Diamonds and Dogs

2/20/25

International markets continue to perk up. The Chinese Amazon, Alibaba (BABA) is up 6% on strong earnings and sales as the Chinese economy slowly improves. Alibaba's investments in cloud and AI business are starting to pay off. Alibaba recently teamed up with Apple to bring AI features to their Chinese phones.

Walmart (WMT) dragging the Dow lower today. The retail giant is down 6% following better than expected earnings as sales rose 4.1% to $180.55 billion. Guidance, however, was weak for the first quarter and full year with a year-over-year decline in profits. Groceries were are stand out in the quarter even as consumers are shifted demand toward products that are cheaper and less profitable  for Walmart in the grocery, health and wellness and pharmacy business.