Earnings Call Insights: Jack in the Box (JACK) Q2 2026 Management View "I’m really excited to be here today as Interim CEO" (Interim Chief Executive Officer Mark James King) and said his focus is "accelerating the JACK on Track initiatives already underway" and adding "a renewed sense of urgency" to "improve operating results and enhance shareholder value." "Year-to-date, we’ve streamlined our mar...
Earnings Call Insights: Jack in the Box (JACK) Q2 2026 Management View "I’m really excited to be here today as Interim CEO" (Interim Chief Executive Officer Mark James King) and said his focus is "accelerating the JACK on Track initiatives already underway" and adding "a renewed sense of urgency" to "improve operating results and enhance shareholder value." "Year-to-date, we’ve streamlined our marketing calendar" (Interim Chief Executive Officer King) and said the company "better balanced our value and premium messaging, which improved our sales trends throughout the second quarter and into the third quarter." "Mini refreshes are proving to be a high ROI lever" (Interim Chief Executive Officer King) and said Jack in the Box has "more than doubled our pace year-to-date" and is "accelerating the rate" of these refreshes across company and franchise restaurants. "The second quarter same-store sales for Jack in the Box decreased 3.8%" (Executive VP & CFO Dawn Hooper), adding the decline "resulted primarily from a decline in transactions, partially offset by menu price increases." "We improved transactions quarter-over-quarter with our value offering of Munch Better Deals" (Executive VP & CFO Hooper) and said that was "balanced with check growth" from "Smashed Jack Sliders," while "quarter-to-date, same-store sales are approaching flat." Outlook "For fiscal year 2026, we now expect same-store sales decline of low single digits" (Executive VP & CFO Hooper), adding, "Q1 was our lowest point, and we anticipate a steady improvement through Q3 and further into Q4." "We expect restaurant level margin of approximately 17%" (Executive VP & CFO Hooper) and said this includes "mid-single-digit commodity inflation and low single-digit wage inflation." "We expect franchise level margin of $265 million to $275 million" (Executive VP & CFO Hooper) and added that "the timing" of closures and real-estate sales "could shift and as such, have an impact" on that margin outcome. "We anticip...
Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings are doubling down on a massive artificial intelligence spending spree, betting that a new wave of Chinese-made chips will break the supply bottlenecks stifling their ambitions. While both Chinese tech giants saw revenues trail expectations this quarter, they pledged an aggressive acceleration in capital expenditure, as home-grown silicon from Huawei Techn...
Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings are doubling down on a massive artificial intelligence spending spree, betting that a new wave of Chinese-made chips will break the supply bottlenecks stifling their ambitions. While both Chinese tech giants saw revenues trail expectations this quarter, they pledged an aggressive acceleration in capital expenditure, as home-grown silicon from Huawei Technologies and Alibaba’s in-house labs begins to reach scale. Alibaba was likely to “overshoot” its...
(RTTNews) - After struggling for direction early on in the session, the UK stock market gained some ground in positive territory Thursday morning as investors reacted to some earnings updates and data showing a faster pace of economic growth in the first quarter.
(RTTNews) - After struggling for direction early on in the session, the UK stock market gained some ground in positive territory Thursday morning as investors reacted to some earnings updates and data showing a faster pace of economic growth in the first quarter.
Wall Street has proved incredibly resilient to instability, and while consumer confidence has dipped, shares have soared It was a dark Friday for Wall Street on 27 March. Oil prices were climbing and the war with Iran raged on. Markets responded accordingly, with the Dow and Nasdaq entering correction territory, falling more than 10% below their peak, after a month of selloffs. Fast forward seven ...
Wall Street has proved incredibly resilient to instability, and while consumer confidence has dipped, shares have soared It was a dark Friday for Wall Street on 27 March. Oil prices were climbing and the war with Iran raged on. Markets responded accordingly, with the Dow and Nasdaq entering correction territory, falling more than 10% below their peak, after a month of selloffs. Fast forward seven weeks later to 13 May, and the situation in Iran only looked marginally better. Oil prices were high, and the strait of Hormuz was still closed. Peace talks with Iran seemed tenuous, even with the pressures of high gas prices. Donald Trump on Wednesday said he is “not even a little bit” motivated by Americans’ financial situation to end the war. Continue reading...
The Jordan-fronted live-action/cartoon hybrid is 30 years old – and with its R Kelly soundtrack, it feels it. Cue Seinfeld’s Wayne Knight to rescue it for a second time This 30th anniversary rerelease brings us the strangest piece of 90s pop-cultural detritus imaginable, at once surreally baffling and very dated – not least in its resounding soundtrack use of I Believe I Can Fly by R Kelly, the no...
