Business

UPS on Tuesday beat Wall Street estimates in its third-quarter earnings report.
The company said it’s cut around 34,000 jobs from its workforce as part of its plan to turn around the business.
Shares of the company soared following the release.

A UPS worker pushes a cart in New York, US, on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

United Parcel Service on Tuesday reported earnings that topped Wall Street’s estimates ahead of its busy holiday season.
Shares of the package delivery giant surged 10% in premarket trading.

Here’s how the company performed in its third quarter, compared with what Wall Street was expecting based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: $1.74 adjusted vs. $1.30 expected
Revenue: $21.4 billion vs. $20.83 billion expected

For the period ended Sept. 30, the company reported net income of $1.31 billion, or $1.55 per share, compared with $1.99 billion, or $1.80 per share, the year prior. Adjusting for one-time items, including costs of its transformation strategy, the company reported profit of $1.48 billion or $1.74 per share.
UPS estimates its fourth quarter revenue to be $24 billion with an operating margin of 11% to 11.5%.
The company also on Tuesday laid out details of its previously announced turnaround plan and said it cut its operational workforce by 34,000 jobs, greater than its previous estimate of 20,000, as part of its plan to trim down its work with Amazon, previously its largest customer. The company also cut 14,000 jobs from its management workforce.
In the third quarter, Amazon’s total volume with UPS declined 21.2%, executives said on an earnings call, compared with a 13% decline for the first half of the year.

UPS also initiated a sale-leaseback transaction in the third quarter for five properties as part of its broader strategy, which resulted in a $330 million pre-tax gain on sale in its supply chain solutions division. It said Tuesday that it has now closed daily operations at 93 leased and owned buildings through September as part of the initiative.
UPS said its turnaround plan has resulted in $2.2 billion in savings through the end of the third quarter, with an estimate of achieving $3.5 billion total year-over-year cost savings in 2025.
“We are executing the most significant strategic shift in our company’s history, and the changes we are implementing are designed to deliver long-term value for all stakeholders,” CEO Carol Tomé said. “With the holiday shipping season nearly upon us, we are positioned to run the most efficient peak in our history while providing industry-leading service to our customers for the eighth consecutive year.”
The courier’s strong results come as the parcel industry faces a volatile tariff environment and sluggish demand, in addition to impacts from the end of the de minimis loophole. Rival FedEx said last month that it incurred $150 million in headwinds from the global trade environment.
“The third quarter brought a wave of tariff changes, some expected, others unforeseen, and our team navigated these complexities with exceptional skills and resilience,” Tomé said on the call, adding that the company is incorporating artificial intelligence into its daily operations to adapt to the surge in customs entries. More

Online home goods company Wayfair beat Wall Street estimates and said revenue jumped 8% in the third quarter.
Excluding the impact of the company’s exit from Germany, Wayfair said its revenue grew 9% year-over-year.
CFO Kate Gulliver told CNBC the company doesn’t believe the growth is driven by any macro-related factors like tariffs or interest rates and instead is a result of initiatives like its loyalty program and shift to physical retail.

Online home goods company Wayfair reported a jump in third-quarter revenue on Tuesday, as it beat Wall Street estimates on the top and bottom lines.
The company said total net revenue increased 8.1% year-over-year.

Here’s how the company performed in its third quarter, compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Earnings per share: 70 cents adjusted vs. 43 cents expected
Revenue: $3.12 billion vs. $3.02 billion expected

Wayfair shares climbed 10% in premarket trading.
For the period ended Sept. 30, Wayfair reported a net loss of $99 million, or 76 cents per share, compared to a loss of $74 million, or 60 cents per share, the year prior.
The company’s U.S. revenue rose 8.6% year over year to $2.7 billion, while international revenue climbed 4.6% year over year to $389 million. Wayfair said its total net revenue excluding its Germany exit jumped 9% year over year.
The revenue increase comes as the overall home goods sector has seen recent struggles, partly due to rising inflation and lower home turnover during a stretch of high interest rates. The sector has also faced challenges in President Donald Trump’s furniture tariffs, in addition to other duties — though rates on imported goods from many countries are now lower than Trump proposed earlier this year.

