Walmart (WMT) is hitting the sweet spot with both high- and low-income shoppers.

Shares of Walmart rose about 4% in pre-market trading Tuesday after the retail giant reported strong third-quarter earnings. Walmart’s latest results were fueled by in-store shopping, higher demand for buying items online but picking them up in-store, and deliveries. Growth in advertising and e-commerce also helped drive the strong performance.

“In the U.S., in-store volumes grew, pickup from store grew faster, and delivery from store grew even faster than that,” the company said in its latest earnings release.

The performance prompted Walmart to raise its full-year sales forecast. The company now expects net sales to grow by 4.8% to 5.1%, up from its previous forecast of 3.75% to 4.75%, driven by stronger demand for discretionary items, increased home deliveries, and early holiday shopping.

The Arkansas-based company beat Wall Street’s earnings expectations in the third quarter, posting revenue of $169.59 billion, about $0.58 cents a share. Analysts had forecast $167.72 billion in revenue, roughly $0.53 cents a share, according to FactSet (FDS).

As lingering inflation drives shoppers to search for deals, Walmart’s affordable offerings continue to attract budget-conscious consumers, putting the retailer in a strong position to thrive.

Walmart is successfully “meeting the needs” of both budget-conscious consumers and those seeking value, said Greg Zakowicz, senior e-commerce expert at Omnisend.

Bank of America (BAC) shared a similar positive outlook. In a research note, the firm predicted upside potential, estimating 3.5% growth in U.S. comparable sales, slightly below consensus expectations. Bank of America analysts also anticipate growth in Walmart’s gross margins, driven by digital advertising, fulfillment services, and its third-party marketplace.

The launch of same-day pharmacy delivery and significant investments to improve its digital shopping experience, could help it compete with its immediate rival Amazon (AMZN), while staying ahead of notable contenders like Target (TGT) and Costco (COST). For now, at least, Amazon remains the “lowest-price” retailer, according to a study conducted by e-commerce analytics platform Profitero.

Walmart, considered the largest U.S.-based retailer, saw a 0.9% increase in year-over-year visits during the third quarter, according to foot traffic analytics firm Placer.ai. Meanwhile, its membership-based warehouse subsidiary Sam’s Club has seen a 5.2% rise.

Earlier this month, Walmart said it would start locking items like deodorant and baby formula due to rising theft concerns. The retailer is looking into other solutions, such as giving customers the ability to unlock items with their smartphone.

Japanese tech company Recruit Holdings, which owns Indeed and Glassdoor, says it is slashing approximately 1,300 roles across the career sites to focus on “simplifying hiring” with AI. 

Indeed and Recruit Holdings CEO Hisayuki “Deko” Idekoba informed employees of both sites of the cuts in an email on Thursday. He said the eliminations will primarily hit U.S.-based staffers working in research and development as well as people and sustainability teams. The executive added that the cuts ultimately "span all functions and several countries.”

Idekoba told staff they would know their “status” within the next hour or during their local working hours. The workforce reduction represents “6% of the HR Technology segment workforce," he said. 

In the email, Idekoba added that Glassdoor, a site where workers can review companies, will integrate its operations into Indeed, a job searching site, in order to create a "simpler hiring experience for job seekers and employers.” Bloomberg first reported the news on Thursday. 

Idekoba recently took back his role as CEO of Indeed in June. He had served as the company’s CEO and president from 2013 to 2019. In a release announcing Idekoba’s return as CEO, he said, “We’re in a once-in-a-generation moment when technology can really change lives…Hiring is still too slow and too hard, and we’re using AI to make it simpler and more personal — for both job seekers and employers.”

While Idekoba didn’t give a direct reason for the job cuts, he did say in the memo, “AI is changing the world, and we must adapt by ensuring our product delivers truly great experiences for job seekers and employers." He added, "To achieve our company priorities it requires creating a structure and culture to support them.”

Idekoba also told workers that Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong “has decided to leave” after 10 years with the site due to the restructuring and cuts. Sutherland-Wong’s last day will be October 1. Idekoba added that Indeed’s chief people and sustainability officer has “made the personal decision to leave the company,” effective September 1. Recruit Holdings COO and board member Ayano Senaha (Sena) “will step in to lead the team,” Idekoba said.

