amazon

Shop at Amazon

This comforter set comes with a queen-size comforter, two pillow shams, two pillow cases, a flat sheet, and a fitted sheet. It’s like getting a comforter set and a sheet set combined, as many options around the same price are either three-piece or four-piece sets. The fitted sheet has an elastic pocket that can fit a mattress up to 14 inches deep, so it can accommodate most standard mattresses.

The comforter and shams feature a stunning seersucker design, adding texture and style to your bedroom. It looks like a luxury find, but it only costs $36. Each piece is made of microfiber, giving it a soft and breathable feel that will keep you cozy all year long. 

Available in 18 colors, there’s something for everyone. The Olive Green color gets a lot of praise from shoppers who say it looks elegant. The neutral hues, like beige and white, can fit in with any space, while colors such as light purple and Burnt Orange can add a vibrant pop of color to a room. 

Related: Amazon has a highly rated 7-piece comforter set that comes in 25 colors for just $32

“This set is actually so soft and so cozy. It seems kinda thick, but it’s perfectly breathable and warm too,” a shopper said, adding that the color is “unmatched” and looks “very elegant.”

Another reviewer said one of their favorite details was the textured seersucker design. “It adds a subtle, stylish look that makes the bedding feel more high-end than its price suggests,” they said. The customer also mentioned that the fitted sheet is secure and doesn’t slip or bunch after movement during the night.

Shop more deals

Hymokege 7-Piece Comforter Set, $32 (was $46) at Amazon

CozyLux 7-Piece Comforter Set, $40 (was $56) at Amazon

Fuanna 7-Piece Comforter Set, $44 at Amazon

On sale for as low as $34, the Zzlpp 7-Piece Comforter Set is a soft, stylish, and practical all-in-one bedding set with excellent value for the price.

Nvidia will report its second-quarter (Q2) earnings for the fiscal year 2027 on August 26, and expectations are high. As we await earnings, we need to consider two important things about the stock.

The first thing is that the stock dropped on the day following earnings in each of the last four quarters, despite strong results. It is starting to look like a pattern.

The second thing is that, according to MarketBeat, 52 of the 54 analysts covering Nvidia stock rate it a buy. Two give a hold rating. The average price target is $308.01.

Nvidia closed at $214.72 on August 21, implying a compelling 43.45% upside.

Given that the stock often drops despite strong earnings and that analyst consensus is a buy with significant upside, the question naturally arises: buy before earnings, or wait until after earnings and buy on the dip the next day?

That is a tough question to answer. In a research note shared with me, Goldman Sachs analyst James Schneider and his team outlined their views on what might happen and what to watch for.

Goldman Sachs expects a solid Q2 for Nvidia with meaningful upside to guidance

Schneider expects “a solid quarter with meaningful upside to guidance supported by tight GPU supply/demand trends.”

The caveat here is that, as the stock soared in August, this might already be priced in. He noted this by saying that the bar for the stock is elevated, given its more than 12% move in two weeks.

He reiterated a buy rating for Nvidia and a price target of $285, based on a 30x multiple.

The analysts noted that their EPS estimates for Q2 and Q3 are 6% and 12% above the Wall Street consensus.

So, despite the above-consensus EPS estimates, Goldman Sachs’s price target is slightly below the average, but still implies a big upside of 32.73%.

Schneider’s team believes that Nvidia stock trades at a steep discount to what they view as fair value. The analysts added that the stock could continue to re-rate, and three factors could help.

They need to see improving profitability metrics at hyperscalers, which would support sustained spending growth.

Nvidia needs to demonstrate measured capital outlays in support of customer financing platforms. This would ease fears about vendor/circular financing.

The company also needs to reiterate its commitment to strong buybacks and dividends.

The team said they will look for five things during the Nvidia earnings call that could move the stock:

Details on the customer financing platform and its impact on capital allocation

Details of the Vera Rubin AI platform rollout, or Rubin ramp, in the second half of 2026

Gross margin trends and input costs

CPU demand driven by Agentic AI

Competitive trends

Goldman Sachs expects a solid Q2 for Nvidia with meaningful upside to guidance.Shutterstock

The twist is that Nvidia GPU demand creates stock risk

The insatiable demand for Nvidia GPUs is a double-edged sword, as Nvidia is facing supply constraints.

This is making it more difficult for Nvidia to beat and raise every quarter. Additionally, while hyperscalers keep raising their capital expenditure plans, it is not certain they will do so midyear, which is not good for the next two quarters.

