Snapshots That Wow!

The most profitable grocer!

DMart emerges as the most profitable grocer in the world. However most other players on the list have a mixed portfolio of owned and rented stores whereas DMart predominantly owns its stores.

However rent as a percentage of costs for most global players is a small amount. For example net rental expense for Walmart is $2.3bn vs. a total topline of $648bn or an offline topline of $548bn.

Source: CLSA

The FCF trot!

Never have the valuations of these top 10 companies in the USA been this high but never has the world seen such high free cash flow margins either!

Source: Empirical Research

Investing is hard and how!

In Dec 2023, if I would have asked you which country will give the best equity return? Would anyone have chosen :-

1) Argentina - a broken economy with skyrocketing inflation & one of the worst currencies in previous 3 years?

2) Isreal - a worn torn country fighting at 2 fronts (maybe more)

But see the top 2 performers! Predictions are futile. No one knows the future

Source: Charlie Bilello

Time for a pause?

“That (US Headline CPI for Dec 24) was the highest reading since last July, moving again in the opposite direction of the Fed’s 2% target.” Is 6 months time enough to call a trend? Time for the rate cuts to pause?

Source: Charlie Bilello

Wealth is Health!

“The wealthiest 10% of Americans live to a median age of 86 years, about 14 years longer than the least wealthy 10%.”

“On average, someone with a household income of $14,000 would live about 10 fewer months than someone making $20,000, per the study’s calculations, which used inflation-adjusted 2012 dollars.

That same 10-month gap exists between household incomes of roughly $160,000 and $225,000, as well as between $225,000 and $1.95 million.”

Source: JAMA Internal Medicine, WSJ

White over brown even here?

Drink preferences around the world seem to be taking a turn for the “whiter” distilled spirits such as Gin, Mezcal and Vodka. Sales volumes of US whiskey are down 4% over the past year, the largest decline in decades.

Source: IWSR