Raphael Stevens

Juneyao Airlines was set to receive the wide-body aircraft, according to flight data.
It would be the first direct delivery of a Boeing plane to a Chinese airline since late 2019.
The delivery could open the possibility of Boeing handing over cash-cow 737 Max planes to China.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner sits on the tarmac at Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington.
Robert Sorbo | Reuters

Boeing on Thursday handed over a 787 Dreamliner directly to a Chinese airline for the first time since November 2019, a milestone that could open up the possibility of deliveries of the manufacturer’s cash cow, the 737 Max.
The Boeing 787-9 for privately owned Juneyao Airlines departed from outside of Boeing’s Everett, Washington, factory for Shanghai, Boeing said Thursday. The last new delivery of a new Boeing 787 to a Chinese airline was in 2021 through a leasing company.

Boeing sent the aircraft as China’s pause on scores of pending deliveries of the Boeing 737 Max, the company’s bestselling jet, nears its fifth year.
China grounded that jet in March 2019 in the wake of the second fatal crash of the plane in about five months, and other countries followed. The U.S. lifted its ban in 2020 and others later followed suit.
Boeing has been scrambling to increase production and deliveries of new jets, when manufacturers receive the bulk of an airplane’s price.
Just over a third of Boeing’s inventory of about 250 Max planes are dedicated to Chinese airlines, according to Jefferies. Boeing had remarketed some of the other Maxes to other carriers.
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Sales of new vehicles in the U.S. are expected to increase slightly next year, as the industry normalizes from the coronavirus pandemic and other supply chain problems since 2020.
Forecasters expect auto sales next year to increase by between 1% and 4% to roughly 15.6 million to 16.1 million vehicles sold.
The expected U.S. growth compares with a 2.8% year-over-year increase in auto sales globally forecast by S&P Global Mobility.

New Kia cars are displayed on the sales lot at San Leandro Kia on May 30, 2023 in San Leandro, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

DETROIT – Sales of new vehicles in the U.S. are expected to increase slightly next year, as the automotive industry continues to normalize from the coronavirus pandemic and other supply chain problems since 2020.
Forecasts from leading automotive data firms are calling for a year-over-year increase of between 1% and 4% to roughly 15.6 million to 16.1 million vehicles sold. Such sales would be the highest since 2019, when more than 17 million new cars and trucks were sold domestically.

Since that time, the auto industry has been battling production and supply chain problems sparked by the global Covid health crisis, with sales of less than 14 million vehicles – the lowest in more than a decade – in 2022.
Even a small increase in U.S. sales could be good for consumers and the economy. It would mean more vehicles are being produced, potentially easing recent affordability concerns amid inflation, high interest rates and record high new vehicle prices.
“While the year ahead holds the promise of further increased inventory and enticing deals that consumers have eagerly awaited, 2023’s high interest rates are expected to linger, provoking conflicting market dynamics.” said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ head of insights.

Pricing power gives way to incentives

Edmunds believes new vehicle pricing power for automakers has peaked, as improved inventory has driven incentives back into the market.
For investors, increased sales are good, but lower prices and rising incentives are expected to be headwinds for many automakers and dealers that have produced record profits in recent years.

