Victims of Amazon

How much Best Buy could make from selling spin bikes and treadmills

Best Buy could whip up some major sales from selling health workout gear.

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  Companies to Watch: Amazon Prime Day announced, GrubHub upgrades, Tesla wins big

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  Trump's tariffs hit Texas manufacturers, spark fears for the future: Survey

  Yahoo Finance

Business owner to Trump: Drop the tariffs

CEO behind Star Wars night-lights calls tariffs devastating and urges President Trump to back down

Another Retailer Crumbles in China as e-Commerce Sales Rise

French retail giant Carrefour has agreed to sell an 80% stake in its China operations for ~$705 million to Suning.com, an Alibaba-backed company. While China represents a massive opportunity with its almost 1.4 billion population, it has not been an easy market for foreign companies, at least when it comes to retail and e-commerce.

JetBlue Slaps Infringement Charge on Walmart Over Jetblack

JetBlue (JBLU) believes, Walmart is trying to cash in on the carrier's goodwill by using the name Jetblack for its personal shopping service.

Why Walmart’s Sales Could Grow despite Tough Comparisons

We expect Walmart’s (WMT) revenues to continue to grow on the back of sustained momentum in comparable sales. The retailer’s comparable sales stayed strong in the past several quarters despite heightened competition in the grocery business. We expect comparable sales in its US business to continue to mark strong growth, driven by an increase in traffic and ticket size.

Target Stock: What’s on the Horizon?

Target (TGT) posted impressive comps in the past several quarters, which drove its top line. On average, the company's comps have increased more than 4.7% in the past six quarters.

Add Target & These 4 Retail Stocks for Superb Returns

Well like Target (TGT) there are other prominent retailers that are riding on the wave of favorable consumer environment and strategic endeavors.

Walmart Stock Is Hitting New Highs: What’s Driving It Higher?

Walmart (WMT) stock is hitting new highs thanks to the continued momentum in its comparable sales and better-than-expected earnings performance in the past several quarters. Walmart stock is up 19.3% on a YTD basis and closed at $111.13 on June 21, which is a tad lower than its 52-week and all-time high of $112.19.

Driverless Delivery Gathers Speed: 5 Stocks on the Radar

Here are five stocks, which stand to benefit immensely from the emerging driverless delivery market.

India Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Companies Leaving China

Today, Bloomberg reported that India is planning incentives such as a tax holiday and lower tax rates for companies moving out of China while the US and China are embroiled in their bitter trade war. But emulating China’s manufacturing prowess and ecosystem might not be easy.

Target’s Valuation Looks Better than Walmart and Costco

Target stock trades at a forward PE ratio of 14.5x. Target stock is trading at a discount of 37% compared to Walmart’s forward PE ratio of 23.0x.

TJX Companies Up 20% in 6 Months: Will the Rally Continue?

TJX Companies (TJX) is gaining momentum on the back of strong merchandising and brand strategies combined with effective marketing efforts.

5 Fundamentally Sound High-Flying Stocks to Scale Higher

Investors target stocks that have been on a bullish run lately. Stocks seeing price strength have a high chance of carrying the momentum forward.

Amazon’s India Rival: Will Walmart’s Flipkart Go Public in US?

Yesterday, India’s Economic Times reported that Walmart-owned Flipkart (WMT) will go public in the US. The newspaper said that the board has decided on a listing in 2022. Walmart bought a 77% stake in this Indian e-commerce startup last year at a whopping $16 billion.

