Just like Walmart yesterday, Target today reported big sales & strong shoppers—& predicted more for Xmas.

• Comparable sales: +12.7% on top of last year's 20.7%

• Digital sales: +28.9% on top of last year's 154.5% (!)

Target is fun & it's rollicking.

It's also small v. WMT.
2/ Even with the best year in its recent history, here's how Target looks:

2021 total sales will be ~ $110 billion (assuming a big holiday season).

Walmart did $141 billion in business *last quarter.*

Walmart sold more from Aug 1 through Oct 11 than Target will sell all year.
3/ The business media (inclu me) almost always talks about Walmart & Target—& Amazon, of course—as peers.

Remarkably, Walmart & Target were started the very same year (also the year Kmart was started).

1st store:

• WMT: July 2, 1962
• TGT: May 1, 1962
• Kmart: Jan 25, 1962
4/ Something like 70% of the stock at Walmart & Target — in stores — is the same.

But Target has cultivated different experience, different shopper.

Walmart is 5x Target — and through the pandemic, growing just as fast or faster.

Amazon is in the middle — and complicated.
5/ Amazon's retail sales are about $55 billion a quarter — twice Target's, about one-third of Walmart's.

But Amazon has as much non-retail revenue (advertising, web services) as retail. That gives it oomph.

And AMZN doesn't book 'marketplace' sales by *revenue* — only income.
6/ That isn't just a 'paperwork' distinction.

Amazon doesn't take 'credit' for the revenue of its marketplace sellers — if you buy something from a non-Amazon seller for $50, it only shows up in Amazon's sales as whatever revenue Amazon ultimately gets from the seller.

But…
7/ That means Amazon's 'portal' — its website, its warehouse, its infrastructure — is responsible for a lot more retail spending & revenue than the $55 billion / quarter.

Amazon is the bold, nimble competitor Walmart has never had — and the competitor Walmart has been itself.
8/ All of which is to take nothing away from Target.

A $110 billion retail powerhouse, a trendsetter. Where we live, there's not much opportunity to shop at Target, except the small 'urban' stores.

But one thing I've always appreciated about Target…
9/ When you go to check-out at Target, there is either a check-out line staffed & ready for you. Or you can get in line behind a customer who is actively being checked out—you're next!

That's huge, and it's intentional. Walmart spent years letting customers pile up to checkout.
10/ But Target is small compared to Walmart.

And WMT still has as much, or more, marketplace oomph as Amazon.

Reminder: Walmart's grocery sales grew 10% in the last 3 months. WMT already the largest grocer in the US, and to fight inflation, more people grocery shopping there.
11/ I've never seen a Target grocery section that was anything but perfunctory, satisfactory. A place to grab stuff to fill gaps in your pantry — but in no sense a full-service grocery experience.

Again — if you want a cute or distinctive lamp, TGT is your place.
12/ But worth keeping the comparisons in perspective.

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More from @cfishman

16 Nov
Walmart's 3rd quarter earnings call is crazy.

100% positive. Not a single negative sentence in an hour.

Labor shortage?

WMT hired 200,000 new workers the last 3 months—2,200 people a day, 150,000 of them in stores.

Supply chain jam? WMT's inventory up 11.5%—stocked for Xmas.
2/ The financials are exuberant, too. Will get to those in a bit (US same store sales +9.2%).

But COVID? Mentioned once, in passing. In an hour.

Inflation? Barely mentioned—except as bringing customers to WMT.

The phrase of the hour was 'strong consumer'—used a dozen times.
3/ If you just assessed the US economy based on Walmart's performance in the last 92 days, and based on what their senior executives just said in an hour talking to investment analysts — the US economy is strong, even joyful.

'Customers are celebrating,' said one WMT executive.
Read 11 tweets
16 Nov
This is crazy:

Russia conducted an anti-satellite test today (~2 am ET), destroying one of its own satellites & creating 1,500 pieces of ‘trackable’ orbital debris.

Which immediately endangered the 7 astros on the space station, who had to take shelter. nytimes.com/2021/11/15/sci…
2/ Where do you take shelter on the space station?

You go strap into your return spaceships & power up.

Americans to SpaceX Dragon, Russians to Soyuz.

But first you seal off each compartment in turn w/airtight hatches, so one puncture doesn’t destroy the whole station.

Crazy.
3/ In 20 years, ISS hasn’t had that many crises. This is the 2nd this year caused by Russian carelessness or failure.

NASA theorizes that Russian space agency was not notified of the test.

NASA chief Bill Nelson & SecState Antony Blinken both denounce the test.

Russia silent.
Read 4 tweets
16 Nov
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said today he would not seek a 6th term.

He was first elected to the US Senate in 1974.

I like & respect Leahy.

But that is frankly ridiculous.

I'm 60.

1974 was the year I was bar mitzvah'd.

In 1974, even touch-tone phones were a novelty.

—>
2/ I know all the arguments for & against term limits.

But the idea that a single person (a man — VT has never sent a woman to either the US House or Senate) could hold one of a state's Senate seats from age 34 to age 81, across decades of change, seems wrong.

Undemocratic.
3/ The top 10 longest serving Senators were all in the Senate for 40 years or more.

Not much drop-off after that.

The top 20 longest serving Senators were all in the Senate for 36 years or more.

That's essentially a whole work life in the Senate.
senate.gov/senators/longe…
Read 4 tweets
3 Nov
Janet Yellen on US inflation, in a live interview Wednesday morning from the UN climate conference in Glasgow:

US inflation will return to 'more normal levels' in the 'second half of next year.'

So 'transitory inflation' will have lasted about 18 months — at roughly 5%.
2/ Two things are important:

• Ordinary Americans can handle 5% inflation of their milk & eggs, their juice & bread & chicken breasts. A $50 grocery bill is $52.50.

• The key is fuel inflation.
Winter heating bills across the US are going to soar—not 5%, more like 30%.
3/ The Energy Information Administration (EIA) says those who rely on natural gas will see a 30% increase. Heating oil users will see an increase of 40%.

That's the increase in the price of the fuel — how much the winter costs, of course, depends on how cold it gets.
Read 6 tweets
30 Oct
Univ of Florida bars faculty from testifying in voting rights lawsuit against DeSantis administration.

This is the opposite of the behavior a great public university.

It’s the opposite of the very point of tenure.

Story thin on who at UF decided this… washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10…
2/ Legal experts cannot find a single example of a university barring faculty testimony.

‘The university does not exist to protect the governor. It exists to serve the public.…Nothing could be more to the public good than a professor telling the truth to the public under oath.’
3/ This @NYT story is much more detailed.

UF Dean of Arts & Sciences David Richardson made the call, it appears.

At UF since 1983.

Appalling.

The good news is that lawyers hate being told not to talk. Support will pour in for the voting case.

nytimes.com/2021/10/29/us/…
Read 4 tweets
28 Oct
As part of its sustainability program, Apple says that the cell phone antenna in iPhone 13 is made, in part, of up-cycled plastic from recycled water bottles.

That has to be the best single use I've ever heard of old plastic water bottles.

$AAPL
2/ All Apple stores worldwide — 515 — are now open for in-person shopping, Apple CEO Tim Cook says, as the company heads into its busiest season.

'…including our new store in The Bronx, which means we now have stores in each of the 5 boroughs of New York City.'

$AAPL
3/ Cook says $AAPL could have sold $6 billion more Apple products in the last 90 days, except for supply constraints, from chip shortages & supply chain bottlenecks.

Rev: $83.4 billion

Apple missed $100 in sales for every $1,400 it sold — because it didn't have the product.
Read 8 tweets

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