CohortNews

 By Taylor Kase As cremation becomes the top choice for U.S. families, funeral homes are reworking staffing and services to meet shifting preferences while protecting profits in a 24 hour, 7-day-a-week business. Factors such as declining religious affiliation and personal preferences are driving the trend, rather than concerns about land availability or pressure from large corporations, said Chris Robinson, past President of the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA). About 66% of baby boomers are now choosing cremation, which is higher than any other generation, according to NFDA data. The generational shift is particularly significant for funeral homes because baby boomers currently represent the largest percentage of the deathcare market. Unlike previous generations, many boomers are opting for less traditional funeral rites, forcing the industry to stray from the customs that shaped it. With cremation on the rise “services are the primary source of revenue for funeral ho...

By Ada Carlston  Apple Inc. reported $49 billion in iPhone revenue in the fourth quarter, up 6% from the previous September, reflecting revolutionary technological advancements in the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 models. The new iPhones models incorporate Artificial Intelligence specific to Apple products, known as Apple Intelligence, which was initially released in 2024 as part of the iOS 18.1 updates. It was previously only compatible with the iPhone 15 pro and iPhone 16. Its capabilities include writing tools, image generation and advanced photo editing. Apple’s virtual assistant Siri launched in 2011 and has undergone major changes since then to mirror the advancements of AI. In 2024, CEO Tim Cook announced plans to release a new and improved Siri in the following year. This year, he made a similar announcement. “We’re also excited for a more personalized Siri. We’re making good progress on it, and, as we’ve shared, we expect to release it next year.” Siri was first introduced ...

By Priya Batchu PJT Partners Inc., a leading global advisory investment bank, announced third quarter earnings that exceeded expectations, citing sustained investments across the firm's businesses. “Our firm delivered very strong results , with Revenues, Pre-tax Income and EPS all reaching record highs for both the three and nine-month periods as the significant investments we have made over an extended period of time continue to bear fruit ," Paul J. Taubman , Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PJT Partners, said on its earnings call. According to the company’s balance sheet, the third quarter ended with $521 million in cash, cash equivalents, and no funded debt.  In the first nine months of 2025, PJT repurchased 2.3 million shares and equivalents at an average price of $156.55.  The earnings signal that Wall Street deal making is strong, and more mergers and capital raise are happening. Smaller, independent advisory firms like PJT are also taking a bigger slice of fe...

By Taylor Kase  Cracker Barrel’s fourth quarter revenue fell 2.9% after a controversial brand overhaul, resulting in marketing executive Gilbert Davila’s resignation and corporate bylaws revision after last week's shareholder meeting. The company faced public backlash after CEO Julie Masino announced a brand makeover to address what she described as declining relevance, with renovation efforts that began last year. The market responded sharply to the decision to change the logo, contributing to an overnight stock drop of nearly 15% and wiping out roughly $100 million in market value. Other proposed renovations included menu changes and store remodels. The revamp was expected to cost $600-700 million but has since been halted. After the logo change, customers took to social media to express their displeasure. The company issued a public apology and posted a TikTok video showing workers taking down the new decorations and changing the logo back. Photo Credit: Cracker Barrel  Dav...

By Georgia Fearn Shares of Clear Secure Inc. rose as much as 8% after the airport-security company beat third-quarter estimates and raised its cash-flow outlook, even as senators push a bipartisan bill to allow travelers to bypass face-scanning technology and watchdogs urge tighter limits on how checkpoints use travelers’ biometric data. The New York-based identity verification company reported third-quarter revenue of $229.2 million, up 15.5% from a year earlier, and bookings of $260.1 million, up 14.3%. Operating profit rose to $52.6 million and net income to $45.1 million. Clear reported 7.7 million active CLEAR+ members, up 7.5% across 60 airports and 328 TSA PreCheck enrollment locations. It has installed automated eGates at 10 airports and plans to expand that to 30 by year-end, with “network-wide” deployment expected in 2026. The gates use facial recognition and other biometrics to match passengers to their IDs in seconds before TSA screening. That expansion comes as a record n...

By Charlotte Plaskwa A jury found Bank of New York Mellon not liable for unjust enrichment, rejecting claims that it stole an investment analyst's financial models and passed them to Deloitte to copy. BNY Mellon openly admitted to sending to Deloitte models by Andre Pauwels which assess the economic viability and projected returns of wind energy investments. The bank denied, however, that Deloitte’s models were a copy. Pauwels accused Deloitte of lifting major parts of his models, including the formulas he wrote and the formatting he designed, sparing BNY Mellon the cost of paying the consulting firm to develop new models from scratch.   “The bank stole my models and sent them to Deloitte,” said Pauwels in his deposition. “They were taken from me and they didn’t pay anything for it.” The bank contested that Deloitte pulled only basic data from Pauwels’ models and that, regardless, BNY Mellon and Deloitte were entitled to use the analysis and formulas under an implied contract be...

