Every time Americans check out at the grocery store, replace a household appliance or buy school supplies, they feel it. Prices are painfully high and climbing. The steady drumbeat of rising costs has become a source of frustration and fatigue — stretching budgets, limiting options and forcing tough choices about what to buy and what to skip.

The pressure may soon intensify. New U.S. tariffs apply to a wide range of imported goods, and more may follow. So far, most consumers haven’t felt the impact. Many retailers stocked up earlier in the year to get ahead of the changes, and some importers are absorbing the added costs. But these buffers won’t last indefinitely. Given the magnitude of the tariffs, price increases are coming — and when they do, shoppers will notice. Once tariffs push up prices, businesses must decide how to explain them while shoppers face higher costs with little clarity.

Perhaps someday AI models will be a surefire way for traders to turn a profit. But that day has most definitely not arrived.

Far from it, in fact, according to a just-completed study from DayTrading.com entitled “

AI Trading Error Rates: Accuracy, Risks, and Reliability.” The study reported that leading AI models leave much to be desired. For example, they often hallucinate, even reporting “company financials that never existed.” They often returned “price data that was days or weeks old.”

Shares of Walmart Inc. dropped in early trading Thursday after the discount-retail behemoth missed fiscal second-quarter profit expectations but raised its full-year outlook and saw strength in sales at its retail as well as its Sam’s Club warehouse stores.

As anticipated, tariffs loomed large over Walmart’s

WMT second-quarter results. Last quarter, the company said that Americans should brace for higher prices as a result of tariffs, prompting an irate response from President Donald Trump. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent subsequently said that he had spoken to Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon and that Walmart would absorb “some” of the tariff impact.

Intel Corp. could be on its way to securing support from the White House, just days after President Donald Trump called for its new chief executive to resign.

Intel

INTC Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan visited the White House on Monday and seemingly “made a good impression,” Bernstein analysts said in a Tuesday note to clients. Both Tan and Trump put out encouraging statements following the meeting.

Consumers are getting more cautious about their spending — and that means cutting back on expensive lunch salads.

At least, that’s the sentiment coming out of Sweetgreen Inc.’s

SG latest earnings, as the salad chain called out weak performance at its Northeast stores and forecast a 4% to 6% drop this quarter in same-store sales, a measure of revenue performance at locations that have been open at least 13 fiscal months.