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August 3 – Strategists suggest the U.S. Treasury may use euros instead of dollars to fund its yen-buying program to avoid currency depreciation and jeopardize its strong dollar policy. Two sources familiar with the matter revealed that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York requested inquiries from at least two major U.S. banks last Friday regarding the yen-euro exchange rate. “The U.S. likely doesn’t want to appear to be selling dollars,” said David Forrest, senior strategist at Credit Suisse in Singapore. He added, “The U.S. maintains a strong dollar policy because they don’t want to be seen as trying to gain a competitive advantage by weakening their own currency, as this would violate the G20 consensus on foreign exchange policy.” “It wouldn’t look good for the U.S. Treasury to sell dollars, hence the choice to use euros,” said Jason Wang, currency strategist at Bank of New Zealand in Wellington. He noted, “The end result is essentially the same, because the funds will need to be reallocated back to euros at some point in the future, which could mean the U.S. will eventually sell dollars, just in a less transparent way.”Euro Stoxx 50 futures and German DAX futures both rose by more than 1%.August 3rd - It has been learned that Ant Groups AI subsidiary, Ant Lingbo Technology, may be launching an independent financing round. This marks the official transition of this "physical AI special forces" backed by Ant Group from being wholly incubated by the group to facing scrutiny from the external capital market. The aforementioned source revealed to Blue Whale Technology that the core reason for Ant Lingbos independent financing is the internal resource constraints within the group: "Ant Group has invested heavily in AI, and its computing power budget is facing pressure."Biren Technology (06082.HK) announced that it has completed the "Day0" adaptation and optimization of MiniMax H3 on the flagship general-purpose GPU product Biren series based on the SGLang inference framework.The China Earthquake Networks Center officially reported that a magnitude 3.6 earthquake occurred at 11:11 on August 3 in Gao County, Yibin City, Sichuan Province (28.54 degrees north latitude, 104.67 degrees east longitude), with a focal depth of 5 kilometers.

Costco Margins Are Impacted by Growing Freight And Labor Expenses, And The Stock Price Falls

Charlie Brooks

May 27, 2022 09:50

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Costco Wholesale Corp (NASDAQ:COST) announced a decline in gross margins on Thursday, impacted by rising freight and labor expenses across the United States. The news sent shares of the membership-only retailer down 2% and overshadowed an otherwise positive quarterly report.


Fresh COVID-19 lockdowns in China and the Russia-Ukraine conflict have compounded the problem for U.S. businesses.


Costco announced that it would increase prices in certain food categories in order to battle inflation.


Retailers such as Walmart (NYSE:WMT) Inc and Target Corp (NYSE:TGT) have warned that decades-high inflation will have a negative impact on their earnings, as shoppers hesitate from purchasing non-essential and high-margin goods.


The average Costco buyer earns more than the average Walmart and Target shopper, allowing Costco to generate quarterly earnings and revenue that easily exceeds expectations.


Memberships and sales have been boosted by the company's efforts to keep gas prices several cents below the national average.


Costco, in contrast to Walmart, reported that there has not been a significant shift from branded products to its private label product, Kirkland Signature.


"We aren't really observing a decline in commerce. This year, more money is being spent on tickets, dining out, travel, tires, and gasoline "In a post-earnings conference call, Robert Nelson, senior vice president of finance and investor relations, said.


Costco's gross margins decreased by 99 basis points in the third quarter.


According to data from Refinitiv IBES, Costco's total sales for the quarter ending May 8 increased by 16 percent to $52.60 billion, surpassing analysts' projections of $51.71 billion.


Excluding adjustments, Costco's earnings per share were $3.17, exceeding analysts' expectations of $3.03.