Walmart Is Now Ethical Enough for Norway’s $1 Trillion Wealth Fund

(Bloomberg) -- Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund revoked its more than decade-long exclusion on Walmart Inc. after the U.S. retailer tightened control over potential human rights abuses in its supply chain.Walmart has made “positive developments” in monitoring its suppliers, the fund’s Council on Ethics said in a statement released Tuesday.“Furthermore, the company engages actively in selected, high-risk areas in order to help bring about improvements in working conditions,” the council said in a letter. “There seem to be fewer reports of poor working conditions in Walmart’s supply chain now than there were before.”The fund also decided to revoke exclusions to Grupo Carso SAB de CV, General Dynamics Corp., Nutrien Ltd., Rio Tinto Ltd. and Rio Tinto Plc, as well as Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB de CV, according to a statement.General Dynamics was let in from the cold after discontinuing the production of cluster munitions while Grupo Carso is no longer involved in tobacco, according to the fund. The exclusion of Nutrien was revoked after it ceased purchases from Western Sahara and Rio Tinto was taken off the list after it agreed to sell its Grasberg mine in Indonesia, reducing the risk of “severe environmental damage.”Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, takes into account ethical rules encompassing human rights, some weapons production, corruption, the environment, coal and tobacco when deciding on its investments.Runar Malkenes, a spokesman at Norway’s central bank, said the recommendations to revoke the exclusions were made over time, but the bank found it “appropriate” to publish all seven decisions at the same time. It’s part of the council’s mandate to regularly reassess exclusions, he said in an email. To contact the reporter on this story: Sveinung Sleire in Oslo at ssleire1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonas Bergman at jbergman@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

NZD/USD Forex Technical Analysis – June 25, 2019 Forecast

Based on the early price action, the direction of the NZD/USD is likely to be determined by trader reaction to the downtrending Gann angle at .6652. This is the last potential resistance angle before the .6682 and .6686 main tops.

Stats Are Likely to Play 2nd Fiddle to Chatter on Iran and China

Negative comments ahead of trade talks and rhetoric from Iran in response to the prospect of sanctions dampen the mood ahead of the European open.

Can Best Buy's (BBY) New Blue Strategy Help Drive Growth?

Best Buy's (BBY) "Building the New Blue" strategy is likely to help it keep its sheen alive.

Amazon Threat to FedEx Is No Longer ‘Fantastical’

