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Stocks are drifting near their record heights on Wall Street Wednesday, while the price of gold falls again to trim more off its tremendous gain for the year.The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% in early trading and is sitting just underneath its all-time high, which was set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 65 points, or 0.1%, coming off its own record. The Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time.Bank stocks were holding relatively steady after Capital One Financial, Western Alliance Bancorp and others reported stronger profits for the summer than analysts expected. The report from Western Alliance was particularly welcome after it helped shake confidence in the industry last week. It’s one of several banks that have warned of potentially bad loans on its books, possibly because of fraud.Intuitive Surgical, which sells robotic-assisted surgical systems, soared 16.5%, and GE Vernova added 0.5% after they likewise reported better profits for the latest quarter than analysts expected.It’s usually the case that the majority of companies deliver better profits each quarter than analysts had forecast. But the pressure is higher on companies to do so this time around because of criticism that their stock prices shot too high following a 35% romp for the S&P 500 from a low in April.Netflix’s stock, for example, came into the day with a jump of 39.3% for the year so far, more than double the S&P 500’s gain. But its stock tumbled 8.3% on Wednesday after it delivered weaker results for the latest quarter than expected.AT&T fell 4.5% after delivering a profit that only matched analysts’ expectations, while Texas Instruments sank 7.7% after its profit fell just short of forecasts.Beyond Meat, meanwhile, continued its meme-stock run and soared another 48.9% to bring its stunning gain for the week to nearly 735%. Part of Beyond’s rise could be due to a recent announcement that Walmart will increase availability of some of its products at over 2,000 U.S. stores.The maker of plant-based meat alternatives was also the biggest holding in the Roundhill Meme Stock exchange-traded fund, as of Tuesday. The ETF holds companies where investors have piled in almost regardless of their financial prospects in hopes of catching a wave.Momentum was continuing to head the other way for gold, which slipped 0.8% to $4,075 per ounce. That’s after Tuesday’s 5.3% slide knocked it off its record high.Many of the same factors that drew buyers to gold this year are still there. Expectations are still for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates through next year, concerns are growing about inflation remaining high and the worrisome mountains of debt that the U.S. and other governments worldwide have amassed are only rising further.But no investment’s price goes up forever, and criticism had been growing that gold’s price had gone too far, too fast after it shot up even more than the overall U.S. stock market. Gold’s price is still up more than 50% for the year so far.In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.London’s FTSE 100 rose 1% after a report on U.K. inflation raised hopes for another cut to interest rates next month. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.6% for another one of the worlds bigger gains. But indexes fell 0.9% in Hong Kong and 0.2% in Paris.In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 3.96% from 3.98% late Tuesday. AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed. Stan Choe, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
What?! That single word is the most frequent reaction AasiyahAbdulsalam gets when she tells people about her company, Renatural, which makes wigs with no lace. The surprise stems from the fact that most commercial wigs today are built with a lace basea lightweight mesh cap that mimics the scalp but is really scratchy and only comes in a limited palette of colors. Instead of lace, Abdulsalam has designed a proprietary silicone band to anchor the wig without visible mesh. After launching the Wig Fix three years ago and selling 80,000 units in her first year, she decided to expand from simply supplying an accessory to reinventing the wig itself. Launching today, with a waitlist of 40,000 customers and counting, Renaturals hyper-realistic wigs are made by a custom-built robot that can make 350 wigs a week. While some wigs can take 8-12 weeks to make, Renatural’s robot can sew a wig in 45 minutes. The brand’s most exciting feature will depend on who you ask. For investorswho have poured just over $6 million into the companythe robot signals scalability. For consumers, its the absence of lace. Either way, Renatural may well upend the wig industry. The wig culture boom Wigs have a long history that dates back to Ancient Egypt, where they symbolized status and rank (and helped prevent lice infestations). Later, they were embraced by royalty and aristocracy, and popularized by figures like Queen Elizabeth I and Kings and Louis XIV. Throughout the 20th century, wigs have been used as a medical accessory and a fashion statement, but for Abdulsalam, wigs are having a moment in the sun today thanks to celebrity culture and social media trends like WigTok. “It’s like the ultimate lazy girl hack,” she says. “You don’t have to do anything, and your hair looks good.” Renatural is far from the first company to have noticed the rise in popularity. By some recent estimates, the global hair wigs and extension market is worth just under $9 billion in 2025, and is projected to reach $20 billion by 2035. In the U.S., DTC brands like Parfait have started to leverage AI to make more personalized wigs. But the large majority of wigs are still made in one Chinese city called Xuchang, in Henan province. With more than 4,000 companies making 60% of the global supply of wigs, Xuchang remains the worlds wig capital. Its