Last May, Indeed cut its workforce by 1,000 employees, or about 8% of its staff. Those cuts were also focused on U.S.-based roles in its research and development team, among others. In March 2023, the Austin, Texas-based company reduced its staff by 15%. 

Recruit Holdings acquired Indeed in 2012 and Glassdoor in 2018.

Rocio Fabbro contributed to this article. 

Correction: The 2024 Indeed layoffs occurred in May, not August.

Tesla might have just dodged a Texas lawsuit — by pushing its shareholder meeting nearly four months past its legal deadline.

On Wednesday evening, the company filed SEC paperwork, confirming that Tesla will hold its overdue 2025 annual shareholder meeting on November 6. That announcement arrives nearly four months past the deadline required under Texas law, where Tesla is incorporated and based. Under state rules, publicly traded companies must hold shareholder meetings within 13 months of their previous one. Tesla’s 2024 meeting was in June, making July 13 the cutoff. Company shares rose about 3% in early trading after the meeting date was set.

Whether the late scheduling will satisfy Texas’ legal requirement remains up in the air. State officials had signaled that they were prepared to take action if Tesla failed to meet the deadline. A written shareholder consent could technically satisfy the law, but Tesla hasn’t disclosed one. And in its filing, the company didn’t explain the delay. The question remains: Did Tesla comply with the spirit of the law — or just with the bare-minimum interpretation? 

Any ambiguity could leave the company vulnerable to lawsuits or penalties, and the delay has already inflamed long-simmering investor concerns about transparency and governance. 

The timing of the filing is no accident. Just 24 hours before Tesla’s filing, a coalition of 27 state officials and institutional investors — including public fund managers from New York, Oregon, and Maryland — issued a sharply worded letter criticizing Tesla’s silence and urging the board to schedule the meeting immediately. The group, which collectively manages more than $1.5 trillion in assets, expressed “deep concern regarding the lack of timely notice about the date and format” of the annual gathering. Tesla’s move to announce a meeting just under the wire could calm some of those nerves, but it doesn’t entirely close the case. 

Annual shareholder meetings offer rare, high-profile opportunities for investors to question executives, challenge board decisions, and hold leadership accountable. And this year, there’s plenty for Tesla shareholders to talk about. The company’s stock is down 20% year to date. Vehicle sales have slumped due to an aging product lineup and rising EV competition. CEO Elon Musk has become increasingly immersed in partisan politics, allegedly launching a third party after a very public fallout with President Donald Trump. That political turn has rattled investors — and alienated some of the liberal consumers most likely to buy electric cars.

Tesla, meanwhile, is trying to shift the narrative. The company has increasingly downplayed vehicle sales and has pivoted its messaging toward full self-driving technology and robotics, though both remain in early stages. Musk said robotaxis are coming to San Francisco soon, and Tesla just announced that Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Musk’s xAI startup, will be integrated into its vehicles as soon as next week, further blurring the lines between Musk’s ventures and potentially raising fresh governance questions when proxy materials are released.

Advocacy groups have slammed Tesla’s compressed timeline and the board’s perceived resistance to shareholder input. “The Tesla board’s efforts to dismiss shareholder proposals is a bigger impediment than having a very short window to submit them in the first place,” Kevin Thomas, CEO of shareholder advisory group SHARE, told Reuters.

Earlier this year, a Delaware court voided Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package, ruling it was pushed through without proper process. In response, Tesla shareholders voted in June to reincorporate the company in Texas, a move that many saw as an effort to benefit from the state’s increasingly business-friendly — and investor-constraining — laws. Just weeks later, Texas passed legislation that makes it harder for shareholders to sue company executives or submit activist proposals. Tesla then amended its bylaws to block any investor with less than 3% of shares from filing derivative lawsuits. 

All that means that this fall’s shareholder meeting will likely be the most closely watched in Tesla’s history. That pay package issue is expected to return to the ballot, along with fresh scrutiny over Musk’s control across multiple companies, the board’s independence, and Tesla’s ability to compete in a rapidly shifting auto market.

If Tesla’s strategy was to buy time, the company may have gotten it. But whether or not it bought goodwill is another question entirely.

