Diamonds and Dogs

10/8/18

Walgreens (WBA) trading higher on an upgrade. The pharmacy retailer is up 2.5% leading the Dow today ahead of earnings this Thursday on an upgrade from RBC with an $82 price target. Last week, Walgreens announced that it had purchased a stake in online beauty retailer Birchbox, whose $10-per-month subscription boxes have become an instant hit. Walgreens also announced a partnership with supermarket giant Kroger via which the two companies plan to sell grocery, pharmacy, and beauty products under one roof. Walgreens has quickly revamped their business model to compete with Amazon. We'll see if it's working on Thursday.

Alphabet (GOOG) doesn't know their A,B,Cs. Google/Alphabet or whatever they call themselves is down 1.6% dragging the tech sector with them after discovering they exposed private data of hundreds of thousands of Google+ users, then decided against alerting the users. Now Google will shut down and wind down Google+ over a 10-month period that will conclude by the end of next August. This is the same company that wouldn't send executives to Washington when requested by Congress. Not a lot of sympathy for Google executives.

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