Business

6 Figure Earners Turning To Walmart

As prices rise, high earners shop on a budget.

The place known as “Wally World” might be going through a reputation makeover, due to a sudden change in clientele. 

Walmart announced this week that sales at its U.S. stores (that have been open for more than a year) grew 5.3% last quarter compared to the year prior. Additionally, Walmarts profit also grew 8.2% last quarter. They even raised their financial outlook, as they expect a strong holiday shopping season, as well. 

But here’s the catch. Walmart, long known for its reasonable prices, said that this growth stems “primarily from upper-income households.” Meaning, households that make more than $100,000 a year, which accounted for 75% of the company’s gains. 

Now this wasn’t always the case, as the traditional Walmart shopper was more low to middle-income, attempting to save money. Those making six digits, and beyond, a year have always been considered more of Amazon shoppers. While this is all good news for Walmart, does it spell trouble for Amazon? Or, more importantly, the shape of our economy? As now even higher earners need to shop for better deals. Six digits, seemingly, no longer providing the comfort of luxury. 

Part of this might be Walmart’s attempt to draw in these types of consumers, as they have invested in their grocery business and have sharpened the assortment of clothing, electronics, home furnishings and other goods offered in the stores. Keeping up with Amazon, Walmart has also built a strong online operation, offering same day delivery or pickup. Online sales grew 22% for Walmart last quarter. 

Shares of the mega retailer hit new highs on Tuesday, as they jumped more than 3%. But this is nothing new for Walmart, whose stock has consistently been reaching new highs over the past two months.

While Walmart is flourishing, others are struggling - as chain stores are on track to close the highest number in a year since 2020, when Covid decimated the industry. Family Dollar, Walgreens, Big Lots and others are closing thousands of stores this year. In most places, the prices have just become too high… which, apparently, is driving even more people to Walmart.

What Do Incoming Tariffs Mean For U.S.

All eyes are on President Elect Trump to see what he will do.

There’s always that waiting period between the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, where not much gets done. People are in good moods, and you’re sort of just waiting for the next holiday and more time off from work. What’s the point of getting anything done?!

Well, that’s kind of like what is going on in the shipping world, as we wait for president-elect Donald Trump to retake office in January. Except those in that world might not be in such a holiday mood. 

Many are waiting to see what Trump will do in regards to tariffs, making it hard to plan for 2025 right now. Not to mention the potential of a new port strike in January, as well, after that was delayed a few months to the new year. These two factors have provided a lot of uncertainty.

Supply chain and logistics executives told CNBC that shippers are “trying to game out the snafus that could be coming in the global supply chain.” How much inventory should you order?

Honour Lane Shipping told clients that frontloading may begin in December, to try and beat whatever January might throw it’s way. However, it did add that the new tariffs could be delayed, which would push back the frontloading to later on in the first half of 2025. 

The earliest new tariffs could be put in place is late February-early March, according to what C.H. Robinson told its clients. “With continued port labor uncertainty and the potential for increased tariffs in Q1, shippers should anticipate a strategic pull-forward of inventory out of Asia, which would impact both international and certain domestic freight markets,” it wrote.

Not to mention the other wrinkle, outside of tariffs, is this potential strike. Companies need to figure out which port they should ship things too, as there might be another strike at ports from New England to Texas beginning in January, and it usually takes 40-55 days for ocean freight to arrive from China. That’s a lot of planning ahead. 

And when it comes to front loading freight, in an attempt to rush things in before these issues, Mike Short, the president of global forwarding at CH Robinson, said that that might not be feasible either if suppliers can’t ramp up their production enough to match the increased needs.

Short said that one customer asked what the last day was that they could ship something here from Asia and have it arrive before the potential increase in Tariffs. President-elect Trump has said that his tariff increase would be in the range of 60-100% for China and 10-20% for all other imports. 

It is NOT the most wonderful time of the year for the shipping industry right now. Bah humbug!  

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Politics

Paging Dr. Oz, to the White House

From Oprah to the White House!

