Imagine walking into your local grocery store where everybody knows your name. That’s what Amazon wants out of this deal with Whole Foods. Gone are the days where an employee stocking shelves will blissfully look the other way as you search for what you need. Imagine the service you get at a five star hotel where you’re treated as a patron—a valued guest. Shopping in the big box stores today, you’re a treated like a pest. The relationship between company and client has never been more valuable. And Jeff Bezos understands this. In Bezos’ world, you will not be a pest. You will be that valued … [Read more...]
Should You Buy Apple Stock?
The Wall Street Journal ran a feature on Apple yesterday which included the chart below. The article highlighted the transformation of Apple from a purveyor of personal computers to the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. The chart shows the percentage of revenue that comes from various apple products. As you can clearly see, in the span of ten years Apple has completely transformed itself into a company almost entirely reliant on mobile phones. Apple should be applauded for its success over the last decade, but if there is any industry where the past is rarely prologue, it … [Read more...]
Could Your Black Friday and Christmas Deliveries Cost Extra This Year?
The explosion of e-commerce has made package delivery companies like UPS and FedEx very profitable, and it has also stretched them to the limit. The most stressful times for the shippers have been around Black Friday and Christmas when a flood of deliveries can cause bottlenecks. To manage the wave of shipments coming in during the holiday season, UPS is plans to add surcharges to customer orders on the busiest days. Paul Ziobro reports: For UPS, the move signifies a need to get paid for a service that has become an integral cog in the holiday shopping period, when it must add planes, trucks … [Read more...]
China Stocks Enter the MSCI Emerging Market Indices
For four years MSCI has talked with Chinese regulators about including Chinese "A-shares" in its Emerging Markets index. Until now the restrictions on access to Chinese markets have prevented MSCI from including the shares. But yesterday MSCI announced that it would include Chinese shares in the Emerging Markets index, with a selection of 222 large cap stocks making the cut. Reuters reports: The bulk of the shares will be financial and industrial companies, many state-owned. According to Credit Suisse, among the 222 stocks on the simulated list of constituents for the new proposal of China … [Read more...]
Chicago Fed’s Charles Evans is Stumped by My Bezos Law
I love Amazon's proposed purchase of Whole Foods. But let's not kid ourselves. Amazon would not be where it's at today without the help of an ultra loose Federal Reserve. Where else is all that Goldman Sachs and indexing money going to go? Into cash? Please, in a "what have you done for me lately" world, the fast money needs a place to go. Amazon's confidence--thanks to its bloated stock price--is like playing the Super Bowl with a 50 point lead before leaving the locker room for kickoff. Now the Fed is trying to figure out what to do in a post-Bezos Law world. If you're not familiar with … [Read more...]
Amazon/Whole Foods Deal Will Force Grocers to Upgrade Their Digital Efforts
Once Amazon gets its hands on Whole Foods, expect the company's engineers to be tasked with creating new ways to insert technology into the grocery business. Meanwhile, competitors like Wal-Mart, Kroger, and Costco will be trying to improve their digital efforts to keep customers satisfied. Angus Loten writes for The Wall Street Journal: “Whole Foods will soon become Amazon’s experimental playground for developing more sophisticated big-data marketing strategies,” Stephen DiFranco, a former vice president at Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo, who founded big-data strategy firm IoT Advisory Group, … [Read more...]
Amazon: Bankruptcy in Groceries Happens
This is why Amazon will need to keep unions out of its grocery business. The Chicago Tribune explains the bankruptcy of Central Grocers: After almost 100 years of doing business, Joliet-based Central Grocers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Thursday and will lay off about 550 employees at the company's Joliet warehouse. Central Grocers is a grocery cooperative that has long operated as wholesaler for more than 400 independent grocery stores in the Chicago area — including chains like Treasure Island, Pete's Fresh Market, Angelo Caputo's Fresh Market and Sunset Foods — distributing … [Read more...]
What is Driving the Stock Market Higher?
The proliferation of the no-thought required approach to investing (index investment) along with other quantitative and algorithmic based strategies has created some disturbing cross-currents for the dwindling group of fundamental investors. Here J.P. Morgan (via Zerohedge) estimates that only 10% of trading volume originates from fundamental discretionary investors. That is a truly stunning statistic If 90% of the volume in stocks is driven by value-agnostic investors, the obvious implication that we see is bigger booms and much bigger busts that are far removed from underlying … [Read more...]
Fast Fashion and Higher Margins Keep this Retailer Strong
Retail is in a transformational period. The dawn of e-commerce and rapid delivery have changed the way people buy products. Some older companies, like J.C. Penney for instance, are having a hard time dealing with the new reality. Meanwhile companies like Amazon and Bonobos (recently purchased by Wal-Mart) have been able to thrive as online retailers. But some brick and mortar retailers seem to have cracked the code to success in today's fashion market. H&M has long been a poster-child for what has become known as "fast fashion" strategy. The technique uses rapidly changing … [Read more...]
Amazon’s Purchase of Whole Foods: the Investment Implications
You need food to survive. And as it turns out, so does Amazon. With the purchase of Whole Foods, Amazon has determined how it will get into a customer’s home. More important, it has figured out a way to welcome customers into its home. Whole Foods is Amazon’s “Welcome Home” mat. Obviously the purchase is great news for Whole Foods with its 30% increase in stock value Friday. I love the move for Amazon too. But to me, this is a beautiful move for retail in general. Retailers have been put on notice: You’re in play. Getting into customers’ homes is the future. It’s what Amazon, Apple, … [Read more...]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 197
- Next Page »