CFO Kate Gulliver told CNBC that the company doesn’t credit the growth to any macro-related factors like tariffs or interest rates.
“We think it’s really being driven by our share gain, and that, we believe is really coming from a confluence of factors and initiatives that we started over a year ago that are now starting to bear fruit,” Gulliver said.
Those initiatives include what Gulliver calls the company’s “core recipe” – price, product availability and speed – in addition to growth from its loyalty program, site improvement and physical retail. The retailer opened its first large store in Illinois last year to ride the wave of physical stores’ comeback. Based on that success, it plans to open another location in Yonkers, New York, in early 2027.
Though tariff policy has created uncertainty for the company, she said it has been able to lean on the strength of its model: operating as a marketplace on the back end and as a retailer on the front end.
Wayfair saw a post-pandemic slump in sales in what was a “somewhat challenged” time for the home goods category, Gulliver said, but the past year has brought increased momentum. Despite tariff volatility, Wayfair’s stock had gained roughly 95% this year as of Monday’s close.
CEO Niraj Shah added in the earnings release that the company’s delivered orders for the quarter grew 5% year-over-year.
“Our 6.7% Adjusted EBITDA margin marks the highest level achieved in Wayfair’s history outside of the pandemic period,” Shah said on a call with analysts. “As we’ve promised, substantial profitability flow through is powered by a strong contribution margin and fixed cost discipline as our business has returned to growth.”
Wayfair said its active customers totaled 21.2 million at the end of the quarter, a 2.3% decrease year over year.
Shah added on the Tuesday call that Wayfair’s growth plan is driven by “Wayfair-specific factors” and is “not reliant upon a recovery in the housing market.” He said the company saw few isolated examples of early purchases to avoid tariffs like a “short-lived” increase in large appliance sales in the early spring.
“We see our outperformance as structural share capture driven by our strong day-to-day execution against the core recipe, the early success of the new programs we’ve been able to launch and from the broad gains we have brought to bear from our technology team,” Shah said. More

Lululemon is partnering with the NFL and Fanatics around a new collection, releasing apparel and accessories with logos of all 32 teams.
It’s the latest push into sports for Lululemon, which includes NHL team-branded merchandise and deals with athletes like F1 champion Lewis Hamilton and tennis player Frances Tiafoe.
It also furthers the NFL’s massive merchandise reach.

Sign at the entrance to the Lululemon store in Midtown Manhattan.
Erik Mcgregor | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Lululemon is partnering with the NFL to launch an apparel collection for all 32 NFL teams. It will mark the first time the retailer has offered officially licensed products for the NFL or any of its franchises.
The collection, set to launch Tuesday, will include both men’s and women’s apparel and accessories with NFL team marks, including some of Lululemon’s most notable products such as its Steady State men’s franchise and women’s styles from Define, Scuba and Align.

Shares of Lululemon rose 5% in premarket trading Monday.
Lululemon, long known for its roots in yoga wear, has made a notable push into sports and performance in recent years. The retailer struck a partnership with the NHL last year to release team-branded items and has grown its roster of sports-linked ambassadors to include PGA golfers Min Woo Lee and Max Homa, ATP tennis pro Frances Tiafoe, NFL player DK Metcalf and NHL player Connor Bedard. Earlier this year, the retailer made perhaps its biggest splash to date, naming F1 champion Lewis Hamilton as an ambassador.
Celeste Burgoyne, president of Lululemon’s Americas division and global guest innovation, said the retailer sees an opportunity within sports where it can provide “the best product for these fans in the premium space to be able to celebrate their teams.”
“It really is about enabling our existing guests to be able to now wear Lululemon in arenas and stadiums, but it’s also about a new guest and expanding and really connecting our worlds in order to grow our guest base,” she said.
Lululemon has struggled in recent quarters as the company has been hit hard by the impacts of tariffs and other shifting consumer trends. But CEO Calvin McDonald, speaking on CNBC last month, said he sees an opportunity to innovate within the company’s key categories and items.

For the NFL, partnering with Lululemon on a new collection is another opportunity to broaden its reach for team gear, according to NFL CRO Renie Anderson.
“We want to make sure we’re creating a variety, an assortment for all fans, from casual to the more classic styles,” Anderson said. “It’s all a part of that ecosystem of passion and love for the sport and your club, and the ability to express yourself that way, whether it’s fun ways with foam fingers or hats, or in a cool, casual, fashionable way.”
The new items will be available on the league’s e-commerce site and at team retail locations as well as via Fanatics, which has a longstanding partnership with the NFL and holds the league’s consumer product licensing rights around fan gear.
Andrew Low Ah Kee, CEO of Fanatics Commerce, said historically, the sports industry has often overserved fans in certain casual product categories like T-shirts and hoodies, but there is now “a real demand and appetite for truly premium.”
“The jersey is truly the uniform of sport,” Low Ah Kee said. “So when we think about a consumer’s closet, we think there’s a role for jerseys, but we think there’s a role for a lot of other apparel as well.” More

American Airlines has fallen behind large rivals Delta and United in seeking out luxury customers, profit and more.
The carrier is trying to change all of that and uplift its brand with improvements to its cabins, lounges and technology.
CEO Robert Isom will have to rally American’s more than 130,000 employees behind the airline’s plans and win over both customers and investors.

An American Airlines Airbus A321 taxis at San Diego International Airport as a United Airlines airplane departs on August 24, 2024 in San Diego, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images News | Getty Images

FORT WORTH, Texas — American Airlines started pouring customers Champagne Bollinger in its top-tier lounges and cabins this fall. But at headquarters, it’s not time to celebrate — yet.
American has fallen behind large rivals Delta Air Lines and United Airlines in the post-Covid luxury travel boom that has taken Seoul spa vacations and 40th birthday bashes abroad out of the chat and armed millions of consumers with high-end rewards credit cards.

