When Walmart speaks, we listen

First, a clear-eyed reminder about who the bad guys are. Then, the Bentonville grocer dishes on the triple-tailwind in its sails

• Bridge trolls breaking things, without compunction

• Walmart’s triple-tailwind

• holiday shopping gloom?

• the best delivery app of them all

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First, a prelude.

Bridge trolls breaking things

The Department of “Justice” has demanded that Google be forced to sell-off its Chrome browser.

These lawyers have never built, made or sold anything. They know basically nothing about digital advertising, search, or technology. They have absolutely no skin-in-the-game, did nothing to contribute to Google’s rise, and will suffer no consequences as a result of any fall.

But they do have demands. And here’s their “theory” . . .

The chrome browser is a thing that Google gives away for free. It’s a major channel by which consumers, aka “all the people,” voluntarily interact with google search. Because google captures the lion’s share of search traffic—Chrome is a lot better than Edge—Google is really good at selling ads, and doing search. The flywheel repeats itself.

By forcing Google to sell chrome, however, Google will be less good at search, less good at selling ads, and chrome will be relatively useless as a free product (unless the new owner sells search data back to google). This makes the public is better off because . . . ?!!

Yeah, there’s no defending the indefensible.

This is a wanton act of destruction and malice whose primary benefit is to elevate the status and power of the thugs leading the effort, and secondarily to assist Google’s vast and well-capitalized competition. That’s it. Everyone else loses.

It’s not a close call, a nuanced subject, or a partisan issue. The regulators are bad (which everyone knows and agrees). Regulators already helped kill Europe. Why anyone gives them the time of day is beyond me.¹

As a reminder, this is the same “justice” department that recently destroyed the $3.8B sale of Sprit to JetBlue, forcing Spirit into bankruptcy, instead. This too, the bridge trolls celebrated as a “victory . . . on behalf of American consumers.”

As the former FCC Chair was wont to observe:

These are very bad people.

You shouldn’t get a second-chance after a disaster like that. You should be figuring out how to repay the billions of dollars you stole from the public, and otherwise pleading for mercy.

Fin

The Almighty Cautious Consumer

Now on to the main event

Walmart’s triple tailwind

Walmart WMT 0.00%↑ reported yesterday, and it was good.

Walmart 3Q24

Comparable sales were up 5.3% and the little Arkansas-grocer-that-could raised guidance going forward.

Why does Walmart matter? Well, it’s what Random Walk likes to call a bellwether company. It sits up close with the beating heart of the Almighty Consumer, so when Walmart talks, we listen.

And Walmart says things are pretty good because Walmart continues to ride a triple-tailwind: