Diamonds and Dogs

1/5/17

The first down day of the new year didn't hurt Amazon (AMZN). The online juggernaut rose 3% today retaking their 50 day moving average as most stocks fell for the first time this year. Amazon continues to extend their tentacles with announcements over the last several days including a peer to peer selling platform in India (i.e. EBAY), the opening of a new fulfillment center in Florida adding a 1000 jobs, rumors of buying retailer, American Apparel out of bankruptcy along with other rumors of producing their own brand of workout cloths. Amazon Prime members will be able to order meals through Amazon Restaurants through their Alexa platform and the company will open a book store in New York later this year, the same industry Amazon first targeted back in 1994. Other than that the company is pretty boring.    

Kohl's (KSS) received coal in their stocking. This Menomonee Falls, WI-based retailer dropped 19% after lowering their profit outlook for fiscal 2016 due to sluggish holiday sales. Despite experiencing strong sales on Black Friday and the week before Christmas, the retailer's comparable holiday sales fell 2.1% in the combined fiscal months of November and December 2016. Weaker than expected holiday sales have pushed down shares of many department store chains including Macy's, Sears,  J.C. Penney and Nordstrom.