In the first nine months of this year, Delta made $3.8 billion and United made $2.3 billion. American made $12 million. That means that American, which offers more flights than any other airline, according to OAG, accounted for just 2% of the profit the biggest three U.S. carriers generated so far in 2025.
American ranked last in a J.D. Power’s North American airline customer satisfaction ranking this year. The carrier has also been working to undo damage from a failed business-travel sales strategy.
And American, which branded itself the “on-time machine” in the 1980s, in the first half of this year ranked ninth out of 10 airlines for on-time arrivals, according to the Department of Transportation.
The airline is trying to change all of that and uplift its brand after strategy errors, some skittishness about spending, and at times being late to capitalize on industry trends, like travelers’ willingness to pay up to sit in bigger seats, according to current and former executives and industry watchers.
To make that happen, CEO Robert Isom will have to rally American’s more than 130,000 employees around the airline’s plans and win over both customers and investors. American’s stock is down 20% this year through Friday’s close, compared with modest gains posted by Delta and United.

Last week, however, some investors noticed a change within American, whose fourth-quarter profit forecast surpassed Wall Street analysts’ expectations. Shares rose more than 16%, their biggest weekly percentage gain in almost a year.
“You’re going to have a three-month period where you have to be crystal clear on your story,” said Melius Research airline analyst Conor Cunningham, referring to the airline’s leaders.
The bigger changes are going to take time and money.
“American hasn’t been paying attention to the customer for the longest time,” said Henry Harteveldt, founder of the Atmosphere Research Group travel consulting firm. “I believe there is the beginning of a meaningful turnaround … but a large airline like American is not going to be turned around overnight.”

‘Everyone felt it was price and schedule, and that’s it’

American has tasked Heather Garboden — who has worked for more than two decades at American and US Airways, including roles in the cargo and finance departments, and now is chief customer officer — with leading a lot of a nose-to-tail revamp of the nearly century-old airline.
“Fifteen years ago, I don’t think in the industry, there was much of a belief that customer experience … really drove a differentiation between airlines. I think everyone felt it was price and schedule, and that’s it,” she said in an interview. “That has changed, and we understand that.”
American fell behind with both retailing fares and technology compared with large U.S. rivals. At Delta, the most profitable U.S. airline, its executives were early to notice how customers were paying up for pricier first-class seats, precious real estate it and other airlines used to give away to frequent flyers as free upgrades. Now, offering buy-ups is more common among all three, and American is looking for more ways to sell those seats and to make sure its planes have enough of them to offer.
One challenge for American has been that it was last of the big three airlines to complete a mega merger in 2013 when it combined with US Airways, while Delta and United had years-long head starts to get through their integrations and improve their products.

New lounges, coffee and suites

Garboden spent much of her career in the finance departments and said it’s tough to provide that team with the return-on-investment of something like Champagne but that it’s still important.
“Customer experience, it’s not just Champagne. It’s not just a nice seat. It’s not just having the best lounge,” she said. “It’s the whole holistic view of it, and from end to end, [how] we want it to feel.”
Including new aircraft, American expects its capital spending to total $3.8 billion this year, and rise to about $4.5 billion next year, the carrier said Thursday. It said it has nearly $37 billion in total debt, and plans to cut that down by about at least $2 billion before 2028.
One example of how things have changed: American’s management team nearly a decade ago decided to remove seat-back screens from its aircraft, saving money on the equipment (and the fuel-sucking weight they add to the plane) because at the time they said customers would likely use their own mobile phones, tablets or laptop to watch entertainment.
United, some of whose senior leadership team, including its chief executive, Scott Kirby, came from American, has done the opposite and is in the process of adding thousands of screens to narrow-body planes both new and old, including Bluetooth technology for wireless headphones.
American might be changing its tune. “I think of where the technology was a decade ago, and where it can be today, or even a few years from today,” Garboden said. “Hopefully the complexity is less.”

An seatback on an American Airlines Boeing 737.
Leslie Josephs/CNBC

American is working to make its website and app better, with features like a way to toggle between paying for tickets with cash or miles, Garboden said, among other revamps that executives hope will drive sales — and paid upgrades. Another goal: using artificial intelligence and allowing customers to search for vacation themes, such as “best wine tasting in spring” instead of searching for flights between cities, she said.
American is also in the middle of a push to refresh many of its longer-haul premium cabins and announced on Thursday that it will refurbish its Boeing 777-200 aircraft with a new business class, adding to an upgrade, first unveiled three years ago, of its larger Boeing 777-300 jets.
“That is a big deal for us because extending the lives of those and putting those into service really gives us a capital spending holiday in terms of fleet replacement,” Isom said in an earnings call with analysts on Thursday. “So it’s a win-win-win for our customers, for our company and, most certainly, our investors.”
Those plans are made years in advance, and high demand, supply chain problems and long certification wait times have delayed plusher cabins, exasperating airline executives.

Arrows pointing outwards

On Thursday, American’s first Airbus A321 XLR, a long-range narrow-body plane it plans to fly across the country and, eventually to Europe, touched down at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. On all three aircraft types, it will do without first class in favor of a larger business class. For flights over the Atlantic it can cost $600 in the back and well over $6,000 up front.
The new suites that feature sliding doors, larger screens and a palette of dark browns, navy blue and tan, started flying this year on some of American’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners, subset P, for “premium.”