For Nvidia to soar after earnings, it would need to drop something material, beyond a standard beat-and-raise.

Nvidia significantly increased dividends in its previous earnings report, but that didn’t prevent the next-day drop, even as Bank of America raised its price target.

Another part of the twist is that the huge demand driving GPU prices higher and higher, as well as other components of the AI boom, is putting too much pressure on some of Nvidia’s customers’ financials. With very significant customers having trouble financing their insatiable demand, fears of vendor financing are growing, and Nvidia’s commitments are not helping ease them.

Related: Michael Burry says Nvidia rival is quietly getting serious 

On August 17, Nvidia agreed to provide a guarantee of up to $105 billion to help OpenAI lease a data center in Ohio that is being developed by SoftBank-owned SB Energy, Reuters reported. Nvidia said it will guarantee a portion of the lease and power payments and commit to ensuring the site retains a minimum value.  

On August 10, Nvidia teamed up with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to create AI Compute Infrastructure Financing Platforms. The idea behind this project is to mobilize over $500 Billion of third-party capital.

This platform is the one Goldman Sachs wants addressed on the earnings call.

So, if we read a little between the lines, the twist is that while Goldman Sachs sees Nvidia hitting $285 in the next 12 months and forecasts a beat-and-raise, Nvidia is more likely to dip the day after than to soar, unless it drops a big piece of news.

A fairly similar sentiment is shared by Morgan Stanley analysts.

So what should you do as an investor? A long-term investor will likely see meaningful upside and buy it now. A more tactical trader will wait to buy on the dip.

Analysts noted downside risks for Nvidia stock:

Hyperscalers could slow down their AI infrastructure spending.

Nvidia could lose market share due to increased competition.

Nvidia could suffer erosion of its profit margins due to increased competition.

Supply constraints

Related: Bank of America’s latest Nvidia alert is a must-read for worried investors

Every industry eventually produces an executive willing to say the thing out loud. The old rules do not apply anymore. The machine has changed.

Sometimes that turns out to be true. Often it marks the top.

Memory chips are the purest cycle left in modern manufacturing. Demand climbs, prices follow, every producer races to add capacity, and the capacity lands about two years later, all at once, into a market that no longer needs it. Prices break. Profits vanish. Whoever is still standing cuts spending and waits.

Micron Technology (MU) has run that loop since 1978, and it has the receipts. In fiscal 2022, the company earned $8.7 billion. In fiscal 2023, it lost $5.83 billion as revenue nearly halved to $15.5 billion, according to Micron’s annual filings.

That is three years ago, not three decades.

Which is what makes this week worth sitting with. Chief Executive Sanjay Mehrotra is now arguing, with $10 billion behind the argument, that the loop has been cut for good.

“So, the value of memory, that equation has totally changed,” Mehrotra told CNBC on Aug. 20, speaking from a fab construction site outside Boise, Idaho.

Micron unveiled a Boise research institution, planning $10 billion investment over the next decade.Witthaya Prasongsin / Getty Images

What Micron is actually buying with $10 billion

The thing Micron announced is not a factory. It is a research institution.

The company unveiled Micron Research Labs on Aug. 20, headquartered in Boise and backed by a planned $10 billion investment over the next decade, according to Micron. Ground breaks in calendar 2027. The work covers memory technologies, compute architectures, packaging and future semiconductor manufacturing, and the stated horizon stretches past 10 years.

Related: SanDisk sends strong signal to Micron investors, BofA says

That is the kind of spending “that sits upstream of every product we build,” said Scott DeBoer, Micron’s chief technology and products officer.

It sits on top of the more than $250 billion Micron has separately committed to U.S. manufacturing and research through 2035, according to the company.

None of it ships a chip this decade. That is the entire point, and it is also the problem.

Why the memory cycle has always come back

The cycle is not a failure of nerve. It is arithmetic, and the arithmetic has not changed.

A fab takes three to four years from concrete to wafers. Demand signals move in quarters. By the time the supply answer arrives, the question has changed. Every memory boom in the past 40 years has ended the same way, and none of them ended because producers were stupid. They ended because the lag is structural.

Wall Street has not forgotten. Micron is a business where the DRAM and NAND markets are “highly cyclical,” according to Morningstar, whose analysts still decline to award the company an economic moat despite its scale.

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Mehrotra’s counterargument is that AI changed the buyer, and that the change is structural. Memory now gets designed alongside the processor it will sit next to, which pulls Micron into a customer’s roadmap years ahead of the order. Data center customers currently want about 50% more supply than Micron can commit to, he told CNBC.

