Raphael Stevens

Walmart said it will expand drone deliveries to customers from 100 stores in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando and Tampa within the coming year.
Customers can already get items by drone delivery in parts of Northwest Arkansas and Dallas-Fort Worth.
Walmart and Amazon’s expansion of drones has been slow-going, with ambitious goals but just a modest delivery footprint so far.

Wing drone carrying a Walmart delivery.
Courtesy: Walmart

Walmart is bringing drone deliveries to three more states.
On Thursday, the big-box retailer said it plans to launch the speedier delivery option at 100 stores in Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando and Tampa within the coming year. With the expansion, Walmart’s drone deliveries will be available in a total of five states: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.

Customers will request a delivery through the app of Wing, the operator who flies the drones through a deal with Walmart. The drone operator will have an up to a six-mile range from stores.
Drone deliveries are one of the buzziest examples of Walmart’s efforts to compete with rivals like Amazon on convenience along with low price. With more than 4,600 Walmart stores across the U.S., the retailer has used its large footprint to get online orders to customers faster. It has an Express Delivery service that drops purchases at customers’ doors in as fast as 30 minutes, along with InHome, a subscription-based service, that puts items directly into people’s fridges. The company began same-day prescription deliveries last fall and has expanded the service across the country.
“The number one piece of feedback that we get from our customers are, ‘When are you expanding?'” said Greg Cathey, senior vice president of Walmart U.S. transformation and innovation, referring to drone delivery. Cathey said shoppers using the drone service typically order urgent items, such as hamburger buns for a cookout, eggs to make brownies or Tylenol or cold medicine needed when sick.
Drone deliveries take 30 minutes or less, the company said. So far, some of the most frequently delivered items include eggs, ice cream, pet food and fresh fruit, including bananas, lemons and eggs, Walmart added.
Walmart stores have an assortment of over 150,000 items in a location. Over 50% of those can be delivered by drone, Cathey said.

Yet the rollout of speedy deliveries across the U.S. has come with stops and starts. Three years ago, Walmart announced a plan to expand drone deliveries with DroneUp so it would be able to reach 4 million households across six states fulfilled from 37 stores in parts of Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah and Virginia. At the time, the company’s leaders said the retailer would be able to deliver over 1 million packages by drone in a year by using those sites. The rollout never stuck.
Walmart’s drone delivery count so far is modest. The company did not share the specific count, but said it has racked up a total of more than 150,000 drone deliveries since 2021.
Chief competitor Amazon’s expansion of drone deliveries has been slow-going, too. The e-commerce giant set a goal to deliver 500 million packages by drone per year by the end of the decade through its service, Prime Air.
So far, it has tested the deliveries in College Station, Texas, and Tolleson, Arizona, but it temporarily suspended service earlier this year after an abnormality with the drone’s altitude sensor that required a software fix.
Walmart has tested drone deliveries in Northwest Arkansas, near its hometown of Bentonville, and scaled them to reach most of the population in the Dallas-Forth Worth area. Several drone operators, including Zipline, Flytrex, DroneUp and Wing, have powered Walmart’s deliveries, but the retailer has not provided the financial terms of the deals or the amount of money it has made from sales delivered by drones.
Walmart said it currently has 21 live sites in Arkansas and Texas, which are operated by Wing and Zipline. Its contract with DroneUp ended last year.
Kieran Shanahan, chief operating officer of Walmart U.S., said the company wants to offer “flexibility and convenience” with drones, along with speedier deliveries by van.
“We see it as part of a broader ecosystem of things,” he said. “And who knows what five years, 10 years time will bring as new technologies and capabilities unlock?”
If customers order in the Wing app, deliveries are free. Cathey said Walmart is testing the addition of a drone delivery option within its app in the Dallas area. As part of the test, deliveries cost $19.99 or are free for members of Walmart+, the company’s subscription service.
— CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this report. More

Lululemon beat Wall Street expectations for fiscal first-quarter earnings, but cut its full-year earnings guidance, citing a “dynamic macroenvironment.”
Chief Financial Officer Meghan Frank added on the call that the brand is planning to take “strategic price increases, looking item by item across our assortment,” to mitigate tariff impacts.
Shares of the apparel company plunged about 23% in extended trading.

