Apple raised prices on Macs and iPads by up to $300. Microsoft is hiking Xbox prices from August. Both blamed the same thing: a memory chip shortage driven by the AI boom, and it could last well into 2027.
CEO confidence fell to 47 in Q2 2026. Nearly a third of executives plan to cut headcount. GDP growth is at 1.6 percent. The Fed is holding rates. And the businesses that set hiring and firing decisions are telling you the economy feels worse than the numbers suggest.
China’s latest sanctions block dual-use exports to 10 US defense firms, targeting drone makers and rare earth miners. For the companies caught in the middle, it is not about politics. It is about supply chains they cannot easily replace.
Yum Brands is selling Pizza Hut to private equity firm LongRange Capital and Yum China for about $2.7 billion combined. After ten straight quarters of falling US sales, the parent company is cutting loose the brand that built it.
Chicago’s Ingredion is buying Britain’s Tate & Lyle for $3.6 billion in cash at a 59% premium. The deal is a bet that the GLP-1 weight-loss boom is rewiring what the world wants to eat.
Record revenue, a $638 billion backlog, 93% cloud infrastructure growth. And Wall Street punished Oracle harder than any day in years, because investors finally did the math on what serving OpenAI actually costs.