These days, it’s just enough to make you a regular shopper at Dollar General.

As inflation continues to rise and economic headwinds continue to squeeze household budgets, the “value shopper” demographic is undergoing a major shift.

The latest proof of this phenomenon comes straight from Dollar General’s CEO, Todd Vasos, who revealed a bitter truth about the state of today’s economy during the company’s most recent earnings call.

The American consumer is sending mixed signals

For months, experts have been attempting to dissect the health of the American consumer. 

Some data seems to indicate that spending is climbing. For example, in April, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said that real-dollar personal expenditures increased by 0.5% to $111.1 billion dollars. 

While other data indicates that consumers are actually spending, or at least attempting to spend, less. A May report from McKinsey & Company found that shoppers intent to spend was down in almost every category except for gasoline. 

What’s frustrating about this debate for the casual observer, is that much of it feels theoretical. 

Real dollar spending may be up, but are Americans actually spending a higher percentage of their income? Or is that just a product of inflation? Consumers are expecting to spend less, but is that out of necessity? Or is that just tied to anxieties about the state of things?

During Dollar Generals’ first quarter fiscal year 2027 earnings call, we finally got some real, solid answers about the current state of the economy — and they’re not encouraging.

Americans aren’t buying less, Dollar General’s CEO Todd Vasos says, they’re just buying it from less-expensive retailers.

Dollar General sees growing demand from high-income shoppers

When discussing Dollar General’s consumer base, Vasos told analysts the company was seeing a major shift in the type of shopper frequenting its stores.

“We are seeing customer penetration growth across low, middle, and high income segments as customers across all income cohorts seek value at increasing rates,” Vasos said.

“Notably, across these cohorts, the largest increase in customer count came from the highest income segment, which earns more than $100,000 annually, contributing to a significant increase in trade in customer households during the quarter.”

In other words, the customers currently flocking to Dollar General are those who we would have considered comfortably wealthy just a few short decades ago. 

For most of its history, Dollar General has served rural and underserved communities, and the lower-income to middle-income households that make up those communities. 

That’s why the company’s fastest-growing customer group households earning more than $100,000 is such a notable shift.

New data suggests more Americans are trading down

The shift seems to indicate that shoppers across all income brackets are feeling the financial pinch, and trading down as much as possible.

Vasos confirmed this, telling analysts “what we’re seeing is… an accelerated rate of trade-in.” 

“We have seen that the upper end, while all cohorts are trading in, we’re seeing that the upper end is trading in the most,” he continued. 

As to why this trade down is happening now, as opposed to a year or two ago? Vasos says it’s the rising fuel costs.

“I believe that the pressures that had persisted prior to fuel costs, so sustained inflation and now those elevated fuel costs [have triggered the shift],” he said. “When that price hits that $4 mark, and then crosses it, and then sustains for a while, you start to see that trade-in come in, and you start to see that our core customer needs us most. That’s exactly what’s happening.” 

More retail:

• Best Buy bets big on controversial partner
• Dollar Tree gives customers something Costco can’t offer
• 131-year-old coffee giant is coming for Keurig’s U.S. dominance

Vasos isn’t alone in spotting this trade down effect.

In 2025, 75% of consumers reported trading down in at least one category, according to McKinsey & Company. Even high-income households, those earning $100,000 or more, reported choosing lower-priced brands and retailers and private-label products more often than they had previously.

Median household income in the U.S. is fairly high at $83,730, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Yet consumers continue to report heightened concerns about inflation and affordability.

Walmart, a retailer with fewer locations than Dollar General but much larger revenues, says its also experiencing the effects of these concerns.

“We do continue to see the higher-income customers coming to Walmart,” Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner told reporters during a shareholder week event in early June, according to Fox Business. “We’re meeting more of them, they’re buying more, they’re coming more frequently.”

While consumer spending may look resilient on paper, comments from Dollar General and Walmart’s CEOs show that in reality shoppers are actually spending quite differently.

Rather than abandoning purchases altogether, consumers across income levels appear to be seeking lower prices, cheaper brands, and discount retailers wherever possible.

And if even households earning more than $100,000 are increasingly turning to stores like Dollar General, it may be a sign that economic pressures are reaching further up the income ladder than many traditional indicators suggest.

Related: Best Buy CEO drops major consumer warning on her way out

Electric air taxis were one of those bets, with Archer Aviation (ACHR) being among her biggest.

That changed on Monday, June 8, 2026.

Wood’s firm, ARK Invest, sold 2,222,392 shares of Archer Aviation Inc. in a single session across three of its exchange-traded funds, Benzinga reports.

The total sell-off was approximately $12.7 million.

What makes the move notable isn’t just the size, it’s where the money went immediately after.

Wood rotated the proceeds into DoorDash and Pony AI, two companies with one thing Archer doesn’t have yet: near-term revenue from autonomous operations.

ARK’s $12.7M exit from Archer Aviation broken down

The divestment was spread across ARK’s three flagship ETFs; ARKK, ARKQ, and ARKX, according to Investing.com.

The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) shed 953,336 shares for $5.46 million.