He is not alone in that read. Jim Cramer argued that AI has rewritten the rules for memory stocks and that Micron can double from here, TheStreet reported. Bank of America has made a version of the same case, pointing to the industry’s shift toward multi-year supply agreements as a reason this upcycle should behave differently, which was also highlighted by TheStreet. 

The bank was careful about the wording, though. Those contracts do not prevent a downturn. They shape how one arrives.

Micron has been converting that thesis into paper. The company disclosed 16 five-year strategic customer agreements alongside its June earnings report, and Mehrotra said more have been signed since.

Those contracts, not the research campus, are the actual cycle-proofing. The lab is the flag planted on top of them.

The numbers Micron does not put in a press release

When I lined up Micron’s fiscal 2023 filings against this week’s announcement, the same tension showed up in both directions.

Here is the last full turn of the wheel, and where the company sits now.

Fiscal 2022 net income of $8.7 billion, one of the best years in company history, according to Micron’s annual results.

Fiscal 2023 net loss of $5.83 billion on revenue of $15.5 billion, down from $30.8 billion, according to Micron’s annual results.

Fiscal 2023 gross margin of negative 7.3%, meaning chips sold below the cost of making them, according to FactSet data cited by CNBC.

Capital spending cut to $7.7 billion in fiscal 2023 from $12.1 billion the prior year, according to CNBC.

Trailing 12-month net income of roughly $50.5 billion as of mid-August 2026, according to The Motley Fool.

The fourth bullet is the one that matters for a research lab. Micron kept investing through the last downturn, but the CEO has said plainly that the spending got cut back hard from the year before. When margins went negative, the company had no choice.

Mehrotra made a related point on CNBC in June, arguing that years of customers squeezing on price left the whole industry underinvested right as AI demand arrived. That is a candid admission, and it cuts both ways. If price pressure once dictated Micron’s research budget, price pressure can dictate it again.

What would actually prove the cycle is broken

My read is that the $10 billion figure is the least interesting number in this story.

A decade-long research commitment announced during the best quarter in company history costs Micron almost nothing today. It is funded out of a trailing net income figure that dwarfs the entire pledge. The test is not whether Micron writes the check now. It is whether Micron writes it in the fiscal year DRAM prices roll over and gross margin goes red again.

That test is not hypothetical, and it is not far off. Micron shares closed at $974.33 on Aug. 20, up about 4%, and still sit roughly 22% below the record close they set in late June, according to market data. The market has already started pricing cycle risk into a stock whose CEO says the cycle is over.

Investors got a preview in June, when Micron gave back weeks of gains in two sessions on nothing more than a broad chip selloff. Nothing about the demand story changed those two days. The stock moved anyway, which tells you what the market still believes underneath the narrative.

For anyone outside the trade, the stakes are more immediate than a chart. Memory scarcity has been pushing up prices on phones, laptops and consumer electronics, a squeeze Mehrotra himself traced back to industry underinvestment. The same shortage that made Micron one of the best-performing AI trades of 2026 is showing up on your next hardware invoice.

Watch the next earnings report for the first tell. Micron’s fiscal fourth-quarter results are due in late September, according to market data, and the line I would go to first is not revenue. It is research and development expense, and whether management is willing to put a floor under it in writing.

Cycles do not die because an executive announces they have. They die when a company keeps spending through the year that would normally force it to stop.

Related: Micron CEO gives investors $10 billion reason to listen

A house is worth whatever you say it is worth, right up until the day you list it. Then the number stops being yours.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) has been living inside that gap since last September, when Paramount Skydance (PSKY) began circling a company that was, at the time, busy planning to split itself into two.

Eleven months, one auction, a signed Netflix (NFLX) agreement, a hostile tender offer and a reversal later, the price is settled at $31 a share in cash.

What is not settled is whether the sale happens at all.

So the studio keeps making things while a federal judge in California decides who ends up owning it. Until recently, most of what Warner Bros. made this year did not strengthen the argument that DC is worth much.

“Supergirl” ended its theatrical run in July at $125.9 million worldwide, against a reported $170 million budget, the weakest global gross of any modern DC film, according to Box Office Mojo.

Then, things shifted, with the television side turning in the best number the label has posted in years. The “Lanterns” series premiere drew 9.3 million viewers worldwide across HBO and HBO Max in its first three days, “the biggest premiere for a DC Studios show on HBO Max to date,” according to Variety.

