Chipotle Gets Some Help in the Kitchen—a Robot

Autocado is still undergoing testing at the Chipotle Cultivate Center in Irvine, Calif. The company is also working on a robotic tortilla-chip maker, called Chippy, which fries and seasons chips. Chipotle, a longtime leader in fast-food technology, was one of the first to launch an order-ahead app. Digital sales amounted to 39% in the first quarter.

Others are also trying new technologies. White Castle has been testing a robot that operates a frying station.
McDonald’s
unveiled an automated test restaurant outside of Fort Worth, Texas, where robots hand customers drive-through orders. And
Starbucks
announced the Siren System last year to reduce drink-making time.

But developing robots isn’t like whipping up guac. Chippy has been integrated into one store; testing continues. Starbucks’ Siren is also taking longer. “Based on our conversations, investors were anticipating a faster pace of Siren System rollout that allowed for more conviction in shares’ bull case,” wrote TD Cowen analyst Andrew Charles in a note.

Write to Sabrina Escobar at [email protected]

Last Week

The Heat Is On

China’s consumer price index neared zero in June, and producer prices went negative. In the U.S., a chorus of Fed officials sang in unison: Progress was being made, but two more hikes were likely. On Wednesday the Labor Department released the June CPI: headline and core inflation rose only 0.2%, respectively, to 3% year over year. Stocks spiked on anticipation that the rate-hiking cycle was near its end. The dollar fell. On the week, the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
rose 2.3% to 34,509.03; the
S&P 500
was up 2.4% to 4505.42; and the
Nasdaq Composite
soared 3.3% to 14,113.70.

Earnings: The Banks Report

Second-quarter earnings season began with the banks. It was a party.
JPMorgan Chase
posted record profits,
Citigroup
saw big revenue gains in credit cards, and
Wells Fargo
boosted forecasts for loan revenue.

Stage Left

Actors joined writers on strike as contract negotiations between the actors’ union and studios failed. TV and movie production shut down. The last joint strike in Hollywood: 1960.

NATO Horse Trading

Top NATO leaders meeting in Lithuania confronted two thorny issues: Ukraine’s call to join NATO, which the U.S. has resisted, and Turkey’s block of Swedish membership. Turkey agreed to drop its opposition to Sweden after the U.S. agreed to sell it F-16 fighter jets. Ukraine didn’t get a timeline to join NATO but did gain security guarantees.

The Corporate Front

Meta Platforms
’ Twitter rival Threads passed the 100 million user mark. Twitter may have 500 million users…The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered
Bank of America
to pay customers $100 million for excessive fees…SVB Financial sued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in federal court to get back $1.9 billion in cash the regulator seized when the bank collapsed…The Fed said it was expanding big-bank capital rules to banks with $100 billion or more…The Financial Times reported that a flaw in U.K.-based fintech’s Revolut’s U.S. payment system allowed thieves to abscond with over $20 million. U.K. regulators had warned the fintech about financial crimes.

Annals of Deal Making

A federal judge rejected the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to delay the closing of
Microsoft’s
$75 billion acquisition of
Activision Blizzard.
The decision allows Microsoft to close the deal before July 18 in every venue except the U.K., which seems to be softening its initial resistance. The FTC said it would appeal…The FTC also told Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, that it was investigating consumer risks from artificial intelligence…The European Commission approved
Broadcom’s
$61 billion acquisition of VMware…Carl Icahn came to an agreement with his banks, untying his loans from the stock price of his investment company,
Icahn Enterprises,
which had been hit by shorts after a negative report from Hindenberg Research.

Write to Robert Teitelman at [email protected]