People walk past a Lululemon department store in New York City on June 5, 2024.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

Lululemon beat Wall Street expectations for fiscal first-quarter earnings Thursday, but cut its full-year earnings guidance, citing a “dynamic macroenvironment.”
As the company navigates tariffs and fears about a slowing U.S. economy, CEO Calvin McDonald said in a news release that “we intend to leverage our strong financial position and competitive advantages to play offense, while we continue to invest in the growth opportunities in front of us.”

He said on a conference call with analysts that he is “not happy” with U.S. growth and said U.S. consumers are being cautious and intentional about their buying decisions.
Chief Financial Officer Meghan Frank added on the call that the brand is planning to take “strategic price increases, looking item by item across our assortment,” to mitigate the effect of tariffs.
“It will be price increases on a small portion of our assortments, and they will be modest in nature,” she said, adding that those hikes will start rolling out toward the second half of the current quarter and into the third quarter.
Shares of the apparel company plunged about 23% in extended trading.
Here’s how the company did for its first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting for the quarter ended May 4, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $2.60 vs. $2.58 expected
Revenue: $2.37 billion vs. $2.36 billion expected

The company cut its full-year earnings guidance. It expects its full-year earnings per share to be between $14.58 to $14.78. Previously, it expected full-year earnings per share to be in the range of $14.95 to $15.15 for the year. Analysts anticipated earnings per share of $14.89, according to LSEG.
Lululemon’s report comes after a string of retailers reduced or withdrew their guidance and said they would hike prices because of uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump’s tariff regime. Retailers including Abercrombie & Fitch and Macy’s slashed their profit outlooks, while others, including American Eagle Outfitters pulled their full-year guidance altogether.
Among Lululemon’s rivals in the athleticwear category specifically, Gap, which owns athleisure brand Athleta, reported last week that it expects tariffs to impact its business by $100 million to $150 million. Nike told CNBC last month it would begin raising prices on a wide range of products, though it did not specify whether tariffs were the reason for the hikes. 
On Thursday’s earnings call, McDonald acknowledged the uncertainty that tariffs have brought on the business, but said he believes the brand is “better positioned than most” to navigate the current environment.
Lululemon reported net income for the fiscal first quarter of $314 million, or $2.60 per share, compared with a net income of $321 million, or $2.54 per share, a year earlier.
First-quarter revenue rose to $2.37 billion, up from about $2.21 billion during the same period in 2024.
Lululemon expects second-quarter revenue to total between $2.54 billion and $2.56 billion. It also anticipates full-year fiscal 2025 revenue to be $11.15 billion to $11.3 billion — unchanged from its last forecast. Wall Street analysts were expecting revenue of $2.56 billion for the second quarter and $11.24 billion for the full year, according to LSEG.
The activewear company expects to post earnings per share in the range of $2.85 to $2.90 for the second quarter, compared to Wall Street’s expectation of $3.29, according to LSEG.
Frank said on the earnings call that the company’s outlook assumes the current 30% incremental tariff on China and an incremental 10% levy on the remaining countries where the retailer sources from.
During 2024, 40% of Lululemon’s products were manufactured in Vietnam, 17% in Cambodia, 11% in Sri Lanka, 11% in Indonesia, 7% in Bangladesh and the remainder in other regions, according to the company’s annual report. Lululemon does not own or operate any manufacturing facilities and relies on suppliers to produce and provide fabrics for its products, according to the report. 
Comparable sales rose 1% year over year for the quarter, compared to the 3% Wall Street was anticipating, according to StreetAccount. That number includes a 2% decrease in the Americas and a 6% increase internationally.
Gross margin was 58.3%, ahead of the 57.7% that analysts had expected, according to StreetAccount.
However, Frank said on the earnings call that Lululemon expects full-year gross margins to decrease approximately 110 basis points versus 2024, down from its prior guidance of a 60-basis point drop. She said the difference is driven predominantly by increased tariffs.
As of Thursday’s close, LULU stock had dropped about 13% year-to-date. More

Stellantis said it is resurrecting its well-known V-8 Hemi engine for its Ram 1500 full-size pickup trucks beginning this summer.
The company had discontinued the 5.7-liter version of the engine amid tightening fuel economy regulations and a companywide push toward electric vehicles.
The vehicles will not feature “HEMI” on the side. Instead, the company has created a new badge that features a ram’s head coming out of a Hemi engine that it’s calling its “Symbol of Protest.”