American Airlines new business-class suite.
American Airlines

Meanwhile, the union that represents American’s attendants is pushing the carrier add more crew members on board to cater to the larger business-class cabins.
“Staff your airplanes the way a world-class airline should — and deliver a competitive onboard experience in every cabin,” the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, the pilots’ union and unions at the carrier said in a message on Friday that was sent to staff but directed at the carrier, targeting the airline’s underperformance compared with rivals.
American’s updates even have it rethinking beverages throughout the plane. The airline signed a coffee provider deal with Italy’s Lavazza recently, and to test out the brews, it brought airplane water to its headquarters in Fort Worth so staff could evaluate what it would taste like brewed on board. Lavazza made the cut.

The airline on Thursday named Nat Pieper as is chief commercial officer, a nearly three-decade airline veteran who’s worked at Alaska Airlines and Delta and who Isom described as “exactly the kind of leader we want at American.” American fired its former CCO, Vasu Raja, last year after his business-travel strategy backfired and sparked outrage from travel agencies.
There are signs of progress.
“Exiting this year, we expect to have fully recovered the revenue share that was lost by our prior sales and distribution strategy,” Isom said Thursday.
American also just inked a new credit card deal with Citi and last week said it would introduce a new mid-tier card, with a $350 annual fee.

One-time pioneer, new challenges

American Airlines was an industry leader for decades. It was the first to launch a frequent flyer program, AAdvantage. Loyalty programs, which in large part make money from selling frequent flyer miles to banks, have now become the lifeblood of many airlines.
The airline this year announced new measures to improve reliability. One change: five additional minutes of boarding time. An American spokeswoman said that helps avoid bottlenecks and last-minute gate-checked bags, which she said are down 25% since May 1.

Some of American’s challenges are fairly recent. A federal judge in 2023 blocked American’s regional tie-up with JetBlue Airways, leaving it without a partner in key, wealthy markets like Boston and New York, where United and Delta had made inroads.
United this year scooped up a partnership with JetBlue that allows customers to earn and burn miles on each others airline, but stops short of coordinating schedules or routes. It took effect on Thursday, as American was reporting its third-quarter results.
American dominates its fortress hubs in Dallas and Charlotte, North Carolina, profitable operations, though it has fallen behind in the Northeast. Other companies have looked to the Sun Belt for growth as the population there grew.
United and Delta executives have credited some of their success to having lots of flights in big coastal hubs with affluent travelers, though United has also built up flying in key markets like Denver, Houston and Chicago.

‘Generational lead’

An American Airlines Airbus A321-231 airplane taxis to depart from San Diego International Airport to Dallas at sunset on November 22, 2024 in San Diego, California.
Kevin Carter | Getty Images News | Getty Images

While American has been reluctant to make big investments, United’s CEO Kirby earlier this month told investors that the airline is plowing more than $1 billion a year into improving customer experience.
United recently started flying planes with free Wi-Fi provided by SpaceX’s Starlink, following Delta and JetBlue in making the service complimentary. American plans to roll out complimentary Wi-Fi next year for most of its fleet.
United said such investments take years.
“We have built up a generational lead on this front,” United’s chief commercial officer, Andrew Nocella, said in an interview, adding that new products are coming in the next few years. (He declined to provide details.) “We think it’s substantial, and I don’t want to give an inch of that ground up, no matter what our competitors do to innovate over the next decade.”
Some customers, however, continue to value the convenience American offers them, and have remained loyal.
Todd Bryan, 41, who has Executive Platinum status on American, said he chooses the carrier in large part because it has the most frequencies out of where he lives, in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The 41-year-old sales account manager who works in the consumer packaged goods industry, said he gets upgraded on most of his flights, but he has noticed that American has been more aggressive about offering buy-ups with cash or miles.
Even though he’s usually at the top of the list, he now considers taking the offer instead of gambling on a free upgrade on personal trips if “it feels cheap enough that I assume someone else would buy it too.” More

One in three condo resales between July 2024 and June 2025 were sold at a loss, according to a report from Brown Harris Stevens.
Manhattan is still among the most expensive markets in the country, especially on a per-square-foot basis.
The exception to the trend was the top of the market. Those who bought and sold apartments for $10 million or more made double-digit profits.

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.
More than a third of the condo apartments sold in Manhattan over roughly the past year sold at a loss, although the top end of the market fared better, according to a new report.

Despite the steady stream of headlines about eye-popping sales and soaring prices in Manhattan real estate, the median price per square foot for Manhattan condos is essentially flat from a decade ago, according to a report from Brown Harris Stevens. One in three condo resales between July 2024 and June 2025 were sold at a loss, according to the report. When including inflation, transaction costs and renovations, the share of losses by condo sellers is likely even higher, according to real estate analysts.
While the data didn’t include co-ops, analysts say co-op prices have generally fared the same or slightly worse than condos.
“For the last decade, Manhattan has essentially been moving sideways,” said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, the appraisal and real estate research firm.
The long-term price weakness in Manhattan stands in stark contrast to much of the country, where home prices are up substantially since the pandemic, creating a widespread affordability crisis. Only 2% of home sellers nationally who purchased homes before the pandemic are at risk of selling at a loss, according to Redfin.

