Hi, we've got 3 charts for you today:
Amazon is officially the world's biggest retailer outside of China. Data from FactSet reveals that more than $610bn was spent through Amazon in the 12-months that ended in June — overtaking US retail giant Walmart for the first time ever.
Amazon may have only just overtaken Walmart in terms of actual sales, but it's been the more valuable company for a much longer time, first surpassing Walmart's market capitalization more than 6 years ago, as investors generously (and correctly) extrapolated Amazon's trajectory.
Bigger is better
Walmart's strategy over the last half-a-century has been to become the ultimate big-box retailer. Bigger stores, more items, lower prices — everything has been about scale. Over time Walmart has grown to over 10,500 retail locations across the world, many of which are absolutely enormous (the largest comes in at 260,000 square feet, which is about 6 acres, or 24,000 square metres).
But even with some of the biggest supply chains and stores in the world, you'll never be able to compete with the sheer range of items you can sell online. A typical Walmart store might come with 100,000+ items (known as SKUs in the biz), but online that number can reach 5m, 50m or even 100m+.
Margins in online are also likely to be better. Even Walmart, which is about as big as you can get as a pure retailer, only squeezed out a relatively slim 5% operating profit margin in its latest quarter, which after interest costs and taxes was a 3% net profit margin. That still translated into a huge amount of profit ($4bn+), but it doesn't give much room for error.
Walmart goes online
So Walmart was a bit slow to invest in e-commerce seriously, but if they've been playing catch-up they've been playing it pretty well in the last couple of years. Like pretty much every other retailer, Walmart's online business got a shot in the arm last year, with e-commerce sales rising 97%.
Although things are slowing down this year (growing just 6% year-on-year) Walmart says the company is still on track to do $75bn in online sales this year, which is pretty meaningful.
Walmart is even beginning to directly compete with Amazon's (and others) rapid delivery options, launching an Express Delivery option last year that claims to get groceries and other items to your door in 2 hours or less.
What happens in Vegas...
There have been over 44,000 marriages filed so far in Clark County, Nevada — way more than the 25,200 that had been registered by this point last year, as the pandemic stopped many from tying the knot in Vegas — which (perhaps surprisingly?) — is the wedding capital of the US.
The data shows that, even with international travel still relatively limited, Las Vegas is rebounding strongly — suggesting its lost none of its allure as a vacation (and wedding) destination.
... is a good economic indicator?
Weddings in Vegas might sound like a weird economic indicator, but we'd wager that the number correlates with the local Las Vegas economy, and maybe even the wider US domestic tourism industry.
Wedding season(s)
Of course, it wasn't just Vegas that saw fewer weddings last year. The Wedding Report estimates that the number of weddings in the US fell by around 40% last year, compared to a normal year. But love conquers all and wedding seasons for 2021 and even into 2022 and 2023 are expected to be extra busy (and expensive) as couples finally tie the knot.
1) The world's oldest bank, Italy's Monte dei Paschi, has scored worse than any other European financial institution on a recent stress test — meaning that its 549 years as an independent entity might be close to an end.
2) Big data company Palantir has bought$51m in physical gold just in case of a "black swan event".
3) Contemporary art prices have outpaced S&P 500 returns by 174% from 1995 through 2020, besting gold and real estate returns by nearly 2x. We've found an incredibly smart way for investors to diversify in fine art without breaking the bank. Masterworks.**
4) Europe's leaders are increasingly worried about a refugee crisis, as tens of thousands of people are expected to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban cement control of the country.
5)New Zealand has gone into lockdown for 3 days after one case of coronavirus was found in the country's largest city, Auckland.
6) Scared of AI? This video of Boston Dynamics robots doing parkour is probably not for you.
*See important disclosures.
**This is sponsored content.