Michael Wayland / CNBC

DETROIT — Stellantis said Thursday it is resurrecting its popular V-8 Hemi engine for its Ram 1500 full-size pickup trucks beginning this summer.
The company discontinued the 5.7-liter engine amid tightening fuel economy regulations and a companywide push toward electric vehicles and more efficient engines last year under ex-Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares.

Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis, who unretired from the automaker late last year, admitted the decision to cancel the Hemi engine for its popular consumer-focused Ram 1500 was a mistake.
“Everyone makes mistakes, but how you handle them defines you. Ram screwed up when we dropped the Hemi — we own it and we fixed it,” Kuniskis said in a press release. “We’re not just bringing back a legendary V-8 engine, we’re igniting an assertive product plan and expanding the freedom of choice in powertrain for our customers.”
The announcement marked the latest reversal in automakers’ plans this year, as EV adoption has been slower than expected and as the Trump administration has sought to unwind many of former President Joe Biden’s initiatives to push the auto industry away from gas-guzzling internal combustion engines.

Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis during a media event to reintroduce the Hemi V-8 engine at Stellantis’ North American headquarters in June 2025.
Michael Wayland / CNBC

The Hemi announcement, which comes as the automaker delays plans for its electric trucks, is part of Kuniskis’ new product turnaround plan, which includes 25 product announcements over an 18-month period, the company said.
Ram’s sales have struggled for years amid price increases and production mishaps, as well as the automaker killing off the Hemi engine — a staple of the automaker and its predecessors since the 1950s.

Kuniskis said he expects Hemi to represent 25% to 40% of the Ram 1500 pickup trucks’ sales. Ram has continued to offer Hemi engines in larger pickup trucks.
Ram discontinued the Hemi in exchange for a more efficient twin-turbocharged, inline-six-cylinder engine called the Hurricane. That engine will continue to be offered, with the Hemi as a $1,200 option on most models. A 3.6-liter V-6 engine is standard on entry-level models.
Kuniskis said his top priority when he returned in December was to get the Hemi back into Ram trucks. He initially said it had been estimated to take 18 months, but the company was able to cut that down to six months through a special project team — codenamed F15, he said.
The 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 delivers 395 horsepower and 410 foot-pounds of torque. The Hurricane that replaced it has 420 horsepower and 469 foot-pounds of torque, while a high-output version of the Hurricane engine is rated at 540 horsepower and 521 foot-pounds of torque.

Dodge Ram display is seen at the New York International Auto Show on April 16, 2025.
Danielle DeVries | CNBC

Unlike previous generations of the truck, the new vehicle will not feature “HEMI” on the side. Instead, the company has created a new badge that features a ram’s head coming out of a Hemi engine that it’s calling its “Symbol of Protest.”
The new logo and name are an effort to regain customers who may have decided not to buy a Ram truck because the company attempted to push more efficient engines and EVs on them.
“They hate the fact that we took away the freedom of choice,” Kuniskis said at a press briefing. “We, as Americans, probably even more so truck buyers, hate the fact that we said, ‘This is the choice you get.'”
Kuniskis said the automaker is still expected to eventually offer electric or hybrid pickup trucks to assist in meeting emissions and fuel economy requirements for Ram, but he declined to disclose an updated time frame after several delays. More

Procter & Gamble will cut approximately 7,000 jobs as part of a restructuring program that will also include exiting certain brands and markets.
CFO Andre Schulten said more details will be shared on the company’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call in July.
Slowing growth in the U.S. and higher costs from tariffs are expected to weigh on the company’s performance.

