Elk as the key to Masters success: who had any i-deer? Rory McIlroy will serve starters made from the meat of the North American animal at Augusta National next month in tribute to his food of choice before winning the Masters last year. The wine McIlroy drank to toast victory, food which conjures memories of his childhood in Belfast and a dish made by his mother, Rosie McIlroy, also feature in th...
Elk as the key to Masters success: who had any i-deer? Rory McIlroy will serve starters made from the meat of the North American animal at Augusta National next month in tribute to his food of choice before winning the Masters last year. The wine McIlroy drank to toast victory, food which conjures memories of his childhood in Belfast and a dish made by his mother, Rosie McIlroy, also feature in the Masters champion’s dinner for 2026. In a nod to the Masters venue’s attention to detail, McIlroy revealed that chefs from Augusta made a special visit to a New York restaurant to replicate his favourite tuna recipe. McIlroy will begin his Masters defence from 9 April. Two days earlier, he will host fellow past winners in the annual gathering in the Augusta clubhouse. The reigning champion picks the menu. When unveiling his choices on Wednesday, McIlroy’s grilled elk sliders – served with caramelised onion jam and roasted garlic aioli – turned heads. “In the buildup to the Masters last year, I was eating a lot of elk,” McIlroy said. “I got this big shipment of elk and I was eating a lot of that. I didn’t want elk to be the main course because I didn’t know if everyone would like that. So I incorporated that into the appetisers.” In the same area of the menu are Rosie McIlroy’s bacon-wrapped dates. Wagyu fillet mignon or seared salmon will follow yellowfin tuna carpaccio. “One of our favourite restaurants right now is in New York, called Le Bernardin,” McIlroy said. “Eric Ripert is the chef there and this is a dish from that restaurant. It’s a really simple dish, but every time we go to that restaurant, that’s the one thing that I have to have. “So that’s a fun one that the club worked with me on. They went up to the restaurant and worked with the chefs, and made sure; they obviously wanted to get it right for the night, so that’s really cool.” Champ, a traditional Northern Irish side, is an accompaniment. “When I was a kid I used to eat champ by the bowlful,” McIlroy said....
Chinese e-commerce and AI giant Alibaba (BABA) recently announced that it would combine all of its AI ventures into a single unit. While the new division could allow the firm's AI businesses to coordinate more effectively and cross-sell products to each other's customers more prolifically, the change is not what makes BABA stock attractive for some investors at this point. Rather, the strong perfo...
Chinese e-commerce and AI giant Alibaba (BABA) recently announced that it would combine all of its AI ventures into a single unit. While the new division could allow the firm's AI businesses to coordinate more effectively and cross-sell products to each other's customers more prolifically, the change is not what makes BABA stock attractive for some investors at this point. Rather, the strong performance of the firm's cloud unit in the third quarter, along with the positive data posted by the Chinese economy so far this year and the fairly low valuation of BABA stock, makes the shares worth buying for patient investors with a somewhat high risk tolerance. About Alibaba In addition to e-commerce and AI, Alibaba has entertainment, logistics, and digital media ventures. In Q3, its revenue rose 2% versus Q3 of 2024 to 247.65 billion Chinese yuan, or $34.6 billion. However, its net income excluding profits on investments sank 18% year-over-year (YoY). The shares have a price-earnings ratio of 20.25 times and a market capitalization of $326.4 billion. Cloud's Encouraging Performance in Q3 Suggests the AI Businesses Are Thriving In Q3, the top line of the company's cloud computing unit jumped 26% versus the same period a year earlier. That marked a significant acceleration versus Q2, when the division's sales increased 18% YoY. CEO Eddie Wu attributed the division's strong performance in Q3 to “robust AI demand” and added that “AI-related product revenue is now a significant portion of revenue from external customers.” The cloud unit's strong showing in Q3, in tandem with Wu's statements, leads me to believe that Alibaba's AI offerings, in which the firm has invested meaningful amounts of funds, improved significantly during Q3. Further, the company can relatively easily and effectively market its AI offerings to the huge number of businesses that sell products on its websites, even as many more of these firms are likely looking to start utilizing AI. Indeed, a high percent...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) is beginning to test how much pricing power its AI push can command. The company has raised prices for its T-Head AI chips by between 5% and 34%, while also increasing the cost of its cloud parallel file storage service by about 30%, moves that came alongside a broader restructuring aimed at sharpening its focus on monetizing artificial...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) is beginning to test how much pricing power its AI push can command. The company has raised prices for its T-Head AI chips by between 5% and 34%, while also increasing the cost of its cloud parallel file storage service by about 30%, moves that came alongside a broader restructuring aimed at sharpening its focus on monetizing artificial intelligence. Investors reacted quickly, with shares climbing as much as 4.2% in Hong Kong, suggesting the market may be warming to signs that Alibaba is shifting from heavy investment toward extracting returns, particularly as it rolls out new offerings like its Wukong agentic AI platform for enterprise users. The shift does not appear isolated. Across the sector, major players are starting to push through price increases as they look to offset the scale of capital deployed into AI infrastructure. Tencent (TCEHY) has already introduced a more than fourfold increase for its Hunyuan models on its agent developer