Aisha Williams 
Costco reports fourth-quarter and fiscal 2026 results on September 24 with net sales of $93.9 billion already disclosed and consensus EPS near $6.54. Gasoline inflation, tariff refunds and renewal rates will decide how the print is read.
Signals point to an October-quarter earnings round in which inventory growth outpaces sales growth at a majority of US big-box bellwethers, checkable by December 4, 2026. Early imports, heavy Q2 balance sheets and price-led holiday forecasts set it up.
President Trump told reporters in Dublin that a trade deal with Canada could come fairly soon if Ottawa drops tariffs on US farm products, and said he is not considering leaving USMCA. None of the September 15 tariff changes or September 29 import bans move, and Canadian grocers say the Buy Canadian shift is now permanent.
TikTok Shop’s reported plan to open Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Australia in Q1 2027 is unlikely to land as three simultaneous launches. Three signals from August 2026 point to at most two shipping local storefronts by March 31, 2027, with Australia the most likely to slip.
Apollo rebuilt seven Heritage Grocers C-suite seats on August 26, five months after installing a new CEO and ten months after a $1.5bn sale process stalled. Signals point to a renewed process becoming publicly visible before June 30, 2027.
CBP switches on Entry Type 13 in ACE production on September 22, 2026, covering international mail shipments valued at $2,500 or less. Foreign postal operators lose the right to file, and a customs bond becomes a precondition of release.
A Stanford, MIT and University of Chicago working paper finds SNAP sugary drink restrictions cut those purchases by 12.4 percent in the first half of 2026. Researchers found no own-cash substitution, but up to 39 percent of redirected spending moved into juices and energy drinks where those stayed eligible.
Signals point to retail media and marketplace fees, not product markup, driving gross margin expansion at large US retailers over the 2026 holiday quarter. The prediction is testable in results published between late February and mid-March 2027.
The FTC and 22 state attorneys general sued Amazon on August 31, 2026, alleging a hidden “soft reserve price” surcharge turned its second-price ad auctions into first-price ones since 2019. The complaint says the scheme extracted tens of billions of dollars from more than one million brands and sellers.
CBP has postponed CAPE Phase 3, the tranche covering roughly $11.4 billion of IEEPA tariff refunds on finally liquidated entries, with no new launch date. About 64% of the $166 billion pool has been certified, leaving $59.4 billion outstanding and a legal split between importers who sued and those who did not.