The ARK Autonomous Technology and Robotics ETF (ARKQ) offloaded 866,604 shares for $4.96 million.

The ARK Space Exploration and Innovation ETF (ARKX) sold 402,452 shares for $2.30 million.

More Aviation:

• Blue Origin’s explosion just made SpaceX even harder to catch
• Another airline files for bankruptcy, cancels flights
• Boeing just landed a deal that changes the game for investors

eVTOL stands for electric vertical takeoff and landing, and it is the technology behind aircraft designed to carry passengers across short urban routes, like a flying taxi.

Archer’s aircraft, called Midnight, is one of the leading designs in this category.

Why ACHR stock has been losing altitude all year

Archer Aviation entered 2026 with real momentum, but the stock has lost a significant portion of those gains.

It reached a 52-week high of $14.62 before sliding to roughly $5.05 by June 11, according to Yahoo Finance data. Making a decline of more than 22% year-to-date as of early June, The Motley Fool notes.

Three factors have driven the pressure:

• Cash burn: Archer posted first-quarter revenue of just $1.6 million against a net loss of approximately $218 million, with second-quarter EBITDA guidance pointing to a further loss of $170 million to $200 million, as confirmed in its earnings release.
• Certification timeline: Archer has reached Phase 3 of 4 in the FAA Type Certification process, but the final stage carries real risk of slipping into 2027.
• Share supply overhang: A recent Form 144 filing with the SEC indicated a large holder planned to sell shares, adding potential pressure every time the stock tries to rally.

The company holds approximately $1.78 billion in cash and short-term investments, giving it runway.

But a healthy balance sheet doesn’t sustain institutional patience forever when revenue is still effectively zero.

Where Cathie Wood put the Archer Aviation proceeds

ARK’s exit moved straight into two autonomous mobility plays generating closer-to-real revenue, according to Stocktwits.

ARKQ and ARKX combined to purchase 4,723 DoorDash (DASH) shares for roughly $740,000.

DoorDash reported first-quarter revenue of $4.04 billion and total orders up 27% year over year to 933 million in May, and is actively integrating autonomous delivery technology.

This makes DoorDash a credible play on the near-term robotics transition.

Related: Cathie Wood says the market just misread the jobs report

ARK also picked up 45,949 shares of Pony AI (PONY) through ARKQ for approximately $412,000.

Benzinga reports that Pony AI is building toward a 3,500-vehicle robotaxi fleet and generating commercial revenue from autonomous operations today. Something Archer can’t offer yet.

What ACHR investors should watch

ARK Invest’s ACHR dump doesn’t mean the eVTOL market is finished.

Morgan Stanley estimates the global air taxi market could reach $1.5 trillion by 2040, and Archer has cleared real FAA milestones, holds a defense collaboration with Anduril, and has reiterated plans to begin U.S. commercial operations this year.

What it does mean is that the market has shifted from rewarding news to rewarding execution. For ACHR to recover meaningfully, a few things likely need to happen first:

• FAA Type Certification completion, moving Archer beyond Phase 3 of 4.
• Visible U.S. commercial launches through the White House’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program.
• Early government revenue from the Anduril defense partnership.

According to Morningstar data, the ARK Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of negative 5.91%, compared to the S&P 500‘s 12.39% over the same period.

That context makes every portfolio decision Wood makes count more, and rotating out of pre-revenue positions in favor of companies generating operational cash flow is a rational response to investor scrutiny.

Archer Aviation’s long-term story still holds.

What matters is if the company can build more credibility in 2026 and avoid missing execution timelines.

Related: Cathie Wood buys $4.3 million of tumbling tech stock

When cloud infrastructure scaled between 2015 and 2020, security spending lagged by approximately 2 years before inflecting from less than 1% of infrastructure spend to more than 3%, according to a Goldman Sachs note shared with me at TheStreet.

Goldman’s recent industry conversations suggest the AI enterprise cycle is following the same script, with the inflection expected in the second half of 2026 and into 2027.

The firm’s conversations included callbacks specifically with Palo Alto Networks (PANW). 

And the timing of those conversations coincides with a Q3 fiscal 2026 earnings report that CEO Nikesh Arora called “a standout quarter” — one he believes represents a “watershed moment” for the entire cybersecurity industry.

PANW is up 45.56% year-to-date, according to Yahoo Finance. Goldman thinks the real move may still be ahead.

Goldman’s core observation is that the AI security lag is about to close

The Goldman framework, outlined in the note shared with TheStreet, draws a direct parallel between the cloud security lag from 2015 to 2020 and the current AI enterprise cycle.

Also Read: More on Palo Alto Networks

In the cloud era, security spending took roughly 2 years to move from below 1% of infrastructure spend to above 3%. Goldman believes a similar 3%-5% benchmark is appropriate for AI security. And Palo Alto Networks itself made comments consistent with that framing, according to the note.

The lag is tied specifically to agentic enterprise adoption. As AI agents move from proof of concept to permanent production deployments, the security requirements become non-negotiable. 