platform, while Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) is preparing to raise AI cloud pricing by as much as 30% from next month. Alphabet's Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) has also signaled plans to lift prices, pointing to a broader recalibration across big tech as companies attempt to convert strong demand for AI services into more visible revenue streams. At the same time, the competitive backdrop in China's AI race remains dynamic. Tencent may be gaining traction in agentic AI by leveraging WeChat's roughly 1.4 billion-user ecosystem, with efforts underway to integrate AI agents capable of handling tasks like ride-hailing and restaurant bookings. Meanwhile, Nvidia's (NASDAQ:NVDA) move to ramp production of H200 AI accelerators for China highlights continued demand for computing power, even as analysts suggest domestic chip adoption could rise due to ongoing US export uncertainties. Against this backdrop, Alibaba's pledged investment of more than $53 billion into AI infrastructure could posit...
is a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience. She covers smart home, IoT, and connected tech, and has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. This enables voice control and smart home integrations, features that have been missing from the robot since launch. Now you can s...
is a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience. She covers smart home, IoT, and connected tech, and has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. This enables voice control and smart home integrations, features that have been missing from the robot since launch. Now you can set up automations such as “Run Matic when everyone leaves home,” “Dock the robot when I arrive home,” or “Stop Matic when the door unlocks.” The Matic now works with Apple Home, Google Home, and Home Assistant. The pairing code to connect through Matter appears on its screen when initiated in the app. Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge The Matter integration isn’t yet certified and doesn’t work with all the platforms, but it’s a good start. However, as it’s still unofficial, there are some rough edges. The company notes in a Reddit post that while the Google Home and Home Assistant integrations are both “solid experiences,” Apple Home and Siri still “feel clunky.” There’s no Alexa support yet, but Matic says that will come with full certification. Matic is a US-based robot vacuum manufacturer that was founded by two former Google Nest engineers. Its sole product, the Matic, stands out in the sea of robot vacuums for a few reasons: it rarely gets stuck, it cleans really well, it’s cute, but, annoyingly, it can’t get under your bed. The biggest plus for many people is that Matic can run entirely locally — there’s no internet connection required to clean your floors. All processing and mapping is done on the device. This is one reason why the company took so long to integrate smart home control. Matter allows for full local control, but isn’t as straightforward to implement as connecting to cloud APIs, as most other integrations require. Previous Next 1 / 5 These screenshots show how Matic appears in Apple Home. According to a Reddit post from Matic, “Building it the...
The U.S. stock market is down less than 3% since the beginning of the war in the Middle East. That's a pretty modest decline, given that the ongoing conflict has resulted in an almost complete drop-off in shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and a resulting oil price spike that has driven the price of Brent crude from about $72 to over $100 a barrel, a 40% increase. But what would have to...
The U.S. stock market is down less than 3% since the beginning of the war in the Middle East. That's a pretty modest decline, given that the ongoing conflict has resulted in an almost complete drop-off in shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and a resulting oil price spike that has driven the price of Brent crude from about $72 to over $100 a barrel, a 40% increase. But what would have to happen to cause a full correction in the stock market, which is typically defined as a drop of 10% or more? Deutsche Bank recently examined past market disruptions caused by geopolitical crises to identify common factors that could trigger a 15% or larger drawdown in the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.66%). The investment bank came up with three scenarios that could drive the market down that much. Three ways the S&P 500 could drop The first scenario is an oil price spike of 50% to 100% that persists for several months. While the price of Brent did spike briefly to around $120 a barrel, a nearly 70% increase, those price levels didn't last long, and crude settled back to near $100. To spark a recession, oil would have to rise above $107 a barrel and remain there for months. Remember that since 2019, the U.S. has been a net exporter of petroleum products, and it's also much more energy efficient than in decades past. So higher oil prices do considerably less damage to the economy today than they once did. The second scenario is an oil price shock that tips an already slowing economy into recession. That raises the question of how healthy the U.S. economy was before the war began. The U.S. economy has been slowing in recent quarters. The annual growth rate fell to 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025, down from 4.4% in the third quarter. And the economy shed 92,000 jobs in February while the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%. But the economy is still growing, and the jobless rate remains low by historical standards. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimates the economy is growing at a...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Chinese AI stocks are staging another sharp rally, with momentum building after Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang pointed to OpenClaw as definitely the next ChatGPT, framing it as a potential turning point for autonomous AI agents. The comments appear to have strengthened investor conviction around the space, pushing MiniMax Group shares up as much as ...
