This is The Takeaway from today's Morning Brief, which you can sign up to receive in your inbox every morning along with:
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The earnings avalanche has commenced.
And what does that mean?
You've probably missed a lot of other stories that could impact your portfolio. After all, there's more to one's investing life than modeling out 2050 profits for Nvidia (NVDA) and wondering whether Tesla (TSLA) will haul in $10 billion in sales from humanoid robots.
In the spirit of this, here are a couple of convos I had this week that may leave you thinking (hopefully).
AI meets extra spicy hot sauce: I was at a CEO dinner this week where an analyst specializing in AI proceeded to share the deep impact to businesses as AI proliferates. I tend to agree the way business is done will change profoundly, and it'll include a good bit of job loss.
An example of AI's impact is in Cholula hot sauce. Its parent, spice maker McCormick (MKC), held an investor day this week.
"We have used generative AI to really understand where all the commentary was going [for hot sauce], we learned there were some Cholula lovers out there that wanted a hotter version. So in January, we are launching an extra-hot version of Cholula," McCormick CEO Brendan Foley told me on Yahoo Finance's Market Domination Overtime.
McCormick reiterated its long-term sales growth guidance of 4% to 6% and earnings growth of 9% to 11%. Shares are up 16% year to date compared to the 22% gain for the S&P 500.
You can catch that full spicy segment here.
Building a 21st-century media company: The traditional media industry continues to be disrupted by everything from new streaming networks to creators posting on YouTube. Why else do you think Disney (DIS) said this week its CEO Bob Iger was sticking around until 2026 (he was rumored to be leaving in 2025)? He has to leave the business in a much better place than his last exit.
One of these disrupters in the past 15 years has been Dude Perfect. The company was started by five friends who went to Texas A&M and rose to fame for viral trick-shot videos posted on YouTube. The company now boasts 60.5 million subscribers and churns out a steady, broader array of content.
Armed with a new $100 million capital infusion from Highmount Capital, Dude Perfect is gearing up for more unique programming and the build-out of a headquarters in Frisco, Texas. In charge of bringing that vision to life? Dude Perfect's first-ever CEO Andrew Yaffe, who took the job several weeks ago.