Nvidia has all its chips on the table — and Wall Street is still betting big. The AI hardware juggernaut on Thursday became the first company in history to close at a $4 trillion market cap, a milestone that reflects its dominance in one of the most lucrative tech revolutions in decades.

The stock briefly surged past $164.42 per share on Wednesday, enough to push Nvidia into that record-breaking territory before shares slipped slightly. Nvidia ultimately closed at $164.10 per share on Thursday, clinching the $4 trillion valuation. While Nvidia remains the most valuable publicly traded company in the world, Microsoft is also closing in on the same milestone.

Nvidia's record valuation is largely a signal that the rules of scale in tech have changed. The company’s rise has been blistering: It topped $1 trillion in mid-2023, then blew past the $2 trillion and $3 trillion marks in quick succession. The rally has been fueled by insatiable demand from Big Tech players — including Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google parent company Alphabet — who have all been racing to build massive AI models that require tens of thousands of Nvidia’s specialized chips.

Every major AI buildout, from OpenAI’s GPT to Tesla’s autonomous systems, depends on Nvidia chips. Governments are spending billions to stand up “sovereign AI” programs. Tech giants are racing to secure supply. And Nvidia has positioned itself as the one-stop shop for AI infrastructure, from raw silicon to entire data centers.

The market, naturally, is hooked. Nvidia now makes up roughly 8% of the S&P 500, meaning its daily moves swing everything from tech indexes to pension funds. Analysts have raced to raise their targets: Citi recently bumped its price forecast to $190. 

Other firms, such as Loop Capital, see Nvidia shares hitting $250, which would imply a staggering $6 trillion valuation. “It may seem fantastic that Nvidia’s fundamentals can continue to amplify from current levels,” Loop analyst Ananda Baruah wrote in a recent note, “but we remind folks: Nvidia remains essentially a monopoly for critical tech, and it has pricing (and margin) power.” The firm projects the AI chip market could reach $2 trillion by 2028 and sees Nvidia’s valuation potentially climbing from $3.6 trillion today to $6 trillion. Wedbush, meanwhile, says $5 trillion is within reach this year. For every $1 spent on Nvidia’s chips, Wedbush has estimated that there’s an $8–$10 ripple across the tech stack. 

A huge part of the momentum is coming from Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell chips, which began rolling out this year and are expected to power the next wave of AI adoption. Cloud providers, enterprise firms, and governments are all loading up. So far, there’s no sign that demand is cooling — if anything, the opposite.

That said, there are real risks on the horizon. U.S. export restrictions have already cut Nvidia off from some of its biggest potential buyers, particularly in China. The company disclosed a $4.5 billion inventory charge in its last earnings report tied to chips it can no longer sell (although the company largely shrugged that charge off). And while Nvidia’s dominance remains clear for now, the pace of innovation — and competition, from companies such as AMD and even a blacklisted Huawei — is only accelerating. And while demand remains red-hot, some analysts warn that the broader AI hype cycle could eventually cool.

For now, though, investors aren’t blinking. Nvidia isn’t leading the AI revolution — Nvidia is the AI revolution. And with Microsoft likely not far behind in hitting the $4 trillion mark, Wall Street may be entering an era where trillion-dollar milestones are just the cost of admission to the top tier of tech.

Tesla is getting ready to bring its robotaxi service to the San Francisco Bay Area, as CEO Elon Musk doubles down on a future built around driverless cars and humanoid robots rather than just electric vehicles.

Musk announced on X that Tesla could launch its robotaxi service in California’s tech hub “probably in a month or two,” assuming the company clears regulatory hurdles. The move comes after Tesla previewed the service last month to a small group of shareholders and supporters in Austin, Texas — with human backup drivers in tow. This weekend, Tesla plans to expand its Austin service area.

Investors seemed to like the idea. Tesla shares jumped as much as 4.1% on Thursday morning before settling up around 2.5%, though the stock is still down 25% this year.

The push into robotaxis is part of Musk’s broader effort to refocus Tesla around futuristic projects as its core EV business slows. That said, Musk has a history of setting ambitious timelines for autonomous driving that the company typically misses.

