🍨 Daily Scoop: Retail apocalypse, schmocalypse!

By Hoda Mehr Fri, Aug 30, 2019

• U.S. markets: Good news continued into Thursday, and all three major indices wrapped up the day in the green zone for two consecutive days. Scroll to the Overall Market section to learn more.
• Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin’s price is now hovering at around $9,000 per coin. For what it’s worth, technical analysts still believe that more selling and lower prices are coming. We shall see soon!

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Back to the green, phew! 

What happened on Thursday?

Yesterday, we talked about a better-than-expected Consumer Confidence Index in August. Today, President Trump shared the news that his team is resuming the negotiations with the Chinese. Moreover, the Chinese official put their retaliatory tariffs aside. Overall, the stock market was all party and no pain. The S&P, the Nasdaq, and the Dow jumped up more than one percent on Thursday. Breathe a sigh of relief!

What does this mean? 

If you’ve been a Scooper for a while, you know what we are going to tell you. Don’t get too excited about a two-day green zone streak. China, President Trump, Consumer Confidence Index, and the Fed are just some of the unpredictable people and things that can pull or push the stock market. Here’s what we are doing these days:

– Saving money
– Keep building our watchlist
– Researching companies to understand their strengths and weaknesses
– Investing for at least the next three to five years
– Having fun talking about the stock market

Those are the things we have control over. Everything else is out of our control, and we don’t get too excited or too emotional about it.

This company had a great Thursday. 

So, what happened? 

While everyone has been busy discussing tech IPOs, cloud platforms, and SaaS companies, one off-price retailer has been knocking the ball out of the park. Shares of Burlington Stores (Ticker: BURL) were up more than 18% on Thursday after the company announced yet again another better-than-expected quarter. The same-store sales were up close to 4% and the overall sales were up more than 10%. It’s so surprising to see such an astonishing performance from a retailer in the era of the so-called retail apocolypse.

This company had a bad Thursday. 

There may be no retail apocalypse for Burlington Stores, but Ulta Beauty (Ticker: ULTA) felt the retail apocalypse this quarter. The company’s shares were down more than 16% after the company warned investors in its Q2 Quarterly Earnings report of widespread headwinds in the cosmetics industry due to trade challenges between the U.S. and China.

Good thing this trade war is going on, otherwise whom do management blame for their company’s bad performance?

Amazon’s Ring + Police force = No privacy

So, what happened?

Do you own a Ring doorbell? And, do you use it to freak out the package thieves away from your porch? If you are not using it for protecting your neighborhood, don’t you worry. The police forces do!

The doorbell company Ring, that is owned by Amazon (Ticker: AMZN), and 400 police forces are now partners in catching thieves and keeping our neighborhoods safe. Owners of Ring don’t have to share their videos, but they can opt in to do so.

Just like everything the big tech does these days, there is a privacy aspect to the partnership between Ring and the police force. What if your neighbor shows up in the video? He didn’t opt to get filmed. The ongoing plot between technology and privacy is a thickening every day, as companies launch new personal technology products.

About the Author

The authors of this Scoop are the editorial team at Stock Card, led by Hoda Mehr. Hoda Mehr is CEO and Co-founder of Stock Card and the host of Renegade Investors podcast. She runs a community of 40,000 stock market investors and manages Stock Card's successful flagship portfolio, Roll with Our CEO, on Stock Card Portfolio Store. Hoda is an Economist with an MBA from Concordia, John Molson School of Business. She applies behavioral economics, data journalism, and storytelling to all aspects of her work. Before starting Stock Card, Hoda worked as a strategy and insights lead at technology companies including Symantec, Aimia and Sony. Create a free account to do your stock market research easily and mistake-free: Stock Card Stock Card