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Trade Wars
Using Your Credit Card at the Checkout Is Set to Get a Lot More Complicated
A settlement between Visa, Mastercard and U.S. merchants announced this week could usher in a new era of tiered pricing at the register, giving businesses more power to charge fees depending on the credit card you use. The agreement comes after a two-decade antitrust battle over interchange fees, the charges banks collect from merchants every time a customer pays with plastic. The settlement still needs court approval, and is likely to be contested by some merchant groups, which have disagreed over the fees and other terms in the past. A deal last year fell apart after lawyers for some merchants objected.
Merchants, for example could refuse certain types of bank Visa or astercards. There is also likely to be more fees. Some merchants already tack on small fees when customers pay with a credit card instead of cash, but those tend to apply broadly across credit cards. The settlement would go a step further, allowing different surcharges depending on the category the card falls into. A basic, no-frills credit card, for instance, might come with a surcharge of 2.5% of the transaction amount, versus 3% for a rewards card. The settlement would require banks to add clear visual markers to cards to help consumers and merchants determine what category a card falls into, but that could take years to update, analysts said. There will also be a reduction in interchange fees could threaten rewards for consumers.
Read more at the WSJ
CoreWeave Provides Weak Forward Guidance Even As Revenue More Than Doubles
CoreWeave, a provider of infrastructure for artificial intelligence companies, reported better-than-expected third-quarter revenue on Monday, but the company delivered disappointing full-year guidance. Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus: Revenue in the quarter soared 134% from $583.9 million a year ago, according to a statement. The company reported a net loss of $110 million, narrowing from about $360 million in the same quarter last year.
CoreWeave’s growth is tied directly to the AI boom, as the company rents out Nvidia graphics processing units and has won business from leading cloud infrastructure providers, including Google and Microsoft. The company’s backlog now stands at $55.6 billion, with 2.9 gigawatts in contracted power, up from 2.2 gigawatts on June 30, according to the statement. CoreWeave now sees 2025 revenue coming in between $5.05 billion and $5.15 billion. CoreWeave’s 2026 capital expenditures should be “well in excess of double” the total for 2025, which will end up between $12 billion and $14 billion, said Nitin Agrawal, the company’s finance chief.
Read more at CNBC
The Gen Z Fashion Trend That's Baffling Apparel Retailers
Gen Z’ers are 13 to 28 years old this year and there are now about 60 million out of the total U.S. population of 343 million. That’s 60 million young people who are right now forming long-term emotional bonds with brands and developing lifelong biases and preferences. Their global spending power is forecast by NielsenIQ to reach $12 trillion by 2030. This wave of consumers is a new challenge for the fashion industry. Labels are discovering that the aspirational look that Millennials favored—fitted silhouettes, minimalistic styling, athleisure, tailored jackets—has no appeal for Gen Z. Where Millennials wanted to belong or blend in, Gen Zers want to stand out. It’s all about self-branding and personalization.
That means micro-trends, like vintage looks that come and go on social media before the fast-fashion machine can catch up. Gender expression is fluid. Boys are dyeing their hair. Girls are wearing oversized blazers and baggy jeans. Bold colors, chunky jewelry, and big, bold eyewear are in. Gen Z’ers are also quite frugal. This holiday season they plan to spend about 25% less than last year, according to a PwC survey, and they expect deals. Gen Z’ers shop often in thrift stores, which have proliferated into a new, potent channel of direct competition. When Z’ers do spend, they want to feel they have gotten more than their money’s worth.
Read more at Forbes
Tyson Warns Of Plummeting Consumer Beef Purchases—As Chicken Sales Soar
Tyson, the largest meat company in the U.S., on Monday reported $13.86 billion in sales for its last fiscal quarter, missing Wall Street's $14.11 billion sales estimate, but posted better adjusted earnings than expected at $1.15 a share (analysts had forecast 84 cents). Chicken sales rose almost 4% over last year, from $4.251 billion to $4.411 billion, the company said. Tyson’s beef business, suffering due to the limited supply of American cattle, lost $94 million last quarter on an adjusted basis and, with domestic production of beef expected to continue falling, Tyson estimates it will have an adjusted operating loss between $400 million and $600 million for its beef business in fiscal 2026.
Tyson sold 8.4% fewer pounds of beef in the quarter as prices were up 17%. The company’s cattle costs rose almost $2 billion from a year ago. The company cited the USDA in estimating domestic production of pork and beef will fall 3% and 2%, respectively, in fiscal 2026, while chicken production is expected to increase 1%. The price of ground beef rose 51% from February of 2020 to September of 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices rose roughly 12% from September of 2024 to September 2025.