Tesla has been laying the groundwork for a California rollout for a while. It applied late last year for a transportation permit from the California Public Utilities Commission, Bloomberg reported earlier this year, and told the state DMV it would start with pre-arranged rides for employees using safety drivers.

There are still plenty of hurdles ahead. U.S. auto safety regulators are already looking into Tesla’s robotaxi program after reports that vehicles in Austin were violating traffic laws on their very first day.

Right now, the Texas program only involves a few Model Y vehicles. But Musk says Tesla plans to scale up to a thousand cars within a few months and eventually introduce a futuristic “Cybercab” with no pedals or steering wheel.

Bitcoin surged to a new record high on Thursday, fueled by growing demand from institutional investors and pro-crypto policies under the Trump administration.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency jumped to an all-time high of $113,450 at the time of writing. This marks its first record since late May and puts Bitcoin nearly 50% above its early April low.

The rally comes as more companies add Bitcoin to their corporate treasuries and lawmakers push forward with legislation supporting the crypto sector. So far this year, Bitcoin has gained 19%, keeping pace with the returns of big tech names like Nvidia and Microsoft.

However, trading volumes on Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based crypto exchange, have been dwindling. Analysts say this suggests that big institutional players may be accumulating Bitcoin through spot ETFs rather than on exchanges.

Looking ahead, technical analysts see a potential upside target for Bitcoin of around $146,400, which would be a 32% jump from current levels. On the downside, if Bitcoin pulls back, the $107,000 level could act as support, sitting just below the channel’s upper trendline and near its 50-day moving average.

Hollywood’s video game voice and motion-capture actors have officially secured new AI protections after nearly a year of striking. On Wednesday, SAG-AFTRA announced that members ratified a new contract with major video game studios, marking a shift in how AI will be used in the gaming industry.

The deal covers studios including Activision Productions, Electronic Arts, Disney Character Voices, Insomniac Games, WB Games, and several others. Effective immediately, it ends a strike that had already been suspended pending final member approval.

The new contract, which was approved by 95% of voting union members, includes requirements for consent and disclosure whenever AI is used to create digital replicas of performers. It also grants actors the ability to suspend consent if there’s a strike, ensuring studios can’t generate new material from their likenesses without approval.

“This deal achieves important progress around AI protections, and progress is the name of the game,” SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said in a statement celebrating the ratification.

In addition to AI guardrails, the agreement includes improved safety measures for motion-capture performers, such as requiring medics on set during high-risk scenes. Performers will also see a compounded pay increase of 15.17% upon ratification, with an additional 3% raise each year through 2027.

The fight for AI protections echoes broader Hollywood tensions over artificial intelligence. Last year, writers and screen actors both went on strike over concerns about AI’s potential to replace jobs and use people’s likenesses without permission. Video game performers carried that momentum into their own negotiations.

Meanwhile, Congress is currently considering the NO FAKES Act. The bipartisan bill would make it illegal to create AI replicas of someone’s voice or likeness without permission. The legislation has gained support from SAG-AFTRA, the Motion Picture Association, The Recording Academy, and Disney.

Parents appear to be pulling back on their back-to-school spending this year while costs remain high as the large shopping season ramps up, a survey found. In Deloitte’s annual back-to-school survey, the consulting firm found that parents shopping for items as they prepare their kids to begin the school year are focusing on “just the essentials” by practicing more conscious shopping.

Parents plan to spend an average of $570 per child on back-to-school shopping this season, which is relatively the same compared with the last two years. In 2024, parents planned to spend an average of $587, and in 2023, they planned for a budget of $597. 

Some ways parents plan to make their shopping more cost-conscious are by spending during promotional events in July, shopping over an extended period, and sacrificing fast shipping for cheaper, albeit slower, options. Seventy-five percent of parents said they’d be willing to swap out brands for more affordable options to save on expenses. 

However, over half of the parents surveyed said they’d be “willing to splurge” on a first-day outfit for their child, and 62% said they’re often influenced by their kid to spend more money.  

Another recent study on consumer value spending from Deloitte found that four in 10 shoppers are trying to be more “cost-conscious” by sacrificing convenience for better value — which could prove increasingly difficult for shoppers as brands wield shrinkflation to cut down on growing production costs. 