DC Studios’ Lanterns just posted its biggest HBO Max premiere ever, with 9.3M viewers.Phillip Faraone / Getty Images

What the ‘Lanterns’ premiere numbers actually show

Of that global total, 6.6 million viewers were in the U.S., according to figures HBO and HBO Max shared with The Hollywood Reporter. The company’s own announcement led with the global number and left the domestic one out.

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The domestic figure is the one that carries weight, because it sits in the same measurement bucket HBO has used for every debut it has promoted over the past two years.

When I lined those three-day domestic counts up against each other, “Lanterns” lands fourth among recent HBO launches, not first. My analysis of the comparable window is below.

“Lanterns” drew 6.6 million U.S. viewers in three days, per those HBO figures.

“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” drew 6.7 million over the same window in January, per the same tally.

“It: Welcome to Derry” managed 5.7 million in October 2025, also per The Hollywood Reporter.

“The Penguin” opened to 5.3 million across four days in September 2024, reported Variety.

That ordering explains the phrasing in the company’s own announcement. Warner said top five, not top three. Roughly 100,000 viewers separate the two claims, and a company sitting on a $1.3 billion litigation clock would have used the better line if the arithmetic allowed it.

The trajectory is the part investors should care about. The three shows “Lanterns” outdrew on opening weekend all went on to average at least 17.5 million global viewers across HBO’s 90-day measurement window, reported Deadline.

Why the timing matters for Warner Bros. Discovery investors

WBD closed at $28.53 on Aug. 21, roughly 8% below the $31 a share Paramount agreed to pay. That discount is the market’s live estimate of the odds this deal never closes, and it is the cleanest single number in the whole saga.

The operating picture underneath the deal is split. Warner’s total revenue fell 11% year over year in the second quarter on the loss of NBA rights, while streaming revenue rose 10% and streaming profitability widened again, according to the company’s second-quarter results.

Studios was the segment that disappointed. That is the division DC sits in, and it is the one a hit changes.

Related: 3 billionaire investors just piled into the same media stock

If you hold a total-market index fund, you own a slice of this. The question the court answers is whether that slice converts to cash at a fixed price or reverts to a stub of a debt-heavy media company carrying roughly $35 billion in gross debt and a shrinking cable business.

For anyone paying for HBO Max, the stakes are more direct. Paramount executives have signaled they would fold HBO Max and Paramount+ into a single service, which means the ruling decides both what you watch and what you pay for it.

How a hit show changes the math in the antitrust fight

Paramount cleared its last regulatory hurdle on Aug. 14, having secured approvals across 68 countries including the Justice Department, the European Commission and the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, according to the company.

Twelve state attorneys general are the remaining obstacle. The coalition, led by California’s Rob Bonta, argues the combination would produce “higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television,” according to Bonta’s office.

Paramount and Warner agreed in late July to hold off closing until five days after a ruling or June 1, 2027, whichever comes first, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office joined the suit. That stipulation pushed the closing date as far as June 2027.

Delay is expensive. Paramount is seeking a $1.88 billion bond from the states, telling the court it will have paid Warner shareholders “an unrecoverable $1.3 billion in ticking fees alone” by the time briefing wraps, reported CNBC.

My read is that “Lanterns” cuts against Paramount here rather than for it. The states’ case rests on the claim that two independently healthy studios are about to stop competing. A DC record set nine months into the fight is evidence Warner can still generate hits on its own, which is exactly the argument Bonta needs.

What DC has to prove before the trial date

Premiere numbers measure marketing, not affection. “Peacemaker” Season 2 opened strong and then shed a large share of its audience, and DC’s problem for three years has been retention, not curiosity.

Episode two arrives Sunday, Aug. 23, and the retention curve over the next six weeks tells you whether 9.3 million was a hit or a launch.

A second season has not been ordered. Showrunner Chris Mundy said he is already breaking a follow-up season on spec with writer Christopher Cantwell and intends to pitch it, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The Aug. 20’s viewership announcement is the strongest card he can bring into that room.

The bigger test lands in October, when “Clayface” reaches theaters on a reported $40 million budget, a fraction of what “Supergirl” cost. After that comes “Man of Tomorrow” in 2027, currently shooting, and arriving in a year when a courtroom may already have decided who signs the checks.

Warner spent this decade arguing DC is a franchise engine rather than a library of characters other people got rich on. It picked a strange moment to finally have proof, and an even stranger one to have no say in who collects on it.

Related: Paramount’s Warner merger deal faces serious new problem

The Retirement Fear Index was developed by David Conti, a long-time financial writer and retirement coach. It is published monthly through his firm, RetirementMentors. The index is a monthly composite index designed to track the fears shaping the fears of retirees and pre-retirees.

