February 17, 2026 12:17 PM EST
Packaged Food Stocks Slump After General Mills Cuts 2026 Forecasts Amid ‘Challenging’ Consumer Landscape
FROM 28 minutes ago
Shares of General Mills (GIS) slumped more than 7% on Tuesday after the company behind Wheaties and Cheerios cut its full-year sales and profit forecast, citing a “challenging” consumer environment.
General Mills expects organic net sales to fall between 1.5% and 2% this year. In December the company forecast sales could grow up to 1% this year. Adjusted earnings per share are expected to decline between 16% and 20%, compared with a prior forecast of a 10% to 15% decline.
“Weak consumer sentiment, heightened uncertainty, and significant volatility have weighed on category growth and impacted consumer purchase patterns, resulting in a slower pace and higher cost of volume recovery than initially expected,” the company said in a press release on Tuesday.
The stocks of fellow packaged food giants Campbell’s (CPB), Mondelez International (MDLZ), and Kraft Heinz (KHC) slumped on Tuesday. All three were down more than 4% in recent trading.
Chief Executive Officer Jeff Harmening, speaking at a conference on Tuesday, said persistent inflation, SNAP benefit reductions, and geopolitical uncertainty “have led to significant consumer stress, especially for the middle- and lower-income groups.” As a result, he said, consumers are increasingly buying goods on sale, rather than at full price.
Low- and middle-income consumers have been hit particularly hard in recent years by surging inflation and a stalled job market. By comparison, the finances of upper-income consumers with more exposure to the stock market have been buoyed by a years-long bull market. In the most recent University of Michigan Survey of Consumers, there was about a 20-point gap between the sentiment of respondents without stock holdings and those with the largest stock holdings.
February 17, 2026 11:11 AM EST
Record Share of Investors Say AI Spending Is Getting Out of Hand
FROM 1 hr 34 min ago
Professional investors are more anxious than they’ve ever been about AI’s big price tag.
A net 35% of fund managers surveyed by Bank of America earlier this month said companies are “overinvesting,” a record high and up sharply from 14% in December.
Big Tech is on pace to spend more than $600 billion on infrastructure—the majority of it dedicated to training and running AI—this year. Investors are increasingly concerned the tech giants will struggle to realize a return on their investment if AI demand or the industry’s economics don’t play out as expected. Those concerns have loomed over the stock market for several months, weighing on shares of hyperscalers like Microsoft (MSFT) and Amazon (AMZN).
Tech stocks were under pressure again on Tuesday, with most of the Magnificent Seven trading in the red. Software stocks, which have been hammered this year by anxiety about AI-driven disruption, continued to slump. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) has shed nearly a quarter of its value since the start of the year.
Investors say overspending on AI is a risk for more than just the tech companies footing the bill. Nearly one in three surveyed investors called “AI hyperscaler capex” the most likely source of a “systemic credit event,” the second-most common answer behind private equity/credit. And a quarter of respondents identified an AI bubble as the biggest risk to the stock market, making it the most common answer.
February 17, 2026 09:58 AM EST
What To Expect In Markets This Week
FROM 2 hr 47 min ago
A closely watched retail earnings report and some inflation data will highlight a holiday shortened trading week.
PCE Inflation, Q4 GDP Lead Data Releases
Investors will get another look at December inflation with Friday’s release of the PCE report. Inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index remained unchanged in December, ad the PCE report is closely followed by the Federal Reserve, meaning its pricing data could influence how officials view the path of interest rates. The minutes for the January meeting of the Federal Reserve are also likely to provide insight into officials’ views on the state of the economy.
Investors will get their first look at economic growth measurements for the fourth quarter with the Thursday release of GDP. It comes after the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported strong economic growth in the third quarter, with its final revisions coming in at 4.4%.
New home sales and housing starts data for both November and December are scheduled for release this week, and pending home sales for January will provide a forward-looking indicator for the housing market. Two reports on U.S. international trade are also due this week, while durable-goods orders for December can offer insight into the health of the manufacturing sector.
Walmart Earnings First Under New CEO; 13F Watch Starts
Walmart is set to issue its first earnings report under new CEO John Furner. The retailer recently hit $1 trillion in market capitalization, making it the first big box store to reach that size. In its last report, Walmart posted a 4.2% increase in comparable sales and raised its full-year sales forecast.
Meanwhile, the quarterly 13F fillings that detail the holdings and transactions of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) and other big investors are expected to start showing up this week, illustrating fourth-quarter portfolio changes. Big moves by Berkshire would be considered some of the last under Warren Buffett.
Get the week’s full calendar of corporate and economic events here.
February 17, 2026 09:06 AM EST
Stock Futures Slip as Tech Stocks Continue To Slump
FROM 3 hr 39 min ago
Futures contracts connected to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.2% in premarket trading on Tuesday.
S&P 500 futures slid 0.4%.
Nasdaq 100 futures were off nearly 0.9%.