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Manhattan is still among the most expensive markets in the country, especially on a per-square-foot basis. The median price for Manhattan sales in the third quarter was $1.2 million, while the average is just under $2 million, according to Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman. Yet over the longer term, an analysis of resales finds that the timing of purchases in Manhattan typically matters more than location.

Condo owners who bought before 2010 have fared the best. The median gains for those in that cohort who sold over roughly the past year were between 29% and 45%, according to the Brown Harris report. Prices started to rise after the financial crisis, peaking in 2016. That means for those who bought between 2011 and 2015, the sale gains in the past year were modest, around 11%.
The biggest losers were those who bought after 2016. Half of the buyers who bought between 2016 and 2020 sold at a loss over the surveyed period. Among those who bought between 2021 and 2024, the gains were slim – although some buyers who got deals during the depths of the Covid downturn in late 2020 and early 2021 may fare better.

Adding in other costs of buying, selling and ownership would further add to the losses. Transaction costs in Manhattan can range from 6% to 10%, according to brokers. Renovations and improvements also aren’t counted in the losses, nor are maintenance fees or taxes. Adjusting for inflation would also increase the losses and lower returns.
Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, co-director of the Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, said inflation has increased 36% over the past decade.
“So if I had invested in a Manhattan condo in September 2015 (close to the peak) and sold it in August 2025 for the same nominal price, a 0% nominal return, I actually lost 36% in real terms,” he said. “This is surprising since many people think of real estate as a good inflation hedge.”
He noted that the Case-Shiller national home price index went up 89% in the 10 years between September 2015 and August 2025, “a lot better than in NYC and also far higher than the 36% inflation.”
The reasons for Manhattan’s “lost decade” in condo prices are as varied as they are disputed. The cap on state and local tax deductions that began in 2018 put pressure on prices and demand, as did a 2019 rent law. The migration of some higher earners to Florida during Covid also added to real estate fears, although the population and demand quickly rebounded.
The one exception to the trend was the top of the market. Those who bought and sold apartments for $10 million or more made double-digit profits, no matter when they initially bought.
Brokers and analysts say the increased concentration of wealth at the top, rising stock markets and ceaseless demand from those who are less affected by economic and market cycles has powered continued gains in the luxury market.
“The higher end has fared better over the decade, especially in, let’s say, the top 4% of the market,” Miller said. “The reason is Wall Street and financial markets. And the ability to buy in cash, independent of interest rates.”
Two thirds of the apartment deals done in the third quarter were done in cash, Miller said, far above the historical average of around 53% and showing the continued dependence of the Manhattan market on wealthy buyers who don’t need mortgages.
In a market defined by frequent ups and downs, brokers say the current upswing presents an opportunity for both buyers and sellers.
“I’m bullish and have a very positive outlook for New York real estate,” said Jared Antin, executive director at Brown Harris Stevens and a co-author of the report. “While some people may have lost money on the deals [over the decade], the losses were negligible. It speaks to the blue chip nature of the Manhattan market. Does everyone want to make money on their real estate? Of course. But this market is incredibly stable.”
Sellers who bought during the dip in 2020 and early 2021 could also see profits when they start to sell, Antin said.
Still, with median prices hovering near all-time highs and uncertainty around the upcoming mayoral election, many potential buyers prefer to stay on the sidelines and rent, even if they can afford to buy. The number of households in New York City making more than $1 million a year who are renting more than doubled between 2019 and 2023, to 5,661, according to a report from RentCafe.
What’s more, signed contracts for high-end apartments — priced at $4 million or more — fell 39% in September, according to Olshan Realty, following increases in August and July. Brokers blame a rapid decline in inventory and lack of new supply from condo developments rather than a decline in demand or fears that Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, would become the next mayor of New York City.
“There certainly is a downside risk to policy,” Miller said. “But as we’ve seen in the past, those fears are usually overblown.” More

Deckers Brands fiscal Q2 earnings of $1.82 per share beat estimates, but full-year revenue guidance missed Wall Street’s forecast.
Sales of HOKA running shoes softened, while UGG boots outperformed expectations.
Tariff costs and cautious consumer spending weigh on Deckers Brands fiscal 2027 outlook.

Hoka shoes are seen in a store in Krakow, Poland on February 1, 2023. 
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Shares of footwear maker Deckers Brands plunged 15% Friday after the company trimmed its sales guidance for Hoka and Ugg — the two brands driving its growth — over concerns that tariffs are leading to a slide in demand.
Hoka, an up-and-coming running shoe brand, is now expected to grow by a low-teens percentage in fiscal 2026 after growing 24% in the year-ago period, while Boots brand Ugg is expected to grow in the range of a low to mid single-digit percentage, after growing 13% in the year-ago period.