Conti describes the index as, “… a composite index of the 10 fears U.S. retirees and pre-retirees carry — tracked every month, so you can see what’s rising, what’s easing and what it means for the decisions ahead.”

How the Retirement Fear Index works

The index is calculated monthly. According to Conti, “The Index synthesizes a wide range of existing academic, institutional, financial-services, public-policy, media, and market-research sources produced by professional retirement researchers, economists, policy analysts, universities, financial firms, healthcare researchers, and government agencies.”

The index consists of ten components:

Healthcare and long-term care costs

Outliving savings/longevity risk

Social Security and pension insolvency

Inflation and rising everyday costs

Cognitive decline/loss of independence

Market volatility and sequence of returns

Loss of purpose/identity crisis

Housing affordability and maintenance costs

Family caregiving burdens and isolation

Taxes and regulatory changes

The baseline for the index is December, 2025. The inaugural monthly release of the index was in June 2026 and came in at 119.7, versus a baseline of 100.

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The index came in at 120.7 for August 2026, a slight decline from the prior month. The three highest components in the latest reading were Social Security (148), healthcare and long-term care costs (131), and outliving savings (117), which are the three biggest areas of concern according to the index.

A retired couple camping Shutterstock

Index helps retirees find perspective

The index is a useful tool in measuring the fears of retirees and pre-retirees. While much of the discussion we see in the media, especially from financial advisors, centers on retirement risk, retirees and those planning for retirement often make their decisions on financial and related issues based on their fears.

The index provides a look at the level of retirement fear felt by a wide range individuals in total and on a topic by topic basis. This isn’t to say that everyone in or approaching retirement has the same fears and concerns. Rather, the index provides a benchmark to review your own situation to help ensure that you are covering all of your bases as you plan your retirement finances or manage your retirement finances for those already retired.

The index can be very useful for financial advisors in structuring their conversations for clients planning for or in retirement. It can help you translate the risk vocabulary you use with clients into a more fear-based one that aligns with how your clients generally think about these retirement planning issues.

Why Social Security frightens retirees

If we look at the three highest components of the index based on the last reading, these are all key factors to consider in retirement planning.

The solvency of Social Security is a key issue. Most retirees rely on Social Security for a portion of their retirement income. A reduction in benefits or a complete loss of benefits would be devastating for many retirees.

In 2026, the average retired worker collected $2,071 per month in Social Security benefits. As of the end of 2024, about 40% of retirees count on Social Security for over 50% of their income.

While there is little or nothing individuals can do to fix Social Security, beyond voting, the realization that Social Security is a major fear should serve as an incentive to plan around this risk.

The fear associated with healthcare and long-term care costs raises an issue that retirees and pre-retirees should be addressing anyway. At the very least an indicator that individuals and financial advisors should be sure that they and their clients have a plan for this critical part of retirement financial planning.

Outliving their savings is always a key retirement income planning issue. Individuals should be looking at this in pre-retirement and ongoing once they are retired. Things change and the thought that their retirement savings are sufficient should never be taken for granted. Financial advisors should also be addressing this issue periodically for the same reasons.

The retirement fear index is a great tool for financial advisors to structure that conversation about retirement with their clients, and for individuals to ensure that “all of the boxes are checked” for their own situation.

Related: How does Medicare IRMAA work?

The S&P 500 is up 12.1% in 2026, gaining about 11.1% over six months and 3.1% over three. Moreover, the Nasdaq Composite climbed 12.6% year to date and 14.4% over six months, though it was down nearly 0.4% over three months, while the Dow has risen 10.8%, 7.4%, and 5.9%, respectively. All three indices are running ahead of their late-August 2025 pace. Now, according to TheFly, UBS just reset its S&P 500 outlook for the rest of the year.

However, that doesn’t mean that the ride’s been easy.

Stocks just wrapped up a losing week as higher Treasury yields, inflation worries, and ongoing tensions around Iran tested a rally that’s already carrying lofty valuations. AI stocks wobbled even as corporate earnings remained incredibly strong.

That tension makes UBS’s move interesting, as it’s not simply chasing an index that has already rallied into double digits.

That said, UBS now sees greater room for stocks to climb through year-end, supported by an unusually robust profit engine.

UBS bull case is really an earnings reset

On August 21, UBS Global Wealth Management bumped its year-end 2026 S&P 500 target to 8,100 from 7,900, keeping U.S. stock as “attractive”. Moreover, it also lifted its mid-2027 target to 8,400 from 8,200.