“Automakers specifically will weigh one other key consideration in 2024: Are they satisfied with this newly established supply-demand equilibrium, or are they willing and able to push sales volumes closer to prepandemic norms?” Caldwell said.
The expected U.S. growth compares with a 2.8% year-over-year increase in auto sales globally forecast by S&P Global Mobility.
“2024 is expected to be another year of cagey recovery, with the auto industry moving beyond clear supply-side risks, into a murkier macro-led demand environment,” said Colin Couchman, executive director of global light vehicle forecasting at S&P Global Mobility.
Any increase in U.S. sales next year would mark the first sequential sales growth for the automotive industry since 2015-16.
S&P’s U.S. sales forecast is among the highest. It expects sales to reach 15.9 million units in 2024, an estimated increase of roughly 2% from projected sales of 15.5 million units in 2023.
GlobalData, which acquired LMC Automotive, is forecasting a nearly 4% increase in U.S. new vehicle sales to 16.1 million units.
Edmunds expects 15.7 million new cars and trucks to be sold in 2024. That would be a roughly 1% uptick from an estimated 15.5 million cars and trucks sold in 2023.
At the low end, Cox Automotive expects 15.6 million vehicle sales, driven largely by an increase in fleet or commercial sales. Retail sales are expected to be “mostly flat,” according to Cox.
“Overall, we are expecting sales growth to be constrained and weak in 2024 – a bit more normal compared to the chaos of the past three years,” Cox Automotive’s chief economist, Jonathan Smoke, said in a blog post. “As an economist, headline-making swings in economic trends are always interesting to see and analyze, but such turbulence is rarely good news for business over the longer term.”
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James Patten, a North Carolina resident, pleaded guilty to securities fraud charges related to manipulating the stock prices of two publicly traded companies.
One of the firms, Hometown International, had a market capitalization of more than $100 million despite owning just a small, unprofitable deli in Paulsboro, New Jersey.
Two other men, Peter Coker Sr. and son Peter Coker Jr., remain charged in the case in New Jersey federal court.

Your Hometown Deli in Paulsboro, N.J.
Google Earth

A North Carolina ex-convict pleaded guilty to securities fraud in connection with conspiring to manipulate the stock of a company that once had a market capitalization of as high as $100 million despite owning just one, small money-losing deli in southern New Jersey.
The man, disgraced former stockbroker James Patten, also admitted on Wednesday in New Jersey federal court to conspiring with two other men to manipulate the share price of another related shell company, which had no tangible assets. That company’s market cap was even higher than the Hometown International deli company the men controlled.

Prosecutors said that Patten, 64, and the other two defendants conspired over eight years to increase the stock price of Hometown International and the shell company E-Waste to create a false impression of demand for the firms’ shares, and better position them as candidates for so-called reverse mergers with privately owned companies.

Courtroom sketch of James Patten, left, and attorney Ira Sorkin at N.J. District Court in Camden, N.J., Oct. 11, 2022
Source: Elizabeth Williams

The other defendants, Peter Coker Sr. and son Peter Coker Jr., remain charged in the case, in which they have pleaded not guilty.
The scheme relied on a pattern of coordinated stock trading between a relatively small number of accounts nominally held by family members, friends and associates, according to court documents.
As a result, Hometown and E-Waste’s stock prices were artificially inflated by 939% and 19,900%, respectively.
The scheme began in 2014, when Patten suggested the creation of Hometown as an umbrella corporation to a friend, a high school principal and wrestling coach named Paul Morina, to own Your Hometown Deli, which Morina and another person were discussing opening in Paulsboro at the time. Morina and the other deli owner were unaware of Patten’s scheme to manipulate Hometown’s stock, authorities have said.

Hometown Deli, Paulsboro, N.J.
Mike Calia | CNBC

Patten’s guilty plea to securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit securities fraud, could well ratchet up pressure on both Cokers to reach plea deals in the case.
Coker Sr., who lives in North Carolina, remains free on bond, while Coker Jr., a former Hong Kong resident who was arrested as a fugitive in Thailand in January, is being held without bond in a New Jersey jail.
Charges were filed against the trio in September 2022, more than a year after CNBC detailed a series of questionable connections between Hometown and E-Waste, past criminal and civil court issues of Patten and the elder Coker, and eyebrow-raising consulting deals with the companies that benefitted those two men. Your Hometown Deli closed earlier in 2022.
CNBC’s reporting was sparked by a client letter that hedge fund mamager David Einhorn sent clients in April 2021, which highlighted Hometown International’s bizarre stock price given its very meager single asset of the deli.
“The pastrami must be amazing,” Einhorn wrote in that letter.
On the heels of those articles, both Hometown International and E-Waste took the highly unusual step of disavowing their market capitalization, saying there was no basis to support their stock prices. The companies later executed reverse mergers with other firms.

