Hey Snackers,
There’s a group of dogs who generate more revenue per employee than employees at Microsoft, AMD, Tesla, or Palantir. Canines in South Africa’s Detector Dog Unit, which sniffs out goods that would otherwise have evaded customs duty, bring in an average of $1.8 million per dog per year in customs revenue. Currently, the unit has a shortage of 14 dogs, which is costing the South African government roughly $25 million per year in lost income.Â
The S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, and Russell 2000 ended the week higher on Thursday after President Trump and Iranian President Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war. Information technology was the best-performing sector, followed by consumer discretionary as airlines and cruise lines surged on the prospect of cheaper fuel costs, while energy was Thursday’s worst performer.
🧠Trivia time… test yourself with our Snacks Quiz. Here’s the first question:
What is America’s favorite board game?
Are consultants doomed? Accenture’s report ain’t encouraging.
Accenture notched its biggest one-day loss on record on Thursday after reporting disappointing Q4 sales guidance along with its ho-hum Q3 results.Â
The consulting giant is in the business of helping companies “reinvent” themselves, a process that it’s also in the midst of itself, in light of how consulting has been rattled by the emergence of AI.Â
And to do that, it’s enlisted the help of the enemy at the gates, striking myriad AI-linked partnerships as well as M&A. That list swelled on Thursday with the announcement of a handful of cybersecurity acquisitions.
Accenture’s new bookings disappointed at $19.32 billion versus an estimate of $20.66 billion. Breaking down those results, its consulting business was better than expected, but managed services underwhelmed.Â
The latter relates to revenues the firm generates from customers continuing to use Accenture to run those solutions on an ongoing basis.
It could mean lots of things, one of which is that companies are happy to use Accenture’s advice to generate an AI strategy, but are able to implement those changes themselves.
The Takeaway
We flagged Accenture’s bookings as a key chart to watch for 2026, based on the idea that Fortune 500 companies that want to build out an AI strategy would be turning to the consulting company (as well as its peers) for help.
These results, and the trend, are pretty uninspiring.
Separately, management boosted the amount of cash it plans to return to shareholders this fiscal year by $200 million to “at least” $9.5 billion. But as we discussed in last Monday’s EntryPoint newsletter, it’s capex that’s hot, and shareholder returns are not. A Goldman Sachs basket of buyback-heavy firms came into this week with the worst annual performance relative to their capex-heavy peers.
Stay ahead of the curve with Scoreboard
Want the inside look on the stats, data, and insights going on in sports? Looking for the numbers behind the biggest stories in the World Cup? Interested in prediction markets and how to make money there? Check out Snacks’ newsletter Scoreboard.Â
For instance, in yesterday’s Scoreboard:
Soccer is (in)famously lower-scoring than its other popular sporting brethren: the average Premier League match in the 2025-26 season featured just 2.75 combined goals by both teams. Compare that with
6.17 goals per game in hockey
8.96 runs per game in baseball.Â
46.0 combined points per game in the NFL, orÂ
231.2 combined points per game we see in the NBA!
But this year’s World Cup is at least trending toward more goals: in Round 1 so far, teams have combined for 3.12 GPG, which is the most scoring at the start of any World Cup in the modern era and the most since 1958. And with favorites like Spain and Portugal needing to open their offensive throttles after drawing their debut matches, there’s good reason to think the free-scoring trend might continue.Â
Snacks Shots
🇦🇷 Argentina vs 🇦🇹 Austria: While Austria is no slouch on the pitch, they’re up against Lionel Messi and an Argentina squad that looks pretty unstoppable right now. Argentina’s got a 63% chance of the win.*
🇫🇷 France vs 🇮🇶 Iraq: The favorite to win it all, France, is the strong favorite to win this one, with the French having a 91% chance of the win.
🇳🇴 Norway vs 🇸🇳 Senegal: Shaping up to be the closest match of the day, Norway is a narrow favorite at 42% to Senegal’s 33%.
🇯🇴 Jordan vs 🇩🇿 Algeria: The Algerians had a tough matchup against Argentina, but aim to turn that around in a must-win game where they’re 63% favorites.
*Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC - probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.
What else we're Snackin'
As we’ve previously covered, alcohol sales are under pressure, but Guinness has managed to buck that trend with the help of exec Gráinne Wafer, even as its parent company Diageo saw North American sales slide 9.4% last quarter.
Japan’s Fair Trade Commission has raided ice cream makers on suspicions of forming a cartelÂ
Midjourney is building a body scanner that it says is faster than an MRI. Shares of Butterfly Network, whose Ultrasound-on-Chip technology is powering the medical imaging platform, soared on Thursday.Â
Snack Fact of the Day
The percentage of Americans who follow soccer regularly has risen from 8% in late 2022 to 12% in the first quarter of 2026.
This week
Premarket earnings: Carnival. Postmarket earnings: FedEx, Cerebras Systems.
Premarket earnings: Paychex. Postmarket earnings: Micron. Fed bank stress test results.Â
Premarket earnings: Darden Restaurants, McCormick, BlackBerry. Personal consumption expenditures (the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge).Â