As President Donald Trump’s flurry of high tariffs on countries across the globe threatens to increase costs, consumers have expressed concern. Although a recent Federal Reserve survey found that consumers are feeling slightly more confident about inflation, their sentiment has only returned to the same rate recorded in January before the tariffs spiked consumer anxiety. Expectations for inflation over the next three years and the next five years remained unchanged. 

Concerns around inflation coupled with high, unwavering interest rates and a brutal number of private sector job cuts in June cause no surprise as to why consumers are becoming increasingly cost-conscious. 

–Ben Kesslen contributed to this article. 

Google is making it easier for people to create short videos with AI. Starting this week, subscribers to its Gemini AI Ultra and Pro plans can turn photos into eight-second video clips directly through the Gemini chat interface.

The feature, which is rolling out first on the web version of Gemini and then to the mobile app later this week, lets users upload a photo and add a text description to generate a short video with sound. The videos come out as MP4 files in 720p landscape format.

This tool isn’t brand new — Google showed it off back in May at its annual developer conference as part of Veo 3, its latest video-generation model. Until now, it was only available through Flow, Google’s standalone filmmaking tool, but now it’s baked into Gemini, making it easier for more subscribers to access.

The update comes as Google tries to keep up with competitors like OpenAI and Runway, along with Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Kuaishou, all racing to launch their own AI video tools.

Google claims it has strict guidelines in place to prevent misuse. For example, Google says you can’t create videos using images of celebrities, politicians, or other public figures, and it won’t produce content that promotes violence or bullying.

That said, the tool is far from perfect. Tests by Bloomberg found that when users tried to create talking videos from photos, the AI sometimes altered people’s faces or even changed their race. Simpler prompts — like making a plant sway in the wind or animating a cat to look like it’s talking — worked much better. But when asked to make someone breakdance, it ended up just making them wave to the camera.

A Google spokesperson told Bloomberg the AI isn’t programmed to change someone’s appearance and that the technology is still developing. Right now, it works best for animating nature scenes, drawings, and objects, but improvements to face animations are on the way in future updates.

Jensen Huang is heading back to Beijing, and he’s hoping to bring a message: Nvidia isn’t giving up on China, no matter how high the geopolitical stakes get. According to reporting from The Financial Times and Bloomberg, the chip giant’s CEO is expected to meet with top Chinese officials, including Premier Li Qiang and Vice-Premier He Lifeng, while attending the government-backed International Supply Chain Expo next week. 

Though Nvidia declined to comment on Huang’s agenda, people familiar with his plans say the CEO wants to reaffirm the company’s commitment to China. That means the trip could be part diplomacy, part damage control, and part preview of a key product pivot that’s aimed squarely at navigating tightening U.S. export restrictions. For Huang, who just led Nvidia to a record $4 trillion valuation, the stakes are incredibly high. 

Nvidia is preparing to launch an AI chip designed specifically for China as early as September. According to The Financial Times, the processor — based on its RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell architecture — will be stripped of advanced features such as high-bandwidth memory and NVLink to comply with rules implemented under President Donald Trump’s administration that prohibit the sale of Nvidia’s most powerful AI hardware to Chinese buyers. This chip won’t be the blockbuster H100 or Blackwell B200 that’s fueling data centers across the West, but it’ll be something — and that, Nvidia hopes, will be enough to keep a $17 billion market alive.

China accounts for about 13% of Nvidia’s total sales and remains the world’s largest ecosystem of AI developers. That has made the country both indispensable and increasingly fraught. The company’s H20 chip, introduced last year to meet the previous round of export guidelines, was effectively banned in April, costing Nvidia $15 billion.

Huang has described chip restrictions as counterproductive. In May, he called the Biden administration’s curbs a “failure,” saying that they’ve only accelerated China’s domestic chip efforts and handed a strategic edge to homegrown rivals such as Huawei. U.S. officials, meanwhile, are showing no signs of backing off. According to Bloomberg, the Trump administration is reportedly preparing to restrict chip exports to Malaysia and Thailand — both major transit hubs — as part of a broader campaign to prevent backdoor shipments to China. Taiwan, a major semiconductor hub, recently blacklisted Huawei.