Based on the S&P 500’s Friday close on August 21 at 7,674.37, the 8,100 target now represents a 5.5% additional price upside into year-end. The 8,400 mid-2027 target implies roughly 9.5% upside from Friday.

UBS’s new call has everything to do with what the bank expects corporate America to earn.

For perspective, its old 7,900 target was based on a 2027 earnings forecast of $375, implying nearly 21.1 times earnings. Its new 8,100 target against the new $400 estimate works out to nearly 20.3 times.

In essence, the bank’s telling investors they don’t need to suddenly accept a far richer valuation for the S&P 500 to continue climbing.

The bank sees three major pillars in resilient U.S. growth, supportive monetary policy and continued AI adoption.

Earnings breadth, though, is perhaps the most important development.

Earlier this month, UBS said nearly 80% of S&P 500 companies were beating earnings estimates, compared with a historical average of about 73%. Moreover, the median earnings surprise was 5.8%, comfortably above the typical 3.5%, while underlying Q2 earnings growth was running over 30%.

By August 19, UBS estimated underlying growth approached 35%. Similarly, FactSet’s Q2 update showed S&P 500 earnings growing 32% year-over-year, even excluding the likes of Alphabet (GOOG) and Amazon’s (AMZN) massive gains, while 10 of 11 sectors posted superb earnings growth, and eight delivered double-digit gains. 

More importantly, that tremendous strength was spreading beyond megacap tech and into industrials, financials, and consumer discretionary companies. If economically sensitive sectors continue to contribute alongside AI, the market gains another major engine.

Veteran investor and analyst Jim Cramer also discussed the “rotation” argument, saying he is becoming much more selective about where the fundamentals justify the enthusiasm.

 UBS raised its S&P 500 target as corporate earnings expectations strengthened furtherSpencer Platt/Getty Images

AI and the Fed still anchor UBS’s bull case

Additionally, UBS’s higher S&P 500 target rests a lot on AI, but the bank’s broader thesis isn’t expecting the biggest tech stocks to continue firing. 

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Its Aug. 19 work showed average cloud sales growth across the top hyperscalers, rising to 48% in Q2 from 40% in the first quarter. UBS viewed the recent weakness in AI-related stocks more as profit-taking instead of evidence that underlying demand had meaningfully deteriorated.

The bull case strengthens if AI spending flows through more of the economy rather than being concentrated in a handful of Big Tech and cloud names. 

Specifically, UBS has pointed to Microsoft’s (MSFT) growing cloud growth and Caterpillar’s (CAT) data-center demand as major signs that the buildout is benefiting industrials and infrastructure suppliers as well.

For perspective, Azure and other cloud services sales surged 43% year over year in fiscal Q4 2026, with Microsoft guiding for 45% growth in the September quarter, underscoring powerful demand for cloud services. 

Overall, that creates potential earnings support across power equipment, construction, utilities, and other parts of the AI supply chain.

The monetary policy side of UBS’s argument is perhaps more nuanced.

UBS feels an aggressive Federal Reserve easing cycle isn’t needed for stocks to work. A patient Fed might just be enough if inflation continues to moderate and policymakers avoid tightening.

That’s doubly important because elevated treasury yields have been the market’s valuation risks. 

Moreover, UBS pointed to rising yields, oil prices, and the sluggishness in AI stocks, creating collective pressure. 

What UBS’s new target means for investors

For investors, UBS’s higher S&P 500 target is more like a useful roadmap.

Though the bank still sees added upside through the year-end, the remaining gains are much smaller than those investors captured in 2026.

That switches up the risk-reward equation. Scooping up stocks primarily because UBS bumped its target leaves a lot less room for disappointment if earnings, AI spending, or interest rates move the wrong way.

UBS favors staying invested while diversifying. 

The name of the game is to exercise caution against the fastest-rising AI names and use periods of volatility to rebalance concentrated positions. 

Moreover, as we look ahead, investors need to watch whether earnings strength spreads into financials, industrials, consumer companies, and other cyclical sectors. If the market can produce robust bottom-line growth outside megacap technology, UBS’s case becomes considerably tougher to break.

AI is another checkpoint. 

Investors should look to distinguish between businesses merely spending heavily on AI and those showing genuine monetization. UBS remains constructive on the theme, but selectivity becomes important given the massive CapEx. 

Then there are yields.

A sustained increase in Treasury yields could potentially pressure already-elevated stock valuations, while another pricing shock, higher oil prices, or sluggish economic growth might challenge UBS’s earnings assumptions.