More Wall Street:

• JPMorgan resets S&P 500 price target for the rest of 2026
• Vanguard challenges the S&P 500 as a one-stop strategy
• Goldman Sachs resets Broadcom stock forecast

Agentic containers become persistent rather than ephemeral. Consensus emerges on runtime security tools. Goldman expects this shift to begin moving the needle for enterprise security growth in the second half of 2026, with full acceleration into 2027.

“The latest advancements at the AI frontier have increased the level of urgency around cybersecurity, and redefined the shape of the industry for the coming years,” said Palo Alto Networks Chairman and CEO Nikesh Arora on the Q3 earnings call.

Palo Alto Networks’ Q3 results showed the inflection is already beginning

Palo Alto Networks reported fiscal third-quarter 2026 results on June 2:

• Total revenue of $3.0 billion, up 31% year over year
• Next-Generation Security Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of $8.1 billion, up 60% year over year
• Remaining performance obligations of $18.4 billion, up 36% year over year
• Adjusted free cash flow of $910 million, up from $578 million in the prior year period
• Trailing 12-month adjusted free cash flow margin of 38.5%, up 430 basis points year over year
• Non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.85, up from $0.80
  Source: Palo Alto Networks Third Quarter 2026 Results

According to an earnings call transcript compiled by Investing.com, Arora framed the demand environment in terms that go beyond a single quarter.

“These results are materializing as AI fundamentally redefines the enterprise tech stack, elevating cybersecurity to a mission-critical priority for every organization,” Arora said on the earnings call. 

He added that the events of Q3 “have increased the terminal value of the entire cybersecurity industry.”

For Q4 fiscal 2026, Palo Alto guided for NGS ARR of $8.90 billion to $8.95 billion, representing a 59% to 60% year-over-year growth, and total revenue of $3.345 billion to $3.355 billion, up 32% year over year.

The AI security architecture that makes PANW’s platform critical

Chief Product and Technology Officer Lee Klarich described the AI security challenge on the earnings call in terms that explain why the inflection Goldman is forecasting is structural rather than cyclical.

AI security spans the entire deployment lifecycle. That’s from model scanning and AI red-teaming before deployment, through real-time runtime threat detection, to Security Operations Center integration. 

The speed requirement is the differentiating factor. Attackers using advanced AI models can carry out attacks from start to finish in minutes. Legacy security architectures with mean time to detection measured in days simply cannot respond.

Related: Cramer flags 2 major winners from AI ‘game changer’ Mythos

Palo Alto’s XSIAM platform, which is designed to ingest data from all sensors, analyze it in real time using AI, and apply automated response, is built for this environment. 

Klarich said proving to customers that XSIAM can achieve mean time to resolution in minutes is “a very powerful proof point” driving platform consolidation.

Arora added that north of 1,200 customers have requested meetings, with 800 already completed in the last six weeks alone. That is a demand signal that is difficult to manufacture.

For investors, Goldman’s framework suggests the best of PANW’s AI security cycle is still in front of it. The lag is closing. The platform is proven. The urgency is real.

Related: Morgan Stanley resets PANW stock price target on demand trends

The company has outpaced the S&P 500 by a huge margin. That is impressive, but what is driving these gains?

AMD is a semiconductor company that makes CPUs and GPUs, and its stock has rallied amid the AI boom.

Key news items for AMD stock:

• Bank of America revised its server CPU sales forecasts in April.
• AMD reported strong earnings on May 5, and Goldman Sachs raised its price target for the stock.
• AMD confirmed investments of more than $10 billion in the Taiwan manufacturing ecosystem.
• The company ramped up production of its next-generation EPYC Processor.

Bank of America recently held its Global Tech Conference, and following the conference, analysts had a lot of information to process, leading to changes in outlook.

In a research note shared with me, Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya and his team have changed their server CPU total addressable market (TAM) forecast again, and tweaked their price target for AMD stock accordingly.

Bank of America raises CPU sales forecast

The team raised its 2030 server CPU TAM estimate to $170 billion or more from $125 billion. This represents nearly five times growth and a 37% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the period from 2025 to 2030.

Analysts divided the estimates into three CPU categories:

• Traditional/on-premise/multi-tenant cloud CPUs TAM of approximately $30 billion.
• AI cluster compute/head node CPUs TAM of approximately $70 billion.
• AI agentic standalone node CPUs TAM of approximately $70 billion.

Analysts said that while custom AI accelerators, based on application-specific integrated circuits, remain critical for AI inference workloads, they believe that, for agentic AI, many orchestration and decision-making functions are better suited to CPUs.

Arya wrote: “We expect head/compute nodes in AI clusters to use higher frequency and stronger but fewer cores, while agentic and traditional applications will rely on higher core counts.”

In their new model, the team believes server CPUs will hit 8% or more of overall data center systems TAM over time.

Bank of America raises AMD stock price target

The team estimates AMD’s market share at 25% to 27% through 2030, due to AMD’s performance lead at the high end, but offset by relatively stronger ramp-ups of ARM-based processors launching in 2027. Analysts noted that AMD’s leading core-count portfolio is an important advantage for the company. Adding that “higher core density within a fixed power envelope increases overall aggregate service throughput.”