By: Madhulika Pathak  Mid-size power, cooling and infrastructure firms posted standout results in the third quarter, boosted by hyper-scalers racing for both the ability to deliver electricity to data centers for Artificial Intelligence, and also to keep those complexes at a mild temperature. While GPUs, or chips used to train AI models, are essential to the massive scaling of the technology, it's power to run data centers that has become the forefront of the conversation. There was a clear indication of this demand in third-quarter earnings reports of mid-cap infrastructure firms. A standout this reporting season was Vertiv, a power, cooling, and IT infrastructure solutions provider, which reported a 60% year-over-year surge in organic orders in the third quarter, raising its backlog to $9.5 billion and its net sales to $2.676 billion. Deloitte projects global data center power demand could reach 96 gigawatts, or the equivilant of enough power for approximately 80 million U....

Mortgage giant Freddie Mac is bracing its reserves for deepening credit stress in the apartment market amid rising delinquencies and an uncertain economic outlook. The government-sponsored enterprise boosted its rainy-day fund by $57 million, citing a steady rise in delinquencies for multifamily mortgages which also include affordable housing projects and senior and student housing. That marks a sharp turn from the $92 million reserve release in the same quarter last year. “There’s a housing crisis we’ve never seen before,” said affordable housing expert Mecky Adnani, founder of MAHousing Advisers.  The Federal Housing Agency, which insures mortgages to protect lenders from default, has also seen similar strains in the third quarter, reporting serious loan delinquency rates above pre-pandemic levels. The rising delinquencies in multifamily buildings come as part of a wider conversation about lingering inflation and housing affordability in the United States. The shelter category ...

By Shelly Zhao D espite record mooncake sales during the Mid-Autumn Festival, distributors in the US have been faced with an estimated festival profit loss of 50%, mainly due to reduced import volumes under cost pressure brought by new import tariffs, while resellers profited from doubling prices amid strong demand. Wing Wah is a long-established premium mooncake brand in Hong Kong and remains a top choice for gift-giving. New Kam Man, the largest retailer and distributor of Wing Wah mooncakes on the East Coast, halved its imports this year due to hefty tariffs imposed by the Trump administration and over concerns about dead stock. However, demand from both resellers and customers remained unexpectedly strong even before the festival, which quickly exhausted the shop’s entire remaining inventory.   The U.S. government imposed higher taxes on imported goods, saying it would encourage consumers to buy more American-made products and boost domestic investment. The average tariff on...

By  Rachel Suleymanov Wine retailers in the United States are being hit with tariff-induced price hikes, pressuring businesses in an already-struggling industry to pass along costs to consumers. Price increases at the wholesale level are reaching as high as 20%, leaving little room for retailers to try to swallow rising prices stemming from recently unveiled US import tariffs, some industry experts said. “I'd like to eat some of the tariff cost, but because I need to cover increasing expenses, it's not really doable,” said Paul Janeczko, Owner of Eight & Driggs Wine and Liquors in New York City. More than 80% of wine purchased in the US comes from France, Italy and other European countries. As US President Donald Trump unleashed a rash of tariffs on trading partners this year, the European Union agreed to a 15% levy. That tax is paid by US businesses, or eventually consumers, when the products arrive on US shores. The American wine industry has been trudging through deman...

B y Ada Carlston  While many small US businesses are trying to navigate a drastic change in trade policy, New York City's Karma Nepal Crafts is one of the exceptions. This small boutique in Greenwich Village imports colorful jewelry and skirts from Nepal, and it is the only physical location of the woman-owned family business. All the items are handmade in India and Nepal. As many importers of goods made in China and India reel from steep tariffs up to 50% imposed by US President Donald Trump, Nepal's tariff rate was set at a comparatively mild 10%. This alone offers businesses like Karma Nepal Crafts some relief. “It’s a family business, so we are doing well, everything is handmade in Nepal,” said Tal, a shopkeeper who didn't provide her last name.. She declined to say exactly what the process of importing looks like for the business. According to the Nepali Times, “ Nepal has a trade deficit with the US of Rs7.64 billion, which is probably why Trump has not increase...