The Jordan-fronted live-action/cartoon hybrid is 30 years old – and with its R Kelly soundtrack, it feels it. Cue Seinfeld’s Wayne Knight to rescue it for a second time This 30th anniversary rerelease brings us the strangest piece of 90s pop-cultural detritus imaginable, at once surreally baffling and very dated – not least in its resounding soundtrack use of I Believe I Can Fly by R Kelly, the now disgraced singer currently serving a 20-year prison term for child sexual abuse . Space Jam is the live-action/cartoon hybrid and nakedly commercial brand partnership of NBA superstar Michael Jordan and the Warner Bros stable of Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd; this feature was developed from TV ads in which Jordan was paired with the hyperactive rabbit. The idea is that an evil race of animated space aliens have captured the Looney Tunes squad and propose to enslave them, but sportingly agree not to if Bugs and the gang can defeat them at basketball. These villains use their evil mojo to give themselves an unfair advantage, stealing basketball skills from other live-action NBA stars such as Charles Barkley, before turning them into humanoids. So the Looney Tunes heroes and heroines approach Jordan (who has now swapped basketball for baseball, a sport at which he turns out to be no good at all) and ask for his help. And so Space Jam semi-accidentally conforms to the classic underdog sports template: the classy player, fallen on hard times, has to coach a bunch of lovable losers. Continue reading...
Dawkins appears to have gone from atheist to AI-theist: perhaps he doesn’t view AI as God, but he certainly seems to see it as God-like Are you there God? It’s me, Arwa. I’ll be quite honest, I’m afraid I’ve never been a believer. I agreed wholeheartedly with Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous atheist, when he argued that belief in God is a “pernicious” delusion. But perhaps I should reconsi...
Dawkins appears to have gone from atheist to AI-theist: perhaps he doesn’t view AI as God, but he certainly seems to see it as God-like Are you there God? It’s me, Arwa. I’ll be quite honest, I’m afraid I’ve never been a believer. I agreed wholeheartedly with Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous atheist, when he argued that belief in God is a “pernicious” delusion. But perhaps I should reconsider my position. Recent events have led me to question Dawkins’ judgment about life, the universe and everything. Those recent events are the evolutionary biologist publicly concluding that AI may be conscious . In an op-ed, Dawkins recounted how he gave the Anthropic chatbot Claude the text of a novel he was writing. Dawkins writes: “He took a few seconds to read it and then showed … a level of understanding so subtle, so sensitive, so intelligent that I was moved to expostulate, ‘You may not know you are conscious, but you bloody well are!’” Continue reading...
In 1997, the Comets defied the odds to win the league’s inaugural championship. From clashing stars and run-ins with Hakeem Olajuwon to city parades and mourning Princess Diana on title night, this is the story of their historic season Fran Harris remembers a late-night dinner in Sacramento. Her Houston Comets squad had just dispatched the lowly Monarchs by 10 points. To celebrate, she and a few t...
In 1997, the Comets defied the odds to win the league’s inaugural championship. From clashing stars and run-ins with Hakeem Olajuwon to city parades and mourning Princess Diana on title night, this is the story of their historic season Fran Harris remembers a late-night dinner in Sacramento. Her Houston Comets squad had just dispatched the lowly Monarchs by 10 points. To celebrate, she and a few teammates, including Cynthia Cooper, Tammy Jackson and Kim Perrot, decided to grab a bite. Cooper had scored 44 in the 25 July 1997 contest, and her talents dazzled even her dinner companions. “I said to Cynthia, ‘I just cannot believe how great you’re playing – and I know how great you are!’” Harris tells the Guardian. “And she goes, ‘I know!’ She was just, like, Yeah, I’m the motherfucker! I was like, ‘You absolutely are!’” Continue reading...
A proposed airport on a former US naval base in the Philippines near the entrance to Manila Bay is drawing fresh strategic attention after Washington agreed to fund a feasibility study, a move analysts say fits into US efforts to strengthen logistics, access and interoperability with the country in the South China Sea. Experts said the proposed Sangley Point International Airport in Cavite could b...
A proposed airport on a former US naval base in the Philippines near the entrance to Manila Bay is drawing fresh strategic attention after Washington agreed to fund a feasibility study, a move analysts say fits into US efforts to strengthen logistics, access and interoperability with the country in the South China Sea. Experts said the proposed Sangley Point International Airport in Cavite could become more than a commercial aviation project because of its access to the South China Sea and the...
Getting a proper sleep has been a problem for people throughout history and the ancient Chinese set up some rules and methods that are still believed to be effective today. In Chinese culture, sleep time is believed to be an important period for the body to absorb and restore energy. Ancient people were meticulous about the number of hours’ sleep they got and in what position they did so. For exam...
Getting a proper sleep has been a problem for people throughout history and the ancient Chinese set up some rules and methods that are still believed to be effective today. In Chinese culture, sleep time is believed to be an important period for the body to absorb and restore energy. Ancient people were meticulous about the number of hours’ sleep they got and in what position they did so. For example, it is deemed important to get sufficient sleep during the Zi hour, 11pm to 1pm, and the Wu...