More tech stocks:

• Morgan Stanley resets Nvidia stock forecast after key event
• Citi revisits Broadcom stock price target after post-earnings selloff
• Bank of America resets Marvell stock price target after earnings

The team said that AMD’s EPYC Venice, launching in the second half of 2026, is expected to top out at 256 cores, while the previous generation of EPYC topped out at 192 cores. Analysts noted that this is much higher than Nvidia’s upcoming Vera CPU at 88 cores, as well as Intel’s current Granite Rapids, which tops out at 128 cores, and upcoming Diamond Rapids, likely maxing out at 192 cores.

Arya reiterated a buy rating for AMD stock and raised the target price to $560 from $500, based on a 42x multiple of his 2027 non-GAAP EPS estimate.

He noted that AMD’s historical multiple range is 13 to 58, and he believes that his multiple is supported by AMD’s potential annual EPS CAGR of 50% or more, and its AI CPU/GPU share gain potential.

Analysts noted downside risks for AMD:

• Execution on the first rack-scale product (MI400 Series).
• Timing/magnitude of Middle East AI projects.
• The lumpy nature of consumer and enterprise spending could delay the acceptance and success of new products.
• Heavy reliance on a single outsourced manufacturing partner.
• Maturity of the current game console cycle.

Upside potential:

• Greater share-gain potential in the PC and server processor market compared to competitors.

What do other analysts think, and how does Bank of America’s opinion compare?According toMarketBeat, 31 of the 44 analysts covering AMD stock rate it a buy. 13  give a hold rating. The average price target is $419.86.

Related: Bank of America resets Broadcom stock price target after earnings

This move helped create AWS from Amazon’s own technology infrastructure, turning it into a multi-billion-dollar cloud computing infrastructure. 

Then, it helped turn the company’s warehouses and delivery network into a service for outside sellers. More recently, it has been shaping Amazon’s push to make its supply chain available to other businesses.

TheStreet previously covered that shift in May, when Amazon launched Amazon Supply Chain Services as part of a broader fight with Walmart to turn internal logistics networks into new revenue streams.

Now Amazon is expanding that strategy again.

Amazon enters the freight market

The e-commerce giant on June 10 announced “less-than-truckload freight” offering under its Amazon Supply Chain Services to all U.S. businesses.

It will allow companies to move goods to third-party warehouses, distribution centers, retail partners, and other commercial destinations.

The move pushes Amazon deeper into a freight market long served by carriers, brokers, and third-party logistics companies such as FedEx Freight.

More Wall Street:

• JPMorgan resets S&P 500 price target for the rest of 2026

• Vanguard challenges the S&P 500 as a one-stop strategy
• Goldman Sachs resets Broadcom stock forecast

And Wall Street is noticing this new direction.

In a June 11 note shared with TheStreet, Bank of America lead analyst Justin Post maintained a Buy rating on Amazon and a $310 price target.

Analyst Justin Post stood by a bullish target following the freight launch, implying about 30% upside from Amazon’s $238 stock price.

Post said Amazon’s expanded less-than-truckload, or LTL, offering could bring more outside freight into Amazon’s network, though the near-term revenue impact may be limited.

Less-than-truckload shipping is used when a business needs to move freight by pallet but does not need an entire truck.

Amazon said its expanded service is designed for shipments usually ranging from one to six pallets, or between 150 and 15,000 pounds.

The company said the service includes:

• Next-day live pickup for orders placed by 5 p.m. 
• Same-day pickup through drop trailer service 
• Standing daily pickups for high-volume shippers
• Real-time GPS tracking 
• Automated appointment scheduling, and
• Electronic proof of delivery

“Now Amazon LTL can move your freight wherever it needs to go, servicing destinations nationwide for businesses of all sizes. With LTL, shippers get cost-effective freight shipping while still benefitting from the real-time tracking and dependability they expect from Amazon,” said Jim Ruiz, director of Amazon Freight.

The company added that the service is backed by more than 80,000 trailers and 24,000 intermodal containers, highlighting its existing expansive fleet.

And this scale is why the announcement matters beyond one new shipping product.

Amazon has spent years building a logistics network for its own retail business and marketplace sellers. Now it is trying to sell more of that infrastructure to outside businesses.

The move builds on Amazon’s broader push beyond traditional retail, and also comes as Amazon and Walmart continue fighting to turn logistics, delivery, and fulfillment into new revenue streams, a trend TheStreet covered in Amazon doubles down on fast delivery to beat rivals, and Walmart makes quiet move as Amazon delivery threat grows.

Bank of America sees Amazon margin opportunity

Bank of America said the LTL expansion could help Amazon bring more third-party freight into its network.

That could improve network density, reduce empty miles, and better utilize the transportation assets Amazon has already built.

The firm said the service could also support Amazon’s long-term retail margin opportunity, estimating it at 12%, up from an estimated 7% in 2026.

But the firm does not expect the new freight service to become a major revenue driver immediately.

