Good morning. Phil Wahba writing at this time. This week, a pair of earnings experiences—these of Walmart and Goal—provide up a reminder of how tough CEO succession planning will be. Each retailers’ CEOs—Walmart’s Doug McMillon and Goal’s Brian Cornell—began in 2014 and are leaving in February, handing their corporations off to lieutenants who’re firm lifers. However that’s the place the succession similarities finish.
Goal and Walmart have lengthy duked it out for the U.S.’s budget-conscious shopper, with Goal skewing a bit extra to discretionary and “enjoyable” gadgets and Walmart to low-price staples. Although each chains thrived in the course of the pandemic as folks consolidated their buying at fewer chains, Walmart pulled away from Goal in 2022 and has by no means appeared again.
Walmart has turn out to be a tech and e-commerce powerhouse able to holding its personal towards Amazon and positioned itself properly for the AI period. Walmart shares have risen 300% underneath McMillon. In distinction, Goal’s shares are solely up 60% underneath Cornell whose tenure was thought-about stellar earlier than the retailer started battling merchandise misses, backlash to its variety efforts after which backlash for abandoning these efforts, complaints about customer support, and provide chain issues that led to empty cabinets.
On Wednesday, Goal reported that comparable gross sales have been down 2.7% final quarter. Right now, Wall Road analysts anticipate Walmart’s U.S. comparable gross sales to extend 3.8%.
Apparently, one of many departing CEOs is leaving his firm’s board in 2026, whereas the opposite is staying on as govt chair, which means he shall be much more highly effective than he was as CEO.
You would possibly suppose McMillon is the one sticking round to information successor John Furner, who has a powerful monitor document as CEO of Walmart’s U.S. division. However no, Cornell is the one being elevated to a job with no outlined time period restrict, overseeing his successor and present operations chief, Michael Fiddelke, at the same time as each executives in the end bear vital duty for Goal’s present travails.
{That a} CEO like McMillon, whose management model shall be taught in enterprise colleges, can step down with out inflicting investor panic reveals how properly Walmart has managed its succession planning and developed a deep bench.
Goal argues that Cornell and Fiddelke, properly regarded executives to be honest, are insiders who can proper the ship. Nevertheless, Wall Road disagrees; it wished an outsider to shake issues up and has punished Goal’s inventory.
Contact CEO Day by day by way of Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Prime information
Nvidia shrugs off bubble fears
Nvidia beat Wall Road’s expectations with a document $57 billion in income for the latest quarter on the again of robust demand for its AI chips, quelling investor fears that the AI increase is overhyped. The world’s most respected firm implied that its Blackwell and Rubin chips might generate $300 billion in income subsequent 12 months, a sum that will catapult Nvidia into the highest 10 of the Fortune 500. (It was No. 31 this 12 months.)
Preempting AI legal guidelines
U.S. President Donald Trump is reportedly contemplating an govt order that will try to dam any state regulation of AI in a concession to tech corporations that argue a patchwork of such legal guidelines will stifle innovation.
Knowledge hole
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says it is not going to launch the October jobs report, citing the document authorities shutdown that prevented officers from gathering all the information they want. The omission will obscure the general public’s understanding of how the labor market is faring amid indicators that it’s weakening.
Mexico buys American
For the primary time in 30 years, Mexico is the highest purchaser of U.S. items, surpassing Canada. (Mexico has been the U.S.’s prime provider since 2023 when it eclipsed China.) U.S.-Mexico commerce has fared comparatively properly underneath the Trump administration because the president has repeatedly granted it tariff exceptions; the U.S.’s northern neighbor has not been as fortunate.
Shares to look at for 2026
AI has pushed a lot of the stock-market features this 12 months whereas tariffs and geopolitical tensions have rendered once-reliable investments susceptible. Fortune’s finance editors and reporters say these are the new—and never—shares for 2026.
Alphabet CEO suggests AI might exchange CEOs
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai stated he believes the CEO job “is possibly one of many simpler issues possibly for an AI to do sooner or later” in a latest interview with the BBC. Pichai joins different outstanding CEOs, like these from OpenAI and Klarna, who’ve made related arguments.
The markets
S&P 500 futures are up 1.07% this morning. The final session closed up 0.38%. STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.82% in early buying and selling. The U.Ok.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.78% in early buying and selling. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 2.65%. China’s CSI 300 was down 0.51%. The South Korea KOSPI was up 1.92%. India’s NIFTY 50 is up 0.54%. Bitcoin was flat at $95K.
Across the watercooler
The CEO of Shangri-La Inns explains the core of Asian hospitality: Not ‘silver candlesticks,’ however ‘heat and a focus to element’ by Angelica Ang
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang earnings name namechecked Saudi AI firm Humain thrice. Right here’s why by Jeremy Kahn
Deel’s CEO was instructed to sack his total management crew—he ignored different founders, stored the unique $0 crew and is now operating a $17 billion big by Orianna Rosa Royle
‘Bond King’ Jeffrey Gundlach says there’s little question ‘we’re in a mania,’ however gold is a ‘actual asset class’ by Nick Lichtenberg
CEO Day by day is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Claire Zillman.
