I take great pride in being ahead of the markets and keeping your money moving well ahead of Wall Street. Not only are the profits bigger, but the jump in performance you enjoy can be life-changing.
Recently, for example, David Seaburg – head of sales and trading at Cowen & Co. – told his audience that Walmart (NYSE:WMT) is dead money: "Stay away from it," he added.
Yep… and I told you as much three years ago while encouraging you to move your money into other choices like Target (NYSE:TGT) and Costco Wholesale (NASDAQ:COST) if you wanted to own retail stocks. Walmart's attempt to compete with Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) would involve spending so much money that management could kill earnings, which Seaburg directly mentioned.
Walmart stock is down 21.32% from the all-time high it set on Jan. 29, which means it's officially in bear-market territory.
Fortunately, though, once you're away from the disaster of a retailer that Walmart has become, there's still an incredible trade opportunity if you latch on now.
Five, actually, and here's why:
The "Amazon Effect" – If It Was A Snake, It Would Have Bitten You by Now
This – the "Amazon effect" – has been coming for a long time and could be seen a mile away. We talked about this many times over, but here's a quick recap:
- In August 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ:WFM) and gave grocers a run for their money. Shortly after the announcement of this acquisition in June of that year, The Kroger Company (NYSE:KR)) and WMT shares dropped 26.29% and 3.76% in just two days, respectively. (A few months later, Kroger dropped yet again, and buying puts showed followers 548% gains on a single option. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, famously called Amazon's move into grocery its "Waterloo." Not.
- In September 2017, Amazon partnered with Olo, an online food ordering company, in order to take on Grubhub (NYSE:GRUB).
- In January 2018, Team Bezos announced a joint venture with JPMorgan Chase & Co's (NYSE:JPM) Jamie Dimon and Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE:BRKa) Warren Buffett to create a healthcare company for their workers. The plans are to create more affordable healthcare in a system that's currently broken. Healthcare companies fell shortly afterward, with companies like CVS Health (NYSE:CVS) and Express Scripts Holding (NASDAQ:ESRX) falling 8.57% and 6.06%, respectively, from Jan. 30 to Feb. 5. The venture is currently making headway now that Bezos, Buffett and Dimon finally named the health company's CEO this past Monday – surgeon, writer and public health researcher Atul Gawande.
- In March of this year, Amazon was apparently in talks with big banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup (NYSE:C) to develop its own checking account — a system for users ordering items on its website.
- Most recently, at the end of the past month, Amazon struck a deal to acquire PillPack – an online pharmacy that packages, organizes, and delivers drugs. The deal is expected to close during the second half of this year and is also expected to shake up the entire drugstore industry. The most interesting part is the speculation that Amazon only did this to spite a company that was already in talks to acquire PillPack – Walmart.