Amazon’s LTL coverage remains limited. Bank of America cited MWPVL, a supply chain and logistics consultancy, estimates that Amazon has roughly 26 LTL terminals, far below the average of about 295 terminals for the top five carriers.

That gap matters because LTL shipping depends heavily on terminal density, cross-dock infrastructure, and national route coverage. 

Simply put, Amazon is still operating on a smaller scale than existing freight carriers like UPS, FedEx, or XPO.

So while Amazon has the brand, technology, and transportation scale to matter, it does not yet look like a full national LTL carrier.

Freight stocks react to Amazon’s move

Despite the scale, investors reacted quickly to the launch.

FedEx Freight fell over 5% after Amazon’s announcement, then rebounded about 4.5% the next day. 

The stock of XPO Logistics also fell around 5% on Wednesday, post announcement, but was up 5% the following day.

The move showed how investors initially feared another Amazon disruption, then reassessed how quickly the company could challenge established freight networks.

Bank of America also noted that the competitive threat may not affect all logistics companies equally.

The firm said Amazon’s model looks more like a third-party logistics coordinator or broker-like platform than a full national LTL carrier. 

That could make the move more directly competitive with asset-light intermediaries such as C.H. Robinson and RXO, which help match freight demand with available capacity.

By contrast, asset-based LTL carriers such as FedEx Freight, Old Dominion, XPO, and Saia may be more protected in the near term because they operate dense terminal networks and national cross-dock infrastructure.

Still, Amazon could influence the freight market even without immediately matching the largest carriers.

Bank of America said Amazon’s role as a capacity aggregator and pricing participant could affect lane-level pricing, service expectations, and customer behavior over time.

The firm said Amazon’s current pace of buildout or expansion rate could position it to better compete with national carriers closer to 2028 or 2029.

Bank of America flags Amazon stock risks

Bank of America remains bullish on Amazon, but the firm also listed several risks to its stock forecast.

Those risks include rising competition from offline and local retailers, potential cloud share losses to rivals with advanced artificial intelligence technology, higher AWS investment needs that could pressure margins, and macroeconomic pressures on consumer spending.

The firm also noted that Amazon’s stock has been volatile in the past and that volatility could increase amid economic uncertainty.

Those risks matter because Amazon is investing across several major areas at once.

It is defending retail share, spending heavily in cloud and artificial intelligence, expanding advertising, and trying to build new logistics revenue streams.

The LTL launch fits that larger strategy.

It may not immediately transform Amazon’s earnings, but it shows how Amazon is trying to turn its logistics network from a cost-heavy support system into a platform other businesses pay to use.

And this could create a long-term opportunity for Amazon.

It could also create a long-term warning for freight brokers, third-party logistics companies, and eventually the largest LTL carriers.

Related: Goldman Sachs sends strong message on next Fed rate cut

These days, it’s just enough to make you a regular shopper at Dollar General.

As inflation continues to rise and economic headwinds continue to squeeze household budgets, the “value shopper” demographic is undergoing a major shift.

The latest proof of this phenomenon comes straight from Dollar General’s CEO, Todd Vasos, who revealed a bitter truth about the state of today’s economy during the company’s most recent earnings call.

The American consumer is sending mixed signals

For months, experts have been attempting to dissect the health of the American consumer. 

Some data seems to indicate that spending is climbing. For example, in April, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said that real-dollar personal expenditures increased by 0.5% to $111.1 billion dollars. 

While other data indicates that consumers are actually spending, or at least attempting to spend, less. A May report from McKinsey & Company found that shoppers intent to spend was down in almost every category except for gasoline. 

What’s frustrating about this debate for the casual observer, is that much of it feels theoretical. 

Real dollar spending may be up, but are Americans actually spending a higher percentage of their income? Or is that just a product of inflation? Consumers are expecting to spend less, but is that out of necessity? Or is that just tied to anxieties about the state of things?

During Dollar Generals’ first quarter fiscal year 2027 earnings call, we finally got some real, solid answers about the current state of the economy — and they’re not encouraging.

Americans aren’t buying less, Dollar General’s CEO Todd Vasos says, they’re just buying it from less-expensive retailers.

Dollar General sees growing demand from high-income shoppers

When discussing Dollar General’s consumer base, Vasos told analysts the company was seeing a major shift in the type of shopper frequenting its stores.

“We are seeing customer penetration growth across low, middle, and high income segments as customers across all income cohorts seek value at increasing rates,” Vasos said.

“Notably, across these cohorts, the largest increase in customer count came from the highest income segment, which earns more than $100,000 annually, contributing to a significant increase in trade in customer households during the quarter.”

In other words, the customers currently flocking to Dollar General are those who we would have considered comfortably wealthy just a few short decades ago. 

For most of its history, Dollar General has served rural and underserved communities, and the lower-income to middle-income households that make up those communities. 

That’s why the company’s fastest-growing customer group households earning more than $100,000 is such a notable shift.

New data suggests more Americans are trading down

The shift seems to indicate that shoppers across all income brackets are feeling the financial pinch, and trading down as much as possible.