President-elect Donald Trump selected Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a federal agency that oversees health insurance coverage for more than 150 million Americans. This isn’t Kansas anymore…

“I have known Dr. Oz for many years, and I am confident he will fight to ensure everyone in America receives the best possible Healthcare, so our Country can be Great and Healthy Again!” Trump said in a statement this week. “Dr. Oz will be a leader in incentivizing Disease Prevention, so we get the best results in the World for every dollar we spend on Healthcare in our Great Country.”

“He will also cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency, which is a third of our Nation’s Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire National Budget,” Trump explained, as he’s looking to cut spending in the federal government (and has long had Medicaid in mind for reductions). 

Dr. Oz is a cardiothoracic surgeon who first became known after performing a successful heart transplant on Frank Torre, while his brother Joe managed the New York Yankees in the 1996 World Series. He then became a household name when he became part of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2004, eventually getting his own spinoff show in 2009. 

He later got into politics, as he unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2022 in Pennsylvania. It’s not the first position Trump has given him, as Oz was appointed to the Presidential Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition during the president’s first term. In this upcoming role, Oz will work under RFK Jr., who was selected as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Oz has previously supported Medicare Advantage, as well as Obamacare, which Trump has not. Oz has also advocated that all Americans have health care coverage provided by the government. We’ll see what sort of impact he has over the next four years.

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Finance | Tech

Nvidia Pops Ahead of Earnings

Will the earnings match the speculation?

Nvidia stock rose nearly 5% this week, ahead of its release of its earnings report. The rise comes while strong demand remains for chips, as well as one of its customers, cloud provider Nebius Group (NBIS), launching its first GPU cluster in the US - which will use up to 35,000 Nvidia chips. That’s equivalent to about 4% of the AI chips Nvidia shipped in October. 

With this news, Stifel analyst Ruben Roy raised his price target on Nvidia from $165 to $180, while Truist Securities’ William Stein raised his price outlook from $148 to $167. 

This all comes just a day after shares fell due to a report about overheating issues with its Blackwell AI servers back in August. Reportedly, there were design flaws with the Blackwell chips, which prompted the company to push back the production to 2025. However, even that couldn’t hold down the Teflon Don of the stock market.

Nvidia has not confirmed these overheating issues, saying that “the engineering iterations are normal and expected.”

But not everyone is convinced, as KeyBanc lowered its fourth quarter sales guidance for Nvidia from $40 billion to $37.7 billion, saying that the Blackwell chips could cannibalize Nvidia’s prior-generation Hopper chips.

Still, analysts see Nvidia’s adjusted quarterly earnings rising 85% from this year-ago period. And about 90% of Wall Street analysts recommend buying the stock still. 

Finance | World

European Markets Dip

The War in Ukraine continues to have ripples throughout Europe.

European stocks fell and government bonds gained this week as investors respond to the latest escalation of the war in Ukraine. This comes after Ukraine struck a military target inside Russia with U.S.-made long-range missiles for the first time since the Biden administration lifted restrictions on their use. 

Further unnerving investors was the fact that Russian President Vladmiri Putin signed a decree lowering the potential threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. 

“This is classic risk-off where people are flying to safety. It is very much about [escalation] worries,” explained Emmanuel Cau, the head of European equity strategy at Barclays.

Sectors such as retail and baking dropped, while defense stock rose.

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Global News

Ukraine Firing U.S. Missles

Almost 3 years into the conflict Ukraine refuses to back down.

Tuesday was the 1,000th day of the war between Ukraine and Russia, but the first with a U.S. ATACMS missile used.

Ukraine used one to strike Russian territory, taking advantage of newly granted permission from the President Biden administration.

Russia said it shot down five of the six missiles fired at a military facility. Debris of one hit the facility, which started a fire, but Russia said it quickly put it out, causing no casualties or damage. 

Ukraine said it struck a Russian arms depot about 70 miles inside Russia, which caused secondary explosions. 

Biden gave approval this week for Ukraine to use ATACMS, the longest-range missiles Washington has supplied, for such attacks inside Russian. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the use of such missiles was a clear signal that the West wants to escalate the conflict. 

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