like an oligopoly, says Abdulsalam. These companies have hundreds of thousands of subsidiaries that supply the whole world with wigs. Cutting through the noise Abdulsalam, a 30-year-old Black woman from the U.K. who now lives in New York City, began wearing wigs at age 16 to manage scalp psoriasis. She went on to study at the London School of Economics, where she wrote her undergraduate dissertation on wigs, and became “kind of obsessed. At age 20, she moved to South Koreathen home to the worlds largest wig-manufacturing complexand worked in a wig factory for six months. I got to see why things are the way they are, she says. That gave me a good foundation on wig-making and all the techniques. Most recently, she founded an early version of Renatural that focused on accessories like the iconic Wig Fix. She then sold that business in 2019, reinvested the proceeds into Renatural 2.0, and built an early prototype of the robotic system by jerry-rigging a 3D printer and an embroidery machine in her apartmentall without an engineering degree. Funny story, she says. I watched 34 out of the 38 seasons of How Its Made and I feel like that gives me a bootleg degree. To leapfrog other competitors without relying on cheap labor abroad, Abdulsalam knew she had to build a vertically-integrated business that controls everythingfrom sourcing to manufacturing. At her HQ in Dumbo, Brooklyn, every step of wig-making unfolds on-site in a space the size of four parking garages. The star of that vertical structure is, of course, the robotic system. The robot sorts and aligns human hair by root and tip, then stitches each strand into a soft, scalp-like base, following digital maps that mimic how hair naturally grows. As it works, it adjusts the angle and tension of every strand to recreate natural details like partings and cowlicks. The result is a hyper-realistic wig that looks, moves, and shines like real hair. (Wigs come in three signature collectionsall made with human hairand an assortment of lengths. They cost anywhere between $950 and $1,950.) The robot will be key to the brands success, but Abdulsalam maintains that humans remain integral to the process. There is deep craftsmanship involved to make the wig actually wearable, she says. For her, Renatural is more than a wig businessits a beauty-brand that is built around wigs. Products arrive in shiny silver boxes reminiscent of luxury-beauty packaging. There are even cutesy merch items like hair cuffs and pocket mirrors with integrated combs. Other companies have developed their marketing strategies around specific demographics (Black women, people who wear wigs for religious beliefs, those who suffer from hair loss, fashion-first clients). But Renatural embraces all categories, and more. “We’re just Renatural,” says Abdulsalam, “for people who want to look and feel their best.”
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E-Commerce
Dont look now, but meme stock mania appears to be back with a vengeance this week. This time around, Beyond Meat, Inc. (Nasdaq: BYND) and Krispy Kreme, Inc. (Nasdaq: DNUT) are the two main stocks getting all the attention from meme investors. Heres what you need to know. Beyond Meat shares skyrocket again On Monday, Fast Company reported on the surging share price of Beyond Meat, the producer of plant-based meat alternatives. The company started the trading week by enjoying a stock price surge of more than 67% in premarket trading that day. But far from any change in the companys financial fundamentals, what seemed to be driving shares higher were short sellers and meme stock enthusiasts. Indeed, Beyond Meats business has been struggling in recent years as consumers have turned away from plant-based meat alternatives. More recently, Beyond Meat announced that its creditors had agreed to a debt swap, which will result in the issuance of 316 million new BYND shares, thereby diluting existing shares. But a struggling company in penny stock territory can be red meat to meme investors. For much of the past week, meme traders on Reddit and elsewhere have been pumping up the stockand it appears to be working. Yesterday, Beyond Meat shares rose a staggering 146% to close at $3.62 per share. And today in premarket trading, as of the time of this writing, BYND shares are up another 103% to $7.37. That puts Beyond Meat shares at a price they have not seen since 2024. It also puts Beyond Meats shares firmly in the green for this year. The stock began 2025 at around $4 per share, but that price had fallen to as low as 50 cents per share just last week, before meme stock traders decided to take a bite. One other contributing factor to Beyond Meats surge this week is that, as CNBC notes, the stock was added to Roundhill Investments Meme Stock ETF on Monday, cementing its place in the meme stock pantheon. Meme stock traders want dessert, too Krispy Kremes stock is also seeing some meme stock action this week. DNUT shares rose more than 13% yesterday to $3.71, and as of the time of this writing, in premarket trading this morning, the companys shares are up another 40% to $5.23 apiece. While those gains are a far cry from the ones BYND shares are experiencing, DNUT shares have more experience in the meme stock arena. Meme stock investors heavily traded DNUT shares earlier this year. Other factors that may be impacting interest in Krispy Kremes stock include the company’s recent international expansion in Spain, with additional countries, Brazil and Uzbekistan, planned before the end of the year. Investors likely hope that this expansion can help offset domestic sales issues. Still, despite its recent gains, DNUT shares remain significantly down from where they were at the beginning of this year. In January, the stock traded at more than $9.80 apiece. And as of yesterdays close, DNUT shares have fallen more than 67% over the past 12 months.
Category:
E-Commerce
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