In today’s newsletter I discuss the economics behind Halloween, David's Bridal is becoming an AI company, JAŸ Z is performing at the Super Bowl LXI Halftime show, Anthropic is IPOing, Anduril is making a rugged laptop for the military, Kid Cudi is going to write, direct, and star in the upcoming biopic about the iconic artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ripple just signed a partnership with Robinhood to add their RLUSD to the platform, and the NBA just signed a partnership agreement with both Kalshi and Polymarket prediction markets.

Let’s get into it!

It’s that frightful time of year again, when children line the streets running from house-to-house ringing doorbells and saying “Trick-or-Treat”, without even realizing it’s supposed to be a question and not just a demand for candy. Corporate HR departments are sending out Halloween costume guidelines in hopes that one Kevin from accounting doesn’t dress up like a werewolf (again), and some adults are spending way too much time and money to dress up as a naughty nurse or some vampire gigolo with slicked back hair from the ‘80s. For me, I’m home answering the door to trick-or-treaters, while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas, which I’m on record as saying is a twofer for the Halloween and Christmas seasons. All these Fall traditions have gotten me in the spirit, so what better way to celebrate the holiday than by diving in and getting a scare out of the economics behind Halloween?

Let’s get into it.

First off, I thought I’d drop some knowledge on you. The total consumer spending for this Halloween season is expected to be $13.5 billion dollars, up $400 million dollars from $13.1 billion dollars in 2025, a CAGR of 3.05% year-over-year. And did you know that the average family spends around $115 dollars per year on Halloween, which includes money spent on costumes, candy, and decorations? Halloween is one of the most celebrated holidays in the U.S., with an estimated 74% of Americans planning to celebrate Halloween and purchase candy for the neighborhood kids. And that candy doesn’t come cheap. Consumers spent $4.1 billion dollars on Halloween candy and treats in 2025, which comes out to an average of $34.79 dollars for each household to fill up their bowls for trick-or-treaters. That translates into around 600 million pounds of candy purchased across the country. Candy prices have jumped 32% in the last year as the American consumer is now spending more than ever to celebrate Halloween.

I told you the economics behind Halloween were scary!

You can’t have Halloween without dressing up. The Halloween costume market was $4.4 billion dollars in 2025, split between adults spending $2 billion dollars on their own costumes, parents spending $1.5 billion dollars dressing up their kids, and pet parents spending an estimated $920 million dollars buying outfits for their pets. Yup, that’s apparently a thing I can never unlearn.

The number one retailer in the Halloween industry is by far Spirit Halloween, which each year takes over empty storefronts and builds some 1,500 stores across the U.S. from scratch for around 3 months before packing everything up and reverting the commercial space back into a dead storefront. In 2025, Spirit Halloween brought in an estimated $1.1 billion dollars in revenue. Here’s another little known fact I just learned: Spirit Halloween is actually owned by Spencer’s Gifts, that quintessential pop-culture store in the mall from your childhood where you could buy all sorts of novelty gifts and inappropriate t-shirts. Spirit Halloween was actually founded in 1983 by Joseph Marver in Castro Valley, California, and was acquired by Spencer’s Gifts in 1999.

Now, let’s talk about those people who spend more time and money decorating their yards for Halloween than they do for any other holiday season, and I’m proud to be a part of this demographic. Every year, I dig out from my basement my 10-year old 12’ tall inflatable dragon with flapping wings (that’s the closest I can find to the one I bought almost a decade ago, but you get the gist). American consumers are expected to spend $4.3 billion dollars on Halloween decorations this year, with one of the most popular yard decorations belonging to Home Depot, which sells their famous 12-foot tall skeleton for $299 dollars. Not to be outdone by the big box stores, homemade Halloween decorations can be bought on sites like Etsy and Facebook Marketplace. In fact this year I got into making my own wooden pumpkins and candy corns as a fun project during the Fall, but I digress. Unless anyone wants to buy one, in which case, leave me a comment below and I’ll share some pics of my Halloween woodworking projects for sale.

