Is Recession Imminent?

In post war economy US has been in recession 10 times. Out of those ten recessions but for one all other recessions happened during the Republican Presidency.

Call it coincidence or conspiracy - Most of them happened in the early days of the Presidency.

Given that history is on the side of Recession- A not so bold call:

We should enter a recession in the near future.

If the past in any indication - the Republican complex should do well. So there are three possible strategies one can take-

- Be Bold and go long Republican complex: leg in 1/3 and start adding based on price action
- Be aggressive and short S&P and VIX or
- Wait for 3 months into recession and enter the market

AMAZON : Racing to a Trillion Dollar in Value?

Or

Is Amazon the new eBay?

Can Amazon digest Whole Foods?

From a numbers game: the simple math is - Amazon's PE multiple comes down very quickly given another 15 plus Billion dollars whose multiple is way less than Amazon's!

And Whole foods does not have to make profit to retail and grow its business - making it easy to expand ORGANICALLY!

Every 40 years or so American consumers redefine the way they shop and retail industry slowly adapts itself to their behavior.

Woolworth -  Sears to Walmart and now maybe just maybe Amazon? Looking at the stock price and the analysts /pundits one has to believe that the baton has been transferred.

What/Who are they compared with:

eBay Killer

FedEx Destroyer

Netfix Wannabe

Macy's Poacher

Wal-Mart Beater

O'Reilly  Auto parts ??

HollyWood Invader

USPS life giver

And so Amazon's Market Cap is way more than several of those individual parts put together!

Half the revenue from Amazon is third party sale- great but the eBay experience in quality and fakes are creeping up the ladder.

Reliable 2 day Prime delivery has started getting Uberized with low cost delivery service with multiple hands in a single delivery - Amazon Logistics to USPS to local crowd sourced delivery type : making very unpredictable and unreliable delivery services

Netflix : might have a reasonable chance in creating some original content given the willingness to spend money on Talent like Top Gear bunch...having tied it with Amazon Prime it is very difficult to really gauge its success as majority of Amazon's streaming customers are not just streaming subscribers.

AWS: makes it easy to undercut the fees as the technology is used elsewhere...however with no recognizable software and hardware on its own and hardly much profit left to invest beyond its primary business needs - will be difficult to dance to Microsoft and Alphabet's tune as money is bulging out of the seems for the seems!

Retail and the Mall deserters: branding and quality control is something that is not streamlined supply chain and logistics.....with eBay types dominating the Amazon revenue the quality is nothing to write home about. Some branded players while trialing Amazon mall for peddling their products - Macys and the likes may eventually make it tougher for the brands to be pushing through Amazon while they spread them in their floors. Wal-Mart customers go shopping with a budget in mind and come home with what is attractive while Amazon crowd goes with an item in mind and price as a target. With less than  30% of Amazon's revenue overlaps with Wal-Mart's and that number is less than 10% of Wal-Mart's - and barely make money - the transition wont be that easy.

Auto Parts - is a recent headline grabber pushing down most of the brick and mortar ones - the after market business is not an easy one for nickel and dime type of transition - it is a relationship based one with want it now syndrome!

 In today's technology dream - from AI to robotics to drones and what not every headline grabbing news from Alexa to  Amazon buttons and Alexa Fashionista - there is another inch closer to a Trillion dollar value....but reading carefully at the real value underneath the Amazon transformation giant is another eBay brewing!