Peter Coker Sr. and his wife Susan Coker at U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, March 15, 2023.
Dan Mangan | CNBC

Patten, who lives in Winston-Salem, faces a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison and fines of $5.25 million. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 23.
His lawyer Ira Sorkin did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Patten’s guilty plea.
Patten previously pleaded guilty in 2010 in New Jersey federal court to a mail fraud charge related to sending a client a false financial statement to cover up bad investments he had made using her money. He was sentenced to 27 months in prison in that earlier case.
Four years earlier, Patten was barred by FINRA, the broker-dealer regulator, from acting as a stockbroker for having failed to comply with an arbitration award of more than $753,000, for violating securities laws, unauthorized trading for churning a client’s account.
Coker Sr. previously was sued for allegedly hiding money from creditors and alleged business-related fraud. He has denied wrongdoing in those cases. More

The rise of generative AI and use of ChatGPT has inspired more retailers and holiday shoppers to experiment with the technology this holiday season.
Yet many of the ways that Walmart, Target, Nordstrom and others use AI is behind the scenes.
AI has also inspired gift generators and become a feature of some consumer electronics.

Manonallard | E+ | Getty Images

For many Americans, it’s the first holiday season when most of the family may know the term “artificial intelligence” if it comes up during Christmas dinner.
Just don’t expect AI to do the heavy lifting for Santa quite yet.

The rise of generative AI — and the use of ChatGPT — has inspired more retailers and holiday shoppers to experiment with the technology this holiday season. But for now, most of the technology’s influence will come in ways consumers won’t see.
Artificial intelligence is expected to influence $194 billion in global online holiday spending, according to an estimate by Salesforce. The software company, which tracks shopping trends, said AI influenced $51 billion of online sales during Cyber Week, the seven-day period from Tuesday, Nov. 21, through Monday, Nov. 27, better known as Cyber Monday.
Much of that AI influence, however, comes through features that shoppers already know, such as product recommendations based on past purchases and searches by similar shoppers.
Customers will have to wait for more transformative uses of AI in future holiday seasons, said Rob Garf, Salesforce’s vice president and general manager of retail and consumer goods. Yet he said AI will ultimately change the customer experience.
As retail workers across stores, call centers and offices can automate more tasks, they could have more free time — and patience — for customers, Garf said. And, he said, as AI understands natural language better, retailers can personalize websites and apps to create digital assistants that suggest items, answer questions and more.

“We are still in early days,” he said. “Retailers are testing and learning, and it’s only a leading indicator of what to come.”
Even as companies hype AI’s potential and investors bet heavily on its future, its limits and risks have come to the forefront as more businesses adopt it.
Here are three major ways that AI is showing up this peak shopping season — and how it may preview the future:

A time-saving and efficiency tool

If you were surprised to find a popular toy in stock at your local store, you may have artificial intelligence to thank.
This season, AI is helping retailers in some major ways behind the scenes. Think of those mundane but critical tasks like ordering the right inventory, crafting more relevant marketing emails or writing detailed product descriptions for a website.
At Walmart, artificial intelligence has shaped decisions about holiday inventory by predicting demand for various items at different stores. For example, the tech can help the company identify a best-selling toy or sweater in a particular region and make sure more are shipped to nearby stores, said Srini Venkatesan, executive vice president of U.S. omni platforms and technology at Walmart.
Target, similarly, is using AI to forecast demand at different stores and predict out-of-stock items, so employees can replenish a shelf before it’s empty.
Nordstrom began using AI to come up with the most efficient routes to get online orders to customers’ doors on time and better understand what shoppers are searching for on its website. For instance, it’s trying to better interpret language, so that a customer’s search for “romantic flowy dresses” leads them to items that best match that aesthetic.
Retailers are also zeroing in on how to use AI to improve productivity, which could reduce the number of workers they need or free up employees’ time to take on other customer-facing tasks. The advancements have also sparked fears that companies will cut back their workforces, a concern that CEOs such as Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen and Walmart’s Doug McMillon have challenged.
Walmart in late August launched its own internal spin on ChatGPT called My Assistant, which more than 50,000 corporate employees can use to craft email pitches or construct slide decks, among other tasks. A company spokesperson declined to say how many employees have used the generative AI tool so far, but said Walmart is training teams on it and suggesting use cases for the tool.
This fall, Amazon also debuted new time-saving features for sellers and advertisers. Instead of getting bogged down with product descriptions, third-party sellers can put in just a few words and sentences and let generative AI do the heavy lifting. Advertisers can also lean on a new tool to generate visually appealing images to accompany a product.