Packages of Charmin Ultra Soft bath tissue are stacked at a Costco Wholesale store in San Diego, California, on March 11, 2025.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images

Procter & Gamble will cut 7,000 jobs, or roughly 15% of its nonmanufacturing workforce, as part of a two-year restructuring program.
The layoffs by the consumer goods giant come as President Donald Trump’s tariffs have led a range of companies to hike prices to offset higher costs. The trade tensions have raised concerns about the broader health of the U.S. economy and job market.

P&G CFO Andre Schulten announced the job cuts during a presentation at the Deutsche Bank Consumer Conference on Thursday morning. The company employs 108,000 people worldwide, as of June 30, according to regulatory filings.
P&G faces slowing growth in the U.S., the company’s largest market. In its fiscal third quarter, North American organic sales rose just 1%.
Trump’s tariffs have presented another challenge for P&G, which has said that it plans to raise prices in the next fiscal year, which starts in July. The company expects a 3 cent to 4 cent per share drag on its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings from levies, based on current rates, Schulten said. Looking ahead to fiscal 2026, P&G is projecting a headwind from tariffs of $600 million before taxes.
P&G, which owns Pampers, Tide and Swiffer, is planning a broader effort to reevaluate its portfolio, restructure its supply chain and slim down its corporate organization. Schulten said investors can expect more details, like specific brand and market exits, on the company’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call in July.
P&G is projecting that it will incur noncore costs of $1 billion to $1.6 billion before taxes due to the reorganization.

“This restructuring program is an important step toward ensuring our ability to deliver our long-term algorithm over the coming two to three years,” Schulten said. “It does not, however, remove the near-term challenges that we currently face.”
P&G follows other major U.S. employers, including Microsoft and Starbucks, in carrying out significant layoffs this year. As Trump’s tariffs take hold, investors are watching Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report for May for signs of whether the job market has started to slow. While the government reading for April was better than expected, a separate reading this week from ADP showed private sector hiring was weak in May.
Shares of P&G fell more than 1% in morning trading on the news. The stock has dropped 2% so far this year, outstripped by the S&P 500’s gains of more than 1%. P&G has a market cap of $407 billion.

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The automotive industry is experiencing unprecedented disruption and uncertainty regarding regulations, electric vehicle adoption, software innovations and competition from China.
Many of the issues are coming to a head sooner rather than later, causing chaos for automakers and their plans for new vehicles, according to Bank of America.
The bank’s top auto analyst predicts investors will see billions of dollars in expected write-downs for EVs, a retrench to “core” businesses and a potential collapse and consolidation of the automotive industry in China.

A worker at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant on April 30, 2025.
Michael Wayland | CNBC

DETROIT — The automotive industry is experiencing unprecedented disruption and uncertainty when it comes to regulations, electric vehicles, software innovations and competition from China.
Such disruptions have been years in the making, but many of the issues are coming to a head sooner rather than later, causing chaos for automakers and their plans for new vehicles.

“The unprecedented EV head-fake has wreaked havoc on product plans,” Top Bank of America Securities analyst John Murphy said in the firm’s annual “Car Wars” report. “The next four+ years will be the most uncertain and volatile time in product strategy ever.”
The proprietary “Car Wars” report predicts future products and plans over the next several years. The thesis of the report is that replacement rate (or the percentage of vehicles that are expected to be replaced by newer models) drives showroom age, which drives market share, which drives profits and stock prices.
Automakers above an industry average replacement rate of 16% over the next four years include Tesla (22.4%), Honda Motor (16.9%), Hyundai Motor/Kia (16.5%) and Ford Motor (16.1%), according to Car Wars. At the bottom end of the analysis are Nissan Motor (12.3%), Toyota Motor (13.7%) and traditional European automakers (15.2%). General Motors is at 15.7%, while Stellantis is at 15.4%.

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Auto stocks

Aside from the replacement rates, Murphy on Wednesday made several predictions about the auto industry. Here are five investors should know about:

EV write-downs

Murphy expects the roughly $1.9 billion in expenses and write-downs Ford announced last year due to the termination of a planned all-electric three row SUV will be the first of many such losses for automakers regarding EVs.