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- FedEx Corp. may finally be waking up to the threat Amazon.com Inc. poses to its business model.The logistics company is offering big discounts to help fill the planes in its Express delivery network with more e-commerce shipments, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited people familiar with the matter. The deals are being used to woo customers away from rival United Parcel Service Inc., or to convince them to switch from FedEx’s cheaper ground offerings, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. For some customers, shipping goods via FedEx’s two-day air service may now cost about the same as shipping them through the ground division.(1)A FedEx spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal that the company hasn't changed its pricing strategy, adding that the two-day Express service “has been very successful and continues to deliver tremendous value to small and medium businesses competing in the e-commerce market.” Reports of the discounts come just weeks after FedEx said its domestic Express air-delivery unit was dropping Amazon as a customer to focus on "serving the broader e-commerce market." FedEx dropped Amazon as a customer for its Express air-delivery unit to focus on “serving the broader e-commerce market.” The charitable interpretation of that move is that FedEx had found a bit of backbone and was holding a firmer line on pricing with Amazon in an effort to bolster its profit margins. The other possibility is that FedEx recognized that Amazon’s efforts to bring more of its logistics operations in house were real, and that it may want to start the process of breaking up with Amazon before Amazon decides to break up with it. While FedEx CEO Fred Smith has repeatedly painted any notion of Amazon disrupting the logistics industry as “fantastical,” his actions increasingly suggest otherwise. The share of capacity devoted to the time-sensitive legal documents and medical supplies that the FedEx Express network was originally built for will likely continue to shrink. But it’s uneconomical for the division’s fleet – which numbered 670 leased and owned planes at the end of 2018 – to fly partially full or not at all. Meanwhile, FedEx expects U.S. e-commerce demand to grow to 100 million packages per day by 2026. It’s been adamant that Amazon only directly accounts for a small percentage of its overall sales. But Amazon has forever changed the world’s expectations around shopping and delivery. So whether or not its own sales are in the mix, FedEx will be forced to drink more deeply from the firehose of e-commerce shipments to keep its network humming along. And that will come at a cost to margins.FedEx’s decision to prioritize shipments from the likes of Walmart Inc., Target Corp. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. gave some analysts hope that it would deliver a greater share of packages to higher-paying business customers and add more density to its delivery routes. But there’s some debate as to whether the Express air-delivery unit as currently constituted still makes sense. Amazon relies on a network of fulfillment and sorting centers close to metropolitan areas to rapidly complete and ship orders, a model that many rival retailers are mimicking in some shape or form as they try to stay competitive. If you’re only going to deliver a package 25 or 50 miles, you’re not going to use a plane to do that. Indeed, when FedEx’s decision to drop Amazon as a U.S. Express customer was first announced, Seaport Global Holdings analyst Kevin Sterling wondered to Bloomberg News whether it was a precursor to the Express unit eventually fading out.Planes still have a role to play: Amazon last week announced an agreement to lease 15 additional Boeing Co. 737-800 converted freighters from General Electric Co.’s jet-lessor arm, adding to an existing agreement for five planes. But FedEx’s reported need to offer discounts to keep the planes it has full calls into question the company’s decision to devote a significant amount of its capital expenditure budget to refreshing its airplane fleet. Management has been clear it’s not expanding capacity at the Express unit, but rather replacing its planes with more efficient options to improve productivity and costs. Downsizing the fleet and reallocating those resources could be a smarter move. The reported pricing cuts – coupled with FedEx’s recently announced plan to offer delivery seven days a week by 2020 and add a fleet of flexible, part-time drivers – reinforce a point both I and my colleague Shira Ovide have long argued: Amazon doesn’t need to steal customers away from FedEx and UPS en masse to be a threat. It’s already forcing both companies to rethink the way they operate. The revenue lost from removing Amazon as an Express customer is relatively minor, but the world the e-commerce giant has created isn’t a hospitable one for the package-delivery incumbents’ profit margins and capital-spending budgets.  (1) News of the discounts weighed on shares Monday, as did a separate shipping issue: FedExhad to issue a second apology to Huawei Technologies over the misrouting of packages, and some reports indicate China is contemplating black-listing it.To contact the author of this story: Brooke Sutherland at bsutherland7@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Beth Williams at bewilliams@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Brooke Sutherland is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and industrial companies. She previously wrote an M&A column for Bloomberg News.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

3 Dividend Stocks That Pay You Better Than Coca-Cola Does

The beverage giant may be known as a reliable income stock, but here are a few better choices if you're looking for high yields.