In May, the company said Hoka and Ugg were expected to grow in the mid-teens and mid-single digits, respectively, in fiscal 2026 but it caveated that forecast by saying it was conceived prior to the introduction of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. At the time, it quantified the expected impact to its costs but said it remained to be determined what kind of impact the new duties could have on demand.
When reporting fiscal second-quarter earnings on Thursday, finance chief Steven Fasching said the impacts tariffs and higher prices are having on demand are now more clear.
“Part of the framework that we gave at the beginning of the year really said if tariffs did not have an impact on consumers, how we saw kind of certain growth, and we still believe that, right? But we do know and we are more currently seeing some impacts on the U.S. consumer,” Fasching told analysts on the company’s conference call. “So as U.S. consumers are beginning to see some price increases. It is impacting their purchase behavior within the consumer discretionary space.”
He added the guidance isn’t far off from what the company originally thought but acknowledged there is a “little bit of a reduction” in its forecast.
The slower pace of growth for Deckers’ two top-performing lines, along with the trim to their sales guidance, signals the two brands could be losing momentum after years of outperformance. Together, Hoka and Ugg account for the vast majority of Deckers’ revenue and have been critical in offsetting weaknesses in other categories.

CEO Dave Powers, however, downplayed fears of a long-term slowdown, telling investors that both brands remain strong among core consumers.
“We’re confident in the long-term trajectory of our portfolio,” Powers said. “While tariffs and inflation are creating near-term pressure, Hoka and Ugg continue to lead in brand heat and market share gains across their categories.”
Beyond Hoka and Ugg, Deckers’ full-year revenue guidance came in lower than analysts’ expectations. In fiscal 2026, the company expects revenue of about $5.35 billion, shy of Wall Street’s $5.45 billion forecast, according to LSEG. It expects earnings per share to be between $6.30 and $6.39, roughly in line with the $6.32 per share estimate, according to LSEG.
In the company’s call with analysts, Fasching warned that tariff costs could total about $150 million this fiscal year. Executives said they expect to offset roughly half of those costs through price adjustments and cost-sharing with factory partners.
Deckers’ shares have dropped more than 55% year to date, leaving investors on edge about any signs of decelerating demand. More

Taco Bell is rolling out Live Más Cafés inside its existing restaurants, with special beverages ranging from frozen coffees to lemonades and energy drinks.
By the end of the year, Taco Bell is projecting that it will have 30 Live Más Cafés in its portfolio, across Southern California, Dallas and Houston.
The Mexican-inspired chain is aiming to generate a $5 billion drink business by 2030.

IRVINE, Calif. — Taco Bell is going all in on beverages, starting with its Live Más Café concept.
The Yum Brands chain unveiled the drink-focused store format last December, with the first location in Chula Vista, California. Ten months later came the second location, near the University of California, Irvine campus. By the end of the year, Taco Bell is projecting that it will have 30 Live Más Cafés in its portfolio, across Southern California, Dallas and Houston.

Unlike McDonald’s now-defunct CosMc’s spinoff, which had its own standalone locations, the Live Más Café lives inside existing Taco Bell restaurants. Customers order at kiosks and can watch the “bellristas” assemble their drinks from behind the designated counter, which takes prime real estate in the store. The drink menu includes a range of beverage options, from blended coffees to lemonade-based drinks.
The beverage-focused concept is supposed to help the Mexican-inspired chain reach its goal of generating a $5 billion drink business by 2030. Taco Bell first disclosed that target in March at an investor day, where the chain shared more about its plans to keep growing as it fuels Yum’s operating profit growth.
So far this year, Taco Bell has sold more than 600 million beverages, up 16% from the year-ago period, according to the company. More than 60% of the chain’s orders this year have included a drink, Taco Bell said.
“I think drinks are big right now because I think people are really craving unique, interesting flavors in their beverages, and we hear that all the time from our consumers,” said Liz Matthews, global chief food innovation officer for Taco Bell.

Center stage

Taco Bell’s Live Más Café.
Courtesy: Taco Bell

Stepping inside the Irvine location, the Live Más Café beverage station is the clear star.

Most of the self-order kiosks are positioned in front of the station’s long counter. Customers have a free view of the “bellristas” making their specialty drinks, unlike the restaurant’s other employees who assemble Crunchwrap Supremes and Chalupas hidden from sight.
Digital menu boards across the restaurant highlight the beverage offerings. The drink menu spans four distinct categories: churro chillers, specialty coffees, refrescas and “bellrista favorites.”
The churro chillers are creamy and cold milkshakes topped with churro chunks. The specialty coffees come either hot, iced or blended as a “chiller.” Brightly colored refrescas use either lemonade, green tea or Rockstar energy drinks as the base for their fruity flavors, such as strawberry passionfruit or mango peach. And the “bellrista favorites” include seasonal options, such as the autumnal caramel apple empanada churro chiller, which incorporates blended chunks of Taco Bell’s apple empanada.
When crafting the menu, Matthews and her team tried to stick to the chain’s Mexican-inspired roots, but she said Taco Bell will always have a “playful spirit.”
And while the Live Más Café offers plenty of options with a variety of flavors, Taco Bell kept the options to customize minimal.
“What we found when we talked to consumers, they actually really want us to curate their drink for them,” Matthews said.
To date, the Irvine location’s top-selling drinks are the Mexican Chocolate Churro Chiller, the Dirty Mountain Dew Baja Blast Dream Soda and the Mango Peach Agua Refresca. Six of the top 10 bestselling drinks at the location are chillers. That’s a reversal from the initial test location in Chula Vista, which has seen similar demand for every drink category, according to Matthews.
Since its opening day in September, the Irvine location has been selling more than 900 drinks per day, according to Taco Bell. More than a third of orders include an item from the Live Más Café menu.
Meanwhile, the Chula Vista location — which exceeded its initial sales forecast by four times — is selling more than 750 beverages a day nearly a year since its opening, the company said. A quarter of all transactions include a Live Más Café beverage, according to Taco Bell.
“Given what we’re seeing right now from the business results, the payback looks really attractive and in line with what our franchisees would expect for something big, but we’ve got a lot more to learn,” said Taylor Montgomery, global chief brand officer of Taco Bell.