“There’s a lot of tough decisions that are going to need to be made,” he said Wednesday during an Automotive Press Association event in suburban Detroit. “Based on the [‘Car Wars’] study, I think we’re going to see multibillion-dollar write-downs that are flooding the headlines for the next few years.”
Automakers rushed to spend billions of dollars in recent years for EVs in anticipation of a market that hasn’t developed as quickly as expected.

Return to core

Amid the EV uncertainty, many automakers have pivoted to “customer choice,” which means significant investments in other technologies such as hybrids and plug-in hybrid vehicles, as well as in traditional vehicles with internal combustion engines (ICE).
Due to that volatility and uncertainty, Murphy said automakers must lean heavily into their core products, including internal combustion engines, to generate capital.

2026 Toyota RAV4

“Really, everybody is leaning back into their into their core over the next four years in very uncertain times,” Murphy said, noting that cash “is going to be critically important” for automakers in the years ahead.
The title of this year’s “Car Wars” investor note underscores that change: “The ICE Age Cometh as EV Plans Freeze.”

China industry collapse

Industry uncertainty isn’t exclusive to the U.S. The Chinese auto industry — the world’s largest car sales market — is in the midst of a price war and stalling sales.
“What you’re seeing in China is a bit disturbing because there is a lack of demand; there’s extreme price cutting, and there’s a lot of export that’s rising, particularly over the last four or five years. Essentially net neutral to over 7 million units last year,” Murphy said.
The top BofA analyst described this as the Chinese market beginning to “implode on itself” due to the price war, which is expected to cause mass consolidation of China’s hundreds of automotive brands.
In China, the average car retail price has fallen by around 19% over the past two years to around 165,000 yuan ($22,900), according to a Nomura report this week, citing industry data from Autohome Research Institute.

Price cuts were far steeper for hybrid or range-extension vehicles, at 27% over the last two years, while battery-only cars saw prices slashed by 21%, the report said. It noted that traditional fuel-powered cars saw a below-average 18% price cut.
While very few exports come to the U.S., Murphy said it’s expected Chinese brands will eventually compete in the market. However, he cautioned it might be best to shield the U.S. market from Chinese brands in the near-term to avoid such issues domestically.
“I don’t think just from a technology or geopolitical perspective, that you really want to wall off the U.S. from China. It may be just simply that massive excess capacity you want to protect the U.S. market from until it works itself out and we see massive consolidation in the Chinese market,” he said, adding there’s good reason for massive tariffs on Chinese car imports.

Product shifts

“Car Wars” predicts there will be a shift in new vehicle introductions during the second half of this decade, as automakers refocus product lineups and slow replacement rates in the near term.
A major shift is in crossover vehicles — which have a combination of SUV and car characteristics — that have significantly grown in popularity in past decades.

Customers near a Ford Maverick pickup truck at a Ford dealership in Richmond, California, US, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

BofA reports the crossover “surge is done.” For the first time nearly 20 years, Murphy said crossovers underrepresented versus the launch gains for the past 10 to 20 years.
“What’s wild this year is that we expect 159 models to be launched over the next four years. Last year was over 200; traditionally, it’s over 200,” Murphy said. “We have never seen this kind of change before.”
Part of the shift comes as the Detroit automakers — major producers of such vehicles — have focused on updating or redesigning their highly profitable full-size pickup trucks.
Japanese automakers have also had an uncharacteristically volatile product cadence, with a focus on cars, according to the report.

Auto growth area?

Investors have been skeptical of many auto stocks in recent years as expected growth areas have faltered.
But Murphy believes there’s still notable potential for automakers as well as their retailers in software — a focus area for companies as of late that also has not grown as much as initially expected.
“In the near term, it’s leveraging the connectivity, going after what we know is a very lucrative part of the value chain,” Murphy said. “They’ve been somewhat shut off from lack of attention to the consumer and a dealer body that needs to be reworked to some degree in a significant way, will create a real, real opportunity.”
The aftermarket industry and business at dealerships, including sales and service, represents $2.4 trillion in revenue, Murphy said. Of that $1.2 trillion captured by dealers, they generate about $53 billion in profits. He argues there’s another $1.2 trillion that’s escaping automakers, with $133 billion in profitability that could be gained through vehicle connectivity.
“It is vision critical that you get the dealers on board with this and drive this,” Murphy said regarding getting customers into dealerships instead of non-franchised repair shops. More

The Walt Disney Company said Thursday that its domestic theme parks generate $67 billion in combined annual economic impact.
Disney’s economic impact report arrives on the heels of its announcement of a new theme park development in Abu Dhabi and the opening of rival Universal’s Epic Universe in Florida.
The report by economists at Tourism Economics determined that Disney supports more than 400,000 jobs domestically.

A statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse stands in a garden in front of Cinderella’s Castle at the Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World on April 3, 2025, in Orlando, Florida.
Gary Hershorn | Corbis News | Getty Images

For decades Disney’s domestic theme parks have been the growth engine for tourism, job creation and tax revenue in Southern California and Central Florida.
On Thursday, the company revealed its wider impact on the U.S. — reporting a national economic impact of $67 billion each year.

“Disney defines the themed entertainment business in America, and our presence is felt across the country,” said Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Experiences, in a release. “Our destinations create economies far beyond the gates of our parks, and when we invest in the groundbreaking experiences that only Disney can deliver, growth follows.”
The new report comes from economists at Tourism Economics, an Oxford Economics company, which combined data collected about Disneyland’s impact in California and Walt Disney World Resort’s impact in Florida as well as additional nationwide spending spurred by the company.
Disney’s economic impact report arrives on the heels of its announcement of a new theme park development in Abu Dhabi and the opening of rival Universal’s Epic Universe in Florida. It also follows a recent bout of scrutiny over the company’s ticket prices, which some critics say have priced out potential parkgoers.
The company looked at direct economic impact, including onsite spending at Disney parks as well as spending locally on things like restaurants, hotels and transportation, as well as indirect impacts like goods and services that are purchased from local businesses to support the parks. The study also took into account what it called induced impacts, meaning largely what Disney’s employees spend their own paychecks on.
Tourism Economics determined that Walt Disney World Resort had a $40 billion economic impact across the state of Florida in fiscal year 2022, Disneyland Resort had a $16 billion impact on Southern California in fiscal year 2023, and combined the parks amount to a $10 billion annual economic impact on the rest of the country.

“With a nationwide impact of nearly $67 billion, Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World are key economic engines, not only in their respective regional economies, but also in the nationwide economy,” said Michael Mariano, head of economic development with Tourism Economics and Oxford Economics.
The report also determined that Disney supports more than 400,000 jobs domestically, noting that 1 out of every 20 jobs in Orange County, California, and 1 out of every 8 jobs in Central Florida can be attributed to the company.
“One way I often think about these studies is that we’re trying to measure what would be lost in the absence of these attractions and the numerous activities associated with the attractions,” Mariano said.”So one way of looking at these results is what we would lose if we didn’t have Disneyland Resort within the Southern California region and Walt Disney World Resort within the state of Florida?”
Disney has more expansion plans, with $30 billion in domestic capital expenditures expected through 2033.
This includes the largest-ever expansion of the Magic Kingdom, including a revamped section of Frontierland and new land themed around Disney’s villains. A new tropical Americas land is coming to Animal Kingdom, featuring attractions based on “Encanto” and the Indiana Jones franchise. And Hollywood Studios is getting a “Monsters Inc.” land.
Over in California, Avengers Campus at California Adventure is set to double in size and attractions based on “Coco” and “Avatar” are planned for Disneyland.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. More

Brown-Forman reported fiscal fourth quarter earnings that missed Wall Street estimates across the board.
Net sales for Brown-Forman’s whiskey products — Jack Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve — were flat for fiscal year 2025, while the company’s tequila and ready-to-drink portfolios declined 14% and 6%, respectively.
“We anticipate the operating environment for fiscal 2026 will be challenging, with low visibility due to macroeconomic and geopolitical volatility,” the company said.