At the same time, Chinese firms such as Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent have been aggressively testing alternatives from domestic rivals and reevaluating their reliance on U.S.-designed chips altogether. Nvidia is betting that any changes to the AI chips being used won’t happen overnight. While Chinese chips are catching up in raw performance, many firms remain deeply tied to Nvidia’s CUDA software ecosystem, which powers AI workloads across industries. 

Still, Huang is walking a diplomatic tightrope.

Nvidia wants to maintain a stronghold in China without crossing any red lines in Washington. Launching a purpose-built chip — one that sacrifices cutting-edge power in exchange for regulatory compliance — is Huang’s current middle path. But that road is getting narrower. Whether this latest trip to China results in regulatory clarity, market reassurance, or simply another headline, Huang’s presence in the country should let senior officials know that Nvidia is still playing to win in China, even if geopolitical tensions keep upending the rules.

President Donald Trump just made Jair Bolsonaro Brazil’s most expensive export. Trump slapped a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports this week, citing what he called the “WITCH HUNT” of former Brazilian president Bolsonaro, who is currently on trial for allegedly trying to overturn the country’s 2022 election. But current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva isn’t backing down. He’s signaling a diplomatic samba — threatening retaliation and warning that Brazil’s sovereignty isn’t up for negotiation.

Lula wrote on X, “In light of the public statement made by U.S. President Donald Trump on social media on the afternoon of Wednesday (9), it is important to highlight the following: Brazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage. The judicial proceedings against those responsible for planning the coup d'état fall exclusively under the jurisdiction of Brazil’s Judicial Branch and, as such, are not subject to any interference or threats that could compromise the independence of national institutions.”

The tariffs are expected to hit major Brazilian exports such as beef, soy, and metals, raising alarm across the U.S. industries that rely on them. American companies with operations in Brazil, particularly in energy, chemicals, and auto parts, are bracing for blowback. If the tariffs are actually enacted as the president has promised will happen on August 1, they would represent the most severe trade penalties the U.S. has imposed on Brazil in decades, dwarfing Trump’s first-term aluminum tariffs and potentially jeopardizing billions in cross-border flows.

On Monday, Lula told reporters, “I think it’s very wrong and very irresponsible for a president to be threatening others on social media.” He added, “He needs to know that the world has changed. We don’t want an emperor.”

While Lula hasn’t laid out specific countermeasures, he made it clear that Brazil views the tariff hike as a direct attack on the integrity of its democratic institutions. He added on X that “any unilateral tariff increases will be addressed in accordance with Brazil's Economic Reciprocity Law.” Senior officials in Brasília have signaled that the government is considering a response under its reciprocity law, which allows for tit-for-tat measures against trading partners deemed to be acting in bad faith. The administration is also reportedly reviewing bilateral investment frameworks and trade flows.

Bolsonaro was formally charged in February over his alleged role in a failed 2022 coup; he’s widely expected to be convicted. The former Brazilian president — long seen as Trump’s ideological twin — has become a political flashpoint as Brazil reckons with its own January 6–style moment. 

There’s a broader geopolitical ripple to the recent comments, as well. The timing of Trump’s spat complicates Brazil’s positioning ahead of the coming BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, where Lula had hoped to put a spotlight on Brazil’s growing role as a stable power in the Global South. Instead, the country finds itself staring down a fresh trade war with Washington — just as it tries to balance relations with the U.S., China, other BRICS partners, and a divided bloc of emerging economies.

Unlike China, Brazil isn’t a traditional economic adversary. But Trump’s move threatens to push Lula further into alignment with Beijing , just as BRICS is exploring trade mechanisms, including a potential alternative currency to the U.S. dollar.

Markets are watching closely. The move could drive up prices for American importers while forcing Brazilian exporters to shift toward Asia and Europe. Economically, the immediate impact may be limited. Politically, it could be explosive.

This is the latest chapter in Trump’s familiar playbook: Use tariffs to apply pressure, wrap economic levers around political goals, and make foreign policy personal. Lula is making it clear that he won’t be bullied into silence, and Bolsonaro’s trial is likely to drag on for months. That means the U.S.–Brazil relationship could get a lot more expensive — fast.