Amazon’s Merchants Are Feeling the Pain of a Trade War With China

(Bloomberg) -- Over the past several years, Shanghai entrepreneur Yung Lin has built a decent business selling wrenches, screwdrivers and other tools on Amazon.com. Then President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on thousands of goods made in China, and Lin faced a difficult choice: eat the additional cost or try and pass it onto his mostly American customers. He chose to raise prices and watched sales of some products dive by as much as one third in just two weeks. Amazon.com Inc. merchants around the world are scrambling to navigate an unpredictable trade war that’s upending their proven business model of buying inexpensive goods in China and selling them at a markup in the U.S. The problem is particularly acute now as Trump weighs another $300 billion worth of tariffs, many on consumer goods.Mom and pop sellers won’t be able to wait for Trump’s decision: They have to place factory orders now and figure out pricing if they want to get their goods made in time for the lucrative Christmas shopping season, when they make as much as half their annual revenue. The most obvious solutions—raising prices, shifting production to other countries, stockpiling inventory—all have costs and complications of their own.These businesses—many of them one-person shops—are especially vulnerable because they lack big companies’ wherewithal to ride out the uncertainty as well as the negotiating power to shift tariff costs onto their suppliers. “The smaller companies have a significant problem,” says Joel Sutherland, Managing Director of the Supply Chain Management Institute at the University of San Diego. “We have an administration that says one thing today and does something else tomorrow, which poses tremendous risks.”Amazon is more insulated than the merchants in the near term but it too could take a hit if sales slow and cut into the commissions and fees the company charges merchants to use its online store. The shares were down less than 1 percent at 12:08 p.m. in New York.Much depends on whether the U.S. and China can come to terms. Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 28-29, and both sides have agreed to resume trade talks after a weeks-long stalemate. But even if they hammer out an agreement, the trading relationship between the world’s two largest economies probably will never be the same.“We’re going to assume the tariffs are here to stay,” says Chuck Gregorich, who sells China-made hammocks, patio furniture and 2,000 other products on Amazon. “We can’t have this happen in a year or two and get caught with our pants down again.”Like many other importers, Gregorich tried to move up orders early last year to beat a Jan. 1 tariff hike on Chinese imports from 10% to 25%. He wound up spending an extra $400,000 on shipping only to see the tariff hike delayed. Burned once by the guessing game, Gregorich  is looking to shift about 30% of his production to factories in Vietnam and elsewhere. He’s not alone. Many other Amazon merchants are considering having their goods made in India, Southeast Asia and Central America. Michael Michelini relocated to China from New York  in 2007 to make Italian coffee presses and upscale bar supplies for U.S shoppers. Eight months ago he decided to move with his wife and kids to Thailand, where he’s working with a new factory to develop a line of high-end kitchenware. “Now when I think of China, I think of risk,” he says.Moving isn’t easy, however. Merchants say finding the right factory, securing raw materials and conducting product quality testing can easily eat up a year. Jerry Kavesh sells cowboys boots and hats on Amazon and recently spent months locating a factory in India that could make his products. But Kavesh discovered he would still have to import raw materials from China, negating any advantage. So as a last resort, he’s cutting his holiday inventory by about 15% and raising prices by about 12%, which he figures will spook enough customers to hurt sales.“When I hear the [U.S.] administration say just move, that's just not realistic,” says Kavesh, the chief executive officer of 3P Marketplace Solutions. “You can’t just suddenly turn all of your production over to someone new.”Even as U.S. sellers try to diversify their manufacturing base, their Chinese counterparts are looking for new customers in Europe, Japan and Australia to offset the potential hit to their U.S. business. “If you are a Chinese seller, money is money,” says Eddie Deng, a former Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. strategist who now runs an online clothing brand called Urbanic that sells Chinese-made, Western-style clothing in India. “It doesn't matter if it's from the U.S., India or the Middle East.”Amazon has said little publicly about the trade war. It wasn’t among 600 businesses including Walmart and Target that wrote the Trump administration earlier this month seeking an end to the trade war because it’s bad for U.S. shoppers. Amazon is a member of the Internet Association trade group, which signed the letter.Behind the scenes, Amazon has agreed to pay some vendors up to 10% more for products affected by tariffs, according to two people familiar with the matter. “Companies of all sizes throughout the supply chain are adjusting to increased costs resulting from new tariffs,” Amazon said in an emailed statement. “We’re working closely with vendors to make this adjustment as smooth as possible.”But that help will apply only to products Amazon buys wholesale and resells itself. The mom and pops that sell directly to consumers on Amazon’s marketplace are on their own.The hardest part is the uncertainty—the temptation to parse Trump tweets in a mostly vain effort to divine the future. “This could all be a head fake,” says Steve Simonson, who sells Chinese-made home goods and electronics and has been scouting factories in India, Vietnam and Central America. “In two months, this could all go away and all of this time and work will be wasted.”(Updates with share price. A previous version of this story corrected name of university in the fourth paragraph.)To contact the authors of this story: Shelly Banjo in Hong Kong at sbanjo@bloomberg.netSpencer Soper in Seattle at ssoper@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Robin Ajello at rajello@bloomberg.net, Edwin ChanFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.