How they fumbled the cola wars: Pepsi generates twice the revenue of Coca-Cola, yet its market cap is only half as big

PepsiCo has suffered many setbacks in recent years, but perhaps few were as symbolic as being jilted by a long-time partner it used to own, KFC. The fried chicken chain said earlier this month that it would begin replacing PepsiCo’s soft drinks with Coca-Cola products at its 3,700 U.S. restaurants in January. The two companies’ partnership stretches back 40 years, to when PepsiCo bought the fast-food chain. (PepsiCo spun KFC off in 1997.)

In the 1980s and ’90s, Pepsi waged the cola culture wars with the Pepsi Challenge and TV commercials featuring Michael Jackson and Cindy Crawford.

But last year, Pepsi-Cola only had 8.1% of the U.S. carbonated soft drinks market by volume, far behind Coke’s 18.5%. Pepsi is now the third most popular drink behind Dr. Pepper.

Coke reshaped its business around brand building and innovation. PepsiCo, meanwhile, remained a sprawling portfolio company where soda was merely one priority among many. The result is a PepsiCo that generates more than twice as much revenue as Coca-Cola, yet its market valuation is only about half as big.

Biotech firm Rakuten Medical wants to bring its novel ‘lightsaber’ cancer cure to the U.S. - Angelica Ang

While working on an internal statistics project, Anthropic’s Claude bypassed a paywall without authorization to access information on voting totals at a State of Georgia website, the company said. “We have since put in place mitigations to block these kinds of actions," the company said. The company urged the Georgia secretary of state's office to disclose the information weeks ago, but its pleas went unanswered, Axios reports.

As Anthropic heads toward its $2 trillion IPO, it has a slight problem, according to attorney Josh Gerben. The USPTO has repeatedly denied Anthropic the right to use “Claude Mythos” as a trademark that it owns. Apparently, three other software companies got there first. “There is a likelihood of confusion” if Anthropic is allowed to trade with the name, the USPTO said.

Anthropic can appeal. Or it can approach the other companies and buy the name from them. Suddenly, three previously obscure companies are potentially sitting on a goldmine.

Traders are looking on the bright side today: Talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran are ongoing, and the credit ratings agency Moody’s left France’s credit rating unchanged from before the riots. The yield on France’s 10-year bonds eased back below the headline-inducing 5% level to 4.94%; similarly, the U.S. 10-year was at 4.99%.

U.S. futures were up this morning prior to the bell in New York after stocks rose in Europe in early trading.

Asia was flat to down today as the price of oil remained painfully high—above $114 per barrel.

Incoming: Alphabet and Microsoft report Q3 earnings on Wednesday and Amazon reports on Thursday. The Fed decides on the base interest rate on Wednesday—futures markets are betting it will be held at 3.75%.