McDonald’s rarely changes its dessert menu, aside from adding seasonal McFlurries and bringing back the Shamrock Shake every year. Recently, however, the chain brought back its classic fried apple pie for the first time in 34 years. “The OG Fried Apple Pie is back at participating restaurants nationwide for a limited time. The all-day menu
A retail giant is taking a harder look at its store network as changing shopping habits and weaker profitability force the company to rethink where it invests. The retailer has already closed dozens of locations this year, and its latest update shows that the pullback from physical stores is not slowing down. At the same
Every few years, a company decides that a boring household product is actually an unsolved engineering problem. Sometimes that instinct produces something people genuinely want. Sometimes it produces a $400 juicer that squeezes bags. The tell is almost always the price. When a company enters a mature category at double the going rate, it is
Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS) just had one of the roughest trading days in its history, and Wall Street is taking notice. Shares of the sporting goods giant fell 30.7% after the company posted a second-quarter miss and cut its guidance for the rest of fiscal 2026. The selloff followed weaker-than-expected results from Foot Locker, the
McDonald’s franchises nearly all of its restaurants in the United States, which means franchise operators have a significant say in operational changes. In some cases, for example, they can reject deal pricing. Usually, when McDonald’s rolls out a promotion like $2.99 Snack Wraps or $4 breakfast meals, only select franchise operators will not adopt the
Ordering via a catalogue in 2026 feels a bit like going to the market, bartering for your items, and paying in beads or livestock. It’s an outdated mode of selling items that was once a really popular way to buy things. Even in my 20s, back in the 1990s, every airplane flight offered a catalogue
In July, at the close of the third quarter of the 2026 fiscal year, Starbucks reported its fourth consecutive quarter of positive global comparable sales. That growth was largely driven by North American sales, which increased by 8.1% at company-owned locations. The results are “clear proof that our Back to Starbucks plan is working,” CEO
A familiar presence in American malls is changing how it approaches its brick-and-mortar footprint, closing some locations and planning more shutdowns as it reshapes its store network. For major retailers, deciding where to maintain a physical presence has become increasingly important as shoppers’ habits evolve and the economics of operating stores remain challenging. The global
While big box stores have not wiped out all mom and pop hardware, gardening, and outdoor furniture stores, they have taken over large parts of those industries. Independent Garden Centers (IGCs) have fallen well behind Lowe’s and Home Depot, according to the 2025 Axiom Gardening Outlook Study. Gardeners tend to buy more frequently at big-box stores,
Wall Street firms spend the back half of every year deciding where the next round of gains might come from. Their research gives investors a shortcut, since it packages deep company knowledge and financial modeling into a short list of names worth watching. Raymond James just published one of those lists. The firm’s Analyst Current