It literally feels like every day Amazon is rolling out something new — whether it’s auto parts store, a video version of its Echo Device or a new Amazon exclusive piece of content, which we have today. It’s no secret that Amazon Prime is the Trojan Horse of everything Amazon goes these days — getting a […]
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Donning our thematic hats and looking at the January report, we find continued support for the accelerating shift toward digital commerce in the January Retail Sales Report.
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Earlier today the Census Bureau published its report on January Retail Sales, which topped expectations with a print of +0.4 percent vs. the expected 0.1 percent. Stripping out January Auto sales and food services, Retail sales +0.2 percent month over month. To us, the more telling figure was the 5.1 percent year over year increase […]
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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would make almost any list of the world’s most powerful people. In retail, he’s clearly on top, and in tech, he’s close to it. In book publishing, he would be the undisputed No. 1 for 10 years running. In addition to a $65 billion stake in Amazon, Bezos owns the Blue Origin rocket […]
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“Everyone’s trying to find a way to maintain market share and also extend themselves in a different way that’s maybe not traditional to retail,” said David LaPierre, a vice chairman with the Global Retail Services Team at CBRE. Source: What the changing tenant list in Times Square says about retail A 40,000 square foot NFL […]
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We’ve written a lot about how the Content is King and Connected Society thematics are creating the drive towards an experience-driven economy. Consumers are moving away from the American shopping mall to entertainment centers, while buying the stuff they need online through the Amazon’s of the world and the like. This article from the Wall […]
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This story on Abercrombie & Fitch Co. provides yet another confirming datapoint in our Connected Society thematic and the transformation of the American-style mall, which is helping to drive our Content is King thematic as well. Here are just a couple of excerpts . . . Executive Chairman Arthur Martinez attributed the decline to “traffic headwinds, particularly in […]
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As the stock market and investors wait for the Fed’s upcoming monetary policy meeting and any additional US-China trade developments, we’re adding a new Thematic Leader for our Living the Life investing theme. We also share what investors are likely to focus on in the week ahead, and why the August Retail Sales report was rather confirming from a thematic perspective.
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In this issue of Thematic Investing, we dig into the July Retail Sales Report as well as the issues that confounded the stock market last week. We examine what to watch in the week ahead during the dog days of summer that brings seasonally low trading volumes. We also examine what happens when a company slashes its dividend, and it’s not good news at all.
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As we saw last week, trade and geopolitics are likely to take center stage as the bulk of the June quarter earnings season is in the rear view mirror. While retail earnings are still ahead of us, odds are both trade and geopolitical issues will keep the market rangebound near-term as it contends with a big ball of uncertainty. Our response will be to ferret out thematically well positioned companies with inelastic business models that are dividend payers.
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