Vasos confirmed this, telling analysts “what we’re seeing is… an accelerated rate of trade-in.” 

“We have seen that the upper end, while all cohorts are trading in, we’re seeing that the upper end is trading in the most,” he continued. 

As to why this trade down is happening now, as opposed to a year or two ago? Vasos says it’s the rising fuel costs.

“I believe that the pressures that had persisted prior to fuel costs, so sustained inflation and now those elevated fuel costs [have triggered the shift],” he said. “When that price hits that $4 mark, and then crosses it, and then sustains for a while, you start to see that trade-in come in, and you start to see that our core customer needs us most. That’s exactly what’s happening.” 

More retail:

• Best Buy bets big on controversial partner
• Dollar Tree gives customers something Costco can’t offer
• 131-year-old coffee giant is coming for Keurig’s U.S. dominance

Vasos isn’t alone in spotting this trade down effect.

In 2025, 75% of consumers reported trading down in at least one category, according to McKinsey & Company. Even high-income households, those earning $100,000 or more, reported choosing lower-priced brands and retailers and private-label products more often than they had previously.

Median household income in the U.S. is fairly high at $83,730, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Yet consumers continue to report heightened concerns about inflation and affordability.

Walmart, a retailer with fewer locations than Dollar General but much larger revenues, says its also experiencing the effects of these concerns.

“We do continue to see the higher-income customers coming to Walmart,” Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner told reporters during a shareholder week event in early June, according to Fox Business. “We’re meeting more of them, they’re buying more, they’re coming more frequently.”

While consumer spending may look resilient on paper, comments from Dollar General and Walmart’s CEOs show that in reality shoppers are actually spending quite differently.

Rather than abandoning purchases altogether, consumers across income levels appear to be seeking lower prices, cheaper brands, and discount retailers wherever possible.

And if even households earning more than $100,000 are increasingly turning to stores like Dollar General, it may be a sign that economic pressures are reaching further up the income ladder than many traditional indicators suggest.

Related: Best Buy CEO drops major consumer warning on her way out

Electric air taxis were one of those bets, with Archer Aviation (ACHR) being among her biggest.

That changed on Monday, June 8, 2026.

Wood’s firm, ARK Invest, sold 2,222,392 shares of Archer Aviation Inc. in a single session across three of its exchange-traded funds, Benzinga reports.

The total sell-off was approximately $12.7 million.

What makes the move notable isn’t just the size, it’s where the money went immediately after.

Wood rotated the proceeds into DoorDash and Pony AI, two companies with one thing Archer doesn’t have yet: near-term revenue from autonomous operations.

ARK’s $12.7M exit from Archer Aviation broken down

The divestment was spread across ARK’s three flagship ETFs; ARKK, ARKQ, and ARKX, according to Investing.com.

The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) shed 953,336 shares for $5.46 million.

The ARK Autonomous Technology and Robotics ETF (ARKQ) offloaded 866,604 shares for $4.96 million.

The ARK Space Exploration and Innovation ETF (ARKX) sold 402,452 shares for $2.30 million.

More Aviation:

• Blue Origin’s explosion just made SpaceX even harder to catch
• Another airline files for bankruptcy, cancels flights
• Boeing just landed a deal that changes the game for investors

eVTOL stands for electric vertical takeoff and landing, and it is the technology behind aircraft designed to carry passengers across short urban routes, like a flying taxi.

Archer’s aircraft, called Midnight, is one of the leading designs in this category.

Why ACHR stock has been losing altitude all year

Archer Aviation entered 2026 with real momentum, but the stock has lost a significant portion of those gains.

It reached a 52-week high of $14.62 before sliding to roughly $5.05 by June 11, according to Yahoo Finance data. Making a decline of more than 22% year-to-date as of early June, The Motley Fool notes.

Three factors have driven the pressure:

• Cash burn: Archer posted first-quarter revenue of just $1.6 million against a net loss of approximately $218 million, with second-quarter EBITDA guidance pointing to a further loss of $170 million to $200 million, as confirmed in its earnings release.
• Certification timeline: Archer has reached Phase 3 of 4 in the FAA Type Certification process, but the final stage carries real risk of slipping into 2027.
• Share supply overhang: A recent Form 144 filing with the SEC indicated a large holder planned to sell shares, adding potential pressure every time the stock tries to rally.

The company holds approximately $1.78 billion in cash and short-term investments, giving it runway.

But a healthy balance sheet doesn’t sustain institutional patience forever when revenue is still effectively zero.

Where Cathie Wood put the Archer Aviation proceeds

ARK’s exit moved straight into two autonomous mobility plays generating closer-to-real revenue, according to Stocktwits.

ARKQ and ARKX combined to purchase 4,723 DoorDash (DASH) shares for roughly $740,000.

DoorDash reported first-quarter revenue of $4.04 billion and total orders up 27% year over year to 933 million in May, and is actively integrating autonomous delivery technology.

This makes DoorDash a credible play on the near-term robotics transition.

Related: Cathie Wood says the market just misread the jobs report

ARK also picked up 45,949 shares of Pony AI (PONY) through ARKQ for approximately $412,000.