Related: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire makes backdoor SpaceX play 

The legendary billionaire macro trader, Stanley Druckenmiller, has built his career on a simple habit. When he finds a bet he believes in, he sizes it big and watches it closely.

Right now, that bet is a cancer-testing company most people have never heard of: Natera (NTRA), and the reason he keeps buying tells you something useful about where he thinks healthcare is going.

His family office holds more of it than any other stock, and he added to the position last quarter even as the shares traded near record highs.

What Druckenmiller’s Natera bet actually looks like right now

Druckenmiller runs his money through the Duquesne Family Office, and his stock holdings show up every quarter in a public filing called a 13F.

A 13F is a report that large investors must file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, listing the U.S. stocks they own.

His most recent filing, dated August 14, 2026, covers the second quarter and shows Natera as his single largest holding at 16.6% of the reported portfolio, according to the SEC filing.

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That’s worth about $864.9 million.

He did not just hold the position. He added 122,700 shares during the quarter, lifting the stake to about 3.19 million shares.

That detail matters, because the stock was expensive at the time. He kept buying anyway.

Why a macro trader put so much into one healthcare stock

Druckenmiller made his name betting on currencies, interest rates, and big economic shifts, not on individual biotech companies.

So a concentrated Natera position looks unusual on the surface.

The logic becomes clearer when you look at what Natera sells. 

Its main product is Signatera, a blood test that looks for tiny fragments of tumor DNA left in the body after cancer treatment.

Doctors use it to catch a cancer coming back earlier than a scan would show.

That is a service hospitals order regardless of the economy. A patient monitored for cancer recurrence gets tested whether interest rates rise or fall.

For an investor who spends his days worrying about the economy, a business that keeps selling through a downturn is rare.

Natera’s Signatera test looks for traces of cancer DNA in a blood sample, and demand for it is driving the company’s fastest growth.SOPA Images / Getty Images

How Natera’s latest results support the thesis

The numbers behind the bet are strong.

Natera reported second-quarter revenue of $752.8 million on August 6, 2026, up 37.7% from a year earlier.

That beat Wall Street’s estimate of about $662.6 million.

The company processed more than one million tests for the second quarter in a row, and oncology test volume jumped 57.2%.

Here is what stood out in the quarter:

Natera second-quarter 2026 highlights

Revenue of $752.8 million, up 37.7% from a year earlier, beating expectations.

Oncology testing volume up 57.2%, driven by Signatera.

Gross margin of 64.5%, up from 63.4% a year earlier.

Full-year revenue guidance raised to a range of $2.85 billion to $2.91 billion.

Net loss narrowed to 47 cents a share from 74 cents a year earlier.

Natera still loses money, but the loss is shrinking, and management now expects positive cash flow for the full year.

The part of the bet that most investors miss

The peculiar part of Druckenmiller’s position is not that he owns Natera. It is how much he owns relative to everything else.

His second-largest holding, drugmaker Insmed, sits at 5.7% of the portfolio. Natera is nearly three times that size.

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He has said before that he prefers to concentrate when conviction is high, once describing his approach as putting his eggs in one basket and watching the basket closely.

Making a mid-sized cancer-testing company his top holding, ahead of every large technology name, shows he treats Natera’s growth as close to a sure thing rather than a gamble.

That conviction is the signal retail investors should focus on, more than the exact share count.

What this means if you are already holding Natera

A large, patient owner like Duquesne can steady a stock.

When a well-known investor holds millions of shares and keeps adding, it becomes harder for short sellers to push the price down without pushback.

Druckenmiller’s presence also sends a message about what to watch. He is backing revenue growth and rising test volumes, not quarterly profit.

If you own Natera, what matters most are test volume growth, Signatera adoption, and progress toward positive cash flow, rather than whether the company posts a net profit next quarter.

What to check before buying Natera today

If you are thinking about buying, the timing of Druckenmiller’s filing is the first thing to understand.

A 13F can be released up to 45 days after a quarter ends, so it shows where an investor stood in the past, not where they stand today.

Druckenmiller bought his shares during the second quarter, when Natera traded well below its recent levels. 

The stock closed at $311.69 on August 18, 2026, up about 36% for the year and near its 52-week high of $326.03.

Buying now means paying a much higher price than he did.

A few risks are worth weighing before you follow him:

Natera trades at a high price relative to sales, so any slowdown in test growth could hit the stock hard.

The company depends on insurers and Medicare paying for its tests, and reimbursement rules can change.

