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Walmart, America’s largest retailer and one of its most critical economic bellwethers, just sent a worrying message.The firm beat second-quarter earnings estimates and lifted its full-year guidance, but unveiled several worrying figures that suggest US consumers aren’t doing so hot.Shares of the 64-year-old retail giant tumbled 9% to a 2026 low on Thursday as investors took in the lukewarm results.Here’s the rundown:US sales grew at their slowest pace in six years. Comparable sales, a measure of current revenue that accounts for factors like new store openings, grew 2.6% when excluding fuel costs, missing expectations of 3.7%. Walmart has rarely missed…

Disney is shaking up its employee benefits by launching a stock purchase program and switching up its health insurance plans.Eric Chaisson, Disney’s EVP of total rewards and employee services, told US-based employees about the changes in a Wednesday memo.”We’re planning to introduce an Employee Stock Purchase Plan later in 2027, pending approvals, giving eligible employees the opportunity to build company ownership by purchasing Disney stock,” Chaisson said in an email, which was viewed by Business Insider.Details of the stock purchase plan “are still being finalized,” Chaisson said, including who’s eligible and how the program will be designed.The new stock program…

Meta’s new vibe-coding social app, Pocket, is officially here.”We’re starting to roll out Pocket, a new app that turns your ideas into interactive creations you can play with and share right from your phone,” a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider.Pocket, which quietly launched as a test in July, is a social feed that lets users turn text prompts into interactive media. Think mini games and quirky memes.The app was developed by the team behind Gizmo, a similar app from Atma Sciences Inc., which was founded by ex-Snapchat staffers. Business Insider scooped in March that Meta hired the Atma Sciences team…

Former Sequoia investor Jeff Wang is close to launching one of the biggest hedge funds this year.Wang’s Augnition Global Investors is set to start trading in October with more than $2 billion in assets, two people close to the manager told Business Insider.The launch was the talk of Morgan Stanley’s popular Breakers conference at the start of the year; two attendees told Business Insider at the time that they expected Augnition to raise at least $1 billion. A person close to the manager said that Wang and his number two Alan Lo were planning to invest a significant amount of…

Influencers are being pelted with virtual tomatoes for promoting AI companies — and it’s prompting strategy shifts and high-stress decisions in the creator economy.At the height of summer, OpenAI brought a group of influencers to a luxury resort in upstate New York to dine on farm-to-table cuisine, learn how honey is made, and post about it online.The “Summer Camp” experience, which OpenAI said was tied to the launch of its ChatGPT Work product, quickly drew hate in comments sections.”Looks like a nice spot for a data center,” one user commented on an influencer’s post showcasing the pastoral setting. Others chimed…

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mounika Chinnam, 33, who lives in Andhra Pradesh, India and took a seven-year career break. The following has been edited for length and clarity.I got my first tech job when I was 23, writing code for a research and development company. I had a postgrad diploma in advanced computing and felt excited to start my career in computer science.Three years later, in 2019, life was very different. I had left my job shortly after getting married, and given birth to my son prematurely at 32 weeks. As a result, I became…

California Attorney General Rob Bonta told CNBC’s David Faber on Thursday that the group of states suing to block Paramount Skydance’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery would require “robust structural remedies” to reach a settlement in the antitrust case. “[Paramount] wanted to talk about everything except for what this case is about. They want to talk about the streaming market, which we don’t allege in our complaint. They want to talk about CNN, which is not a focus of our complaint. They want to talk about the foreign regulators. We want to talk about the three markets that we set…

Westend61 | Westend61 | Getty ImagesA version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.Battles over aging parents and their fortunes are becoming increasingly common in wealthy families, with some requiring cognitive assessments for those leading family businesses.While many families focus on the tax or financial components of wealth transfers, fewer are addressing the question of when an aging parent should give up control, wealth advisors and lawyers told CNBC. Waiting until a parent’s cognitive decline is apparent…

St. George is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Utah, United States. Located in southwestern Utah on the Arizona borderDenistangneyjr | Istock | Getty ImagesA version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.South Carolina ranks highest among all U.S. states in future potential demand for commercial real estate. That is the finding of…

When the biggest story on the beat is a surprise Treasury-market intervention, the work is really cut out for a newsletter scribe such as myself.People overwhelmingly prefer the high-flying stock moves in the AI sector, or the wily antics of the retail-investor community. Bonds are a tough sell.But you have to trust me here. What’s happening in Treasurys is a big deal, and it could have a large impact on you and your finances.Ok, fine. What’s the big deal in the Treasury market?I thought you’d never ask! There’s a lot of focus on a global government-bond sell-off that’s pushed yields…