Benzinga reports that Pony AI is building toward a 3,500-vehicle robotaxi fleet and generating commercial revenue from autonomous operations today. Something Archer can’t offer yet.

What ACHR investors should watch

ARK Invest’s ACHR dump doesn’t mean the eVTOL market is finished.

Morgan Stanley estimates the global air taxi market could reach $1.5 trillion by 2040, and Archer has cleared real FAA milestones, holds a defense collaboration with Anduril, and has reiterated plans to begin U.S. commercial operations this year.

What it does mean is that the market has shifted from rewarding news to rewarding execution. For ACHR to recover meaningfully, a few things likely need to happen first:

• FAA Type Certification completion, moving Archer beyond Phase 3 of 4.
• Visible U.S. commercial launches through the White House’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program.
• Early government revenue from the Anduril defense partnership.

According to Morningstar data, the ARK Innovation ETF has delivered a five-year annualized return of negative 5.91%, compared to the S&P 500‘s 12.39% over the same period.

That context makes every portfolio decision Wood makes count more, and rotating out of pre-revenue positions in favor of companies generating operational cash flow is a rational response to investor scrutiny.

Archer Aviation’s long-term story still holds.

What matters is if the company can build more credibility in 2026 and avoid missing execution timelines.

Related: Cathie Wood buys $4.3 million of tumbling tech stock

When cloud infrastructure scaled between 2015 and 2020, security spending lagged by approximately 2 years before inflecting from less than 1% of infrastructure spend to more than 3%, according to a Goldman Sachs note shared with me at TheStreet.

Goldman’s recent industry conversations suggest the AI enterprise cycle is following the same script, with the inflection expected in the second half of 2026 and into 2027.

The firm’s conversations included callbacks specifically with Palo Alto Networks (PANW). 

And the timing of those conversations coincides with a Q3 fiscal 2026 earnings report that CEO Nikesh Arora called “a standout quarter” — one he believes represents a “watershed moment” for the entire cybersecurity industry.

PANW is up 45.56% year-to-date, according to Yahoo Finance. Goldman thinks the real move may still be ahead.

Goldman’s core observation is that the AI security lag is about to close

The Goldman framework, outlined in the note shared with TheStreet, draws a direct parallel between the cloud security lag from 2015 to 2020 and the current AI enterprise cycle.

Also Read: More on Palo Alto Networks

In the cloud era, security spending took roughly 2 years to move from below 1% of infrastructure spend to above 3%. Goldman believes a similar 3%-5% benchmark is appropriate for AI security. And Palo Alto Networks itself made comments consistent with that framing, according to the note.

The lag is tied specifically to agentic enterprise adoption. As AI agents move from proof of concept to permanent production deployments, the security requirements become non-negotiable. 

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• JPMorgan resets S&P 500 price target for the rest of 2026
• Vanguard challenges the S&P 500 as a one-stop strategy
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Agentic containers become persistent rather than ephemeral. Consensus emerges on runtime security tools. Goldman expects this shift to begin moving the needle for enterprise security growth in the second half of 2026, with full acceleration into 2027.

“The latest advancements at the AI frontier have increased the level of urgency around cybersecurity, and redefined the shape of the industry for the coming years,” said Palo Alto Networks Chairman and CEO Nikesh Arora on the Q3 earnings call.

Palo Alto Networks’ Q3 results showed the inflection is already beginning

Palo Alto Networks reported fiscal third-quarter 2026 results on June 2:

• Total revenue of $3.0 billion, up 31% year over year
• Next-Generation Security Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of $8.1 billion, up 60% year over year
• Remaining performance obligations of $18.4 billion, up 36% year over year
• Adjusted free cash flow of $910 million, up from $578 million in the prior year period
• Trailing 12-month adjusted free cash flow margin of 38.5%, up 430 basis points year over year
• Non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.85, up from $0.80
  Source: Palo Alto Networks Third Quarter 2026 Results

According to an earnings call transcript compiled by Investing.com, Arora framed the demand environment in terms that go beyond a single quarter.

“These results are materializing as AI fundamentally redefines the enterprise tech stack, elevating cybersecurity to a mission-critical priority for every organization,” Arora said on the earnings call. 

He added that the events of Q3 “have increased the terminal value of the entire cybersecurity industry.”

For Q4 fiscal 2026, Palo Alto guided for NGS ARR of $8.90 billion to $8.95 billion, representing a 59% to 60% year-over-year growth, and total revenue of $3.345 billion to $3.355 billion, up 32% year over year.

The AI security architecture that makes PANW’s platform critical

Chief Product and Technology Officer Lee Klarich described the AI security challenge on the earnings call in terms that explain why the inflection Goldman is forecasting is structural rather than cyclical.

AI security spans the entire deployment lifecycle. That’s from model scanning and AI red-teaming before deployment, through real-time runtime threat detection, to Security Operations Center integration. 

The speed requirement is the differentiating factor. Attackers using advanced AI models can carry out attacks from start to finish in minutes. Legacy security architectures with mean time to detection measured in days simply cannot respond.