Bottles of the American whiskey Jack Daniel’s are offered for sale in a liquor store on November 27, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images

Shares of Jack Daniel’s-maker Brown-Forman plunged more than 18% on Thursday after the company reported quarterly earnings that came in below analyst estimates, weighed down by the impact of tariffs and weak discretionary spending on alcohol.
“While our results did not meet our long-term growth aspirations, we made important progress in an exceptionally challenging macroeconomic environment,” CEO Lawson Whiting said in the company’s earnings release.

Here’s how the company performed for its fiscal fourth quarter of 2025, compared with Wall Street expectations, according to LSEG:

Earnings per share: 31 cents vs. 34 cents estimated
Revenue: $894 million vs. $967.4 million estimated

For the fiscal fourth quarter, Brown-Forman reported sales of $894 million, down 7% from the same quarter a year prior. Net income of $146 million, or 31 cents per share, was down 45% from $266 million, or 56 cents per share, a year earlier.
While net sales for Brown-Forman’s whiskey products — Jack Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve — were flat for fiscal year 2025 compared with the prior year, the company’s tequila and ready-to-drink portfolios declined 14% and 6%, respectively.
For fiscal year 2026, the company expects declines in the single-digit range in both organic net sales and organic operating income.
“We anticipate the operating environment for fiscal 2026 will be challenging, with low visibility due to macroeconomic and geopolitical volatility as we face headwinds from consumer uncertainty, the potential impact from currently unknown tariffs, and lower non-branded sales of used barrels,” the company said.

While Brown-Forman says it’s unable to measure potential tariff impact, analysts at Bernstein estimate that a 50% tariff on U.S. whiskey sold in the EU would result in a 10% hit to Brown-Forman’s earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT.
Bernstein also noted that in a recessionary environment, distillers typically underperform brewers, which makes Brown-Forman more vulnerable than beverage peers like Constellation Brands, Molson Coors and Anheuser-Busch.
In recent months, Canadian liquor stores began removing Jack Daniel’s products and other U.S. products in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs. In March, Brown-Forman’s Whiting called the removals “worse than a tariff.”
And the Trump administration this week also doubled the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50%, impacting Brown-Forman’s and the broader sector’s canned ready-to-drink products. More

Eighty-one percent of younger people who are set to inherit large wealth from their families plan to replace their parents’ wealth management firms, according to a new survey from Capgemini.
Millennials and Gen Zers said they were unimpressed with poor digital offerings or a lack of services and products from those firms.
That means the managers that can best attract, retain and cater to the next generation of wealth will be best positioned for the future.

Wide shot of friends and family enjoying dinner and sunset during destination wedding reception at luxury villa in Morocco
Thomas Barwick | Digitalvision | Getty Images

A 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.
The $100 trillion wealth transfer from older to younger generations is set to reshape the wealth management industry, as younger investors plan to move their money to new advisors, according to a new report.

A new survey from Capgemini shows that 81% of “next generation millionaires,” or those set to inherit large wealth from their families, plan to replace their parents’ wealth management firms. Most cited poor digital offerings or a lack of services and products.
“We were staggered when our research came back with that number,” said Kartik Ramakrishnan, CEO of financial services at Capgemini. “What that generation looks for is different from what that previous generations have looked for.”
Understanding the next generation of inheritors will become increasingly critical to wealth managers as a historic transfer of wealth gets underway. According to Cerulli Associates, more than $100 trillion is expected to flow from baby boomers and older generations to heirs and spouses. A majority of the transfers (over $60 trillion) will come from millionaires and billionaires, representing the top 2% of households by wealth. And most of the flows will be in the U.S.

The firms that can best attract, retain and cater to the future of wealth will be best positioned for the future. More than two-thirds of wealth-management executives surveyed by Capgemini said they were focused on engaging the next generations.
Yet the gap remains wide. A majority (58%) of executives surveyed admitted it was “challenging” to build relationships with the next gen. Beyond age differences, the new breed of inherited wealth (those born between 1965 and 2012) are dramatically different from boomers when it comes to investing, priorities and lifestyles.

