After buying Whole Foods, Amazon has been selling more groceries via its AmazonFresh delivery service. Customers are buying Whole Foods branded products through Amazon's online grocery offering. Heather Haddon writes: Whole Foods’ brand items like bacon, coconut water and frozen blueberries helpedAmazon.com Inc. AMZN -1.13% gobble up more U.S. grocery sales last year. Products carrying the natural foods chain’s brand helped push sales at Amazon’s online grocery-delivery service, AmazonFresh, up 35% to $135 million in the last four months of 2017 over the previous four months, according to … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2018
Companies Celebrate Tax Reform
American companies are celebrating the completion of the long-needed tax reform that was signed in November. Many are raising their profit targets, and some are even raising wages and handing out bonuses in anticipation of the windfall. Theo Francis writes: The announcements come as companies begin to report what are expected to be strong fourth-quarter financial results. A major focus will be executives’ expectations for how their operations and results this year will be affected by the tax law, which lowered the corporate rate to 21% from 35% and ended U.S. taxes on most future foreign … [Read more...]
Is a 3.5% 10-Year Treasury Yield in your Future?
FOMO (fear of missing out) seems to be the dominant theme in the stock market YTD. Stocks are already up 4.2% in only 9 trading days, and on only one of those days has the stock market fallen. And fallen may be an overstatement. One of the major factors (though not the only one) that has enabled such a strong start to the year is the abnormally low level of long-term interest rates in the face of a domestic and global economy that looks to be humming. The 10-year Treasury rate remains below its 2018 high of 2.62%. Chasing return in stocks because bond yields are low has been an ongoing … [Read more...]
Which State Won America’s 2017 Migration Games?
Each year Americans from all parts of the country make the decision to leave their home states looking for greener pastures in others. The destinations aren't always the same, but one thing is constant, when opportunity arises, Americans move to meet it. The Tax Foundation points out that states are competing with each other for citizens, and that one way they do that is by attempting to offer the best tax rates possible. Vermont led the nation in terms of inbound migration as a percent of total moves in 2017. Using migration data collected by United Van Lines, Margan Scarboro … [Read more...]
Fleets Scrambling to Keep up with Freight Demand
In December, net orders for trailers were at an all time high. The 47 thousand units on order were 10% more than November, and 38% more than in 2017. The previous record was set in December of 2014 at 45,800 units. Jason Cannon writes in CCJ: “We have seen pressure build on equipment markets for several months,” says Don Ake, FTR vice president of commercial vehicles, “and this shows Q1 is going to be hectic as fleets scramble to keep up with freight demand.” Ake says fleets are ordering thousands of dry vans to deal with tightening trucking capacity thanks to the ELD mandate, as freight … [Read more...]
Remembering Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The following is the transcript of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous August 28. 1963 "I have a Dream" speech. Also read the BBC account of the day of King's assassination by clicking here. I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came … [Read more...]
Has Facebook Peaked?
Mark Zuckerberg announced this morning that Facebook is going to be making significant changes to its social media site. A growing number of Americans are disengaging from the platform because they are being bombarded with ads and auto-play, not to mention the feelings of anxiety and depression. Facebook’s answer is to feed more content from friends and family and less from advertisers and public sites. The changes are expected to decrease engagement, but Facebook maintains they will be good for the company long-term. Bloomberg has more. In a note earlier this week, Wieser reported … [Read more...]
How Will Americans Pay Tax on Their Crypto-Currencies?
As I explain in my four part series on bitcoin (read parts one, two, three, and four), I'm a skeptic of crypto-currency trading and I don't own any crypto-currencies. I believe, much like Warren Buffett told CNBC on Wednesday, that the crypto-craze won't end well. The IRS has given some guidance on how to account for sales of crypto-currencies, but keeping track of all sales may be hard. Brian Fung explains in The Washington Post: The most recent IRS guidance on the matter is from 2014, when it said taxpayers should treat their virtual currency like property. Under that rule, taxpayers … [Read more...]
Is Europe Primed for GDP Strength?
Compared to the last half decade, last year's German GDP numbers came in strong. Is Germany's strength a sign that Europe could be about to turn around and show signs of serious growth? Or is this an anomaly? Todd Buell and Paul Hannon write: The pickup in growth across the eurozone in 2017 has made policy makers at the European Central Bank more confident that they will reach their inflation target over coming years. The central bank is cutting monthly bond purchases under a stimulus program known as quantitative easing to €30 billion ($35.8 billion) from €60 billion. The acceleration in … [Read more...]
Is Korea Crackdown the Beginning of the End of Bitcoin?
The Korean government is preparing to ban the trading of crypto-currencies on exchanges. The country's Minister of Justice, Park Sang-ki announced “Cryptocurrency trading is looking similar to speculation and gambling. South Korea’s [cryptocurrency] trade is considered abnormal abroad.” We have written skeptically about crypto-currencies many times at Youngresearch.com (see here, here, here, and here for a sample). Despite structural issues facing the use of cryto-currencies as a normal means of transaction, the biggest threat to the currencies has always been regulatory. China was the … [Read more...]