‘Little treat’

This year, the hottest trend in fast food hasn’t been a chicken sandwich or plant-based burgers. Instead, beverages of all consistencies, colors and nutritional values have taken the spotlight.
For example, Shake Shack is selling lemonade with mini raspberry popping boba, inspired by the success of bubble tea. Panera Bread is testing frescas and energy refreshers in select bakery-cafés. Chick-fil-A is planning to open Daybright — a beverage-focused restaurant with specialty coffees, smoothies and cold-pressed juices — in Hiram, Georgia, later this year. And although McDonald’s this summer wound down its spin-off called CosMc’s that focused on drinks and snacks, it also tested new coffee drinks, refreshers and flavored sodas at more than 500 U.S. restaurants.
The number of beverages sold by the top 500 chains has climbed more than 9% in the last year, according to Technomic. The swell of beverage innovation follows the speedy expansion of a number of a specialty drink chains, from upstart 7 Brew Coffee to dirty-soda inventor Swig.
“[Quick-service chains] have seen that there’s a big opportunity with an entire generation and how they’re interested in that ‘little treat’ culture,” said Claire Conaghan, “trendologist” at Datassential, which tracks menu trends. “There’s options to kind of go beyond their focus area of core meal and really lean into that snacking moment.”
Generation Z and millennials are driving the trend, according to Varchasvi Singh, a foodservice analyst for Mintel. Younger generations enjoy customizing their food and beverage orders.
“Among younger consumers, in particular, we see that fast-food dining is just as much about experimentation and novelty as it is about indulgence,” Singh said. “They’re a lot more open to trying premium menu items and personalizing their orders, whereas older generations, who have associated fast food with extreme affordability for a long time, are a little bit more critical of how expensive it has become for them.”
For Taco Bell, turning to beverages and creating the Live Más Café is part of its broader plan to appeal to younger consumers, whose spending power is projected to increase rapidly in just a few years.
“Over the past five years, we’ve really, really been transitioning and thinking about the brand and how to position it for Gen Z, and so Café was really born from that,” Montgomery said. “I think it’s something like 60% of Gen Z consumers come to a restaurant or [quick-service restaurant] for an afternoon treat.”
Rather than creating a standalone Live Más Café, Taco Bell chose to put the sub-brand inside existing restaurants in part because of “humility,” according to Montgomery.
“Today, we’re not known to be a beverage destination — yet,” he told CNBC.
Live Más Café can also help Taco Bell more broadly.
“It also acts a little bit as a test market where they can get some more real-time data. Which combos do people do the most?” Conaghan said. “Which customizations matter the most? Do we need every type of alternative milk or maybe just these one or two? Do we need all 15 flavors of whatever energy refresher?”
That’s already started happening. Taco Bell’s agua frescas, which began as a Live Más Café menu line, have since been launched nationwide.
“They’re one of our top-selling items, and we didn’t wait to scale the Café,” Montgomery said. “We pushed those in all the restaurants, and we’ve seen success there.”
Plus, the coffee options on the café’s menu are part of Taco Bell’s plan to make a bigger push into breakfast. The chain started serving the morning meal more than a decade ago but told franchisees last year that they could opt out serving breakfast; for some fast-food operators, opening early isn’t profitable, plus there’s the added headache of finding staff willing to work the morning shift.
Taco Bell has already had some success with another sub-brand. Its Cantina format, typically found in cities, features a custom menu, alcoholic beverages and seating meant to encourage customers to linger. Since opening the first location in Chicago a decade ago, Taco Bell Cantina has grown to dozens of restaurants.
Broadly, even as inflation-weary consumers pull back their spending, Taco Bell’s focus on new menu items has lifted its sales; earlier this year, the company announced plans to double innovation in 2025. Taco Bell’s prices have climbed 75.5% since 2019, according to Technomic’s Ignite Menu. Still, customers keep coming back.
In recent years, Taco Bell has been the gem of Yum’s portfolio, typically outperforming both Wall Street’s expectations and its sister chains, KFC and Pizza Hut. Executives have named the chain as one of the company’s primary growth engines. In the second quarter, while many fast-food rivals reported shrinking sales, Taco Bell reported same-store sales growth of 4%.
“From a portfolio standpoint, we represent a pretty significant amount of Yum’s operating profit, but we learn a lot from other brands, too,” Montgomery said.
Yum is expected to report its third-quarter earnings before the bell on Nov 4.
Watch the video to learn more about why Taco Bell is betting on drinks. More

Retail executives said consumers are hunting for deals this holiday season amid tariff pressures and pricing concerns.
Companies are rolling out holiday campaigns earlier and tweaking how they offer discounts.
Kohl’s and Academy Sports and Outdoors are among the retailers that said they’re seeing consumers trade down or pull back.