Here are five of the top priorities of the next generation and how wealth managers can best adapt:

1. Embrace risk

Young investors traditionally take more risk, given their timelines and age. Yet even adjusted for age, millennials and Gen Zers like to live further out on the risk curve, with meme stocks, stock options, cryptocurrencies and other more speculative asset classes.
While the chief goal for wealthy boomers is wealth preservation, the next gen seeks aggressive growth, according to the Capgemini survey. The flood of online investing videos and explainers have also given younger investors more confidence taking risk.
“It’s a combination of both age, risk propensity and awareness,” Ramakrishnan said. “It’s the ability to find out more, to learn more, to get better knowledge of how they could invest.”

2. All about the products

While older investors lean toward stocks and bonds, younger investors want more crypto, private equity and overseas investments. Fully 88% of investors say the next gen has more interest in private equity than baby boomers.
Capgemini said younger investors believe strong returns can no longer be driven by just stocks and bonds, and that private equity and other alternatives can provide better long-term growth. Private equity is also becoming more widely available through lower minimums and third-party asset managers.
While young investors want more crypto, two-thirds of wealth managers surveyed by Capgemini say they don’t have investment options for emerging asset classes, including crypto.
Young investors are also more likely to venture overseas with their portfolios. A majority of millennials and Gen Zers say they want “enhanced offshore investments,” according to the survey. Of particular interest are the new wealth hubs around the world, including Singapore, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
The next generations “are more global,” Ramakrishnan said. “They have traveled more. They understand global dynamics. That enables them to be interested and get some of the returns that they’re seeing in in these in these markets.”

3. Live the digital life

Young investors are digital natives, yet wealth management firms have been slow to adapt — still leaning on in-person meetings or phone calls for many client interactions. While 78% of baby boomers prefer face-to-face meetings over video calls, millennials want mobile apps that allow them to access and trade their portfolios.
“This is not a ‘let’s sit down with you once a year and walk you through how your portfolio is doing,’ or once a quarter and walking through your portfolio is doing,” Ramakrishnan said. “This is an active engagement channel and with consumable nuggets of information that they should get.”
Two-thirds of millennials say they expect advanced digital offerings from their wealth managers. Nearly half complain of a lack of services available on their preferred digital channels.
Aside from useful content in short “nuggets,” next generation investors want real-time access to all their financial information in one place, according to the report. They also want “intuitive tools for decision making and secure transaction capabilities,” according to Capgemini.

4. Educate don’t denigrate

More than two-thirds of baby boomers want the next generation of inheritors to receive financial education to manage their inheritances responsibly. Yet many of the education programs from wealth management firms aren’t proving effective. Some say the programs are too dry, or talk down to younger investors, or feel outdated.
“It’s not just putting out these huge reports that talk about the impact of interest rates and what is happening with the market,” Ramakrishnan said. “That’s hard for people to consume. It’s got to be something that’s simplified, that that people can pick up and something that’s actionable.”
Josh Brown, the CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management, which has built a large following among GenZers with its podcasts, blogs and social media, said young clients want more authentic, personal communications.
“”The new generation grew up following people, not companies,” Brown said. “The winners in today’s world are the firms that marry personalities and people the audience cares about with great products and services. We figured out years ago that it’s make someone into a fan first and those fans become your potential clients.” 

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5. Managing a lifestyle

Along with tailored investment strategies, young investors are looking for a broader range of services related to their wealth. Estate and tax planning are key, along with philanthropy advice, according to Capgemini. They also want a growing list of concierge services, from luxury travel and bespoke experiences, to advice and insights into luxury purchases, including fashion, beauty, jewelry, wine and spirits.
Despite their youth, next generations are also looking for quality advice on medical care and wellness, along with education advisory (i.e., admissions). Goldman Sachs, for instance, partners with a London-based concierge to offer medical concierge support, in-home consultations with doctors and education advisory.
Cybersecurity advice is also a fast-growing service for wealth management firms.
“It’s that ability to get something that may be exclusive, that they may not be able to get otherwise,” Ramakrishnan said. “The next generations are more experience-driven than product-driven. So it’s not about just buying luxury goods; it’s luxury experiences, tailored experiences. Those are the kinds of partnerships that the wealth management firms can provide that will make and increase loyalty among that customer.” More