Related: Cramer flags 2 major winners from AI ‘game changer’ Mythos

Palo Alto’s XSIAM platform, which is designed to ingest data from all sensors, analyze it in real time using AI, and apply automated response, is built for this environment. 

Klarich said proving to customers that XSIAM can achieve mean time to resolution in minutes is “a very powerful proof point” driving platform consolidation.

Arora added that north of 1,200 customers have requested meetings, with 800 already completed in the last six weeks alone. That is a demand signal that is difficult to manufacture.

For investors, Goldman’s framework suggests the best of PANW’s AI security cycle is still in front of it. The lag is closing. The platform is proven. The urgency is real.

Related: Morgan Stanley resets PANW stock price target on demand trends

The company has outpaced the S&P 500 by a huge margin. That is impressive, but what is driving these gains?

AMD is a semiconductor company that makes CPUs and GPUs, and its stock has rallied amid the AI boom.

Key news items for AMD stock:

• Bank of America revised its server CPU sales forecasts in April.
• AMD reported strong earnings on May 5, and Goldman Sachs raised its price target for the stock.
• AMD confirmed investments of more than $10 billion in the Taiwan manufacturing ecosystem.
• The company ramped up production of its next-generation EPYC Processor.

Bank of America recently held its Global Tech Conference, and following the conference, analysts had a lot of information to process, leading to changes in outlook.

In a research note shared with me, Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya and his team have changed their server CPU total addressable market (TAM) forecast again, and tweaked their price target for AMD stock accordingly.

Bank of America raises CPU sales forecast

The team raised its 2030 server CPU TAM estimate to $170 billion or more from $125 billion. This represents nearly five times growth and a 37% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the period from 2025 to 2030.

Analysts divided the estimates into three CPU categories:

• Traditional/on-premise/multi-tenant cloud CPUs TAM of approximately $30 billion.
• AI cluster compute/head node CPUs TAM of approximately $70 billion.
• AI agentic standalone node CPUs TAM of approximately $70 billion.

Analysts said that while custom AI accelerators, based on application-specific integrated circuits, remain critical for AI inference workloads, they believe that, for agentic AI, many orchestration and decision-making functions are better suited to CPUs.

Arya wrote: “We expect head/compute nodes in AI clusters to use higher frequency and stronger but fewer cores, while agentic and traditional applications will rely on higher core counts.”

In their new model, the team believes server CPUs will hit 8% or more of overall data center systems TAM over time.

Bank of America raises AMD stock price target

The team estimates AMD’s market share at 25% to 27% through 2030, due to AMD’s performance lead at the high end, but offset by relatively stronger ramp-ups of ARM-based processors launching in 2027. Analysts noted that AMD’s leading core-count portfolio is an important advantage for the company. Adding that “higher core density within a fixed power envelope increases overall aggregate service throughput.”

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The team said that AMD’s EPYC Venice, launching in the second half of 2026, is expected to top out at 256 cores, while the previous generation of EPYC topped out at 192 cores. Analysts noted that this is much higher than Nvidia’s upcoming Vera CPU at 88 cores, as well as Intel’s current Granite Rapids, which tops out at 128 cores, and upcoming Diamond Rapids, likely maxing out at 192 cores.

Arya reiterated a buy rating for AMD stock and raised the target price to $560 from $500, based on a 42x multiple of his 2027 non-GAAP EPS estimate.

He noted that AMD’s historical multiple range is 13 to 58, and he believes that his multiple is supported by AMD’s potential annual EPS CAGR of 50% or more, and its AI CPU/GPU share gain potential.

Analysts noted downside risks for AMD:

• Execution on the first rack-scale product (MI400 Series).
• Timing/magnitude of Middle East AI projects.
• The lumpy nature of consumer and enterprise spending could delay the acceptance and success of new products.
• Heavy reliance on a single outsourced manufacturing partner.
• Maturity of the current game console cycle.

Upside potential:

• Greater share-gain potential in the PC and server processor market compared to competitors.

What do other analysts think, and how does Bank of America’s opinion compare?According toMarketBeat, 31 of the 44 analysts covering AMD stock rate it a buy. 13  give a hold rating. The average price target is $419.86.

Related: Bank of America resets Broadcom stock price target after earnings

USDCAD currency pair can be expected to rise to the next resistance level 1.4100 (former double top from November and the target price for the completion of the active impulse wave iii).

• USDCAD broke pivotal resistance level 1.3955
• Likely to rise to resistance level 1.4100

USDCAD currency pair recently broke the resistance zone between the pivotal resistance level 1.3955 (which has been reversing the price from January, as can be seen from the daily USDCAD chart below), and the resistance trendline of the narrow daily up channel from the start of May. The breakout of this resistance zone accelerated the active short-term impulse wave iii – which belongs to impulse wave C of the intermediate ABC correction (C) from the end of January.

Given the strongly bullish US dollar sentiment see today, USDCAD currency pair can be expected to rise to the next resistance level 1.4100 (former double top from November and the target price for the completion of the active impulse wave iii).

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