There’s just two months until Christmas Eve, and retailers are meeting a more cautious shopper with earlier offerings.
Most retailers won’t report third-quarter results or updated holiday expectations until just before Thanksgiving, largely considered the sector’s most important week of the year. By then, many shoppers will have already started checking off holiday shopping lists.

Amazon’s October Prime Day sales event and competitors’ ever-earlier Black Friday deals grab some portion of the holiday wallet share. The unofficial kickoff to the holiday shopping season comes as executives point to a bifurcation in consumer spending, with lower-income consumers feeling the strain on their budgets, and as a government shutdown and tariff costs threaten purchasing power.
Kohl’s is among the retailers chasing holiday shopping early with hopes of boosting the total haul.
“We want to make sure we’re driving that early consideration knowing that they’re shopping early,” Kohl’s Chief Marketing Officer Christie Raymond said at a media event earlier this month.
The off-mall department store is starting its holiday marketing campaign next week, a week earlier than last year, when it waited until after the election. In the coming days it will be breaking out the rest of the holiday merchandise not already set out in stores.
A key part of Kohl’s holiday strategy is to capture shoppers not only early, but often.

Raymond said during the last holiday season, between November and January, shoppers made “15 plus trips” on average to stores across the industry, but checked out with smaller baskets. Those findings were based on a survey that Kohl’s conducted with a third-party research firm.
“[Consumers are] doing the work to get what they want at the price they want to pay,” she said.
While Academy Sports and Outdoors CEO Steve Lawrence agreed that shoppers are savvy when it comes to price monitoring, he said he expects customers “to aggregate their spending around those key shopping moments on the calendar where they know they can get the best deals.”
Both Kohl’s and Academy Sports cater largely to a middle-income shopper. Still, Lawrence said consumers are paying close attention to discount events.
“If we run the same promotion this year that we ran last year, there’s higher take rate on it,” he said. “I think that’s a sign customers are really savvy, and they’re figuring out when it’s the right time to shop.”

Shifting shopping habits

Lawrence said that while promotions are part of every holiday season’s playbook, Academy Sports will be tweaking how it runs discounts this year in light of higher engagement with the deals.
“If last year we ran a promotion for 10 days, maybe I only run it for 4 days over the Thanksgiving weekend,” he said. “Maybe instead of having a whole brand promoted, maybe it’s only the key categories within that brand, right? Or maybe in some cases, it might be promoting at a slightly lower discount.”
Raymond said Kohl’s is seeing shoppers reaching for lower-price options and expects that to continue during the holiday season.
“Customers maybe were purchasing a premium brand, but we are seeing them trading down to private brands,” she said. “We think we’re in actually a great position to capitalize on that.”
A private brand is one made for and sold by only one retailer, allowing for more control over design and, importantly, cost. That can mean lower prices for shoppers and higher margins for the retailer than a national brand.

Shoppers carry Macy’s and Nordstrom bags at Broadway Plaza in Walnut Creek, California, US, on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. The Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to release personal spending figures on December 20.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

While Kohl’s doesn’t disclose the proportion of its sales that are private label, Chief Merchandising Officer Nick Jones said it’s not as high as it used to be, adding there’s opportunity to boost that share this holiday season, particularly for shoppers trying to stretch their wallets.
About 23% of Academy Sports business is private label, the company has said.
“In a lot of cases, [our private label] is our best expression of value,” Lawrence said. “Our goal is to be at or better than the best price on a given day.”
However, Lawrence said, innovation has to continue to inspire sales.

‘Cautiously optimistic’

The retail industry has repeatedly described its customer in recent quarters as “choiceful,” to indicate thoughtful spending, but also “resilient.” Executives continue to use those descriptors, or synonyms for them, for the upcoming holiday season.
“I think certainly with inflation in certain categories, it’s put some pressure on spending power,” Lawrence said. “But you know, what we’ve also seen is customers are very resilient. They do come out during the key shopping time periods. They came out for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, back-to-school. We expect they’re going to come out again for holiday.”
Dick’s Sporting Goods Executive Chairman Ed Stack told CNBC this week he thought the consumer was “a little bit stressed” this season, but that he’s “cautiously optimistic.”
“If you’re going to provide value to the consumer, and they can see that, feel that value — and I’m not talking about from a price standpoint, could be innovation … then they are going to come and they are going to buy,” Stack said.
Executives for all three retailers agree inventory positions for holiday will be normal, despite tariff uncertainty that many feared would affect order volumes. None of the three were expecting merchandise shortages.
“I don’t think [inventory availability] is going to be any different than it has been in the past,” Stack said. “That really super hot item that everybody wants? That’s probably going to be in short supply, like it is every year.” More