Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Bloomberg's Pettypiece on Walmart, Clark on Tony Fadell (Audio)
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Global business news twenty four hours a day at Bloomberg
- 0:05Speaker 1: dot com, the Radio plus Mobile lapp and on your radio.
- 0:09Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg Business Flash from Bloomberg World Headquarters
- 0:14Speaker 1: and Charlie how at the dial. The SMP NEZDAC all
- 0:17Speaker 1: lower today. Stocks did pair their declines and this update
- 0:21Speaker 1: brought to you by National realtyt returns on cash in
- 0:26Speaker 1: rented real estate find them at n r i A
- 0:29Speaker 1: dot net. Stocks paired losses as the dollar fell, treasuries
- 0:33Speaker 1: and gold gained after US employers out of the fewest
- 0:37Speaker 1: jobs in almost six years in May, bolstering the case
- 0:40Speaker 1: for the Federal Reserve to leave rates lower full longer.
- 0:43Speaker 1: SMP five hundred index down six to two thousand ninety nine,
- 0:47Speaker 1: a drop of three tenths of one percent. Shares of
- 0:50Speaker 1: commodity producers extended gains, helping the SMP five hundred index
- 0:54Speaker 1: trim declines, Gold surging thirty three sixty ounce to twelve
- 0:58Speaker 1: forty six, a gain there of two point eight percent.
- 1:01Speaker 1: Crewed down eight tenths of one percent, down thirty nine
- 1:04Speaker 1: cents forty seventy at a barrel on West Texas Intermediate
- 1:08Speaker 1: without down thirty one points a drop of two tenths
- 1:10Speaker 1: of one percent and has stack down twenty eight, a
- 1:12Speaker 1: drop of six tenths of one percent. I'm Charlie Pella.
- 1:16Speaker 1: That's a Bloomberg Business flash. This is taking stock with
- 1:22Speaker 1: Kathleen Hayes and Pin Box on Bloomberg Radio. Shares of
- 1:26Speaker 1: Walmart stores down about a tenth of a percent today
- 1:30Speaker 1: trades lower by eight cents at seventy dollars and eighty
- 1:32Speaker 1: seven cents. This comes after Walmart says it's far to
- 1:35Speaker 1: test grocery delivery service with Uber Technologies and Lift all
- 1:39Speaker 1: part of Walmart's effort to compete head to head with
- 1:42Speaker 1: Amazon dot Com. Let's find out more from Shannon Petty,
- 1:46Speaker 1: piece US consumer reporter for Bloomberg News. Shannon, always a pleasure,
- 1:50Speaker 1: Thanks for being with us. Yeah, glad to be here.
- 1:53Speaker 1: All right, So you at the meeting, CEO. This was
- 1:58Speaker 1: Doug McMillan's effort to kind of say, look, where in
- 2:01Speaker 1: the technology business as much as we're in the retail business. Uh,
- 2:04Speaker 1: the annual shareholder meeting today, they're going to start this
- 2:08Speaker 1: grocery delivery service in Denver and Phoenix later in the month.
- 2:11Speaker 1: Is this really what's going to turn Walmart around as
- 2:13Speaker 1: it needed. Well. I think what they're doing here with
- 2:18Speaker 1: this grocery delivery and also this grocery pickup service is
- 2:20Speaker 1: they're really trying to like fortify the walls of the
- 2:24Speaker 1: fort around their grocery business. Grocery accounts for more than
- 2:28Speaker 1: half of Walmart's US business, Like, they can't lose in grocery.
- 2:32Speaker 1: And when you have Amazon, Google, Um Target dipping their
- 2:36Speaker 1: toes into grocery delivery, I think Walmart knows. Yes, they
- 2:39Speaker 1: obviously they sort of missed the boat on the Internet,
- 2:42Speaker 1: and you know with Amazon when it comes to general merchandise,
- 2:46Speaker 1: they've been trying really hard to play catch up. But
- 2:47Speaker 1: when it comes to grocery, they cannot lose their like
- 2:50Speaker 1: they cannot be caught behind, and so doing things like
- 2:53Speaker 1: testing this grocery delivery service they announced today where you
- 2:57Speaker 1: place your order online, an uber or a lift dry
- 3:00Speaker 1: ever in these two cities that are testing it, goes
- 3:02Speaker 1: and picks it up, drives it to your house for
- 3:04Speaker 1: a seven to ten dollar delivery. See UM. The other
- 3:07Speaker 1: thing they've gone as this grocery pickup service, So you
- 3:10Speaker 1: order your groceries online and then um you drive into
- 3:13Speaker 1: the Walmart parking lot, you send a notification to the
- 3:16Speaker 1: store that you're there, and in less than five minutes,
- 3:18Speaker 1: an employee wheels a card out, put them in your trunk,
- 3:20Speaker 1: and you never have to get out of the car.