Onurdongel | Istock | Getty Images

A personal shopper

One of the biggest game changers that generative AI could bring to shopping is to create a personal assistant that can select the perfect holiday gift, put together an eye-catching outfit or take on other tasks that make life simpler.
That day hasn’t come yet — but there are glimmers of potential.
About 17% of consumers have used ChatGPT or similar AI-powered tools that understand natural language and generate responses for product research and inspiration, according to Salesforce research. About 10% said they would likely use it to help build their holiday shopping lists, its surveys found.
Instead of heading to stores, shoppers can use a growing number of tech tools to see how clothes might look on their body type and skin tone. Google’s Bard, a competitor to the OpenAI- and part-Microsoft owned ChatGPT, introduced a virtual try-on feature this summer. Walmart has a similar tool to see how clothes may look without entering a store.
On Kohl’s website this holiday season, an AI-powered tool called “Storybook Magic” can create a personalized poem and give customized gift suggestions to shoppers. The poem and suggestions are based on information the user shares, such as favorite hobbies or interests of a family member or friend. Customers could also try out the gift generator during a one-day pop-up in New York City’s Bryant Park, a popular tourist attraction with an ice skating rink and Christmas market.
Inside two Simon Property malls — Long Island’s Roosevelt Field Mall and Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California — stumped shoppers can enlist the help of a tablet-carrying worker dressed as an elf with the “HolidAI” tool on weekends from Thanksgiving through Christmas. The elf guides shoppers through questions about the gift recipient’s favorite activities, personality and sense of style, and then gives three recommendations of items available at stores in the mall.
So far this season, though, the personal assistant AI tools have felt more like buzzy marketing plays than transformative changes to the shopping experience. With the bustle at Roosevelt Field, many shoppers walked right by the elves or may have assumed they were helping out with children’s visits to Santa nearby.
Simon Property declined an interview about the tool, after it issued a splashy press release about it early in the holiday season. Kohl’s declined to say how many people used the gift generator, but said in a statement that it wanted to make holiday shopping easier and more enjoyable.

On Walmart’s website, new search and discovery features powered by AI are on their way, Venkatesan said. The retailer is ramping up a feature that simplifies customers’ search for multiple related items, such as allowing them to prepare for a child’s birthday party or a camping trip so they can find what they need with one search and on a single webpage.
It’s also in the early stages of developing a virtual design assistant. Customers could upload a photo of their living room and get suggested decorations, based on their style and budget. When they see a look they like, they can buy the whole collection of items.
“The end goal is we want to be the customer’s concierge,” Venkatesan said.

Google Pixel 8 and Google Pixel 8 Pro phones are displayed during a Google product launch event in New York on October 4, 2023.
Ed Jones | AFP | Getty Images

A high-tech product

AI could drive sales for some retailers — if it inspires customers to buy or upgrade consumer electronics.
Best Buy, for example, has products on shelves this holiday season with AI features. Those include the Google Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro smartphones and Google Chromebook Plus, which allow people to use AI editing to cut background noise out of a video or merge photos into group photos.
Sunglasses brand Ray-Ban is out with its second generation of high-tech glasses with Meta. The glasses, which start at $299, have AI features similar to voice-activated assistants such as Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Echo. They can answer questions when the user says “Hey Meta” and can translate a street sign into another language.
And Microsoft Copilot, which uses AI to automate writing, editing and more across Microsoft programs such as Outlook, Word and Excel, can be tacked on and used in all Microsoft devices with Windows 11. Many of the tasks, such as summarizing a video-call meeting, boost productivity or save time.
Big-box retailers and warehouse clubs, including Target, Walmart and Costco, sell some of those products, too.
Yet those AI-related items are unlikely to be at the top of many shoppers’ wish lists this holiday season. Consumer electronics sales have hit a lull after many people upgraded devices and decked out home offices during the pandemic. Plus, the category tends to come with a steeper price tag, and people have pulled back on big-ticket items while dealing with higher prices for food, housing and more.
In November, Best Buy cut its full-year forecast, saying it expects comparable sales to decline by between 6% and 7.5%. Yet on a call with reporters, CEO Corie Barry said sales should snap back in the second half of the year with the help of innovation, including generative AI. More