Competition in cancer-recurrence testing is increasing, even though Natera leads today.

The bottom line for investors

Druckenmiller’s Natera position is a clear, high-conviction bet on cancer diagnostics as a business that grows through any economy.

The company’s second-quarter results back that view, with revenue up 37.7%, record test volumes, and raised guidance.

Related: Key HIV stat over 70% leaves BofA siding with Gilead

For current shareholders, his continued buying is a reason to focus on volume and cash flow rather than short-term losses.

For prospective buyers, it is better to be more cautious. The stock is up about 36% this year and sits near a record, so the easy entry point Druckenmiller got is gone.

Size any position to your own risk tolerance and watch Signatera volume growth and reimbursement decisions in the coming quarters.

This is not investment advice, and a single investor’s holdings should never be the only reason to buy a stock.

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In January 2025, Commerce Department regulators finalized a rule targeting Chinese technology in American cars, and lidar sensors were sitting right in front of them. They chose to carve lidar out.

The final rule from the Bureau of Industry and Security explicitly excluded lidar from its restrictions, even while acknowledging the sensors posed a national security risk, according to the Federal Register notice. Regulators called it a lower priority than the wireless hardware they were targeting and left the door open to revisit it later.

That later appears to be now. Idaho National Laboratory, a Department of Energy facility, is quietly testing whether Chinese lidar sensors could be hacked, disabled en masse, or used to funnel data back to China if adopted widely on American roads, according to TechCrunch, which first reported the review.

Any finding, positive or negative, could reshape which lidar suppliers automakers are willing to be seen buying from.

A spokesperson told TechCrunch in June and again in July that the project was not something the lab could discuss with reporters.

The review is being funded by an unnamed company or group of companies in the electric and autonomous vehicle industry, TechCrunch said, and it is unfolding as lawmakers draft multiple bills aimed at restricting Chinese lidar nationwide.

Two risks explain the urgency around Chinese lidar

Innoviz CEO Omer Keilaf, whose Israeli company competes directly with Chinese lidar makers, described two distinct threats to TechCrunch.

One is a mass shutdown: sensors disabled in bulk, standing vehicles already in motion. The other is quieter, involving compressed sensor data funneled out through a cellular chip.

Keilaf said he had not heard of the Idaho review before TechCrunch asked him about it. A cybersecurity assessment serious enough to draw private funding has apparently run for months without reaching the executives who build competing sensors for a living.

A 2025 federal rule restricting Chinese vehicle tech explicitly excluded lidar sensors, a gap a new Idaho National Laboratory review may now be testing.karelnoppe / Getty Images

Automakers’ silence is a strategy, not an accident

Rivian, General Motors, Ford, Kodiak, Lucid, Nuro, and Uber all told TechCrunch they had no knowledge of the review.

Nvidia, Zoox, and Aurora did not respond to questions about it at all.

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That is a wide swath of autonomous vehicle industry professing ignorance of a study that directly concerns hardware many of them already use or plan to use.

Rivian’s own public record shows why staying quiet might be the safer posture. In May, CEO RJ Scaringe told Reuters the company was weighing building its own lidar sensors domestically, potentially through a joint venture using Chinese technology, because “all the real choices are coming out of China” at the price point automakers need.

A month of whiplash, then a policy vacuum

Rivian’s chief financial officer, Claire McDonough, walked that back weeks later, calling the in-house lidar reports “an erroneous headline” and saying the company has no plans today to bring the work in-house, in remarks at a UBS investor conference.

That reversal shows how fast the ground shifts under any automaker that admits reliance on Chinese sensors.

Washington’s own rules explain the caution. Section 164 of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act already bars the Pentagon from operating or procuring Chinese-made lidar, naming Hesai (HSAI) directly, according to congressional commitee documents.

A newer bill from Senators Ted Budd and Tammy Baldwin would extend similar restrictions to Department of Transportation contracts, according to the bill text.

Neither law touches the vehicle a consumer buys at a dealership. Hesai remains on the Pentagon’s list of alleged Chinese military-linked suppliers and is fighting that designation in court, a case still unresolved, the Associated Press reported.

Hesai’s Nasdaq-listed shares have traded well below their 52-week high of $30.85 for months, closing the week at $19.10, offering evidence that investors were pricing in regulatory risk before this review surfaced.

Every rule written so far carves a hole around exactly the vehicles ordinary drivers buy. Idaho’s review may be the evidence that finally closes it, whether or not the automakers staying silent are ready for the answer.

Related: Automakers are quietly changing what’s in your engine