Read more at Forbes
India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Orders Additional GE Engines For Fighter Jets
India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has announced that it will procure additional F404-IN20 engines from General Electric (GE) Aerospace for its proprietary single-engine Tejas Mk 1A light combat aircraft. Janes understands that a contract was awarded to GE Aerospace on 7 November for 113 new F404-GE-IN20 engines. The acquisition will support HAL's completion of a September 2025 contract from the Indian Ministry of Defence (MoD) to produce 97 additional Tejas Mk 1As for the Indian Air Force (IAF), according to HAL. The contract also includes a ‘support package' that includes spares and modules.
Deliveries of the new engines will start in 2027. The acquisition will continue into 2032, according to HAL. The MoD's recent order of 97 additional Tejas Mk 1As is a follow-on to its January 2021 order of 83 Tejas Mk 1A aircraft (73 single-seat fighters and 10 two-seat trainers) from HAL. HAL has prioritised its production of the first batch of 83 Tejas Mk 1A aircraft. To speed up the completion of the 83 aircraft order, HAL has set up a third production line at its factory in Nashik, in the Indian state of Maharashtra. According to the ministry, the third Tejas Mk 1A production line took two years to be operationalised.
Read more at Janes Defense
ByHeart Recalls All Baby Formula Sold Nationwide As Infant Botulism Outbreak Grows
ByHeart, a manufacturer of organic baby formula, recalled all of its products sold nationwide Tuesday, days after some batches were recalled in an expanding outbreak of infant botulism. At least 15 babies in 12 states have been sickened in the outbreak since August, with more cases pending, according to state and federal health officials. All of the infants were hospitalized after consuming ByHeart formula, officials said. No deaths have been reported. ByHeart officials expanded the voluntary recall from two lots announced Saturday to all products in consumers’ homes and in stores.
That includes ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula and Anywhere Pack pouches of powdered formula. The company sells about 200,000 cans of infant formula a month online and in stores such as Target, Walmart, Albertsons and Whole Foods, according to Dr. Devon Kuehn, chief medical officer. The FDA is investigating 84 cases of infant botulism detected since August. Of those, 15 consumed ByHeart formula, the agency said in a statement. “This information shows that ByHeart brand formula is disproportionately represented among sick infants in this outbreak, especially given that ByHeart represents an estimated 1% of all infant formula sales in the United States,” the FDA statement said.
Read more at The AP
The U.S.’s Most Ambitious Shipyard Project Just Got Tougher
When Hanwha bought Philly Shipyard for $100 million, the U.S. site was losing money. Today, it is central to South Korea’s $150 billion pledge to help Trump revive American shipbuilding—one of the most ambitious industrial turnaround projects in the U.S. in decades. Hanwha plans to pump $5 billion into the site, hoping to rebuild a shipbuilding workforce and supply ecosystem that has largely shriveled away. America currently makes less than 1% of the world’s ships. China is by far the world’s largest producer, with more than 230 times the shipping capacity and far more merchant ships than the U.S.
Trump’s dream of resuscitating American shipbuilding relies heavily on South Korean help. The joint U.S.-Korean projects so far include repairing U.S. military vessels, helping design Navy supply ships and assisting American firms to expand capacity, train workers and make their production more efficient. Hanwha wants to increase Philly Shipyard’s annual production up to 20 ships a year, expand the workforce by thousands and add new heavy cranes, robotics and training sites. The goal is to bring some of the South Korean approach to Philadelphia, said David Kim, a Texan who moved over from Hanwha’s defense affiliate to become Philly Shipyard’s new chief executive. “We’ve got to change,” he said. “We can’t continue to do things the way we’ve been doing them.”
Read more at The WSJ
Anthropic Is on Track to Turn a Profit Much Faster Than OpenAI
The finances of Silicon Valley’s two largest artificial-intelligence startups show their diverging approaches to the AI boom, with Anthropic on a pace to turn a profit far more quickly than rival OpenAI, according to documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Anthropic, which has a growing number of business users because of the capabilities of its Claude chatbot in coding and other arenas, expects to break even for the first time in 2028, the documents show. By contrast, OpenAI forecasts its operating losses that year to swell to about $74 billion—or roughly three-fourths of revenue—thanks to ballooning spending on computing costs. The ChatGPT-maker also expects to burn through roughly 14 times as much cash as Anthropic before turning a profit in 2030.
The financial figures for OpenAI came before the startup signed a string of new computing deals with cloud and chip giants—meaning that it is likely set to spend even more in the coming years. The documents suggest that Anthropic is taking a more cautious approach, with costs growing at a pace more in line with revenue. The company is focused on increasing sales among corporate customers—which account for about 80% of revenue—and is avoiding OpenAI’s costly forays into image and video generation, which require much more computing power. Anthropic’s AI models have also taken off among coders.
Read more at WSJ
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