A spate of fresh data this week showed consumers are feeling the sting from high inflation. While that likely means more pain for retail stocks, new Wall Street research suggests club holding Amazon (AMZN) is consumers’ most preferred online shopping platform, buttressing the Club’s long-term belief in the e-commerce giant. Consumer spending was flat month-over-month in September, according to an estimate of retail sales for the month provided by the Commerce Department on Friday. But those figures were not adjusted for inflation, indicating that consumer spending on retail actually fell last month. The retail sales data came on the back of the latest consumer price index survey , which showed consumer prices rose 0.4% in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday, all but ensuring another 75 basis point interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve next month. Meanwhile, a consumer survey from the University of Michigan showed inflation expectations were increasing, sending stocks lower Friday. The S & P 500 closed down more than 2%. The Wall Street view In this environment of rising prices, Baird surveyed roughly 1,000 online shoppers, with a majority saying they plan to spend less on holiday purchases this year compared to last year. But while consumers are tempering their discretionary budgets this holiday season, Amazon remains their shopping platform of choice, according to Baird. Amazon is the “clear leader” in the online shopping internet space among U.S. consumers, capturing almost 60% of market share, Baird analysts wrote in a research note Friday. In a separate note Thursday, Cowen said its shopping survey of Gen Z and Millennials showed Amazon to be their “most preferred” shopping website. Respondents said speed of delivery and convenience were key factors for shopping on Amazon, outweighing price concerns, according to analysts at Cowen. The new research comes the same week as Amazon’s two-day Prime Early Access Sale , the initial results of which showed that while Amazon may remain a top online retail destination it’s not immune from inflationary pressures. Amazon said Prime members bought more than 100 million items during the sales event, compared to the record 300 million items purchased during Amazon’s July Prime Day event. Bank of America estimated Amazon’s sales event brought in $8 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV), down 25% from July’s $10.7 billion in GMV, according to a research note published Friday. Shares of Amazon, which have fallen more than 35% year-to-date, closed down 5% Friday, at $106.9 a share. The Club take We’re happy to see that Amazon is the preferred platform for consumer shopping — but we also know its so much more than that. For example, its cloud business, Amazon Web Services, consistently posts robust revenue growth and delivers high profit margins, allowing us to be bullish on the company despite growing macroeconomic headwinds. Furthermore, Amazon’s nascent agreement with the National Football League to stream “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video has attracted a record number of Prime signups and should support advertising revenue growth. The Club continues to rate Amazon a 1, meaning we’d buy the stock here. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long AMZN. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
An Amazon Prime truck is pictured as it crosses the George Washington Bridge on Interstate Route 95 during Amazon’s two-day “Prime Early Access Sale” shopping event for Amazon members in New York, October 11, 2022.
Mike Segar | Reuters
A spate of fresh data this week showed consumers are feeling the sting from high inflation. While that likely means more pain for retail stocks, new Wall Street research suggests club holding Amazon (AMZN) is consumers’ most preferred online shopping platform, buttressing the Club’s long-term belief in the e-commerce giant.
Artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems said on Friday that it’s withdrawing plans for an IPO, days after announcing that it raised over $1 billion in a fundraising round.
In a filing with the SEC, Cerebras said it does not intend to conduct a proposed offering “at this time,” but didn’t provide a reason. A spokesperson told CNBC on Friday that the company still hopes to go public as soon as possible.
Cerebras filed for an IPO just over a year ago, as it was ramping up to take on Nvidia in an effort to create processors for running generative AI models. The filing revealed a heavy reliance on a single customer in the United Arab Emirates, Microsoft-backed G42, which is also a Cerebras investor.
In its prospectus, Cerebras said it had given voluntary notice to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States about selling shares to G42. In March, the company announced that the committee had provided clearance.
Since its initial filing to go public on the Nasdaq, Cerebras has shifted its focus away from selling systems and more toward providing a cloud service for accepting incoming queries to models that use its chips underneath.
The announced withdrawal comes three days into a U.S. government shutdown that’s left agencies like the SEC operating with a small staff. In a plan for a shutdown published in August, the SEC said its electronic system EDGAR “is operated pursuant to a contract and thus will remain fully functional as long as funding for the contractor remains available through permitted means.”
On Tuesday, Cerebras said it had raised $1.1 billion at a valuation of $8.1 billion in a private funding round. At the time, CEO Andrew Feldman said that the company still wanted to go public, rather than continue to raise venture capital.
“I don’t think this is an indication of a preference for one or the other,” he told CNBC in an interview. “I think we have tremendous opportunities in front of us, and I think it’s good practice, when you have enormous opportunities, not to let them fall by the wayside for lack of capital.”
Feldman thought the original prospectus from last year was out of date, especially considering developments in AI, the spokesperson said on Friday.
Well heeled technology companies have been quickly signing up for additional infrastructure to handle demand. On Tuesday CoreWeave, which rents out Nvidia chips through a cloud service, said it had signed a $14.2 billion agreement with Meta. ChatGPT operator OpenAI said last week that it had committed to spending $300 billion on cloud services from Oracle.
The government shutdown did not factor into Cerebras’ decision, the spokesperson said.
An employee arranges a salad dressing display at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12, 2024 in Federal Way, Washington.
David Ryder | Getty Images
Amazon is closing four more Fresh supermarkets in Southern California as the e-commerce giant continues to focus its grocery strategy around Whole Foods and delivery.
The closures will take place in the coming weeks, Amazon confirmed to CNBC. They follow the shuttering of four other U.S. locations in recent months, in Washington, Virginia, New York and a Los Angeles suburb.
“Certain locations work better than others, and after an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close these Amazon Fresh locations,” Amazon spokesperson Griffin Buch said in a statement. “We’re working closely with affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon wherever possible.”
At one Fresh supermarket in La Verne, California, employees were told to gather for an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. They learned at the meeting that the store would close in mid-November, and that employees would receive a severance package, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details were confidential.
The other three stores that are closing are in cities of Mission Viejo, La Habra and Whittier.
Last week, Amazon said it intends to close 14 Fresh grocery stores in the U.K. and convert its five other locations there into Whole Foods markets.
Amazon said it regularly evaluates its store portfolio, which can lead to opening, reopening, relocating or closing certain locations. In the U.S., the company has more than 60 remaining Fresh stores. Last year, the company removed its “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology from the stores. It’s also been culling its footprint of Go cashierless convenience stores.
Amazon has been determined to become a major grocery player for nearly two decades. The company launched Amazon Fresh in 2007, then a pilot project for fresh food delivery, before acquiring upscale chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, its biggest purchase on record.
Amazon debuted its Fresh grocery chain in 2020, with an eye toward mass-market shoppers. The rollout has been turbulent since its early days.
The company opened a flurry of Fresh locations by 2022, but the expansion plans ran into CEO Andy Jassy’s widespread cost-cutting efforts as the company reckoned with the impact of rising interest rates and soaring inflation. In 2023, Amazon announced it would shut some Fresh stores and halt further openings temporarily as it evaluated how to make the chain stand out for shoppers.
While it’s closing Fresh stores, Amazon continues to “innovate and invest in making grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable,” Buch said. The company still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.
On Wednesday, Amazon also launched a new “price-conscious” grocery brand that will be offered online and in its physical stores. And last month, Amazon expanded same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S.
Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items such as canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks. Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.
Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.
CNBC
Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.
Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.
The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.
Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.
In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”