Chick-fil-A is the third-largest restaurant chain in the U.S. by sales — and the company that everyone in the restaurant industry is looking to beat.
Even McDonald’s, which outstrips Chick-fil-A by sales and footprint, is leaning into chicken to drive growth.
Smaller chicken players are copying Chick-fil-A’s playbook to expand nationwide, while Popeyes leans into new chicken categories to catch up to its top rival.

A Chick-fil-A meal is displayed at a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Novato, California, on June 1, 2023.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Every restaurant chain from McDonald’s to Popeyes wants to take down Chick-fil-A, but its hold over customers is tighter than ever.
Since its founding in 1967, Chick-fil-A has grown to become the third-largest restaurant chain in the U.S. by systemwide sales, despite having fewer locations than Sonic Drive-In or Papa John’s. The chain is barreling toward holding the majority market share of the chicken fast-food category.

The average non-mall franchised Chick-fil-A restaurant rakes in $8.7 million in sales annually. That’s despite being closed on Sundays, although some New York lawmakers are pushing back on that policy.
For comparison, the average franchised McDonald’s location that has been open at least a year sees about $3.7 million in annual sales. McDonald’s, which is the largest U.S. restaurant chain by sales, has a clear size advantage over Chick-fil-A, with roughly 14,000 U.S. locations, and plans to build 900 more by 2027. But McDonald’s hasn’t been able to match Chick-fil-A’s massive annual unit volumes or its reputation for customer service.
“We’ve got great competitors in all markets where we compete,” McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski told CNBC. “We respect Chick-fil-A.”
Chick-fil-A, which is privately owned by founder Truett Cathy’s family, declined to comment for this story.
The chain has demonstrated a resistance to controversy, as well. Chick-fil-A has come under fire in the past for the family foundation’s donations to anti-LGBTQ organizations and comments from former CEO Dan Cathy about same-sex marriage. Despite backlash, Chick-fil-A has opened locations in liberal bastions such as New York City and Seattle.

As the Atlanta-based chicken chain has expanded from the Southeast to roughly 3,000 locations nationwide, the broader restaurant industry has taken note of its success. McDonald’s franchisees asked for a chicken sandwich that could rival Chick-fil-A’s back in 2019. Popeyes’ own chicken sandwich helped it overtake KFC as the No. 2 chicken chain. Southern players such as Raising Cane’s are following Chick-fil-A’s playbook to become national chains.
“Chicken is what is hot right now, and everyone is trying to get a piece of that action,” said Kevin Schimpf, director of industry research and insights at Technomic, a restaurant-focused research firm.

Chicken consumption is projected to hit 101.7 pounds per capita in 2023, more than double how much beef Americans consume, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.
“As of right now, there’s no signs of it really slowing down, especially with beef prices being so high,” Schimpf said.

The Chicken sandwich wars    

Nearly five years ago, 2019 marked a turning point for Chick-fil-A and the fast-food industry.
That year, Chick-fil-A leapfrogged Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and Subway to become the third-largest restaurant chain. During that summer, Restaurant Brands International’s Popeyes rolled out its first chicken sandwich nationwide.
Banter between Popeyes and Chick-fil-A on X, then known as Twitter, prompted many customers to try the new sandwich and compare to Chick-fil-A’s menu staple. Popeyes sold out of the new sandwich in less than a month. When it permanently returned to the menu several months later, its popularity fueled strong same-store sales growth quarter after quarter.
Other chains took note, hoping to steal some of the sales momentum from Chick-fil-A and Popeyes.
McDonald’s was one of the newcomers, launching its own version in 2021. Months earlier, as part of a broader investor presentation, McDonald’s said it would lean into chicken, given its growing popularity in the U.S. and the rest of the world.
Chicken prices also make the meat attractive to restaurants: It’s cheaper than beef, and its prices fluctuate less dramatically, too.
At its latest investor day earlier in December, McDonald’s executives said the McCrispy chicken sandwich has grown into a billion-dollar brand, and chicken now generates the same amount of systemwide sales as beef. The chain said it would be expanding the McCrispy brand into wraps and tenders.
“I certainly think that chicken can be bigger than beef, but I say that because in Asia it is,” Kempczinski told CNBC.

Ruling the roost

Inside the chicken fast-food segment, the competition is even hotter.
Still, Chick-fil-A remains on top. Its market share grew to 45.5% in 2023 from 38.3% in 2022, according to Barclays research.
The No. 2 player, Popeyes, holds only an 11.9% share, losing some of the market during the same period. In fact, out of the top 10 chicken chains, Chick-fil-A was the only to gain market share. Raising Cane’s, the fourth-largest player, held onto 7.5%.

But Chick-fil-A’s rivals have their eyes on taking down the chain.
“They’re [Chick-fil-A] a formidable competitor, and we admire everything that they do,” Popeyes President Sami Siddiqui told CNBC.
Building off the success of its chicken sandwich, Popeyes overtook KFC as the second-biggest chicken chain in the U.S. by market share this year, despite having roughly 1,000 fewer units. The chain just added chicken wings to its menu permanently, hoping they will attract new customers.
Smaller chicken players are plotting a more aggressive expansion. Raising Cane’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Pollo Campero and Bojangles are among the chains that grew quickly in 2023 and have plans to accelerate restaurant openings even faster in 2024.
“We think we deserve to be a national brand,” Bojangles CEO Jose Armario told CNBC in a November interview.
Bojangles isn’t the only chain that feels that way, but the market isn’t saturated yet. There’s roughly one chicken fast-food restaurant for every 12,000 people in the U.S., according to Barclays research. For comparison, there’s a burger restaurant for roughly every 6,000 consumers.
The versatility of chicken also helps. There are “little things” that distinguish the chains from one another, Technomic’s Schimpf said. “Some really focus on being spicy or having unique sauces.”
Raising Cane’s only serves heavily breaded tenders — even inside its sandwich. Dave’s Hot Chicken serves Nashville-style hot chicken, leaning into the spiciness. Pollo Campero, which is based in Guatemala, also sells yuca fries, sweet plantains and empanadas at U.S. locations. Its menu mix has helped the chain retain its Central and South American customers while attracting new fans, according to Blas Escarcega, Pollo Campero’s director of franchise development.

International ambitions

If there is anywhere that Chick-fil-A could be beat, it’s outside the U.S. The chain’s only international locations are in Canada, giving other chicken chains a clear leg up.
While KFC’s domestic performance has lagged that of Chick-fil-A, the chicken chain is much larger outside of its home market. It’s the largest fast-food brand by system sales in China, its largest market.
“KFC is so much larger in China and other international markets,” Schimpf said. “So I think KFC is probably fine with their market share in the U.S.”
Popeyes, too, is looking to expand its international footprint. Long term, the chain is aiming to have at least 1,500 locations in China. It’s also looking to open more restaurants in the U.K., South Korea, Mexico and India.
Even Wingstop, which has roughly 1,000 fewer U.S. locations than Chick-fil-A, has more than 260 international restaurants.
Chick-fil-A has plans to expand internationally, now that it has conquered the U.S. It aims to open a permanent location in the U.K. by early 2025. Chick-fil-A plans to invest more than $100 million over the next 10 years in the U.K. The chain also plans to open restaurants in Asia by 2026 and have five international locations by 2030.
But Chick-fil-A’s previous expansion plans have been foiled abroad before. A previous London pop-up location in 2019 only lasted six months after protests from LGBTQ rights activists.
— Charts by CNBC’s Gabriel Cortés. More