File this as quintessential 2026: David's Bridal is spinning off the AI wedding planning platform they developed, which is called Pearl, into a brand new publicly traded AI company. The wedding planning platform uses AI to replace all the crazy spreadsheets that many couples-to-be use to plan their weddings, create a guest list and seating charts, connect the couple with local florists and photographers based on their budget, and even develop a wedding website for them.

David's Bridal signed an agreement with K&F Growth Acquisition Corp. II to create a standalone publicly traded company that is valued at $300 million dollars, and is expected to generate over $85 million dollars in total revenue in its first year as a publicly traded company.

And in a creative accounting move the new tech company Pearl will actually own the entire David's Bridal brand and IP, which it will license back to the company David’s Bridal which owns the brand’s physical retail stores.

The NFL and Apple, who produces the Super Bowl Halftime Show along with JAŸ Z’s Roc Nation, just announced that JAŸ Z will personally headline this year’s Super Bowl LXI Halftime show at SoFi Stadium. Just a reminder that no musical artists get paid for their Halftime shows, but considering that JAŸ Z sports a net worth of $2.5 billion dollars thanks to a sprawling entertainment and business empire we’d say he doesn’t need the money.

Anthropic just filed official paperwork for an IPO this Fall that values the company at $2 trillion dollars. The biggest winner when Anthropic IPOs might actually be Amazon, who has invested $13 billion dollars into Anthropic. Amazon also holds $6.2 billion in principal of outstanding convertible notes, which Anthropic values on their books at $108.6 billion as of June 30, 2026.

So based on those numbers, if Anthropic IPOs at a $2 trillion dollar valuation, then Amazon’s stake could be worth between $240 billion and $400 billion dollars. So looks like that was a good investment by Amazon.

Anduril Industries has partnered with Qualcomm to produce an American made rugged laptop for the military called BlueChip. Anduril’s goal is to bring computer manufacturing back to the United States by sourcing components domestically in order to secure critical supply lines, and they’ve built a massive new $1 billion dollar factory to manufacture these new rugged laptops. Today Anduril Industries sports a $61 billion dollar valuation, which gives the company’s founder Palmer Luckey a net worth around $6 billion dollars.

Ripple just signed a partnership with Robinhood that will see the platform’s 28.6 million account holders have access to Ripple’s RLUSD digital stablecoin. Robinhood will also integrate Ripple’s RLUSD to settle institutional trades and automate global treasury operations. Today Ripple’s RLUSD has a market cap of $2.5 billion dollars, compared with Circle’s USDC, which has a market cap of $71.14 billion dollars, and Tether’s USDT, which has a market cap of $183.45 billion dollars. So Ripple’s RLUSD has a ways to go, but partnering with Robinhood is a good start.

Kid Cudi, the rapper, singer, songwriter, producer, actor, and fashion designer, is taking on the triple role of writing, directing, and starring in the upcoming biopic about the iconic artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. If you don’t already know, Jean-Michel Basquiat is a painter who went from being a homeless street artist to a global success that captured the energy of New York City on canvas. Sadly, Jean-Michel Basquiat passed away in 1988 from an accidental heroin overdose. Today his works of art can be found hanging in such famous museums as The Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, The Met, The Andy Warhol Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi to name a few.

And Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings aren’t cheap. One of his pieces, an untitled massive skull-themed canvas, just recently sold at Sotheby's New York for $110.5 million dollars. JAŸ Z is also the proud owner of one of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s paintings entitled Mecca, which he purchased in 2013 for $4.5 million dollars.

The NBA just signed a partnership agreement with both Kalshi and Polymarket prediction markets. The deal gives the NBA greater influence over the markets both prediction markets offer, information the NBA shares with them, and serves as a memorandum of understanding with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which oversees prediction markets.

This comes at a spicy time while New York state, where the NBA is headquartered, is suing prediction markets including Kalshi and Polymarket arguing they are offering illegal sports betting. And being a New Yorker I can safely say it’s not just my state that is arguing this. Across most states in the U.S. there’s discussions about whether trading on sports falls under the jurisdiction of state gambling regulators or the federal government.

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The Business Behind The News is written, edited, and published by Chris Thompson.