- 3:22Speaker 1: Like they're trying to do all of these things to
- 3:24Speaker 1: really make sure they aren't going to be losing any
- 3:28Speaker 1: grocery business and hopefully picking up some more, hopefully attracting
- 3:32Speaker 1: customers who want a shop at Walmart, who will because
- 3:34Speaker 1: of the convenience, and then of course just improving their
- 3:37Speaker 1: brand in general with customers. Hey, we're a company with
- 3:40Speaker 1: a website and we do stuff online. You're in the
- 3:43Speaker 1: parking let's get groceries. Don't you want to stop in
- 3:45Speaker 1: and pick up some kids clothes? You know, and then
- 3:47Speaker 1: it will sort of trickle out to the rest of
- 3:49Speaker 1: their business. So Shannon share some of the color as
- 3:52Speaker 1: you uh report all day at the Bud Walton Arena
- 3:57Speaker 1: on the University of Arkansas campus at the Walmart Annual Meeting,
- 4:00Speaker 1: because it strikes me too, this seems on a very
- 4:02Speaker 1: practical of that's it's huge, you know, get the groceries
- 4:04Speaker 1: out there, maintain this business. But isn't also something about saying, Hey,
- 4:08Speaker 1: we're not the old Walmart Walmart, we are kind of
- 4:10Speaker 1: hip and cool. Isn't that part of what they are
- 4:12Speaker 1: trying to get out to customers and and people who
- 4:14Speaker 1: buy their stock. Yeah, that's a really interesting question, and
- 4:20Speaker 1: something I've been thinking about the past few days as
- 4:23Speaker 1: I've been here is this sort of mix between old
- 4:25Speaker 1: Walmart new Walmart. So they've been bringing some things back
- 4:30Speaker 1: from the past. Um, these smiley face logo that UM
- 4:35Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties and the nineteen nineties was all
- 4:37Speaker 1: over Walmart marketing material. When there was a low price,
- 4:41Speaker 1: they had that miley face next to it. Like that
- 4:43Speaker 1: went away in two thousand six, and they announced at
- 4:46Speaker 1: this meeting they were bringing that back. A few and
- 4:49Speaker 1: maybe it was last month, they brought back the door
- 4:51Speaker 1: greeters who had sort of been dispersed to other parts
- 4:54Speaker 1: of the store UM to do other tasks the companies
- 4:58Speaker 1: that they're bringing those to the door. The old hallmark
- 5:01Speaker 1: of Sam Walton layaway over Christmas, they brought that back.
- 5:05Speaker 1: So there's been a number of big things that used
- 5:07Speaker 1: to be hallmarks of Walmart that went away that they're
- 5:09Speaker 1: bringing back. So in a sense, there's this little bit
- 5:12Speaker 1: back to the future, but at the same time we've
- 5:14Speaker 1: got all this new tech coming out saying we're also
- 5:17Speaker 1: a new hip company. So it's an interesting dynamic. Channon
- 5:20Speaker 1: Petty Peace, thank you so very much. Interesting conversation about
- 5:23Speaker 1: Walmart at the annual meeting today. We're breaking news this
- 5:27Speaker 1: afternoon Tony Fidel sitting stepping down as the head of
- 5:30Speaker 1: Nest Labs, a blow to Google, which bought the company
- 5:34Speaker 1: just two years ago. Joining us now is Jack Clark
- 5:37Speaker 1: Jack interesting story. You say it's a blow to Google
- 5:40Speaker 1: to have Tony Fidel leaving, but they some say he
- 5:43Speaker 1: was a problem. So they've been employee complaints about Nest
- 5:48Speaker 1: for the last few months. They've also been delays on product.
- 5:52Speaker 1: At the same time, Fidel has said in the blog
- 5:55Speaker 1: post that this is a personal decision that's been underway
- 5:57Speaker 1: since last year. However, it is a blow to Google
- 6:00Speaker 1: to lose a high profile CEO of one of its
- 6:03Speaker 1: alphabet ventures, probably the most high profile of the non
- 6:07Speaker 1: Google businesses. Jack, is there any indication at the three
- 6:12Speaker 1: point two billion dollars that Google paid for Nest is
- 6:15Speaker 1: it an acquisition they regret or is it just just
- 6:17Speaker 1: an executive issue they're portraying it as an executive issue.
- 6:23Speaker 1: They point out the revenues have grown. Internet of things
- 6:26Speaker 1: products are a crucial part of Alphabet's future. But you
- 6:30Speaker 1: may notice that Google just announced Google Home, which is
- 6:33Speaker 1: a smart AI powered virtual system that will sit in
- 6:36Speaker 1: your living room and talk to you, much like Amazon's Echo.
- 6:39Speaker 1: That's being done out of the Google business rather than Nest,
- 6:42Speaker 1: So they're certainly hedging their bets with another products line
- 6:46Speaker 1: not coming from Nest. Now, well, next move for Tony
- 6:51Speaker 1: Fidel any ideas quickly? Well, he's got a start up
- 6:55Speaker 1: that he's sort of involved in that does internet connected
- 6:59Speaker 1: go karts for children, So he's going to be working
- 7:01Speaker 1: on that for a while. He's already been working on
- 7:04Speaker 1: that for a few weeks. So it became public, I believe,
- 7:06Speaker 1: last month. And he's a lifelong hardware tinkerer. I don't
- 7:11Speaker 1: think this is the last will hear from him? Jack Clark,
- 7:13Speaker 1: thank you so very much, Bloomberg News reporter about Tony
- 7:16Speaker 1: Fidel leaving Nest two years after Google bought the company, Pam,
- 7:20Speaker 1: we got a big day on Monday. Janet Yellen speaks
- 7:23Speaker 1: at twelve thirty. What will she say about the economy
- 7:26Speaker 1: and future interest rate moves, Yes and a big day
- 7:29Speaker 1: beginning on Tuesday for us. Were broadcasting live from Pershing's
- 7:32Speaker 1: Inside sixteen conference at the Higatt Regency in Portlando. Thank
- 7:37Speaker 1: you for joining us today on taking stuff, Keep it
- 7:39Speaker 1: right here on Bloomberg Radio for Bloomberg Law coming up.
- 7:51Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law on Bloomberg Radio, brought you by Pershing's Inside sixteen,
- 7:55Speaker 1: The must often event for advisers less than one week
- 7:57Speaker 1: away June seventh of June nin