1) The trade war continues to escalate as China takes action against American companies operating in China proper. China is levying fines on Ford’s joint venture for antitrust violations. Changan Ford Automobile Co. will be fined $23.6 million dollars for restricting retailers sale prices. Fed-Ex has recently come under Chinese scrutiny for ‘wrongful’ deliveries. China has threaten to blacklist foreign firms which damage domestic companies’ interests. Chinese citizens are being warned against travel to America, thereby restricting income from tourism and business reaching America.
2) The video game retailer GameStop, with over 5,700 retail outlets, is in decline, and was the place to go to buy video games and virtual reality products. But their sales have been in significant decline, with attempts to use e-commerce to counter the downward slide being of no help. Their forecast for next year show little improvement to its deteriorating business as their business migrates over to Amazon.
3) Bernie Sanders has made good his promise to take his fight for the common worker to Walmart’s annual stockholders meeting, to demand that Walmart workers be given a place on their board of directors. He introduced a shareholder proposal which would make roughly 1.5 million hourly workers eligible for board nominations. Sanders’ consider this move a way to separate himself and his policies from the democratic presidential nomination pack. Walmart is one of the huge American retailers pushing for new robotic technology to use in their stores.
4) Stock market closings for 5 JUN 19:
Dow 25,539.57 up 207.39
Nasdaq 7,575.48 up 48.36
S&P 500 2,826.15 up 22.88
10 Year Yield: up at 2.12%
Oil: up at $51.69