This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Chinese AI stocks are staging another sharp rally, with momentum building after Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang pointed to OpenClaw as definitely the next ChatGPT, framing it as a potential turning point for autonomous AI agents. The comments appear to have strengthened investor conviction around the space, pushing MiniMax Group shares up as much as 29% to a record high, while Zhipu climbed as much as 23% and UCloud Technology also moved higher in Shanghai trading. Market participants are increasingly viewing OpenClaw as a fresh catalyst that could extend China's ongoing AI-driven equity surge. The underlying driver is the rapid emergence of OpenClaw as a new class of AI platform. Launched in November, the open-source system goes beyond traditional chatbots by enabling software agents to complete tasks, make decisions, and act with limited user input. Adoption has been accelerating across China's technology stack, with major cloud providers including Tencent Holdings, Alibaba Group, and Baidu integrating OpenClaw into their offerings, while developers continue to gravitate toward models such as MiniMax's M2.5 for its combination of relatively strong performance and lower cost. MiniMax's latest M2.7 update, released ahead of a next-generation M3 expected in the second half, may further support that positioning. At the same time, the surge in interest is unfolding alongside early signs of regulatory caution. Authorities in Beijing have started to limit the use of OpenClaw within government agencies and some of the country's largest banks, suggesting policymakers are monitoring the technology's rapid adoption. Even so, sentiment across the sector remains constructive for now, with Huang's comments and Nvidia's plans to introduce related products reinforcing the view that the agentic AI theme could still be in its early stages.
(RTTNews) - European stocks failed to hold early gains and settled lower on Wednesday, as investors switched their focus to the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement due later in the day. Stocks moved higher earlier in the day as oil prices slipped amid easing concerns about supplies but turned weak after the commodity pared early losses and moved notably higher amid fresh strikes on Iran...
(RTTNews) - European stocks failed to hold early gains and settled lower on Wednesday, as investors switched their focus to the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement due later in the day. Stocks moved higher earlier in the day as oil prices slipped amid easing concerns about supplies but turned weak after the commodity pared early losses and moved notably higher amid fresh strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure. Data showing a 3.4% increase in U.S. producer prices in the month of February weighed on sentiment. The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold rates. The central bank's accompanying statement is eyed for clues about future monetary policy moves. The European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Swiss National Bank are scheduled to make their monetary policy announcements on Thursday. The pan European Stoxx 600 ended down 0.75%. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 closed lower by 0.94% and Germany's DAX drifted down 0.96%, while France's CAC 40 edged down 0.06%. Switzerland's SMI lost 1.52%. Among other markets in Europe, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and Türkiye closed weak. Austria, Czech Republic, Ireland, Norway and Spain ended higher. In the UK market, Diploma soared 18%. Shares of the specialist distributor of industrial controls, seals and life sciences products, surged following the company lifting its FY26 guidance. For fiscal 2026, the Group now projects organic revenue growth of 9%, revised from prior guidance of 6%. Operating margin is now expected at approximately 25%, updated form previous guidance of approximately 22.5%. Standard Chartered moved up 1.65%. Barclays gained about 1.5% after it announced a new strategic partnership with Sage Group. Weir Group climbed more than 2%. Babcock International, Halma, Spirax Group, IMI, Burberry Group, Easyjet, Polar Capital Technology Trust, Berkeley Group Holdings and Smiths Group also ended notably higher. Compass Group, 3i Group, Endeavour...
Health-care costs are outpacing wages and most Americans aren’t ready for a medical emergency. HealthEquity CEO Scott Cutler says the solution could lie in health savings accounts, which are changing how people spend and plan for care. HealthEquity is the nations largest HSA provider. But even with strong growth, investor fears around AI and the job market are dragging the sector down. So innovati...
Health-care costs are outpacing wages and most Americans aren’t ready for a medical emergency. HealthEquity CEO Scott Cutler says the solution could lie in health savings accounts, which are changing how people spend and plan for care. HealthEquity is the nations largest HSA provider. But even with strong growth, investor fears around AI and the job market are dragging the sector down. So innovation is now at the center of fixing America’s health-care affordability crisis. (Source: Bloomberg)